Location: Eldorado National Forest Date: July 26 2010
The next morning, I refreshed myself in the creek, brushed my teeth, and put on fresh clothes (I chose her favourite colour, just in case). I also removed any henge, so Miss McAbee would start to freak out due to another set of changes.
All in all, I prepared for quite an emotional conversation with the host.
Then I released the hold on the Reika Rō no Jutsu.
Nothing happened. Oh right, she was sleeping. I gave her a mental nudge to wake her up and felt her presence unfold. Somehow it took a place at the back (if there is such a thing as a back) of the consciousness.
"Hello?"
Well, that happened. A side effect of the Reika Rō no Jutsu? Did I hold it for too long? Is there any other reason why she is not taking over her body? I am not resisting her. Kuso, it will take time to figure out and fix.
"Hello, Miss McAbee," said my clone, who had taken the shape and form of my original body. For some reason, he decided to go with full Hokage regalia. Cheeky bastard.
"Who are you?" I heard her voice, edging toward panic. She had definitely noticed by now that her body was not reacting to her.
In quick succession, I created and destroyed a clone to let my other one know what was going on. He caught on fast.
"Ah, I see. You're having trouble controlling your body. I'll see what we can do about that. Allow me to introduce myself — I am Namikaze Minato, the Fourth Hokage of Konoha."
"Why does that sound so familiar? Hold on! You're the guy from my dreams! The fuck? What's going on here?"
I created and dispersed another clone to pass a message to my clone again.
"What was that?"
Right, she should be sensitive to chakra fluctuation, especially if it is a new sensation in her body.
"Stay calm, Miss McAbee, and I will do my best to explain our situation. As I said before, I am Namikaze Minato, and when you drank that vial, my soul and powers were transferred to your body."
My clone had her rapt attention; I could feel it. I motioned for him to continue.
"For almost three years, I was at the back of your consciousness, observing your life without any ability to interfere. Then, three weeks ago, you tried to access my powers, and the backlash allowed me to take over your body."
"Why don't I remember anything since that moment? And where are we now? How did we escape?"
I focused on creating another clone, and her rapt attention mixed with my Yin chakra, affecting the jutsu in the process.
"What the fuck?" I heard Paige's voice from behind and turned around. Surprisingly, I didn't feel her presence at the back of my consciousness anymore.
"What the fuck is going on?!?!" she yelled, panicking now and taking a few steps backwards, away from me and my clone.
She was not careful and stumbled over a rock, waving her hands as she fell. When I was creating a clone, I put a minimal amount of Yan chakra, it had to be a short-lived one, just to pass a message. The McAbee clone dispersed from the fall, and I felt her presence again.
"AHHHHHHHHHH. The fuck! is going on?" I heard her scream again in my head.
Interestingly enough, this clone still had some of my Yin chakra and returned information from her position as well, but in that clone, my consciousness was at the back, as before.
Interesting.
I turned back to my clone. I was sure he understood my idea, and he proved me right.
"Miss McAbee, I'm going to use the same jutsu again. Can you try to do what you just did before? It would make our conversation much simpler. Please, just don't panic and take a seat."
"Okay, I'll do it." I felt her resolve, and this time I put significantly more Yin chakra into the clone. I felt her mixing with the jutsu again and tried to match the same Yin percentage. It might be important.
With another poof, I positioned the clone sitting on the boulder, and she popped into existence.
"That was an unexpected development," said my Hokage clone with a gentle smile.
"Why do I feel weird?" McAbee looked at her hands, touched her face and then looked at my clone and me.
"It's not a dream, right?" she asked with a hint of hope in her voice.
"No, it's not. We, clones, always feel like that," replied the Hokage clone with a cheeky smile.
I groaned into my hands. Why do my clones always do stupid shit?
"Boss, I believe you don't need me anymore," the bastard continued with an upbeat voice before dispersing himself.
"The fuck?!" McAbee screamed again and looked at me.
"Who the hell are you and why do you look like me?"
"This is your original body, and I am Minato."
"Who was that then?" she asked, pointing to the empty spot where my idiot clone had been sitting before.
"That was my clone, who made himself look like my original body. I was planning to ease you into our current situation, but it looks like that didn't work." I gave her my best smile and relaxed my appearance, rubbing the back of my head to convey an easygoing demeanour. I needed her cooperation.
"Let me try to explain everything, alright?" I gave her my best innocent face, which had won me so many battles that I had lost count.
She tentatively nodded, still transfixed by her feelings. I assume it's different for clones — they aren't alive, but she is. How interesting.
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"And so, I woke you up, expecting you to take over the body. I was planning to make a deal so we could switch who controls it and when, but, well, as you can see, something strange happened. Even stranger, you transferred your consciousness into the shadow clone. Questions?"
For the last hour, I tried to explain everything. I started with my stay in the Shinigami's stomach, my short visit to the living world, and how that might have affected everything that happened afterwards. She was not thrilled to find out that she had a silent observer over the last three years — and to top it off, a male one.
I bet she thought about all those shameless moments I had witnessed since I ended up in her body. I tried to suppress my reaction, but in the end, I'm still a male. It has nothing to do with Jiraiya's influence, I am sure of that.
"So, you're saying that over all these years, you were not able to control or communicate at all?" she asked, probably the most important question for her.
"Yep. Until you tried to mould chakra three weeks ago, I didn't have any of those options available. I tried to send you thoughts, but it didn't work, and I couldn't touch chakra before that." I gave her my most honest expression, with a touch of regret in it.
"That's too much, honestly," she replied with a lost expression.
"Well, take your time. Think it over, alright? If you don't mind, I, well, will go run in the wood."
"You mean, you'll go pee," she commented.
"Well, I didn't want to say that. It's already uncomfortable enough," I gently smiled back, showing that I didn't mean anything by it.
"This is weird," she whispered, turning to look over the mountainside. This place had a nice opening between trees, and the view was magnificent. Last night I spent an hour just watching the stars from this spot.
They are so different here.
⚡
I gave her space to process and spent most of the time in the nearby clearing, creating a training ground with the help of clones. I was once again able to make regular clones of myself, now that McAbee was not present in my mind anymore.
When all that was done, I went through my training routine, starting with flexibility exercises. Thanks to my basic Iryō knowledge (it was impossible not to pick it up with Tsunade around so much, and I had great chakra control to do that), I expedited my body's advancement significantly. Any tears to muscles or damaged joints healed quickly, and training pain was nothing new to me.
The downside? I had to assign one clone to constantly make food. I was inhaling it just to restore the necessary elements for body development.
"Hey Minato"
I noticed her fifteen minutes ago, coming to watch my training. Since she was a chakra construct, it was impossible for me not to notice her — she was constantly on my internal senses net, just like my clones.
I was in my Minato Henge form; I thought it would be easier for her than seeing herself all the time. The same applied to all my clones running around and doing the necessary chores.
"Yes, Paige?" I looked up from the ground, where I was doing upside-down push-ups while maintaining a split.
"Um, what are you doing?" she asked, but it was clear that wasn't the main reason she came.
"Training. I'm used to a more fit body, and if we want to keep this one safe in this crazy world, we need it more fit than ever," I replied with a smile, still doing push-ups.
"Right. This is weird, you know?" she said, gesturing vaguely at me and around.
"Maybe, but that's what I'm used to," I replied, flipping over my head to stand up.
"I didn't know my body could do that," she exclaimed in surprise.
"Well, it didn't," I replied with a shrug and explained, "I had to do some extensive training and healing to make it possible now."
"Healing? What? You can heal people?"
"Not much, I'm not a certified Iryō-nin, but I picked up some basic things. It's good enough for the field and combat, but nothing special. Tsunade-sama could put people back together if they were still alive. To be honest, she could also turn them into pasta with one hit."
"So, what do you have in mind?" I asked.
"Well, I guess I want to know what you plan and how I fit into them?" she asked nervously. Well, civilians duh.
"Right now? Stay low and train. I am nowhere close to being battle-ready. What do you want to do?" I asked with curiosity. Hopefully, it's nothing outrageous or stupid.
"I don't know." Her shoulders fell, and she had a sad expression. "My career is done now. I don't think the PRT will back away; I'm sure they were railroading me straight to the Birdcage."
"That was my conclusion as well. So, you want to sing, right?" I asked for clarification.
"Well, I cannot now. I will be arrested as soon as they catch my face. Or at least they would try," she said, giving me a tentative smile.
"And if you have a new face?" I asked.
"How?" she asked, hope booming in her voice.
"Well, can you merge back, and I'll show you?" I proposed. I wasn't sure if she was ready to do that, but it was as good an opening as any.
She was ready to ask questions about how, but it seemed like she figured it out and dispersed, leaving behind excess chakra that dissipated into smoke. I immediately felt her presence at the back of my mind.
"Pay attention," I said loudly and formed the hand seals to Henge myself. While I could do it without them, she might need all the help she could get. She is a chakra construct, I am sure she will learn to do it soon.
With as little poof as possible, I transformed into one of the faces I used for shopping: red hair, no feathers, a face with freckles, and a nice red dress.
"Now let's do a shadow clone. Do your thing." I proceeded to make a new one, and with another poof, a redhead appeared next to me. I quickly transformed back to Minato again.
"So, how about that?" I asked with a smile.
"Your powers are bullshit of the bullshit, you know that?" she said, touching her face and hair.
With a smile, I transformed a rock into a hand-sized mirror and gave it to her.
"Bullshit of the bullshit," she repeated, grabbing the mirror and starting to check her face.
"You can make any face, right?" she asked next. Remembering how the girls in our class back at the academy would wear a new Henge every day after first learning it, I responded with a laugh, "Pretty much, and not just faces. Hair, body shape, clothes — you name it."
"So, we can make a new persona for me, and I can go back to singing, right?" she asked, with more hope in her voice now.
"Yep, we can do that." I smiled back at her.
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