From Dusk till Don't

[Sia]

She slowed her pace to conserve chakra but what she didn't know realistically was that because she did have such fine chakra control as it were the technique she had happened to be using wasn't quite as tedious on her body as she thought it was, it was just tedious for her mind to keep it running efficiently and smoothly, but the chakra usage itself wasn't bad at all, not with her level of refined control any way. Still, she didn't have the greatest of chakra pools and she had to be careful not to over do it which she knew and always tried to keep a conscious effort of when it could be helped.

Of course, there were always so many other tasks running at any given moment, that ones monitoring often fell to the way side. She monitored Hito in the sand pod as the traveled, but it was growing darker quickly and she had seen the storm in the distance coming in fast on the town she was nearest. She considered it only for a moment, then made the decision logistically to take his pod to the town for the night and take shelter through the storm until the morning.

Of course Ikanbi had no way of knowing at the time that the sandstorm was in fact not one of natural phenomenon but in fact was one of spiritual proportion, that is to say, there were many angry spirits in the desert within the sandstorm. They were the true cause of it, but they wouldn't be visible without the keenest of sensory jutsu unless one was incredibly close. Still, the storm had darkened the sky early in that direction and it took up a considerable amount of the field of view in a way that seemed almost definitely unnatural, but maybe it was just incredibly huge?

No, Ikanbi thought to herself. That storm is definitely too large to be natural for this time of year, that can't possibly be good.

Ikanbi took the pod to the Inn of the small village and made a generous donation to the establishment while booking her room, which prompted the owner to come out from the back and recognize Ikanbi. After exchanging a few pleasantries, Ikanbi made her way to the room she had selected. It was the closest to the kitchen and also not near the edge of the building, it was rather centrally located and thus for her purposes somewhat obscure for her otherwise very stand-out appearance, what with the human-sized pod of sand she had floating with her.

She took the pod into the room and gently guided it over to the bed as the sand began to shift away, eventually leaving a sleeping Hito there underneath the blankets. Ikanbi monitored his temperature for a moment and then began channeling chakra, sending out an acid sand clone from her body, the wet sand seeping out from her pores into a new her right before her eyes.

"Monitor him, if he happens to wake up tell him to run a Hydration Diagnostic and alert me immediately."

Ikanbi made to leave, leaving her clone behind to sit idly next to Hito as Ikanbi made her way to the Kitchen.

[CDF]

Inside the sand coffin that was rocketing through the air with Ikanbe, Hito lay still. His breathing was steady but deep, reflecting the intense internal journey he was undergoing. The mental programs he had formed – 'goalThinker' and 'bodyMonitor' – continued to operate within the parameters he had set, but now they were being influenced by the external stimuli of Ikanbi’s jutsu.

'goalThinker' maintained its focus, reminding him of his mainobjective: to return to reality, be present and functional. It was a mantra that echoed through the quieter chambers of his mind, a lighthouse in the foggy seas of his subconscious. 'bodyMonitor', on the other hand became more active. It cataloged the sensations of the heaing process initiated by her jutsu, noting the subtle repairs being made to his body, or more accurately, the lack of damage that was there before. The slight irritation caused by the sand and acid mixture, the healing response it provoked, and the overall sensation of being protected and transported – all these were noted and analyzed, though not exactly understood nor communicated with the rest of Hito's self, as was its function.

In this cocoon of chakra and sand, a new mental construct began to form, almost organically – a synthesis of Hito's own internal mechanisms and the external healing forces at work. This new construct, which Hito instinctively named 'synthesisHealer', began to integrate the inputs from 'goalThinker' and 'bodyMonitor', while also evaluating the progress of Hito's own current mental recovery, thus creating a more cohesive understanding of his current state that would be better equipped to tell him once it was time to wake up.

As 'synthesisHealer' grew in prominence within his mind, Hito's dreamscape began to change. The infinite abyss of of blackness scattered with distant stars started to morph into a more coherent landscape. Vague forms and shapes emerged from the darkness, turning into discernible scenes and memories. These were not the disjointed, erratic flashes of before, but clearer, more focused recollections – moments of significance, decisions made, people met, and emotions felt. He saw the moment he first laid eyes on the doctor that brought him into this world, he remembered meeting his Dasu mentors for the first time, becoming chuunin, jounin, kage, lost. It was happening chronologically.

Amidst this dreamscape, a semblance of the conscious Hito started to take shape. It was like the fragments of his identity were being drawn together by the same chakra strings he'd once used to control puppets, forming a more complete picture of who he was. This emerging self-awareness was still fragile, still susceptible to the ebb and flow of his chaotic mind, but it was there – a real, tangible, unique cluster of self that wouldn't disentrage at the slightest prod.

Outside the dreamscape, in the physical world, the sand coffin continued its journey towards Sunagakure no Sato, safeguarded by Ikanbi's formidable power. Unseen by any, within the confines of the coffin, Hito's fingers twitched ever so slightly – a subtle indicator of the profound internal changes taking place.

The journey to Sunagakure was more than just a physical one for Hito; it was a journey back to himself, a path to reclaiming his identity and agency. And as the village drew nearer, so too did the prospect of Hito's reawakening to the world he had left behind.

As Ikanbe brought them down into a village and pulled Hito from his coccoon, his mental programs became even more excited as data flooded in. Things were far more pleasant feeling when he was enveloped by tightly hugging blackness, but his programs assuaded the subconscious anxiety that came from the change. They were safe, the body was healing, everything was ok.

Outside, the howling winds of the sandstorm created a haunting backdrop, but within the room, a different kind of storm was subsiding. The tumultuous sea of Hito's mind was gradually calming, the waves of confusion receding. The integration of his mental constructs had reached a critical point, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, Hito's eyes fluttered open.

For a moment, he simply lay there, his gaze unfocused, taking in the blurred outlines of the room. Was this possibly still his dreamscape? His mind, while clearer than it had been in years, still struggled to fully grasp the reality of his surroundings. Although they did seem spectacularly.... real. The presence of the acid sand clone, sitting silently beside him, registered in his consciousness like a distant echo, likely aided by how perfectly still it was.

With great effort, Hito turned his head to take in the rest of the room, his movements seeming as if he were moving through water. Finally he rotated it enough to spot the clone, it was a testament to his level of disconnection that he didn't flinch upon seeing the clone while in this state. He stared at it for a moment, thinking this person looked rather familiar.

His voice, when he finally spoke, was a raspy whisper, barely audible over the storm outside.

"Where... am I?" His words were slow, each one a monumental effort. A not yet fully functioning part of his mind told him that wasn't an important question. Maybe not normally, but for the completely disjointed and hazy Hito, it felt like crucial information to tether him here.

[Sia]

The original Ikanbi was in fact alerted to Hito's speech even if he wasn't necessarily entirely fully awake in the most correct sense of the term yet. Still, he was doing something, and the was certain that the stimulation provided from her acidic and sandy touch had done something to jostle a sensory healing sensation that had to have been beneficial in some sense, it couldn't possibly have not been, she had formulated the jutsu perfectly she had been sure of it.

Where were they? Truthfully that was a good question.

Ikanbi hadn't actually gathered the name of the particular town they were in, but she did know they were within Wind Country and not terribly that far off from Sunagakure in the grand scheme of things. It would be another day of travel with effort, two or more if she was a bit lazier about it.

Then again, there wasn't really any rush. Perhaps it would be better for Hito to recover and do things on his own without drawing so many eyes from the village. Sure, she could keep him safe on her own. She was confident there wasn't a singular threat that could enter Wind Country that she couldn't deal with.

His healing body couldn't possibly be in more capable hands in this country.

Yet, her skills with iijutsu were quite limited, she was more of a destroyer when it come to the chakra arts. Her skills in aiding and healing came more in the labor side of things than the intricate chakra work sorts of play for now. She gathered together her words and the clone finally spoke up.

"You are safe." Ikanbi's clone said to Hito.

She waited for a moment before adding. "Hydration Check." She said bluntly.

The real Ikanbi entered back into the room with a few small snacks and two water bottles, as well as a radio which she turned on and tuned to the local news station of Sunagakure. At the moment they were playing some rather peaceful music which gave a bit of a nice ring to the otherwise creeky and dreary sounds of the howling winds outside.

"There is a sandstorm outside so I have brought you to shelter for now." Ikanbi elaborated finally.

[CDF]

For the briefest of moments, Hito's mind was like that of an average person. It knew nothing of chakra and abilities and power, it only knew that it was confused and alone with a stranger. A stranger that was awake and watching him sleep, and a stranger that... has a duplicate?

The shock of the original Ikanbi walking into the room seemed to jostle a little of his memory awake, though not enough to send him spiraling. A voice within him whispered that it was wise to not jostle anything. Taking this rather literally, Hito's grip on his sheets tightened and his back stiffened like he wanted to ensure his balance.

Flashes of the journey he had taken were coming to him and he was trying to collect the droplets from the waterfall with a blastic bottle. Every second of it was exhausting, and the exhaustion itself felt like it could overtake him too. It was all particularly harder now that the small clicking that the radio first made upon activation was for some reason repeating endlessly in his left ear, though not in his right. He was grateful for the asymmetry, or he would have thought it was real.

Ikanbi

The memory flooded along with every instance he could recall of the shinobi in his youth. They never interacted, only knew each others existence, though likely only Hito had the ability to catalogue and pull up every single moment of crossed paths. But even his most recent memory of her would have been years ago... how long had he been unconscious anyways? She doesnt look much older but somehow... she feels much older.

He was staring at her quietly and now, suddenly, the skin on both of the Ikanbi's faces suddenly wrinkled grotesquely until they were unrecognizable, before just as suddenly returning to normal.

We're jostling too much, take it slow.

"Thank you... I'm very disoriented... You are Ikanbi, right?" His voice sounded so frail, vulnerable and foreign to him. A subsection of his mind was still hard at work scanning his status and seemed almost offended at the notion that his voice sounded weak and damaged, so Hito knew his vocal cords were fine, but yet he was practically whispering without choosing to. His cord were fine, but they were so weak. How long had it b- later.

He needed to know things, but asking big things got big reactions. What is happe- no, stop. Another question, an easier question.

"How did you find me?"

[Sia]

For a moment Ikanbi ignored him and smelled the incoming rain hard. She heard it as it began to fall then finally tightened her grip on him and caused the acid sand to cease caressing him nicely and instead just erode into him harshly. The Kuuton gloves that formed around his neck applied pressure from both sides as he lay there and she floated above and next to him a few feet off of the ground.

The acid sand spread and seeped into his cracks, crevices, it began to tear away at his flesh. It eroded and melted and began to burn away at his body indiscriminately as she repelled her own iijutsu chakra out of her body and left just the acid sand behind all over Hito. He would have to heal himself through iijutsu to die within the next few moments. She began to pour the acid sand onto his head, his eyes, into his nose, his mouth, his ears. She slathered it onto his stomach, his chest, his shoulders, his elbows, his wrists. She ate his fingers one at a time to be an asshole, beginning with the right hand pinky and then thumb, then the middle finger. Then she started eating the rest of him. Her body was made of acid sand, how would he possibly combat her? She wrapped her hands around his neck and kissed him on the cheek.

"You're mine now."

[CDF]

Something was suddenly very wrong. He felt it before he even spoke out to Ikanbi

Again, his world swirled and everything within him struggled to differentiate reality from illusion. Unlike before, however, a powerful and overwhelming sensation of what could only be described as self-preservation was rising. It presented like fear at first, but it was too clear... too certain. It was not just a wave of emotions and hormones reflexively reacting, it was an entire complex of emotions, thoughts, and decisions.

Something about the way Ikanbi's body moved, the way her face reacted or didn't react, the way nothing behaved as it should in the presence of a long-lost and suddenly re-found kazekage. Hito's actual mind couldn't understand, for this wasn't a logical thing that was about to happen. The stench of flaring mental illness was heavy in the air, in a way that only somebody who had just spent seemingly an eternity piecing his mind back together could understand.

Before Ikabi was even done turning from where she had previously set down the radio, Hito was channeling chakra and not even thinking clearly about why. The conscious, fully thinking part of him had given over control to the far more intelligent and prepared knowing within him. Ikanbi was not herself, her mental state, whatever it was like normally, was altered. Whatever was controlling her actions was clearly out of control and lashing out, unable to change something else and feeling the need to feel some sense of strength, significance, and control by doing this instead.

However, Hito was no charity or punching bag for the mentally ill. He wasn't sure yet why he was here, but everything within him knew that his purpose in life was not to satiate the mad desires of an unstable individual, much less one with a known history of being inconsiderate, reactive, and willing to toss the concept of loyalty and friendship for the smallest perceived sleights. Regardless of whether or not this was Ikanbi's normal mental state, it was clear Hito would not be able to make excuses or simply laugh this off. He had to defend himself and deal with this toxic piece of shit before it drained even more of his time and energy.

By the time Ikanbi spoke to completely reveal her intentions, Hito's tenketsu were already channeled with chakra and his strings were growing while another set of channeling began. His string barely erupted from his finger at first, rising just the tiniest micrometer so that the juts initiated but would be impossible for Ikanbi to notice since she hadn't performed any kind of sensory jutsu. Before the string had moved even a full centimeter, his body stance jutsu was channeled and ready.

He waited for the moment of maximum commitment from Ikanbi where she was applying focus and effort towards him when her body was closest and she was at her most confident. The two chaktra strings shot out from his fingertips, one from the middle finger of both hands. The one on his left hand, farthest from the clone, shot out seemingly towards nothing on his right while the left middle finger's string shot out in the general direction of Ikanbi's real body, but interestingly not directly at it.

Nearly simultaneously, Hito's chakra-channeled body would suddenly switch places with the desk where Ikanbi had put down the radio. Upon swapping, the chakra strings that were already moving at 50 speed would now continue doing so but from a completely different origin, right behind Ikanbi's main body and in between her and the clone.

Because the strings were already extended before the swap and he appeared right behind her, ikanbi would have less than a millisecond to dodge the first string that was aiming for her the very center of her back where she was least able to reach or react to. Even if she were capable of moving as fast as Hito's strings, she'd get caught because she'd need to move FASTER to compensate for the fact the strings were already growing and Hito's sudden appearance behind her.

Meanwhile, his second string would be shooting out towards the clone which would have more time to react, but not by much.

If successful in connecting with Ikanbi, Hito would cause her body to completely freeze. His face was frozen with apathy and watching both carefully, his voice was oddly firm and robotic and it was almost like a different figure was there than the one from a split second ago.

" Ikanbi, Liivuduntiz. What are you doing? Are you so determined to fulfill the fate of your bizarre and pathetically horrible name? Is it that your parents weren't just foolish people with no creativity, but were actually oracles that foresaw you were destined to a life of illogical actions? Explain yourself."

jutsuShow

*[Puppetry Style • Advanced Puppetry Technique]
B-Rank Ninjutsu
Prerequisite: *[Puppetry Style • Initiate Puppetry Technique]
Master Puppetry is a Ninjutsu technique used by puppeteers. By releasing chakra from their tenketsu, the puppeteer is able to release chakra strings from their finger. These strings are able to move 40 meters away. This jutsu allows the puppeteer to attach their chakra strings to humans or animals arms and legs at [Control] Speed, using every part of the puppet to its max potential. In order to break out from this technique, the target must be willing to break out and at least [Control] strength to resist the strings. While being controlled, the target is unable to move on their own and the puppeteer can move their arms and legs in any natural way.

*[Basic Jutsu • Change of Body Stance Technique]
D-Ranked Ninjutsu
After completing the necessary handseals, the user is able to quickly substitute his/her body with a nearby object that is at least 2/3rds his/her size, but no bigger than their body. This substitution allows the object to take the force of the attack that was meant for the user, additionally allowing the user to create distance between him/her and the opponent. The object used in this jutsu may not be objects that are imbued with chakra or controlled by it unless it is the users own, and they may also only be single, solid objects within a 10 meter radius of the user. This technique may only be used a total of one time in a single thread, give or take how many times Shunshin no Jutsu has already been used.

[Sia]

Though his body shifted and channeled chakra, he was fast, but not faster than Ikanbi. The acid sand left behind was just so nearby and Ikanbi floated upwards from the bedside and followed it towards him giggling maniacally as she shot forth a clone finally after a great struggle herself, equally shifting her chakra as Hito did to trade places just the same, she kept the pressure up and her lips met his cheek again as her right hand caressed his right hand.

"Hello there, I can do that jutsu too."

She wasted no time and continued to slather minute amounts of acid upon him, her body merely darting about so quickly and vertically that it was hard really to tell where real Ikanbi began and ended, the acid sand spreading apart and mixing about the room as it flooded with hot pink sand. "Oh no, whatever will I do?" She teased Hito as she intertwined her fingers between his, overarching hers over the back of his and pulling him closer towards her. "Wake up deary, no time like the present."

She summoned an acid sand meteor as the kuuton of the technique immediately pulled the walls apart and away from the both of them. "What ever will you do about that, dear Hito? Noone here even knows who I am, I can change appearances in an instant...play the hero or something."

The acid sand meteor empowered with kuuton continued to suck everything up as Ikanbi guided Hito's hand upwards. She could emit puppet strings just as well, it was nothing but a troublesome task. It felt like only last week she had been training it with those other mercenaries that wore the SOF robe as she did now, concealing her identity with the aid of her Iron Country Hat. Besides, she could read the minds of everyone around them, she knew what they were thinking. It was no trouble at all.

She attempted to bite his fingers yet again, starting with the right pointing finger.

[CDF]

OOC: Challenged the post in discord suna channel, but regardless if you respond to it, i'll go ahead and make this post. Since this has been a thread where we've been doing things without listing jutsu anyways and it's just a do whatever the fuck we want thread:

---

Before Ikanbi could even react or do anything further, Hito flooded his body with Jikukan and teleported himself back to his personal realm. He had just been attacked by a jounin of Sunagakure. Granted he had never known Ikanbi well, only stories and vague memories from being the same age at the ninja academy.

This was... a lot. He didn't even realize he was still capable of teleporting back to his personal realm, a space he wasn't exactly itching to return to. It seems his preservation instincts surpassed his hesitation, and now it was time for him to return to his home village to decide his next steps. There was much he had to figure out, especially in terms of his own sanity, but now he had to speed it up so that he could inform the village one of their jounin had just attempted to assassinate their former Kazekage

[Sia]

After a moment long of staring into the oracle engine Ikanbi turned away from it back to the bedside where Hito lay sleeping when he had finally spoken up. "Ah, so he would just run away like a coward too, of course, just like me." Ikanbi said into the oracle engine as she gazed at Hito's body next to her. He had woken up now, and was curious as to what was going on it seemed. The future Ikanbi had seen in the oracle engine was of course never set in stone, that was the point of using it after all. The future could always be rewritten.

"Yes, I am Ikanbi." She said to Hito as he lay there next to here in real time, rather than in the vision of the oracle engine. "Some wind countrymen found you supposedly with a caravan. Or something of that nature. I bumped into them and put you into stasis for a bit while you regained....yourself. You should drink some water, I'm sure you're dying of thirst."

A pair of gloves materialized off of Ikanbi's own pair of gloves and they waltzed across the room, grabbing from the shelf a jug and shooting off into the other room only to momentarily return with a glass of water and a glass of red wine. Ikanbi drank the wine, she used Kuuton to encourage the water gently into Hito's mouth. No wasn't particularly an answer. "Actually you should try the wine too I bet it opens your sinuses." She said with a cheeky grin.