Interlude (Omake?): Chosen for the Grave, Part 3
Part 1,
Part 2
'Clean them up,' the Third said. 'Don't hurt them', he said.
Cat and Bull had a somewhat different understanding of words than I did. They grabbed our packs, put all three of us in nasty submission locks, and frogmarched us down the hall to a room with a long table surrounded by chairs. They gently suggested that we take a seat, by which I mean they slammed us down into the chairs. Cat grabbed our packs and vanished for a few minutes. When she came back there was no sign of the packs but she had a trio of towels and some dry clothes which she threw at us.
I picked up one set of the clothes and a towel, then looked at Cat. Then at Bull. Then back at Cat.
"You're not going to give us privacy to change, are you?"
Slow shake of masked head.
"Not even going to turn away, I suppose?"
Slightly amused tilt.
I sighed and stripped to the waist, toweling off and pulling on a dry shirt before dropping trou and swiping the water off my legs. I refused to acknowledge that I was uncomfortable being stared at in my boxers, although for a moment I caught myself wishing that the desires of my heart had been more along the lines of rock-hard abs, two percent body fat, and perfect teeth. I pushed those thoughts away and focused on getting dry and changed without actually losing the last traces of my modesty. I refused to look at Val or Oli who were doing the same as I was.
Five minutes later we were seated again, mostly dry, and clad in black linen pants and shirts. The clothes were all too small for us so our arms and legs stuck out like kids playing dressup in Dad's clothes.
"So—" Oli began.
"No talking."
Oli opened his mouth to say something but Bull shifted his weight in an absolutely terrifying manner that made all three of us decide that this was a good time to be thinking about our life choices as opposed to attempting to strike up conversations with masked killers who seemed a bit cranky with us.
One thing that had caught my attention: The dye on our clothes wasn't evenly applied so there were darker and lighter patches. The low technology level of the Chosen for the Grave world and its implications for imperfect dye-fixing was a detail that we'd never written into the quest, which had me a little nervous. What exactly were we dealing with here? Had Phil-the-wish-demon created this world when he sent us here? Had we dreamed it into existence when we started writing the quest? Had we been somehow writing down events that were happening in a pre-existing world? Heinlein had had the concept of 'fictons', parallel worlds that came into existence every time an author wrote a story. Perhaps he was right? If so, how much of our knowledge would be accurate?
My musings were interrupted by the tiny Asian Superman (a.k.a. 'Third Hokage', 'God of Ninja', etc etc etc) walking through the door bearing a large tray piled high with food, a pot of tea, and four cups.
"Good afternoon," he said, smiling in a grandfatherly way that made the whole room seem warm and comfortable. "I apologize for keeping you waiting. I hope Cat and Bull have made you comfortable?"
"Absolutely. / Yep. / Yes." None of us were stupid enough to answer that one honestly.
The charmingly grandfatherly assassin set the tray down and fussed over us for a minute, passing out small plates loaded with noshies and pouring us each a cup of tea. Once all that was done and the four of us were comfortably settled he looked over his shoulder and waved his two glowering gargoyles out of the room.
"Go on," he said. "I'll be fine. No need for you to loom there."
"But, Lord Hokage..." Bull said nervously. "These strangers knew Suijin-Heki Suiton and claim to know the Edo Tensei. Who knows what else they might be capable of?"
"I'll be fine," the Hokage repeated. "Go on, wait outside."
"Yes, Lord Hokage." The two trooped out, shooting a promissory note of a glare at me, Val, and Oli as they went.
"So," the Hokage said, sipping his tea and then looking at us over the rim. "What shall we talk about?"
"Well, first thing is that we can be very useful and you shouldn't kill us," Oli said.
The Hokage looked surprised at that. "Why would you think I was going to kill you?" he asked. "You broke into my office through some sort of space-time technique that neither I nor any of my ninjutsu experts have heard of, and you initiated an unprovoked and degrading attack on my person. Still, you had some very interesting things to say and I'm sure there's more to discuss. We could start with your names and how you got into my office."
"Um," said Oli. I echoed him silently. Oli, Val, and I all exchanged glances.
"I'm Valerian, these are Oli and Earl. If you don't mind, I have a few questions to help us get oriented," Val said cautiously.
The Hokage raised an eyebrow. "Go on."
"How long ago did the Nine-Tails attack, exactly? Twelve years, or thirteen?"
"Thirteen," the Third said. "Why?"
Val nodded thoughtfully to himself. My instincts were screaming at me to not let the silence linger, but I shut up and let him take point.
"Is Shimura Danzō still alive?" Val asked.
The Third looked sad. "He is not. My old friend was killed by chakra beasts. They broke through his fences in the night and killed him in his home."
"I see." Val paused a moment, thinking about his next question. "Has Jiraiya brought in a group of missing-nin by any chance? Their leader is Inoue Mari and the kids are Kurosawa Hazō, Wakahisa Noburi, and Mori Keiko. They're all from Mist."
"Why do you ask?"
We three outworlders exchanged nervous glances.
"This is going to sound strange, sir," I began. "This world isn't the only one that exists. There's an infinite number of them, side by side but separated like pages of a book. They vary, sometimes in small ways and sometimes in large ways. Occasionally information leaks from one world into another and influences the subconscious of the people there. This often happens to authors, painters, and other artists—they start working on a project, not realizing that what they are 'creating' is actually just a subconscious understanding of events in another world." I hesitated. "At least, I think that's how it works. It might just be that there's so many worlds, each one varying very slightly, that they cover every possible permutation of action. If that's the case then anything you write
must have happened on some world somewhere. Anyway, the three of us are from another world. For the last two years we've been writing this story called 'Chosen for the Grave' and as far as we can tell it's a very close approximation of your world. Because of that we have a lot of outside-context knowledge, including secrets that could be useful to Leaf."
The Hokage sipped his tea thoughtfully for a moment while he studied me. I was sweating and trying to meet his gaze without flinching. I essayed a smile and then thought that perhaps baring my teeth wasn't a good plan. I closed my lips but the resulting contortion of facial muscles felt less 'reassuringly friendly' and more 'the Joker', so I stopped doing it.
"You are not being truthful," the Hokage said.
"What? I was!"
"No, you were not. You told no untruths but you chose your words too carefully. What are you hiding?"
I winced. This is what I got for speaking up. "Well...everything I said is true about parallel worlds—at least, based on everything I know. And the 'information leakage' and 'million monkeys writing Shakespeare' versions are entirely possible. There is one more possibility, though."
"You believe that you are divine beings who created my world in the process of writing your story. That you created
me in the process of writing your story."
"We're definitely not divine beings," Oli said. "And no matter what, we didn't create you. Chosen for the Grave was a fanfiction of someone else's work, a story entitled 'Naruto' about, well, Naruto, and his growing up. If you actually were created by an author it would have been him, Kishimoto. Oh, and I only started being on the author's side a little under a year ago. Before that I was just a reader."
The Hokage folded his hands and studied us. We tried to look non-threatening and non-crazy.
"All right," he said at last. "Suppose for a moment that I believe you. Tell me some of this otherworldly knowledge that you claim to have."
Oli and I both turned immediately to Val, the expert on canon. He looked a bit grumpy about being put on the hot seat, but he took up the challenge gamely enough.
"Like Oli said, the original story is named 'Naruto' and we were writing a derivative of it called 'Chosen for the Grave'. There's a lot of difference between CFG and Naruto, though—the original story was a mess of plot holes and contradictions, so we cleaned up a lot of things when we started writing. What we can tell you depends a lot on whether this world more closely matches the original Naruto story or our CFG story."
"Phil said he was sending us to 'our quest'," Oli pointed out.
Val nodded. "Should be easy enough to tell. If Leaf has something like fifteen hundred ninja then we're in CFG. If it has something like ten or twelve thousand then we're in Naruto."
"Who is 'Phil'?" the Hokage asked.
"Otherworldly demon who sent us here," I said. "We don't know anything about him except that he's big, scaly, and covers himself in constant darkness. Oh, and that he can open portals like the one we stepped through. He literally threw us through one into this little tiny room between worlds. We came through the portal there and into your office."
"Given that the being who sent you here said that it—"
"He," I interrupted, shuddering at the memory and wishing desperately for a gallon of brain bleach. "Very much a 'he'." I suddenly realized whom I had just interrupted and went pale. "Excuse me, sir, that was thoughtless."
"Hm." The Third eyed me for a moment, then decided to let it go. "Very well, let's assume that this...Phil, knew where he was sending you. Tell me something useful."
"What's the date today, sir?" Val said. "It'll help us know where to start. Oh, and was there recently a diplomatic incident in Hot Springs?"
"April 9," the Hokage said patiently. "And yes, there was. What do you know about it?"
Val nodded, thinking. A moment later his eyes went wide in a way that I found very disturbing. "Today's the day they go in the killbox," he said.
"Oh crap / Yurgh," Oli and I grunted.
Val's eyes came back into focus and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and meeting the Hokage's eyes intently. "May 25 of last year a strike group of ninja—genin, chūnin, and jōnin—was sent out from Mist to launch a military strike in Noodle. Partway there a jōnin named Shikigami"—Val shot me a dirty look and I shrugged apologetically—"pretended to find documents in the commander's tent saying that this was a suicide mission. He used that to convince some of the ninja to defect with him. They went to the Swamp of Death in northwestern Fire and tried to establish the Village Hidden in the Swamp. They were going to get set up and then reach out to you, ask to become a client state of Fire and serve as a buffer between you and the neighboring polities, much like River is a buffer between you and Wind. They were noticed on the way in and tracked by a Leaf patrol. They managed to stay ahead because one of the Mist chūnin had a hawk that he was able to use for long-range scouting.
"They were there for about a month and then Inoue Mari, a red-headed jōnin infiltration specialist, heard that Jiraiya had been sniffing around the area. She defected from Swamp and convinced three genin to go with her—the genin that I think are in your explosive cell right now. Sir, it's really important that you not execute them."
The Hokage's poker face was unsurprisingly perfect. "If I had missing-nin in my cells I cannot see why I should hold my hand. Especially if, as you say, they are missing-nin twice over."
"They're going to invent something that will be enormously to Leaf's advantage, and they'll sell it to you in exchange for citizenship," Val said quickly.
The Hokage snorted. "I have difficulty imagining what could possibly be valuable enough that we would accept traitors within our walls."
"Seals that let you walk on air," I said quickly. "Hazō will invent them. After they leave Swamp they go to Iron, where they meet a man named Kagome Yū. Kagome is paranoid and delusional, but he's also a good sealmaster. The team manages to win his trust and Hazō starts to learn sealing from him. Then—" I broke off, frowning as I tried to remember the sequence of events.
"Jiraiya showed up, disguised as 'Yuijin'," Val reminded me. Fortunately for all of us, Val's player hadn't bought the 'forgetful' disadvantage the way mine had. "He convinced them to go investigate the 'Liberator' and his group, up in northern Iron. The team successfully inserted themselves but then had to run almost immediately because someone recognized Inoue and she accidentally killed him."
"Clumsy, for an infilitration specialist."
I blushed. "That part kinda wrote itself," I admitted. "It made sense with her backstory."
He grunted and gestured for us to go on. He produced a pipe from inside his robe and fussed over it, reducing some of the pressure in the room yet leaving me no doubt that he was still following every word.
"Anyway, while they were there they overheard a reference to the 'Brotherhood of the Sacred Immortal Eight-Headed Serpent'," I said. "They're a group organized by Orochimaru in order to train warriors for the army he's building. Anyway, after they bolted, the team met up with Jiraiya again and briefed him. He recognized the name as being a reference to Orochimaru, although he didn't have enough context to know what they actually are. Regardless, he liked the team's work enough that he offered them open-ended rewards. Hazō learned Earth Clone and Multiple Earth Wall, Noburi got medic-nin training, Inoue got her brains banged out and also had Jiraiya muddy their trail to keep hunter-nin off of them."
The Hokage snorted. "I doubt she needed to use her reward to get Jiraiya into bed."
"So you have seen her!" Oli said.
The Hokage raised an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?"
"Um...well, it sounded like you knew that she was really attractive? How would you have known that if you hadn't met her? Um, sir?"
The Hokage took a deep pull on his pipe, held it for a moment, and then blew a perfect smoke ring. The entire time his eyes held Oli transfixed.
"I have an intelligence network," the Hokage said calmly. "Having pictures and background briefs on every jōnin in the Elemental Nations is something of a priority for us. I am familiar with Inoue Mari."
"Oh."
The Hokage eyed him a moment longer and then turned back to Val. "Continue."
"For her reward, Keiko asked Jiraiya for advice on what she should study in order to become stronger. He gave her a lead towards a summoning scroll down in Tea. The team retrieved it, and—"
The Hokage held up a hand. "'They retrieved it'? Nothing more? Surely it was not just lying around unprotected?"
I hesitated for a moment before deciding that anything less than complete honesty would be a very bad plan. "There's a lost ninja village in the middle-ish of Tea. They call themselves 'Isan' and they had been guarding the Pangolin Scroll for four hundred years."
"And yet this team of genin and a single jōnin was able to make off with it?"
"It wasn't like that," Oli said. "We—they—spent months there, politicking and all kinds of stuff. It turned out that the village couldn't actually use the scroll because it was locked shut with a seal. Kagome managed to unlock it and Keiko signed it before anyone could stop her."
"In the end, Keiko got the scroll and became the Summoner," Val said. "The team escaped from there and holed up. Keiko had the Pangolin send a message to the Toad Clan to give to Jiraiya, reporting that they had retrieved the scroll and would like to meet again. In the meantime they took what they thought would be an easy mission to make some money and get some practice at stealth and infiltration. That was Hot Springs. They made some bad choices and ended up starting a fight with Jōtarō, a jōnin that they didn't realize worked for Jiraiya. Jōtarō called for backup from an Earth-country jōnin named Komori. The team defended themselves, killing Jōtarō and fleeing from Komori. They were nearly captured by teams of ninja from Hot Springs and Leaf but they managed to escape. Some time later, Jiraiya contacted them through the Pangolins and told them to meet him in Rice at the Three Pines Inn in Amanoshi."
How in the hell Val could remember these details was beyond me. I had recalled 'Three Pines Inn' but I couldn't have produced the name of the town with a gun to my head.
"At the inn," Val continued, oblivious to my musings, "Jiraiya interviewed them. He had Agent Black and Agent White with him. Agent Black was a Yamanaka and Agent White was a Hyūga. We never made up specific names for them, though."
"Convenient," the Hokage observed.
I shrugged. "There's only so much time in the day, sir. I'm sure you know that. When you're writing on a deadline you don't spend time on things you don't have to. We have a lot of different threads that we're juggling—speaking of which, we really need to brief you on the source of chakra beasts and the upcoming climate shift, but let's hold on that for a moment because we're just about caught up.
"Jiraiya told the team that they had just pooched an important operation for him and now they needed to make it right. Jōtarō had been extracting two of Jiraiya's agents, a mother and her son. The son had tattoos on his back that were a ciphered message containing the details of where and when Arikada Sugako could be found. It was Leaf Cipher Violet Eighteen, if that helps, sir." That was one of the random bits of worldbuilding that I'd been amused by: we'd spent a fair amount of time on the Leaf intelligence service so that we could model what information Leaf might plausibly be able to gain about the goings-on that we had planned for the world. We'd created an elaborate series of terminology around what codes and ciphers they had, even going so far as to work out the details of a few of them.
The Hokage's wrinkled face gave nothing away. "And, of course, the team managed to extract the information?"
"No, sir," I said. "About a third of it, just enough to have the date and location but not any of the details about Arikada's guards or so on. Anyway, Jiraiya told them that if they wanted to get back into his good graces they would need to bring Arikada in, dead or alive. They did, but in the process Akane—that's Ishihara Akane, they picked her up in the Liberator village. Akane got wounded, catching a chakra-enhanced worm to the belly. The team ran back to Leaf as fast as possible where she was put in the hospital. The team was allowed to stay in Leaf for a while with Team Asuma acting as their bodyguards and escorts. Hazō and Yamanaka Ino had a bit of a flirtation, Hazō caused a ruckus in the library with your son and let slip some information about the Iron Nerve, and they sold you the secret of skytowers. Am I right so far?"
"You certainly spin an interesting tale," the Hokage said, blowing a smoke ring with an air of perfect calm. "Please, continue."
"Uh, well...like we said before, it depends where we are in the timeline. On April 9, Hazō and Mari went to talk to Jiraiya about how Kabuto was dangerous and manipulative. Jiraiya blew them off and Hazō said 'Akane is a member of our team and we would go pretty damn far to protect her'. Jiraiya called the ANBU and had the whole team thrown in one of the explosive-lined cells under ANBU headquarters. Kagome had two sausage wrappers full of explosive seals in his stomach with strings anchored behind his teeth that he could use to bring the bladders back up. The Hyūga guards spotted that and took them away."
I paused to study him, hoping that I would get some kind of indication of whether or not I was hitting the target. Absolutely nothing came back.
"Sir, Hazō is important," Oli said. "Chosen for the Grave isn't just a book, it's a quest. There are people from all over our world reading it and after each chapter they vote on what he should do. They've been pushing him towards making the Elemental Nations better since day one. They've also been pushing him towards discovering all the science of our world."
"So, the people in your world can actually control him? You are saying that our world is just a fiction after all." The corners of the old man's mouth turned down and the world became grey and joyless.
"No!" Oli yelped. "I mean, maybe? It doesn't have to be. It could just be that all the possibilities play out somewhere, so there's millions of worlds that look just like Chosen for the Grave because everyone happened to do the things that we wrote about, right up until the point where someone did something different. Your world would be one of those and the only question is if it's diverged yet."
"I think the more important question," said the Hokage gravely, "is what will happen to my world now that the three of you are no longer in your own world writing about it."
That shut us all up.
He studied us for a moment, then stood up. "Please, enjoy the food and the tea," he said politely. "I need to go tell Jiraiya not to kill your team."
