Swept by the current

In my condition, sleep comes before it is welcome.  Unmovable yet flimsy, like a hood pulled over my head.  My heart dances with nervousness and frustration.  The fear fresh in my veins makes the night a restless one.  Eventually my heart tires and I am drawn into a dreamless abyss, however…

That only made my morning more difficult.  I woke with a start, but it was like I’d been dunked in water and dragged over sand.  Aware of my body, yet it was sluggish and numb.  It took me several minutes to remember that I had in a sense pushed my body hard the night before.

Minutes, not moments.  I couldn’t convince my eyes to open in all that time, and that?  That was unacceptable.  I gathered my chakra.  In my mind's eye I likened it to tipping a watering can.  A steady purposeful flow drove through the shadows of my mind and opened my connection with the waking world.

For a split second I caught a glimpse of white room.  padding beneath my arms.  I barely had enough time to blink when something dragged my back down.  stuck fast by the flow of my chakra.

My eyes closed and a delved deep, but the night was over.  Fantastic caricatures of friends and acquaintances flowed through my minds eye.  Konoha was brighter and more prosperous than I’d ever seen, and yet I felt at home.  welcome.  content.

I saw hours of day to day life play across my mind as a memory, all while watching my folks and visiting strangers play together and make merry.  I pulled myself aside as I felt my mood shifting.

And woke up with a start.  This time my eyes were open and I had the foresight to focus on my breathing, but halfway through a single breath I was being pulled back again.

~Wake up~

I lay there.  Waiting.  Minutes passed.  Where I relived what felt like hours before, now I felt nothing.  Begrudgingly, I gave in to the desire to rejoin my family and rose.  telling myself that if I could find some byway in the dream I could use it to my advantage.

As I approached the door, the world began to blur.  My chakra churned and there I was.  Awake again.  Frozen in concentration.  It was as though I’d pulled a weighted net over myself.

Not like this.  The frame shuddered into being and I found myself in my ethereal neighborhood.  I went to landmarks.  Took in every detail.  My father spoke to me beside the barbecue, and I felt myself being drawn in despite myself.

I awoke feeling frustrated.  A sense of purpose forming in my shadow  *father~*

I fell again.  Cracks formed.  Settings divided into several cells around me.  The borders between them seemed invasively alive as words came to me from several places at once.  I hissed in frustration, and found something firm between my hands.

~It’s alright.  It’ll pass.  By then we will be ready~

I felt a roaring in my ear.  The background of my mind shifted toward the waking world passing over me and pressing like a tidal wave.  My senses - like wailing spirits - filtered fresh information down, feeding the illusion.  I wanted to go where they went, but I knew I would find nothing new.

Instead I turned myself toward this inner rock.  A familiar voice flowing through my lips.

~ready for what?~

A smile.  Instead of answering, hands crept over mine as the dream swept over me.  It was a visceral feeling that reminded me that I was not alone.  In the warped reality within my mind, this force that held me in place grounded me.  The border between my perceived self and those characters felt more like a board game.  Pieces being shifted between us, while an underlying set of rules kept things from being taken too seriously.

Rules that I could remember and compare.  I saw a gift for what it was, and turned my attention to the anchor.  To the table with that force.  I let my imagination run wild as my fingers traced archaic paths along the circle's edge.  As I stretched my incorporeal self between waves, a murmur flowed across my ear.

~Lets begin~

Unbeknownst to me at the time, My hands had shifted to form seals between dreams.  As my chakra swelled, I felt my body shift.  My head and shoulders dragged down while my ankles skidded up.  A docile yawn flowed from my belly to my lips along an ever shortening path.  I blinked open and found a fractions of my hands brushing the sleep from my eyes.  I rolled from the cot to my feet.  My legs shuffled beneath me faster than I could bring the steps to mind, I crouched, looked up and felt a corner fill my palm.  I grimaced at the sensation - little more than an afterthought - as I pulled myself up and shuffled along a crawl space.

Cool morning air flowed across exposed skin alongside my first waking thoughts.  I was free roaming.

I looked about and took in the mountainside.  A vent led back toward the labs deeper within the bunker.  Too small for a ninja or even the majority of us kids to fit through.

“We need to find someone to take a look at these injuries.” I might not be walking the line between life and death, but I couldn’t be sure what standards my words put up.  And really, I needed a fresh face to talk to.

As I made my way toward the sound of the canteen, I slowed and furrowed my brow.  Wary that if the minders recognized where I was, there would be problems.  I also remembered something about my peers and looked over my slender arms.

“How~” I was no muscled unit, but nor was I shy on mass.  I was generally among the meatier kids in my circles.  Of course, normally I’d be peeking over the windowsill too.

I’d lost almost half of my height and dropped five weight groups.  My hands were calloused as most of ours were by now, but these were scaled to a toddler.  I looked up to the sill again before cautiously flowing through katas.

My movements were fluent.  My muscle groups responded naturally, so it wasn’t like I’d aged backwards.  It was… quaint.  I almost felt like a fairy.  Nimble and light, efficient and skilled as someone five times my size.  I noticed a face of granite.  Weather shorn stone flowed down the hillside, and after a cautious glance I followed it down to a well.  

There - in the water - a stranger’s face looked back at me.  Brown eyes, brown hair with a layer of darker above.  My haircut was swept to one side, so not fully not descript.  I looked over my shoulder and found the hilt of a sword.  I had all the equipment I needed to make it through a couple of classes, and even a few flourishes.

I’d taken a detour, so I couldn’t give myself the time to truly dwell on it.  I’d work out my story on the way up.  Then again, I knew enough about this place to fake it pretty well.  So long as I let someone else steer the conversation, and used my opinion to steer it here and there.

I didn’t need to earn a promotion, just convince my peers that it wasn’t worth reading into.

Rule number one.  Don’t get worked up - bail.  Between awkward silence and a voice crack, I’d take the former.  I don’t need my attitude to reach the ears of the guards.  Move in the shadow of conversation.  Let the curious eyes find me, come to their own conclusions.  Watch for any new movement and merge with the crowd.

I made my way toward the vendor.  I didn’t need to fake being hungry or too tired for small talk.

Now brown hair and brown eyes might seem cliché, but there were actually five kids in our group with those traits, give or take a detail.  Everyone carried a sword attitude was about as much distinction as you could expect.  I know for a fact that two thirds of Konoha boasts brighter hair colors than this group, and an ominous feeling was already steeping in my gut.

With that in mind… I actually know where I can find an outlier or two.

A hand appeared on my shoulder.  I looked up into the shadow of a shinobi guard, “No disguise techniques before rollcall.” They give me a smile that doesn’t reach their eyes, “Try again next week.”

“Fine.” I waved them off and cycled my chakra.  The spike of dread coiling up in the pit of my stomach to die.

~What the heck?  How can it be this easy?~

Humiliation?  Check.  Existential dread?  Present and accounted for.  And yet I feel as though I was just given a medal of honor for what amounted to a breach of cover.

The shinobi didn’t stop.  They kept going until they reached their post.  By then a group took their leave and I shadowed them.

The path between training grounds took us through the forest, lined with panels of camouflage and swept detritus.  With enough practice, you could smell your way to the training sight.

It’s generally frowned on to leave the ‘beaten path’.  The guards will flog you for it if it’s a regular thing.  For the moment though it was me, a group vaguely aware of my presence and a false description.  I stepped off the beaten path.

I felt something in the air shiver around me.  A cool primal focus and suddenly I was in the shadow of a tree, feeling like I’d been there all morning.

I fought the urge to giggle when I caught wind of what the group thought of my disappearing act.  Of course they noticed, but I didn’t think it’d be that impressive.  It felt clean as~  Containing all but the perversely smug look on my face, I rolled my eyes as one of the group drew nearer.

I may be a loudmouth, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind nor deaf.  It was treacherously faint, but I managed to follow my gut and stay just inside the shadow of the tree, between the group and the voice of reason.

“Hey, come on.  Don’t rock the boat.  Save the sneaking for when it’s needed.”

He peered around the trees.  I knew the moment would come.  There was too little cover behind this one tree, and he was getting too close to hide the broad strokes.  I let my gaze drift out past my cover.  The group was still there, waiting on their last man and watching the show play out.  At least one of them was watching me in particular.

I steeled myself.  Taking a deep breath and not letting a single vibration fall out of sync with the forest.  In a heartbeat, I bolted.  Like the bird, I lunged.  I flung myself forward and pivoted on my fingertips.  The leaves were thick, but thankfully soft.  The lingering moisture greased the pressure beneath my hand and the gracious oaf chose that moment to brave the edge of the path.  If you clicked your tongue, you’d have heard about as much sound as I made.  I vanished in the shadow of yet another tree.

They’d seen that.  I could feel the one kind dancing fifty feet away, begging his friends to share the tale.  Monitor man was clueless and had nothing to work with unless they threw him a line.

Again it’s remarkable what you can do with a little grace under pressure.  I resolved myself there.   If someone came out to get me in the next fifteen minutes, I’d give them my friendship.

And so there I was.  Stillness.  At one point I saw myself lying on my back, back in the medical ward.  I felt a breeze caress my cheek and caught leaves moving in the distance.  I found myself awake.

~It’s time to go~

I peered around the tree and scanned the ‘road’, “Who are you exactly?”

~I thought you might remember me~

“Yeah well, I remember putting my shirt on yesterday.  I’m sure I’ll find it eventually.”

~That was two days ago at least.  You didn’t recover from those injuries overnight~

My stomach tightened instinctively.  A sore prickling sensation brushing my mind, “So I was injured.  How bad was it, to be fit as a fiddle within a day?”

~Those men were careful, but others have the ability to heal.  You were stubborn and I was able to exploit this ability to further affect.~

“So a guardian angel decided to heal me?”

~Concentrate.  Remember why you came out here.~

I bowed my head per the reminder and followed the path.  My form has shifted yet again, and I was grateful to find I had the full length of my original stride.  Not as much as before, but I was lighter still.  It was strange.  I was half expecting some force to brace me from behind and divine all the little things I was doing wrong.  Though absent, I kept checking myself to avoid wasting energy, and I still managed to outperform myself.  At least in my mind.  Maybe the shapeshifting had something to do with it?

The training yards were getting closer.  The voice of the master and students reached my ear.  My mind was foggy from the trip.  It felt like someone had taken a video of my approach and slowed it down while sipping the voice lines to the end.  Dizziness came in waves until I found myself standing behind a lowered branch.

~You need to stay completely still.  The masters are vigilant, and there are hidden watchers as well.~

~How do you know?~ I had to swallow the urge to speak aloud, resolving instead to try and spot one of these watchers.

To my surprise, she reacted all the same. ~you listen to them.  Your comrades.  peers and rivals.  You learn their song and I follow the tale in turn.  You’ve seen them bitter beneath the gaze of a watcher.  You may not be aware of it yourself, but your eyes have seen this movement already.~

There is a pause and I shift my grip along the tree.  Something coarse and tense flows into me.

~There he is~  Across the clearing, beyond the sea of katas and surrounded by training equipment.  A boy with blue eyes, golden yellow hair and an orange scarf stood amidst a familiar group of kids.

Their kind was different~

I caught myself and buried that strand of jealousy.  It is something we all looked forward to.  Retiring the Gi and turning our attention to the abilities that made us unique and forging something out of that.

~we need to go~

~What?  I thought you said to stay still.~

. . .

~Are you done?~

I smiled.  She called my bluff.

~I love you~

===Redacted scene===

~Would you like me to show you?~

I tighten my lip and nod, but I wasn't prepared.  A riptide of perception slammed into me, rocking my insides like a dozen dinghies upon the surge.  Numbness blossomed into flavors of light and I felt myself ripped away in a frantic dance as traces of chakra were ejected from one student to the next.  I blinked and in my mind’s eye I rose up.  Looking down on a map of the person from above.  Each represented by two arrows and a sphere.  Each flowing to the forms being taught, and yet barely recognizable to the untrained eye.  I saw bolts of cloud-like shadow flow across the edges of the clearing.  As I found myself being swept through these flows, I saw darker orbs winking before me.

I fought down heaving breaths as I returned to my own sense.  My ragged breathing drove a sense of alarm deeper and deeper within me.  I looked up to find the martial arts master scanning the horizon.  I had seconds before they found me, and could not imagine the skill needed to escape their gaze without drawing it.  A shadow fell over me as his gaze passed and I blinked.

Through the teeth of a Venus flytrap.  Sinuous rows of green combed the air before me.  Frozen in place.  I’d not seen them blocking my field of view, let alone arrive there.

~Sorry.  That was foolish of me.  You weren’t ready and this is hardly the time to-~

“There he is.”

~Eh?~

~Don’t forget the reason we came here.  You gave me a choice and I accept this defeat.  A better time will come.  We’ll be ready~

A shiver flowed through my mind.  Evidently I can get intentions to flow both ways.  I set my eyes on a boy across the field with golden blood hair.