“Don’t be silly, Hinata, of course she can. It’s made of her chakra, so she could henge it just like a shadow clone. I bet there’s a way to get solid things in here too, for that matter. I’m pretty sure Itachi and Orochimaru both do something like that with their fancy swords.”
I merged my aspects, which helped a little. “Where do you come up with these ideas?” I muttered. “That’s so crazy it might actually work, but right now I need you to… to… oh… um, yeah. Sign this thing. Please? I can’t take much more of this.”
“But Sakura, it’s only been a few minutes,” Hinata chided as he signed the contract. “Don’t tell me miss ‘go all night’ is already done? Should we give you a chakra transfusion to keep you going?”
“More chakra is the last… thing… hey. That might work!”
“What might work?” Naruto asked.
“Come over here and you’ll see,” I replied. I grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. Then I stumbled again as my vision blurred, and found myself leaning against him.
“What happened to not touching?” He asked.
I giggled. “I’m already high on your chakra, mister. I might as well enjoy it. Now come on, I want to see if this works.”
I pulled him over to my chakra storage seal, which looked like a fist-sized diamond full of blue light, and explained what it was. Hinata gasped, and I gave her a saucy grin.
“That’s right, my pretty. There’s no reason it has to be my chakra in the seal. Go ahead, Naruto, see if you can put a chakra feed on it. Just be sure to throttle it, because if you blow it up I might not survive.”
Naruto rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a moment, and I swayed back to lean on Hinata instead of him. Everything was getting a little hazy, and I didn’t want to pass out before we tried this. Then I noticed how sexy Hinata’s neck is, and started kissing it.
Then Naruto’s hand was on my shoulder again. “I don’t think this is a safe way to try it,” he said. “If you want more power I’ll put you on a chakra link in the morning, and we can run loops until you’re happy with it.”
“Tomorrow?” I asked dreamily, falling back against his chest. “What about tonight?”
His hands came around to cup my breasts, and the sudden sense of connection was so strong I couldn’t see anymore. I was lost, dissolving happily into my man’s aura as all barriers between us were washed away.
“Well, first I’m going to cancel this mind-walking technique before I accidently hurt you,” I felt him say. “Then, if you’re still conscious, I’m going to show you how much I appreciate the fact that you trust me enough to invite me in here.”
“Can I help?” Hinata asked with a giggle. “I think she’s too far gone to call me out right now, but I’ve always wondered what it would be like to make love to her in here while you’re doing the same outside.”
It was days before I managed any expression but a dreamy smile.
Naruto left a shadow clone behind to impersonate himself, and we spent the rest of the loop in a nearby town where we all knew from experience no one would notice us. I barely left his side the whole time, and none of us did much training.
I did, however, send an aspect to visit the local version of me several times. She was refreshingly innocent, full of questions about me and Naruto and our various activities. Oddly enough she didn’t pester me for techniques, but then again she wasn’t nearly as motivated in her training as I was. I wondered about that, until I realized that it wasn’t until my repeated deaths in the chuunin exam that I’d gotten serious about improving my own skills. With the looping Naruto on her team this version of me had never faced anything like that, so she still thought a couple of hours a day was a reasonable training schedule.
She was also rather bemused with Hinata’s presence in our relationship.
“Why do you share him like that?” She asked me one day. “I mean, I get that you’re friends, but I’d think that sharing a guy would strain any friendship.”
“You’re missing the obvious again,” I told her with a grin. “Naruto can be two guys whenever he wants, so it’s not like we have to compete for his time. Besides, Hinata and I are as close to each other as we are to him.”
She gasped. “You don’t mean…”
I laughed. “Yes, we do. Yes, I like girls that way. Yes, that means you do too.”
“But, Ino and I aren’t like that!” She sputtered.
“Which is why you immediately thought of her?” I asked smugly. “Of course, you’ve been busy feuding over Sasuke since you were eleven. But ask your other self what she thinks about kissing Ino.”
She frowned in concentration for a moment, and blushed. “Oh, god. I’m such a pervert.”
“Hey, be glad we’re not lesbians,” I pointed out. “You don’t ever have to act on it if you don’t want to. You could just settle down with a guy, and no one would ever know. But it does give you more options than being straight.”
She looked away. “My inner pervert seems to think we should use you as an inspiration.”
“Oh? You mean make up with Ino, and try to catch Sasuke together?”
She nodded.
I sighed. “That didn’t work out so well for me. I guess your circumstances are different, but you’ve got some major obstacles to overcome if that’s what you want. You need to be a lot stronger to get Sasuke’s respect, and Ino would take some convincing. Three-way relationships are a lot harder to make work than normal ones.”
“Will you help me?” She asked softly.
“If that’s still what you want when the loop is over,” I replied. “Just don’t rush it, ok?”
I lifted the veil a few more times that loop, trying various little experiments to get more of a feel for what I was seeing. One of the things I noticed was that there were a lot more of those tendrils of darkness around Hinata than me, but over the course of a few weeks with Naruto several of them unraveled for no apparent reason. After that we all agreed that it would be a good idea to have Hinata spend more loops with him, and maybe have some long conversations about as many important things as possible.
I wanted to do the same thing myself, to be honest. But I was the only one with supernatural contacts who might be willing to tell us something useful, and it might take a few loops to get one of them to talk. So instead I volunteered to go find out what I could by myself, and Naruto reluctantly agreed.
The reset found Hinata back in my mindscape, of course, but it wasn’t long before I felt Naruto’s summons. With a proper contract between us the gentle tug I’d been used to was replaced by an immensely strong pull, and I realized I probably couldn’t resist it if I tried. His chakra was just too much stronger than mine for that.
Fortunately I managed to aspect myself quickly enough, and the summons only took one of me. It was the work of a few minutes to find the young Hinata in his loop and steal a sample of her blood so I could make my version a body, after which I dismissed myself and settled back into my own loop alone. Then I finished dressing, and made my way to the testing center for yet another repetition of that stupid written exam.
I was pretty sure I could penetrate the Hyuuga secure wing with just my own skills, but it was a tricky job and I needed to pull it off perfectly to maximize my time with Astoria. I didn’t think she was going to summon me to her office again, and it might take some time to persuade her to tell me anything. For that matter, I’d better put some serious thought into how to convince her to help at all. I couldn’t afford to piss off her boss by trying to scam her using the loops, so I had to get this one right the first time around.
Eventually I decided it would take several days to get my plan together, which meant I’d have to actually do the second exam to keep my loop going. So I left an aspect in Konoha to continue planning while I reluctantly packed my supplies and joined my old teammates for another repetition of the Forest of Death. As I watched Sasuke’s fight with Orochimaru play out yet again I idly wondered if there was a way to do this that didn’t require at least one of me to have to live through the exam. Shadow clones had the same problem as aspects in that respect, and the idea of an illusion that persistent didn’t seem feasible. Maybe I could bribe an alternate-universe Sakura to do a few loops for me?