I remembered forging that chain, and choked back a sob. Then the stab of remorse was gone, and I found myself fuming over my helplessness. The anger faded into confusion, which was washed away by a thrill of fear as I realized how out of control my emotions were. What was wrong with me?
“I’m going to try to come in there,” I told her. “But I may not be able to see, so let me know if it works.”
Of course.
I closed my eyes and fell into myself, just like I used to do so easily. It was a bumpy ride, but after a few seconds I found myself kneeling on a little circle of bare dirt surrounded by swirling chaos.
Hinata put her arm around my shoulders. “I’m not sure what you did to yourself, but it does seem to be getting better. Just give yourself a few loops to rest.”
“What a mess,” I sighed, sagging in sudden depression. “I think all my aspects are jumbled together now. I’m not sure if I won or lost that fight with myself, and right now I don’t have the strength to sort it out.”
“The last of that black chakra is dissipating,” Hinata observed. “And this collar around my neck is silver now instead of iron. I think you won, mistress.”
I choked. “Oh, Hinata. I’m so sorry. I was supposed to train you, and take care of you, and instead I…” Shame and horror warred for control, and I couldn’t even finish.
“I think you’ve trained me quite well, mistress,” Hinata replied impishly. Then she saw how upset I was, and her expression turned more serious. “Sakura, I was only teasing. I’m fine. You’re the one I’m worried about.”
“But I…she…the things I did to you!” I babbled. “She’s still part of me, Hinata. I don’t even know if I can trust myself to be near you.”
“Sakura, get ahold of yourself,” she said impatiently. “I’m not some fragile little civilian girl, and I’m a bit insulted you seem to think otherwise. I turned against your demon aspect because she was careless and cruel and you’re a thousand times the kunoichi she was, not because I didn’t enjoy most of our time together. Don’t make me regret my decision.”
The shock brought some clarity to my muddled thoughts, at least for the moment.
“I’m sorry, Hinata,” I said. “You’re right. I’m just so screwed up right now I can’t think straight. I’m fuzzy-headed and my emotions are all jumbled and my stream of consciousness keeps splitting and merging again at random. I don’t think I’m going to be good for much until this passes, assuming it does.”
She nodded. “I thought you seemed a bit off. Alright, Sakura, I’ll try not take anything you say too seriously for now. Can I help? You probably need to get your aspects separated again, but I’ve no idea how to do that.”
“Neither do I. How do you even know about aspects?” I asked her. “You sound like you’d heard of them somewhere besides me.”
“The Hyuuga have the Byakugan because my great, great grandfather is a dragon,” she explained with a hint of pride. “That makes us something a little more than mortals in the eyes of the celestial powers, and sometimes we have dealings with them. The kami have rules about what they can and can’t do in the mortal world, but a ninja clan can be a useful loophole. Usually they only contact the elders, but as a potential heir I’ve been taught a little of what the clan knows about them.”
I stared at her for a moment.
“I’m an idiot,” I groaned. “I should have realized other ninja would have had encounters with the spirit world, and the Kyuubi calls your bloodline ‘Dragon Eyes’. Alright, what do you know about aspects and kami blood and demonic contracts?”
Unfortunately Hinata’s education was long on history and etiquette, but short on practical knowledge. She did, however, have the answer to one of my newer mysteries.
“All spirit creatures have true names,” Hinata explained cheerfully. “Technically so do a lot of bloodline bearers, but humans usually never figure out what their names are. It’s supposed to take decades of meditation and a lot of exposure to spiritual energies to reach that point, but the few who manage it usually become legendary.”
“Alright, but why do names matter?” I asked. “I mean, I can feel that it isn’t just a word, but I don’t really understand…”
She gave me a speculative look. “The way it was explained to me, seals are the written form of the language of creation, and true names are the spoken form. A spirit being’s name is like a seal array that exactly represents their innermost nature. If you know how to write it you can actually use it for things like summoning and binding techniques, and there’s a sort of spoken form of seal mastery that kami and demons use the same way. Um, Sakura? Are you saying you know your true name?”
“I did, for a few loops,” I replied with a frown of concentration. “But I’m having trouble remembering it. It was… something… damn it, I can’t lose this. I didn’t know it as a demon, but I knew part of the First Tongue. I remember that. I learned another part of it in the place between worlds, and then Astoria asked me who I was and I said… Sakura… no, that’s just a sound. I’m not a sound, I’m…”
Sakura.
I nearly passed out from the effort of singing that one word, but it was worth it to see the stunned amazement on Hinata’s face.
I spent two short loops resting and trying to settle my mindscape into something that didn’t look like a fever dream before I felt well enough to get out of bed, and my first try at a longer loop ended when I flubbed a jump and broke my neck falling off one of those trees in the Forest of Death. My emotions were still bouncing wildly, and I had a sinking suspicion that I was more than a little crazy at the moment, but at least I was regaining enough self-control to pretend to be the old me as long as no one looked too close.
Well, ok, the first time I saw Sasuke I gutted him before I even realized what I was doing. That was a real short loop. The next time around I happened to run into Ino before the written exam, and found myself in her arms sobbing about how I wished she were in the loop so I didn’t have to leave her behind. My grip on reality had an alarming tendency to vanish at odd moments, but I did seem to be improving.
The next time around my chakra control finally started to come back, and I managed to survive our inevitable encounter with Orochimaru and guide my team around all the other dangers that were lying in wait. The boys apparently thought I was PMSing or something, but at least it meant they didn’t argue with me. That gave me most of a week to rest up at the arena in the middle of the forest, and my chakra was almost back to normal by the time I bowed out of the semi-finals to reset the loop. I probably could have won my fight instead, but not without using techniques Kakashi knew I shouldn’t know.
The next loop I actually woke at my normal time, and the dive into what was left of my mindscape was becoming easier. More importantly, I was now strong enough to delve myself and actually see the damage that had been done.
It was pretty bad. All traces of the previous order were gone, my neat patterns of thought and memory intermixed with at least two other patterns and the result crisscrossed with scars and gaping holes. My mind was a complete mess, which certainly explained the problems I was having. I had only a hazy memory of what it had looked like before, and poking at the remains quickly convinced me that while I could eventually reassemble the fragments into any pattern I wanted it would be a long, exhausting project.
Then I felt a tug from someplace deeper, and followed it down to the place where I’d found my sleeping aspects once before. Now it was empty except for a familiar thread of golden chakra, which rose up from the void between loops to connect to my heart.