A day before she would have dropped to her knees and started babbling something about serving her mistress, but dying had broken the fog of lust I’d been keeping her in. So instead she gave me a troubled look.
“You made a bargain with the younger me,” she said. “You promised to make me strong. Keeping me on my knees doesn’t do that.”
I lilted her face up with a finger beneath her chin. “Can you honestly tell me you didn’t enjoy it?”
“…no,” she admitted.
“There you go,” I said. “I can’t break a bargain, Hinata. I promised to give you power, free you from your family, make you Naruto’s personal sex kitten and help you win his love. I also promised to take good care of you, which is exactly what I’m going to do. But you agreed that I’m in charge, and you aren’t backing out of that.”
“I didn’t agree to sell you my soul!” She protested.
“You signed a blood contract you couldn’t read!” I shot back. “Do you have any idea how stupid that was? I had to put the terms we agreed to in there to make it valid, but I could have added anything else I wanted to. Anything!”
She licked her lips nervously. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because I love you, you silly girl!” I shouted. “I love you, and I want to protect you and take care of you and keep you with me forever! And now I own your soul, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“You…really are Sakura,” she said in wonder.
“Damn right I am, baby,” I growled. “I’m the new and improved model, and together we’re going to break this stupid time loop and take on the world.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she gave me a speculative look. “What about Naruto?”
“I told you, if he can handle me he can have us both. Do you think he can handle me?” I asked with a sly grin.
“Yes,” she replied without a second of hesitation. “And…you’re right, he would like that, wouldn’t he?”
“You’re damned right he would. Now come on, we’ve got a new loop to exploit.”
“Yes, ma’am!” She chirped with a relieved smile. “I’m going to need to hear more about this ‘demon’ business, but…I’m with you, Sakura. Just tell me what to do.”
10. Meditation
Watching the demon that wore my face corrupt Hinata was one of the most painful things I’ve ever been forced to endure. I hadn’t realized how strong my attraction for the quiet girl had become until the demon declared her love, and I recognized the stab of jealousy in my heart for what it was. Then I had to watch as the bitch just took over Hinata’s life and made her like it, using all those techniques I’d learned from Anko but promised never to abuse like that. I’d made that promise because I could feel the temptation to turn Ino and Hinata and anyone else I wanted into a lust-crazed puppet dancing to my tune, and I didn’t want to become that kind of person. But she had no such compunctions. Hell, she got off on it.
Then the loop ended, and I was horrified to discover that whatever the demon had done in that ritual had somehow made this Hinata more than just a pattern of memories. She faded into existence in the darkness to the right of the viewport, a translucent figure of flickering blue chakra wearing nothing but a heavy collar of iron. There was a chain attached to the collar, that stretched off into the shadows around us.
I’d done too much mental sparring with Ino to mistake what I was seeing. Hinata’s soul. She was transparent because she had no body to anchor her to the mortal plane, and since we were in my mindscape that chain must be attached to some part of me.
“Hinata!” I called. “Wake up!”
She can’t hear you, my captor chuckled. She can’t interact with our mindscape at all unless I let her, and I don’t think she needs to know about you yet. Just relax and watch the show, timid girl. By the time I’m done with her she’ll be all ours, and we’ll never be alone again.
Then she turned a clone into a body for Hinata to wear, and plucked her out of our mindscape to shove her into it. I stared at the viewport as my concern and confusion gradually settled into the sinking feeling of having been played. If Hinata’s soul was now bound to follow mine through the loops, I’d never be able to just undo my demonic aspect’s antics and go back to the way things were before. Wait, did this mean that when the loops ended there’d be two of her?
Thinking about that one gave me a headache. Depressed and vaguely ashamed, I turned my attention back to my prison.
I’d developed dozens of mental combat techniques in preparation for my next encounter with Sasuke, but so far they weren’t doing me much good. The cold metal vines that trapped my limbs had proved impervious to even my most destructive attacks, and my more subtle efforts to escape had been equally in vain. I couldn’t transform myself to slip free, or body flicker away, or replace myself with something on the outside. The black chakra that made up the technique was impervious to anything that tried to change it, and blocked anything that would let me slip free so reliably I was beginning to wonder if it was sentient.
But the one thing it didn’t do, that it couldn’t do without killing me and my captor as well, is drain my chakra. A kunoichi’s chakra is a manifestation of her life force, and even limiting the quantity that reaches her body is a tricky and dangerous proposition. Here, in my own mind, it was impossible to cut me off from that power without killing me. Actually, even death might not do the job. So all I had to do was figure out how the prison worked and invent a counter-technique.
Yeah, easy.
Fortunately I’d developed my chakra senses to a high level in my years of training under Tsunade, and such techniques work even better in the mental realm that out in the real world. It was slow going, but as the days blended into weeks I methodically traced the flows of power that held me pinned in place. The strange black chakra that my demon side wielded was monstrously powerful, a malignant force of destruction that made me sick when I stared at it too long. The patterns it formed were obviously the product of an alien school of technique design, full of strange twists and snarls where there should have been seal imprints. But I’d stolen much of my demon side’s knowledge about their meanings, and had the benefit of being able to watch them work whenever I tried to escape. Slowly, bit by bit, I began to piece together what each symbol did.
It was exhausting work, but when I needed a rest there was always the viewport to keep me entertained. Apparently my captor had decided to go on a Sharingan power-up spree mixed with a bit of revenge, and there was a certain satisfaction in watching her work her way through the ranks of my enemies. Sand and Sound jounin, ANBU officials, Kabuto, Hiashi — none of them had any real defense against her Tsukiyomi, and the fights she lured them into before springing her trump card simply gave her a chance to steal their techniques. She had no qualms about torturing any of them to madness and beyond once she had them at her mercy, and in a few short loops she unearthed more details about the Sound-Sand alliance and the reasons behind certain Konoha policies than I’d discovered in twenty years. Looking at what was left of her victims made me glad that those interrogations happened in the target’s mindscape, and not my own.
Unfortunately the key figures weren’t so vulnerable. Danzo had Sharingan eyes of his own under those bandages, and actually broke her technique long enough to kill her with what looked suspiciously like a wood-element jutsu. Sarutobi went into some kind of mental stasis where nothing she did could affect him, and Orochimaru…well, I’m not quite sure what he did, but that loop abruptly ended just after she dropped into his mindscape.