Naruto: Dreaming of Sunshine

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I have looked upon all the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me ~ H.P. Lovecraft

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I was pulled, away and through, out of the nightmare zone of the Jashinist Temple, so close to the explosion that its glittering lights were painted on the back of my eyelids like tiny stars blooming into being.

And then there was nothing, just quiet and stillness and me, all alone in my head, and the only other thing in all of existence was the thin thread that pulled me through it.

After the overwhelming oppression of the Temple, the lack of anything was too much.

And then I was dragged out of it, that temporary crossing place, and slammed into a world not my own. I hit grass and cried out in pain.

Grass. Dirt. Sky. Fog. Trees. My head spun with disorientation, unable to make a picture of it. There was chakra around me, I could feel it, natural energy stronger and more potent than anything I'd felt before.

But it was calm. It was pleasant. It felt familiar. Like a home I'd never seen before.

"Summoner!" Heijomaru called, worried, dropping his face down to nudge mine. It left a smear of blood across his cheek.

I turned to the side, barely upright on a single elbow and retched. Blood and bile and once I started I couldn't stop, throwing up everything possible and then continuing to dry heave. My torso screamed with pain at every movement, and black spots were creeping over the edges of my vision – where it wasn't burning white.

There were more deer clustered around me now - Gemmei, Kanmu and Shotoku – and there was panic building in the herd. The ground was shaking from stamping feet, as they moved about in agitation.

"She is gravely injured," Shotoku said, sharply. "We need to work quickly."

(How were they going to heal me? I thought, strangely bewildered. They didn't have any thumbs.)

And I felt… so tired. Numb and empty and horror filled and if I just… just lay my head down for a while and went to sleep…

But-

I'd been rescued. I'd been given a chance to survive. I'd been so sure I was going to die, and now I had a chance.

I had to take it.

Slowly, I lifted my hand. Pawed at my neck until I pulled my necklace free. My fingers were unsteady, shaking with pain and exhaustion and were so slow and clumsy. But I pulled free the tiny shard of Gelel.

I nearly dropped it, and nearly wept at the failure. If I dropped it, I doubted I would be able to find it again, would have the will to search and pick it up. It was too small and I was too weak.

I cradled it carefully and slid my hand down to my abdomen, to the gaping wound there. And then I shoved the Gelel stone inside.

Then, thankfully, I passed the fuck out.

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"Awaken, Summoner!" Heijomaru's gravely voice rumbled next to my face.

I groaned and dragged myself back to consciousness and – oh, sweet, blissful chakra. I grabbed at it greedily, with more relief than I wanted to really examine. I had been so pathetically helpless and terrified without it.

"'jomaru?" I rasped, managing to squint my eyes open. It wasn't bright, some kind of full moon or pre-dawn light and the air was cool and damp on my skin.

"You must eat to recover," he said nudging me. "You are very weak."

He was right. Even now my chakra was returning, maybe especially now, I could tell how badly off I was.

I murmured an acknowledgement and tried to take stock of my situation. My stomach had been packed with moss and some kind of paste (no really, they don't have any hands, how?) but beneath that the skin was tender but healed.

The Gelel stone had worked. I let out a shaky breath. It was still in there, but that was a problem I could solve later. Since it wasn't in my main chakra gate this time, hopefully it wouldn't ruin my ability to use chakra the same way it had before.

I tested that, using chakra to coat the inside of my mouth and stripping it away, pulling bloody saliva-and-mucus gunk out and throwing it to the ground with a wet splat. My mouth immediately flooded itself with saliva again, but it was fresh and uncontaminated with-

"Fuck," I whimpered, curling in on myself.

"Summoner?" Heijomaru repeated, shifting his weight almost nervously, grass rustling against his hooves.

I pulled myself into a sitting position. "Yeah," I whispered dryly. "I know."

I dragged my canteen out of hammerspace and dumped a sachet of re-hydrating powder into it, and fumbled my med-kit free for basically anything I thought would help. The deer had provided fruit for me and I ate them blankly, almost staring into space.

I felt so tired. Something deeply internal. Something not right.

"How did you…" I started to ask, leaning listlessly against the support of Heijomaru.

"Though it was not part of our agreement," Heijomaru acknowledged, "the ability to summon goes both ways. As you can draw us to your world, so we can draw you into ours. It is not an invitation that we extend often, or lightly."

I knew that much. Both that it could be done, and that the deer didn't like to do so. They'd never given reasons why and I'd never pushed for them but, staring down at the blood-stained grass around me, I could guess.

I was contaminating it.

"But how did you know?" I asked, eyes sliding shut even against my will.

"You called for us," Heijomaru said, after a moment of silence. "For home and for family and for rescue. Our blood rang with it and the river ran with the echoes. And yet, you did not summon us. It was… concerning."

My tears. When I had tried to use them to shape the world, to force my will over that of a god, when I had gambled with things I had never done before … I had cried. And I had wanted.

And apparently, people had heard.

"Thank you," I managed to say. There was something gripping tight around my throat. "Thank you."

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The second time I woke, I was curled up in the thick grass, sunken into it so the stems tickled at my skin. It was cold, and fog had rolled in over the fields, but the warm bulk of Heijomaru was curled up behind me, neck arched over me and his head a heavy weight in front of my chest.

I watched a single blade of grass gather dew until it bent under the weight of a single droplet, curving down towards the earth.

Somewhere in the trees a bird started to sing.

I breathed in, deeply, the chill from the air creeping into my lungs from the inside. My chest expanded and Heijomaru's head moved. He woke quickly, eyelids lifting to reveal dark and liquid eyes.

"Daughter of the Forest," he rumbled, lifting his head. "Do you wake?"

I considered. Was I awake? Or merely dreaming a peaceful dream? How did you know, when the nightmares existed outside?

"Yes," I said, hushed. "I am awake."

The sun was starting to lift over the tree tops. There were mountains, on the horizon, banked in mist and cloud. There was a river, somewhere nearby, burbling cheerfully away.

Everything about this place was beautiful. In another time and place, I might have cared.

"Can you…" I asked, hesitantly. "Can you take me home?"

Heijomaru tucked his feet beneath him and heaved himself to his feet, a wall of muscle moving with purpose, skin shivering to resettle into place. I stood too, the rush of blood as I moved making me feel both too real and unreal all at once.

"To Konoha? No," he said. "Sembei cannot summon us any longer, so there is no anchor we could use there."

I blinked, slowly. "Then?"

"We can … return you," he went on. "Simply by reversing the summons that brought you here."

"To the same place," I said, just to make sure.

"Yes," he agreed. "To the very same place that you were rescued from." He went silent. "There are longer paths, from one world to the next, but they are twisting and dangerous and I do not know how to walk them. Or the other summons tied to your village may know a way back, though asking may be a dangerous gamble."

I nodded, tiredly, and stared at my hands.

Bloodstained.

My seal had broken. It had shattered and exploded. What would be left, if I went back?

"If," I said, "if I went back… would you come? Would you summon me back if I didn't call?"

"Yes, Summoner," Heijomaru said gravely, as though we were forging a contract. "If that is your will."

I ate, even though I wasn't hungry. Drank as much water as I could and took what medicine I thought might help. Then I made a small incision in my side to draw out the Gelel stone and returned it (shining and clean and unbloodied) to my necklace.

Then I stood as straight as I could and squared my shoulders. "Let's go," I said, lifting my chin.

I didn't know what I would see-

I suspected I would see-

It had-

The world twisted, I twisted, snapped away and apart and flung back through that dark and empty crossing space, from one world to the next. But I was ready this time, landed on my feet in a crouch, hand and chakra ready to summon-

My eyes widened.

I followed through on the summoning, calling Heijomaru to my side, even as I only just began to take in what I was seeing.

There was nothing there.

Heijomaru landed, battle ready and armoured, but there were no enemies to fight.

There was nothing there.

"It wasn't," I said, turning around and around. "It wasn't supposed-"

My breath hitched. I was trembling.

There was nothing there.

"Summoner?" Heijomaru asked. "Where are we?"

There was nothing but ash.

All around us, no matter what direction I looked, there was only ash.

My seal, I thought, numbly. A black hole to seal away a god. That took power. I had hijacked a ritual to summon a god – that was power. How many people had they killed? How much energy was there in one human life? In ten, in twenty, in a hundred?

What happened, when you turned that into an explosion?

"It wasn't-"

I am become death, destroyer of worlds

As far as I could see, in any direction. How far? How far did it go? The town, gone. The outlying farms, gone. How far beyond that? How far?

How many people-

I swallowed, mouth dry. The old lady at the hotel. The kids I'd wanted to save. The librarian with the cat. The vendors selling food. Everyone I had seen or talked to or who had just existed here, away from me.

"-moner?!" Heijomaru jostled me, voice deep and spooked.

I curled my hand into the straps on his amour. It left a deep smear of blood. Blood that should have been dry by now.

Out, out, damned spot. What will these hands ne'er be clean?

"Home," I said, voice small and quiet. "Please, Heijomaru."

He knelt down so I could slide, awkward and ungainly, onto his back. Every movement we made stirred the ash beneath our feet, sending little puffs into the air, black and white dancing on the breeze. It had crept up over my shoes and dusted to my legs, undeniable evidence of what had happened.

Heijomaru started to move, his hooves kicking up ash, each stride eating up ground. But it was nothing, nothing, everything the same, like we were trapped in an endless landscape. My hair whipped out around me, tossed free and stinging my face but the sensation was too faint to keep my attention.

I was shaking.

"Heijomaru?" I murmured, confused. Something wasn't right. Something wasn't right.

My mind felt sluggish. Slow.

"Rest, Summoner," he said. "I will return you home."

Everything around us was ash.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

I closed my eyes and let myself be darkness.

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Heijomaru ran on. The ash gave away to rubble, eventually. There were metal beams and concrete walls, half standing. Things not totally destroyed in the initial explosion. There were fires still burning.

And there were bodies.

Heijomaru ran on.

Heijomaru ran on, until the destruction stopped being so total. Until there were people, alive and moving and screaming and weeping. Until there were shinobi, Konoha shinobi, sifting through the wreckage and pulling them free, giving help and aid where they could and respect where they couldn't.

There were lines, and lines, and lines, of still forms under white sheets.

They raised a shout at the sight of us, the message passed down the line, and told us to halt. Ninja, freeing themselves up in preparation for attack, ready to defend themselves and others.

Heijomaru pranced in place, tossing his head. "My summoner is one of your people, Leaf Clan. Call your leader!"

It was a wary standoff, broken by the body flicker arrival of two more ninja, stronger and higher ranked. One was the leader of the border station, the one that had given Aoba and I permission to cross only days before. The other was-

"Shikako?" Dad said, quiet horror on his face. He reached for me, tugged me down off of my summons and I tumbled, ragdoll, into his arms.

"Get a medic," the other Jounin ordered tersely.

I breathed, steady, steady.

Dad slapped my face, lightly, then harder when he received no response.

He checked my pulse. His chakra wove and tangled with mine and the quiet horror on his face deepened.

"We have healed her," Heijomaru declared. "But her spirit sickens."

"What happened?" Dad snapped, uncharacteristic.

Heijomaru tossed his head, unimpressed with the tone, unimpressed with being ordered around, just unimpressed in general.

The medic arrived, a tired, drawn young lady, who examined me and shook her head. "There isn't much wrong with her. Minor cuts and bruising. As far as triage goes, she doesn't even make the list right now. Excuse me, Jounin Commander."

She slipped away again.

"Shikako," Dad said. His chakra pulled on me, tried to lift me up, a familiar, comforting safety blanket trying to wrap itself around me. But I was in too far, too deep for him to reach.

"Sir?" the other Jounin asked.

Dad gritted his teeth, muscle in his jaw pulsing briefly, and face going blank. "She may have information on what happened here," he said, shortly. "But we don't have the resources to try and heal her. Heijomaru, are you able to return her to Konoha?"

"I will," Heijomaru said.

Dad nodded. "Chuuyou will escort you back. Make haste."