Come to think of it, I wasn’t feeling much of that benevolent confidence she’d brought to our merger these days.
I embraced them both and reached out with my senses, trying to trigger the temporary merger that I’d sometimes used with my warrior self. But instead of the warm tumble-together confusion I’d expected there was only an odd stretching sensation, as if I were trying to lift a weight much too heavy for me. It seemed that two aspects at once was currently my limit, at least, when I wasn’t supercharged with Naruto’s chakra from that weird technique of his. Perhaps I could trade places with one of them, but my own talents were probably a better fit for the situation than theirs.
But the ghostly state of the second image still troubled me. Gingerly, I put my hands to her insubstantial head and tried to feel her. Unlike the more substantial aspect there was no orderly array of memories floating near the surface for me to read, but there was something there…a sense of presence, a medium where a personality could have been. I closed my eyes and reached deeper, diving far into the pure blue depths where her mind should have been. There were flickers of chakra, a few stray bits of thought-stuff, and a faint gleam of gold. A thread. A slender line of that strange golden chakra I’d glimpsed now and then, leading far off into the unplumbed recesses of my twin’s mindscape.
Well, beating on my prison didn’t seem to be working. Maybe this would lead to a useful insight.
I followed it down for what seemed like days, until the blue glow was lost in the distance behind me and I was surrounded in darkness again. But where the darkness around my prison had been cold and claustrophobic, this one was the endless emptiness of a night sky with no stars. Faint breezes blew against my skin, and eventually my uneasy gaze began picking out hints of movement in the infinite black. Then I began to wonder just what this place was. Was I still in my own mind, or had this thread led me off into some spirit realm? Was this place inhabited? Was I in danger, if it was? Against mortal threats I was confident in my ability to defend myself, but my first encounter with a spiritual enemy hadn’t turned out well.
I stopped and floated in the night, staring out into the darkness and trying to discern what was there. It was black against black, and my eyes soon ached from eyestrain, but that at least I could fix. I gathered my will and prepared a transformation to make my eyes sharper…
The darkness cleared with a nearly audible click, as some blockage I’d never realized was there fell away. The shapes I’d seen before swooped and soared all around me, great abstract swirls and washes of energy in all the colors of the rainbow. As I stared a nearby streamer swept by close enough for me to see that it was a seal array, millions upon millions of symbols arranged in a dizzying flow of complexity that a whole nation of seal masters could never hope to duplicate. And that was a tiny one. The smallest streamers wove together to make larger patterns that were seals as well, and those danced in vast arrays that were themselves tiny parts of something greater, a swelling song of exaltation that filled the infinite void around me with purpose, with meaning, with existence itself.
A tiny sliver of that great cosmic purpose poured into me through my wide eyes, filling my soul with whispers of thoughts no human mind could contain. Suddenly I heard music, a celestial chorus of light and chakra and deeper forces that I could almost name. Sweet agony sang through my veins as I found myself stretching, swelling like a balloon filled with something I had no words to describe.
The pain grew, and I wondered if I would pop like a balloon too. Suddenly terrified, I wrenched my eyes closed and clapped my hands over my ears.
The darkness returned, and I hung there in a quivering ball of terror until the pain finally eased. Now that I’d opened it once I could feel the fragile veil that protected me from that vision of madness. I could lift it again with the slightest effort of will, even by accident if I wasn’t careful. But I wasn’t sure I’d survive another look.
Eventually the trembling in my limbs passed, and I gingerly opened my eyes — and only my eyes. The comforting darkness surrounded me, and thankfully the slender thread I’d been following was still there. But it was no longer the only light source.
I looked down at myself, and discovered that I was shrouded by a faint blue aura of chakra. Startled, I felt with my chakra sense and confirmed that I wasn’t projecting any significant amount of energy, certainly not enough to form a visible aura. Yet there it was, clear as day. Ghostly streamers of blue shot through with tiny specks of gold swirled about my tenketsu, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. And a faint thread of golden light emerged from my chest to trail back the way I’d come.
Apparently I’d just acquired some kind of chakra sight. That could be useful if it turned out to work back in the real world, but I wasn’t going to count on that. Wherever this place was, it was obvious that the normal rules didn’t apply here.
Eventually I turned my attention back to the thread I’d been following, and set out again. This time I let the darkness stay black, and pulled my veil tighter when the forms beyond it threatened to resolve into visibility. The thread stretched on and on, and though I was confident now that I’d find my missing aspect at the other end of it I eventually began to despair of finishing the trip.
But just as I was beginning to consider turning back, I realized that I now had a distinct impression of floating up instead of down. Then the thread began to brighten, and a faint speck of blue became visible somewhere far above me. I quickened my pace, eager to finally discover what lay at the other end. The speck resolved into a swirl of blue, with a hint of other shapes beyond. I zoomed upward, gaining buoyancy as I moved, breaking out into a smile as I saw the familiar snowflake patterns of my own thoughts and memories unfolding before me.
Then I broke through into a burning city, and for a moment I had no idea who I was or what was happening. I staggered, and a Sand nin in a chuunin vest took advantage of my distraction to thrust a kunai through my heart.
That got my attention.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I snarled. “I’m not dying before I get some answers!”
I ripped the kunai out of my chest and slashed his throat out with it, then transformed myself to a healthy state. An instant later I shot up three inches and gained thirty pounds of lean muscle, and the pale-faced genin squad that was trying to surround me all backed away. One of them tried a dispel, and I smiled at them.
“It’s not an illusion, kids,” I told them. “Lucky for you, I don’t have time for small fry.”
I leapt to the top of the nearest building, and confirmed with a single glance that this was the fall of Konoha. The giant three-headed snake was fighting Jiraiya to the south, while off to the north I could see the Shukaku throwing down with…a dragon? Yes. A Western-style dragon with black and gold scales. It was every bit as big as the Shukaku, and was tearing into the bijuu in a whirlwind of fangs and claws.
Where the heck did a dragon come from?
Hey, you’re me! A familiar voice in the back of my head exclaimed. The real me, I mean. But how did you get here?
“You’re the me that Naruto made, aren’t you?” I answered with a smile. “Yeah, I’m the original. I noticed you were missing and went looking for you, and it turns out we’re still connected somehow. But where are we? Don’t tell me you’re having loops now too?”
No, silly, this is Naruto’s loop.
I was so startled I nearly fell off the roof.
“Holy crap!” I exclaimed. “That weird trip took me to someone else’s loop? This is bigger than I thought. But how did you get here?”