“I’m you,” I answered. “We’re essentially alternate-universe doubles. If my technique worked right you’re a young version of me, from around the time of the chuunin exam. Right?”
She nodded cautiously. “Yes. But how did you summon me? I thought you couldn’t do that to a human unless they helped make the summoning seals.”
I patted the summoning scroll. “True names are funny things,” I said. “We’re different versions of the same person, so we share the same name. Which is the name on this contract, so in theory any version of me who signs it should be able to summon any other version who actually exists. Want to give it a try?”
“I… yes!” She replied, already seeing the potential. “But, I don’t think I have enough chakra for a technique like that.”
I chuckled. “That’s no problem at all. I’ll give you a chakra transfusion, an impression of me and a copy of my skill with the technique and send you back. Then you can give it a try.”
Her eyes went wide. “A copy of the skill? You can do that?”
I nodded. “Only with myself, so it doesn’t come up much. But yes, I can make copies of memories and reflexes and everything else that makes up skill with a technique.” I poured the bits she’d need into a memory bubble, and held it out to her. “Want to be able to summon a kickass older version of yourself whenever you need help?”
“Oh, hell yeah!” She grinned.
Ten minutes later she was gone, taking with her as much of my chakra as she could carry. I wasn’t sure it would be enough, but a minute later I felt the gentle tug of a summoning. I split myself, leaving one aspect here to carry on with my loop, and let the summon carry the other one away.
Of course, since I’d left my body behind I appeared in her mindscape. The forest was just like the one I’d had in my own mindscape back before I came to understand my dual nature, and sure enough I was immediately confronted by a rather confused version of the warrior aspect I’d lost in my confrontation with the demon.
“You’re the older me.” She said. “But how did you get in here? Shouldn’t you be out in the real world?”
“I didn’t bring my body with me,” I explained. “That would have taken more chakra than you can hold. So, what say we surprise your other self?” I walked over to the locked door that symbolized my old insecurities, and pulled the key out of my pocket.
The younger me gasped. “You can open it? But how… well, I guess you must have gone through all this… wait, that means you understand why there are two of me!”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I do. Let’s go get the other you and I’ll explain all about our weird little bloodline.”
Teaching is fun. At least, teaching a younger version of myself was fun, and not just because we understood each other so well. In the space of half an hour she’d torn down the barrier of fear between her aspects and pulled off her first temporary merger, although she couldn’t hold it for more than a few seconds. Then she listened to my thumbnail sketch of my own situation with increasing disbelief, until I offered to demonstrate some of my claims.
“How?” She asked. “Even if you’re telling the truth, there’s no way for me to actually see the time loop reset.”
“Maybe not, but I can demonstrate a few of the other implausible parts. Let me borrow your body, and I’ll turn us into me and go find Naruto.”
“I suppose I couldn’t stop you anyway,” she said. “Ok, go ahead.”
I’d burned off a lot of chakra already, but I still had more than enough to reshape her body into one I was comfortable with. Then I climbed out of bed to check my work in the mirror, and she whistled appreciatively.
“Is that what I’m going to look like in a few years?” She asked eagerly.
“Not quite,” I chuckled. “The perfect legs and abs come from insane amounts of taijutsu training, and I enhanced our natural ‘talent’ by about a cup size. But the face and hair are all natural.”
“Nice,” she said. “I wish I could do this.”
“Get Naruto to show you how he turns into a girl,” I advised her as I henged up something to wear. “That’s the ultimate basis for the technique. Speaking of which, let’s see what the man who turns into a dragon is up to tonight.”
It wasn’t all that late, so I expected Naruto to be out training somewhere. I made a circuit of the village with my senses fully extended, searching for his presence while I cloaked mine from the occasional patrolling chuunin. It wasn’t long before I caught the distinctive taste of his massive aura, and sure enough it led me to one of the training grounds.
Some mischievous impulse led me to shroud myself in my best invisibility illusion as I approached. If he was working on something interesting I wanted to get a good look at it before I surprised him.
“I don’t usually do this kind of thing.”
The voice was female, and I drifted to a stop in the shadow of a tree as I tried to place it. Someone I knew, but not well.
“You aren’t usually with me.”
It was Naruto’s voice, and the exited female gasp that followed made it pretty clear what was going on. I peered around a tree trunk, and caught sight of Naruto and a kunoichi with Inizuka clan markings standing naked in the moonlight. Naruto was taller than I was used to seeing him, a few years older and a lot more muscular. The kunoichi was a teenager herself, a lithe beauty with wild hair and amazingly perky breasts. She shifted, her face turning slightly towards me, and I realized it was Hana.
He pulled her into a kiss with one hand in her hair and the other toying with her breast, and the way she squirmed against him told me her protest had been strictly pro forma. A moment later she pulled away, and sank to her knees before him.
Holy crap! My host exclaimed. Naruto is having sex with an older kunoichi? Two weeks ago he couldn’t have arranged a date with Hinata if his life depended on it, and now he’s getting a blow job from a hot chuunin? He really isn’t the boy I remember, is he?
I held tight to my invisibility illusion as a stab of jealousy pierced my heart. Had he lied when he spoke of marrying me? Was he just leading me on? What did she have that I didn’t, anyway? I swayed as insecurities I’d thought long since banished tried to send me fleeing into the night with tears in my eyes.
Hey, are you alright? Don’t tell me you have a thing for him?
“Yes,” I whispered. “I thought… but then again, we aren’t married yet, are we? I’ve always felt free to play around in my own loops, so can I blame him for doing the same?”
Married? My host shrieked. To Naruto? You’ve got to be kidding me. Why on earth would you want to marry him?
“Because I love him,” I replied. It came to me then that this was a defining moment. I could slink away and have a good cry and never tell anyone what I’d seen, but then I’d never fully trust him again. I could stalk into the clearing full of righteous fury and punish him for hurting me, but I’d be a hypocrite even if he never knew. I could try to write it off as ‘boys will be boys’ and pretend it didn’t matter, but I’d be lying to myself. Was there a better choice I wasn’t seeing because of that damned demonic technique?
Was this how he was going to feel, if he found out what I’d done with Anko?
I don’t understand. I mean, I guess he’s not as bad as he used to be, but why Naruto?
Yes, I realized. That was it. I could understand.
“What you’ve seen is him halfheartedly pretending to be a kid,” I told my host. “I’m… about to do some things you might not want to be around for. Would you like me to change you back, and make myself a body of my own?”