So I slipped my arms around her and planted a Kiss of Surrender on her lips. She stiffened in shock for a second, then melted into my arms as the technique took effect. I trailed my hands up her back, triggering a series of pressure points that Anko had always warned me not to use on normal civilians, and dove back into her mind while she was still dazed with ecstasy.
A moment later my suspicions were confirmed. She was a new-formed aspect alright, with just a few minutes worth of personal experience and a hazy copy of some of my own recent memories. But her chakra was dark and heavy, monstrously strong and suffused with a bloodlust I was sure I’d never felt in my life, and someone had stuffed her head full of instinctive knowledge of things I’d never heard of. The customs and laws of the demons, her own lowly place in their ranks, some skills with a power that wasn’t exactly chakra. She barely knew more than I did about what was happening, but she was convinced that she had to succeed at corrupting me or she’d be tortured for all of eternity. She knew what that would be like in excruciating detail, and she’d do anything to avoid it.
“W-what are you doing?” She panted, still sounding a bit dazed. “That tickles.”
We’d somehow ended up on the ground, with her in my lap. I hugged her sympathetically. “Don’t worry, I just needed to get some answers,” I said. “Poor thing, no wonder you’re so fierce. I’d be desperate too if I were in your situation. But I’m not going to hurt you, and we don’t have to fight. We can find another way.”
“What? Don’t you dare pity me!” She cried, as a panicked look stole across her face. “I don’t need your pity! I’m stronger than a mortal like you could ever be!”
“You’re only ten minutes old,” I countered. “You’re pretty strong, but I’ve been training for decades in this time loop. Normally I’d just give you my skills, but someone really tried to turn you into a psycho when they made you. I think we can fix it if we work together, but that needs to be our first priority.”
“Time loop?” She blinked in confusion. “You, fix me? I wasn’t briefed on…wait, you’re not just a kid prodigy? But then…”
She turned her gaze back to me, and clumsily tried to probe back through our connection. I pushed a few select memories to the front for her to find — discovering the loop, Naruto, the two versions of Hinata, a few flashes of training and my better fights. She frowned, and pushed harder, but I fended off her groping touch.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“Who are we?” She asked desperately. “I should have known about all this, but I didn’t. So you must be shielded, or have a patron, or there’s something more complicated than just a target-of-opportunity corruption going on. Which is it?”
“Um, I’m not sure?” I answered. “I still don’t know what caused the loops, and how would I know what demons care about?”
“Liar!” She shouted. “I’ll make you tell me!”
“Hey, calm down…” I began, but her eyes were beginning to whirl. Her two-tomoe Sharingan mutated into the three-tomoe version, and then…
“Oh, crap.” I breathed, as the black pinwheel of the Mangekyou Sharingan formed in her eyes.
“You see!” She crowed triumphantly. “My master created the Sharingan. I may be young, but I can command the full power of the Eyes of Misery.”
The sunlight faded to a ruddy glow as my trees died, showering us with dead leaves. A tangle of blackened roots erupted from the ground to twist around my arms and legs, pinning me in firmly in place.
“What good will your fancy techniques do you now?” The dark-haired girl in my lap asked. “You can’t even move unless I let you, and I can do anything I want to you. Now, show what you know, or I’ll punish you until you give in!”
She trapped my head between her hands and stared into my eyes as she groped at our connection again. Her probe was as unskilled as before, but it was backed by a terrible strength unlike anything I’d ever felt. There was no way I could stop it the way I had before.
So I gave her all my memories of the last time I’d been in this position.
She recoiled with a strangled scream, clutching her head, and for just a moment I could move. I ripped myself free of the prison of roots with a burst of super-strength, my hands already flashing through the seals of a knockout jutsu as I sprung to my feet. But I was too slow. The technique dissipated as her will reasserted itself, and I fell flat on my face as my limbs locked up again. Then the roots had me again, and it was too late.
I was expected the worst, so I was a bit surprised when my opponent fell to her knees and was noisily sick all over the dead grass. Unfortunately her control didn’t slip this time, so there was nothing I could do but watch. Even my voice was paralyzed.
Eventually she got herself under control, and climbed back to her feet. I tried to steel myself for what I knew was coming, though I knew it wouldn’t do much good. If she was tied to my soul that meant she’d still be with me when the loop reset, so even suicide wouldn’t be enough to escape…
She paled a little as she caught my expression, and the trembling I was trying so hard to hide. Her eyes went wide. “No! Not like that!” she cried. “How could you even think I could do something like that to you? I can’t torture someone who doesn’t deserve it, and Hell knows you don’t. Besides, you’re me! If I destroy you I destroy myself.”
I licked my lips, and discovered I could talk. “So…you aren’t going to…?” I couldn’t finish the question.
“No!” She insisted. “I’m supposed to convert you, not drive you insane! We have to come together, merge all of our strengths and just throw out the weak parts, or we’ll never survive in Hell. You really don’t want to know what happens to crazy demons, or converts who aren’t strong enough to stand up for themselves.”
“Oh,” I said weakly. “But what about all that ‘fear me, puny mortal’ posturing?”
She hung her head, and kicked at a clod of dirt. “I was hoping I could convince you to just give up. Bless it, what am I supposed to do now? You’ll never give in without a fight, and if you survived that nothing I could bring myself to do is going to phase you. I was going to try a nice seduction instead, but after that kiss I’m guessing you’d win that one. Crap, what a mess.”
“I guess I should have just gone for it then,” I said. “I don’t necessarily object to merging, you know. But I don’t think we’d agree on which parts to leave out, and I’m not too keen on become a slave of some demon god.”
She snorted. “The bright kami don’t have it any better, and you really don’t want to know what happens to tainted mortals. Ok, I need to think, and I’m not doing it here where you talk me into making a stupid mistake. So I’m going to have to lock you up for now.”
As she spoke the roots writhed and moved, lifting me into a spread-eagled position a foot off the ground. Long runners grew up my body, ripping away my clothes as they wrapped around my torso and reached up to encircle my neck. More layers sprouted, growing leaves and thorns in the process, until I found myself trapped in something that looked like an over-affectionate rose bush. Even my head was pinned in place, though at least my face wasn’t covered. Then they froze, transformed in a heartbeat into some dark metal that felt oddly warm to the touch.
She looked me over uncertainly, and reached between the razor-sharp leaves to gently stroke my cheek.
“Sorry, I know this can’t be comfortable,” she said. “We’ll work this out soon, one way or another. But I can’t let you win.”
“I saw that,” I said. “But I can’t let you win, either. There’s no way in Hell I’m going to let you turn me into a demon.”
The light was fading towards absolute darkness, but there was still enough that I could see her nod. “Yeah, I get that. I’ve got to report in, and figure out what’s going on, and come up with a plan. I’ll, um, leave you a viewing portal, ok? So you can see what’s going on? No sensory deprivation for my light side.”