It was still alive, and every cell in it bore a copy of my genes, so it was as viable a target for my personal transformation technique as any other part of me. I gathered my chakra, called to mind the same template I’d used to shape the body I currently wore, and activated the technique.
A river of chakra flowed out of me as the ball quivered and grew, sprouted bones and tendons, developed organs, sheathed itself in muscle and skin. In less than a minute a perfect replica of myself lay on the ground before me. I split myself into aspects, and bent to touch my lips to the copy. My new-formed water aspect surged through the point of contact and into her new body, which jerked convulsively and began to cough.
I was momentarily alarmed to see blood on her lips, but she waved me off with a smile. “Just… gack… didn’t transform it all,” she explained. “Got some other flaws too, but nothing major. I’ll have myself fixed in a minute. What about you?”
“That took about a third of my chakra, but I bet we can get it down with practice. Nice. This could be a viable clone technique.”
My water aspect started to agree, and then stopped with a frown. Then she laughed. “Wow, talk about tunnel vision. Do you really not get what we just did? This is a real body, not a clone. If you die I can make you a new body, and you can do the same for me. We just invented a self-resurrection technique.”
I sat back, stunned. “You’re right,” I said after a moment. “Also, we can be in two places at once, and fake our own death in a way that would fool anyone, and…wow. This is big.”
Making bodies was hard, but it got easier with practice. For that matter, it was good practice for healing in general. I’d already reached the point where I didn’t need formal techniques to do minor healing on myself, but a few months of serious body-making work strengthened that talent into something more like chakra control than normal healing. At first I had to laboriously construct a transformation template for each variation on my form that I wanted to try out, but each template I built taught me more about my own body and techniques than I’d known I had left to learn. Soon I could change little things like age and physical conditioning on the fly, without sacrificing the detailed realism that made my transformations more than just a disguise.
Yes, age was a little thing. By summer anything that fit my own genetics was a little thing, really. Taking Hinata’s form was much harder, despite all the medical scans I’d done on her in our time together, because I didn’t have a copy of her genes to focus the transformation. I couldn’t duplicate he Byakugan for the same reason, though I felt certain I could give myself Sharingan eyes again if I ever wanted to.
Of course, if I did that in full knowledge of what it meant there was no way I’d get out of the contract a second time. No thanks.
I could turn a tissue sample from someone else into a complete, healthy body, but the chakra cost was near the limit of what I could manage even now. Worse, wearing someone else’s body was profoundly uncomfortable. After a few abortive experiments I turned my attention back to self-transformation, looking for ways to make larger changes for less chakra. It was by far the most complex technique I’d ever set out to master, but as the months passed I felt that I was making slow but steady progress.
By the end of summer I was actually feeling lonely now and then, and I’d started spending a lot of time split just to get a little company. That told me it was going to be time to end my long period of isolation soon, but I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to go about it. Should I just stop my heart, and let the loop take me back to my childhood again? Or should I go back to Konoha, and see what my old friends had made of themselves by now? That could be tricky to pull off, but I was curious.
I thought about it off and on as I worked on my transformations. I’d also started working on my chakra capacity again now that I had techniques I really needed more power to get the most out of, and was rather pleased that I was finally approaching Gai’s level in that respect. Then one morning I spotted a pair of visitors who felt like ninja making their way up my valley.
They were clearly making an effort to let their presence be felt, so I moved to a clearing a mile south of my home and let my own masking slip. There was something familiar about their chakra, which was odd in itself. I hadn’t been able to feel auras so clearly before my little misadventure in loop-crossing, so there weren’t many people I had a clear impression of. It must be someone I’d known for a long time before then, but hadn’t met in my last few loops.
I caught a glimpse of them through the trees, but it didn’t help. The woman was old and wrinkled, with long white hair and a slightly stooped walk. The man seemed younger, though his hair was equally white, but it was the blood-soaked bandages covering the stump of his right arm that caught my eye. So, they were here for help. Normal techniques could never replace a lost arm, but I could.
Then they emerged from the trees, and I gasped.
“Tsunade! Jiraiya! What happened to you?”
Tsunade looked old, closer to seventy than her usual early-thirties, and her face was worn with pain and exhaustion. Jiraiya was even worse off, wrapped in bandages from waist to neck and leaning on Tsunade for support.
Tsunade gave me an appraising look. “Ah, the mysterious Sakura,” she said. “I thought you must be a missing nin.”
“Well, yes,” I admitted. “I was a Konoha nin, once. But I can’t imagine the Hokage sending the Sannin to hunt down some mountain hermit healer, so what on earth are you doing here?”
“You have a true regeneration technique,” she replied. “I can tell, from the stories. Can you restore Jiraiya’s arm?”
I gaped at her. “Tsunade… the world’s foremost medic-nin… is coming to me for help?” I said weakly. Then I smiled.
“I guess all my hard work has finally paid off,” I said. “Yes, I can do it. Come on up to my place. You obviously need rest, and maybe you can fill me in on what’s happening while I get the old lech put back together.”
15. Akatsuki
Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto, Oh! My Goddess, or anything else but the actual plot of this fic.
There was an organization called Akatsuki, whose members were all S-rank ninja that went around subduing jinchuuriki and ripping the bijuu out of them. Their leader was Pein, a man with the power of the Rinnegan who wanted the bijuu for some mad scheme that was supposed to terrify the world into peace, but was more likely to exterminate all of humanity. And three weeks ago he destroyed Konoha.
“He was as bad as the Kyuubi,” Tsunade confided. “Even the Professor couldn’t stop him. Jiraiya was still critically wounded from losing that arm trying to scout Amegakure, and I was exhausted from trying to save him. He had six bodies that seemed to share the same mind, each with different powers. Every time we killed one another would resurrect it, and his techniques were so powerful! He leveled most of the city with one attack. He thinks he’s a god, and I’m not sure he’s wrong.”
“What about Naruto?” I asked.
“He went missing months ago,” she sighed. “We think he went looking for his old teammate, Sasuke. I’m hoping if we can find him, and a few other people, we might have a chance.”
I stared at her. “Naruto left the village? Naruto? What did you people do, ban ramen and exile all his friends?”
“I don’t think he had many friends after he lost his team,” Tsunade said sadly. “After his falling out with Kakashi and that blowup with the Hyuuga heiress I don’t think there was much left to hold him to the village.”