Yeah big red flagg this one just raised. Other than that a nice chapter this was
Psychoprotective (Youjo Senki/Psychonauts)
- Thread starter Requiem_Jeer
- Start date
Requiem_Jeer
The Most High
As I said, I don't like how the epilogues turned out. I was aiming for bittersweet, don't think I managed enough sweet. I've been splitting my attention between too many stories, it's made me lose my grasp on things like thematic consistency.
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- Location
- new york
I can picture this moment perfectly crystal clear and I am laughing because I've seen dogs fall asleep mid jump.
- Location
- Salem Oregon US
Perhaps you should put it on hold then and come back to it later to rework it if you don't like how it turned out? There's no deadline on it after all and I doubt anyone would be upset at waiting for something that you feel would be better.
Epilogue 1
Requiem_Jeer
The Most High
[1990, Age 26]
Tanya laughed as power surged through her body, her killing intent sharpened into foot-long blades at the ends of her fingers.
Razputin's psychic fists swung and battered her shields, but while they were strong… it wasn't strong enough. He lacked conviction. The psychic projections that he used as weapons separated from his body for extra leverage, hoping to finally shatter her defenses instead of just weathering them.
He was too slow. Tanya's blades chopped at Razputin's wrists, now vulnerable as his own shield became thinner to accommodate his heavy strike. They separated, and the fresh-faced psychonaut screamed in pain. "Die!" Tanya shouted, gathering enough intent to massacre a battalion in an instant and unleashing it on the young man's shields. With his defenses worn away, her hand snaked underneath his ribcage and scooped out his heart, which Tanya presented to his horrified expression with a savage grin.
She laughed before the world shattered around her.
Tanya rubbed her temples as Razputin fell backwards, disoriented by his ejection from her mind. Calm down, the fight's over, enemy neutralized… "Are you satisfied, Razputin?" Tanya asked, making her annoyance apparent.
"There there, Tanya." Mom said, pulling Tanya's head back and settling it in her lap. "Relax, I'm here, everything's safe." What tension remained in Tanya's body melted away as Mom gently stroked her hair.
"I guess…" Razputin said, clearly disappointed in his performance. "I didn't think you'd be that much better when doing the Maligula thing."
Razputin had grown up quite a bit in the years between his introduction to the Psychonauts and his formal induction a few weeks ago. Ironically, despite his acrobatic upbringing, he had grown to be significantly larger than his father, developing more of a strongman physique. He always liked dressing up like comic book superheroes during the true psychic tales conventions, for that reason.
"Power is something that is easy to emulate." Tanya said slowly, taking deep calming breaths. Despite her relaxation, the adrenaline from invoking the Argent had yet to be fully purged from her system. "But when you fought Lucy, she didn't want to hurt you. That lack of intent made her attacks weaker, slower. Still powerful, but much easier to manage." She gestured in the direction of the motor pool. "Even when I had the psitanium reserves from Ambition at my fingertips, I lacked the intent to hurt you. I could have faked it, certainly. Doing so provides excellent results in a hurry… but I didn't see the need. I'm trying to not be the kind of person who does that." Razputin had plenty of time to learn the slow way. At least, that was what she told herself, when comparing the training she gave Razputin to her training of the 203rd.
"But when Tanya had unleashed herself at your request, she was attempting to kill you." Dad said gravely. "I hope that you can understand the magnitude of that difference now."
"Yeah, I sure do." Razputin said, looking down at his hand while flexing it to assure himself that it was still attached. "When can I try again?"
"No more than once a year." Tanya insisted, "We can do it for your birthday next year." It wasn't too far off from his seventeenth birthday as it was, even if this wasn't designated as his gift for that.
"Got it." Razputin said, his deep voice actually fitting the drama of his words.
Taking one last deep breath, Tanya judged that the Argent was fully quiescent once more. Standing up, she dusted off her casual cargo pants and looked back at the meathead psychic. "I believe the wager was a nice dinner?" She asked, smirking.
"Yeah, yeah." Razputin replied, standing up himself. "You know what I could go for? Some salad." He nodded to himself. "I don't even want to think about meat right now. Worse than Coach Oleander's mind…"
Tanya opened her mouth to correct him on the title, but then closed it. Actually, Marceau would probably prefer being referred to as 'Coach' from his former campers. "I didn't think it was fair to Dad to give you a more sanitized environment for the battle than he had to deal with." She said instead. "Ruins and carnage is to be expected, if you were to combat a similarly powerful being within the mind of a madman."
Razputin just grumbled, clearly disagreeing with her statement but without wanting to get into it. "Right, I know a buffet that's got a really good salad bar, so let's go there."
That wasn't quite Tanya's definition of a 'nice' dinner, but she just nodded and started following the psychic to his beat up pickup truck, as she knew that was just her non-American origins talking.
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[1992, Age 28]
Barcelona was a lovely city.
By now, Tanya was quite used to standing in front of a crowd of reporters, announcing some new development from her company or as a Psychonauts spokesperson.
Admittedly, the crowd of reporters was much larger for the Olympics. But in concept, it wasn't anything new. "To introduce myself to a wider audience, my name is Tanya, and I am employed by the Psychonauts organization." As was standard for the Olympics, she was speaking in French for the announcement. "Now, there has been much debate over the legality of psychic powers used in the Olympics. In summary, it is currently banned, but there are plenty of allegations of people using them subtly to cheat, with a few being proven to have cheated and others being cleared, and an even smaller number being initially cleared, but later proven to have cheated, which casts doubt on the whole process." She then repeated herself in both English and Spanish, which was more to show off her language skills than because of actual necessity. She didn't really speak Spanish, but she picked up a nugget of wisdom from another Psychonaut on the language specifically for this. Her knowledge of Portuguese helped immensely in incorporating the knowledge, but the native speakers could probably tell from her accent that she learned it from a Cuban.
Tanya rolled up her T-shirt's sleeve and flexed, showing off her own muscles. Her telekinetic resistance workouts, which nowadays was just an excuse to block off time for dancing, just weren't intense enough to make her substantially muscular, but the shape of her biceps notably changed when she exerted them, so it was enough to take some pride in her appearance. "Personally, I don't know which side to support. But a detachment of Psychonauts, ones skilled at the subtle exertion of psychic powers, have been deployed here to demonstrate how events will change if psychic powers were to be fully allowed." She again repeated herself in English and Spanish. "Questions?" She asked in all three languages.
A beautiful woman started speaking in Spanish after Tanya pointed to her. "Maria Gomez, EFE." Biggest news organization in Spain. "So you will be participating in the events, but cheating?"
"Correct." Tanya said in Spanish. "Claims have been made by those on the side of unbanning psychic powers, as a natural capability of humanity, that the impact would not be that large. This statement, at least, is bluntly wrong. Today and over the rest of the Olympics, my cohort will be participating in many events to show what psychics can do if allowed to use their gifts freely."
"Walter Beckett, BBC." Said the next reporter in English, introducing himself. "What went into deciding who participates in which event?"
"It was agreed that I was the best, so I got first dibs." Tanya said, "Then after my dance card was full, the others picked from what was left."
A few more questions in various languages passed, until one that Tanya didn't expect to hear came up. "Dick Ebersol, NBC. Why are you the one participating? What's in this for you?"
Tanya blinked. "It's not anything hard to understand." Tanya said, confused but deciding to just be honest. "If we win, we were promised genuine Olympic Gold Medals, even if the non-psychic winner gets one too. This is the only time in history a psychic like myself would have a chance to win them, and winning a gold medal at the Olympics…" Tanya stared off into the distance, reminiscing. "Let's just say it's a dream I thought was long dead."
Seventeen swimming golds. Ten weightlifting golds. One for tennis. Seven for shooting, three for firearms, four for archery. Four for jumping. Four for throwing. Plus fourteen more for various individual events that she fit in to fill her schedule. It was a bit regretful that there wasn't a kendo event, but fencing served as an adequate substitute.
After the domination of the games by her and the other Psychonauts, it was agreed that Psychics simply could not be competed against fairly by non-psychics, even in a physical competition. This solidified the ban on Psychics in the Olympics, but did trigger the creation of the PSIlympics, which was certainly a compromise that Tanya could get behind.
She bought a very nice display case for all of her medals. Looking at it always puts a smile on her face, to see all that gold. Not a single speck of silver to be seen.
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[1998, Age 34]
Tanya stretched as she looked over her new desk. The Psychonauts had been good to her… but she was done with them. Had been for a while, really, but it was difficult to move on and give up on all of that fame and those laboratory resources.
In the end, it was a cluster of changes that provided her the push to move on. Visha's passing at the ripe old age of 16 (that's 112 in dog years, after all), the promotions of her parents to administrative positions instead of field work, Eric going into high school and starting to bring girls home, the casanova… Mary's move-out and having kids of her own…
It was time to leave Mystery, focus more on her own company. Over a decade of developing human resources, recruiting more engineers, the refinement of the technology, and the pouring in of military-industrial complex money…
The company needed to diversify, move on to commercial applications. The science was ready. After years of work, she had finally cracked the barrier between the artificial thought of electronic minds and the signals of true thought, with the psitanium/gold microchip. With this technology, a psychic signal can be converted to an electronic one, and vice-versa.
The headquarters controlled the most important part of her new company: the software. When they were just serving the United States military and her allies, the number of simulation units outstanding at any one time was around five thousand, easily handled by a single artisanal workshop staffed to the appropriate scales.
Now, with the power of automation, they had actual factories coming online. Tanya expected to be operating at a loss for some time as the market demand caught up with what she was offering, but she had plenty of capital to sustain things for the time being, as their original business was still providing vital income to keep things running. The military was very interested in the more advanced models that can be controlled from a console instead of requiring a psychic operator, and once they managed to work out the bugs of networking the things into a shared psychic enviroment… That's when they can use it for infantry, not just training on vehicles. Big potential contract there.
"Miss Dovsa, your eleven o'clock is here." came the pleasant mental voice of her secretary. Mrs. Fairwell was her secretary back when she got that promotion to technical administrator at the Motherlobe, and she had followed Tanya to her new company, properly incentivized with a generous pay package.
"Send him in." Tanya sent back, sipping her coffee. It had taken years, but she finally had found someone who could match her old adjutant's coffee making skills. Or her memory of the coffee had decayed enough that she couldn't tell the difference.
A brain ball rolled into her office. "Hello, Tanya! It's nice to see you again." Otto's cheery voice came from the speakers. His 'meat body' as he liked to put it, had expired the year before, accumulated enough health problems that the man had taken the plunge and transitioned to a brain ball full time. He was the oldest of the Psychic Seven, after all.
"Likewise." Tanya said, smiling back. "Now, you mentioned a business proposal in your email?"
"Well, I mostly just wanted to see you in person again." Otto admitted, "I haven't seen you since I retired the old meatsuit."
"Have you undergone maintenance today, by the way?" Tanya asked, reaching down into her minifridge. "I have some nutrient fluid here." There were two people with brain balls in her workforce, so because they had an in-office cafeteria (a nice one, in her opinion) they needed to have some on hand to remain ADA compliant. It wasn't a large burden.
'I'm fine, thank you." Otto said pleasantly. "Now, I know you've been working on psitanium-integrated robots offhandedly. I want to work with your company and design a full android body for myself."
Tanya huffed in amusement. "Life as a brain ball is more inconvenient than you thought?" She asked.
"Much more." Otto replied, "I tried to make my own, but… it was harder than I thought it would be. All those fiddly joints, and balance is a nightmare. I could only manage to make a glorified set of extra arms for my brain ball, they use up too much psychic energy." A sighing noise came from his speakers. "I need your help."
Ah, he kept failing at the mechanical side of things. Making a floating shell is easy enough, that's what the brain ball is after all, but it's wasteful, inefficient. Something that can support its own weight and can stay in place without consuming large amounts of energy would be much better.
Fortunately, she had been working on this problem for a while. "I'd be happy to help." Tanya said, "We'll need a contract, of course. But your insight into the nature of psitanium and the practical engineering behind the brain ball will be invaluable to our work." Specifically, the parts of the brain ball that assisted in suppressing dysphoria, one of the more recent developments to come out of Otto's work. Better integration with the proprioception of the user would vastly accelerate the acclimation timetables.
"I mean, the reason I kept the brain ball so small was because your brain alone produces so much less psychic energy than it does when it has a body supporting it, so I had to keep it light." Otto admitted, "But I'm ready to work at a deficit, supplement with psitanium sand, if it means I don't have to sleep for fourteen hours a day."
Tanya frowned. "Is it really that bad?" She asked, "I know you're pioneering the life extension applications of the technology, but according to the models…"
"I know what the models said, I made them." Otto said, the lights on his brain ball flashing red. "But the amount of energy my brain's producing over time is dropping faster than the models predicted. If supplementing it with psitanium support to reduce the psychic strain doesn't slow it down, I'm going to end up worn down to nothing in less than twenty years."
Tanya hummed, nodding to herself. "Well, I plan on following your footsteps, so ensuring that every avenue is investigated is in my best interests."
While she was in good enough shape that she hasn't truly felt the ravages of age, much like in her first life (which she finally outlived!), that will eventually change.
Still, she took out her personal Psychoportal. "Shall we move this meeting to a face to face to start drafting the terms?" She asked.
"Excellent."
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[February 22, 2013. Age 48]
Tanya walked into the train station wearing a funeral kimono. She had debated, off and on, how to celebrate this day, but decided that a Japanese vacation would be the best way to do it.
There were plenty of people giving her odd looks, with the majority of them probably thinking that the random foreigner didn't know they were wearing funeral garb. Still, she was far too rich to care about those people, so she slowly walked to her destination, incense stick in hand.
Slightly out of her way was a man wearing a suit, looking devastated as he walked numbly with no clear destination. It took a moment for her to figure out why this man drew her attention, but then she realized why: he was thinking about how he just lost his job. Picking up surface thoughts without getting inundated with the input was a bit like moving through a routine: most thoughts were perfectly mundane, things picked up a thousand times before, and thus were as easily discarded as the sounds of people walking. But if someone was to suddenly say your name, the mind seized on that input and brought it to conscious attention, even if there was otherwise nothing noteworthy about the sound. There were thousands of people in the building, so finding one that had lost their job today wasn't that odd.
She still had a few minutes before the train arrived… "Excuse me." Tanya said to the man politely. "Forgive me if I'm being rude," Just to emphasize her 'foreigner' credentials, she added a bit of an American lisp to her words, dropping her words at the consonant. "-but are you feeling alright?" Subtly, she sent telepathic waves to him, encouraging him to mirror her level of propriety instead of his first instinct.
At first, the man tensed in the usual panic when dealing with a social situation that was outside the rules society had laid down. But he calmed down when the hypnotic suggestion provided an alternative framework for him to use, and slumped. "No." He said simply. "I got fired today." He groaned. "What am I going to tell my wife? I have children!"
"You did? How awful." Tanya said sympathetically. "I thought that it took a lot to get fired in this country."
"That depends on why they're firing you." He clarified, "Fabricating warnings and excuses isn't that hard if your boss is anal enough." Even as he said that, guilt radiated from the man's thoughts. They weren't fabricated. "They're very harsh on mistakes."
"I know a bit about how to run a business." Tanya said, adding a bit of a haughty affectation, just an arrogant American here. "People who make mistakes just need extra training. Do they do Personal Improvement Plans here?"
The man flinched. Tanya shifted her subtle telepathic encouragement to keep him honest. She was basically giving him some free therapy, he shouldn't mind. "They do…" He said, trailing off as he tried to figure out how to make himself sound good. "But that arrogant trash that fired me should have given me another chance!"
This was getting a little spooky, actually. Nevertheless, Tanya gasped dramatically after checking her phone's clock. Still have some time. "How many chances did he give you?" She asked curiously.
He didn't say it, but his mind clearly said the number 'five'. "Not enough." he said, deflecting the question.
"Well, when my employees get on a PIP, I usually give them five chances. Some of the other CEOs I'm sort of friends with think that's too much, I should give them three at most, but the only people who can't be helped are those who refuse to be helped." Tanya said, rattling off the words airily despite their honesty. Really, very few of her employees need even two chances before turning whatever issues they had around or leaving the company voluntarily, but she also tended to pay a bit more attention to HR matters than other CEOs. The human resources of a company are the most important and valuable ones, after all. Human productivity has no limit.
His guilt spiked, and he looked over her for what may have been the first time. "...Why are you here, anyway?" He asked, changing the subject.
"I'm holding a funeral." Tanya replied, gesturing with the incense stick. "Ah, here's the train now."
She walked up to where the train was soon to be and lit the tip of the incense stick with a thought. She withdrew a piece of paper, on which was drawn her best artistic rendition of her first life's appearance. It was a bit anime, she admitted, made her cut a more impressive figure than she did in reality, particularly given the dramatic pose, but it's not like she could have a photograph. After the doors opened, she stepped aside and continued to look at the picture, trying to figure out what she should think about. Was this a good idea? Mom said it was, but…
After the train left, the jobless man stared at her dumbfounded. "Who was he?" He asked.
"He was…" She trailed off. "-in another life. He was murdered on this day, by being pushed in front of a train. I'm still not sure how I should feel about him." She took a deep breath. The incense was a nice one, the same scent she used oh so long ago to mourn her grandfather. Dredging up those faint memories to figure out how to properly conduct this ceremony was probably the hardest part. "He was a flawed man, as are we all. He didn't deserve to die, but few do. Some days I reject his influence entirely, other days I cling to his memory with all my might." She does with her second life too, even if she was less than two years from having lived more years in this one than the other two combined. "It's… complicated."
"I think it speaks well of you, to honor those who came before." The man offered sympathetically.
"Thank you." Tanya said, letting the tears flow. Before she could restrain the impulse, she asked him: "What was your job, by the way?"
"Ah, I am an artist." He said, doodling on air. "I did concept art."
…Was she seriously considering this? Damn her bleeding heart. With a flourish, a business card was in her hand. One of the Japanese ones she had made to make nice with the locals for the Japanese market. "Sober up, call this office tomorrow to set up an interview. I'm not going to guarantee anything, but…" She looked him over once more, clearly looking at his trembling hands and the nostrils he was occasionally rubbing. "...we do provide care for addictions. They are solvable problems."
He looked surprised, but politely took the business card from her. "...Thank you very much." he said respectfully, then left.
It wasn't until the evening, when she was back in her hotel room, that she knew how to cap off this day.
DosvaTanya you communist scum! ✔
@therealtanyadosva
Happy Time Travel day everyone! I'm so excited to finally have absolutely no idea what's coming next!
As was incredibly predictable, the rest of her night was spent laughing at the internet exploding at her announcement, only occasionally tweeting more fuel for the fire.
Well, she also fit in some exercise, but that was just keeping the old meatsuit in working order; old age was kind of a bitch, but it was nice to actually feel old when she feels old, so it was a pleasant change of pace.
Tanya laughed as power surged through her body, her killing intent sharpened into foot-long blades at the ends of her fingers.
Razputin's psychic fists swung and battered her shields, but while they were strong… it wasn't strong enough. He lacked conviction. The psychic projections that he used as weapons separated from his body for extra leverage, hoping to finally shatter her defenses instead of just weathering them.
He was too slow. Tanya's blades chopped at Razputin's wrists, now vulnerable as his own shield became thinner to accommodate his heavy strike. They separated, and the fresh-faced psychonaut screamed in pain. "Die!" Tanya shouted, gathering enough intent to massacre a battalion in an instant and unleashing it on the young man's shields. With his defenses worn away, her hand snaked underneath his ribcage and scooped out his heart, which Tanya presented to his horrified expression with a savage grin.
She laughed before the world shattered around her.
Tanya rubbed her temples as Razputin fell backwards, disoriented by his ejection from her mind. Calm down, the fight's over, enemy neutralized… "Are you satisfied, Razputin?" Tanya asked, making her annoyance apparent.
"There there, Tanya." Mom said, pulling Tanya's head back and settling it in her lap. "Relax, I'm here, everything's safe." What tension remained in Tanya's body melted away as Mom gently stroked her hair.
"I guess…" Razputin said, clearly disappointed in his performance. "I didn't think you'd be that much better when doing the Maligula thing."
Razputin had grown up quite a bit in the years between his introduction to the Psychonauts and his formal induction a few weeks ago. Ironically, despite his acrobatic upbringing, he had grown to be significantly larger than his father, developing more of a strongman physique. He always liked dressing up like comic book superheroes during the true psychic tales conventions, for that reason.
"Power is something that is easy to emulate." Tanya said slowly, taking deep calming breaths. Despite her relaxation, the adrenaline from invoking the Argent had yet to be fully purged from her system. "But when you fought Lucy, she didn't want to hurt you. That lack of intent made her attacks weaker, slower. Still powerful, but much easier to manage." She gestured in the direction of the motor pool. "Even when I had the psitanium reserves from Ambition at my fingertips, I lacked the intent to hurt you. I could have faked it, certainly. Doing so provides excellent results in a hurry… but I didn't see the need. I'm trying to not be the kind of person who does that." Razputin had plenty of time to learn the slow way. At least, that was what she told herself, when comparing the training she gave Razputin to her training of the 203rd.
"But when Tanya had unleashed herself at your request, she was attempting to kill you." Dad said gravely. "I hope that you can understand the magnitude of that difference now."
"Yeah, I sure do." Razputin said, looking down at his hand while flexing it to assure himself that it was still attached. "When can I try again?"
"No more than once a year." Tanya insisted, "We can do it for your birthday next year." It wasn't too far off from his seventeenth birthday as it was, even if this wasn't designated as his gift for that.
"Got it." Razputin said, his deep voice actually fitting the drama of his words.
Taking one last deep breath, Tanya judged that the Argent was fully quiescent once more. Standing up, she dusted off her casual cargo pants and looked back at the meathead psychic. "I believe the wager was a nice dinner?" She asked, smirking.
"Yeah, yeah." Razputin replied, standing up himself. "You know what I could go for? Some salad." He nodded to himself. "I don't even want to think about meat right now. Worse than Coach Oleander's mind…"
Tanya opened her mouth to correct him on the title, but then closed it. Actually, Marceau would probably prefer being referred to as 'Coach' from his former campers. "I didn't think it was fair to Dad to give you a more sanitized environment for the battle than he had to deal with." She said instead. "Ruins and carnage is to be expected, if you were to combat a similarly powerful being within the mind of a madman."
Razputin just grumbled, clearly disagreeing with her statement but without wanting to get into it. "Right, I know a buffet that's got a really good salad bar, so let's go there."
That wasn't quite Tanya's definition of a 'nice' dinner, but she just nodded and started following the psychic to his beat up pickup truck, as she knew that was just her non-American origins talking.
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[1992, Age 28]
Barcelona was a lovely city.
By now, Tanya was quite used to standing in front of a crowd of reporters, announcing some new development from her company or as a Psychonauts spokesperson.
Admittedly, the crowd of reporters was much larger for the Olympics. But in concept, it wasn't anything new. "To introduce myself to a wider audience, my name is Tanya, and I am employed by the Psychonauts organization." As was standard for the Olympics, she was speaking in French for the announcement. "Now, there has been much debate over the legality of psychic powers used in the Olympics. In summary, it is currently banned, but there are plenty of allegations of people using them subtly to cheat, with a few being proven to have cheated and others being cleared, and an even smaller number being initially cleared, but later proven to have cheated, which casts doubt on the whole process." She then repeated herself in both English and Spanish, which was more to show off her language skills than because of actual necessity. She didn't really speak Spanish, but she picked up a nugget of wisdom from another Psychonaut on the language specifically for this. Her knowledge of Portuguese helped immensely in incorporating the knowledge, but the native speakers could probably tell from her accent that she learned it from a Cuban.
Tanya rolled up her T-shirt's sleeve and flexed, showing off her own muscles. Her telekinetic resistance workouts, which nowadays was just an excuse to block off time for dancing, just weren't intense enough to make her substantially muscular, but the shape of her biceps notably changed when she exerted them, so it was enough to take some pride in her appearance. "Personally, I don't know which side to support. But a detachment of Psychonauts, ones skilled at the subtle exertion of psychic powers, have been deployed here to demonstrate how events will change if psychic powers were to be fully allowed." She again repeated herself in English and Spanish. "Questions?" She asked in all three languages.
A beautiful woman started speaking in Spanish after Tanya pointed to her. "Maria Gomez, EFE." Biggest news organization in Spain. "So you will be participating in the events, but cheating?"
"Correct." Tanya said in Spanish. "Claims have been made by those on the side of unbanning psychic powers, as a natural capability of humanity, that the impact would not be that large. This statement, at least, is bluntly wrong. Today and over the rest of the Olympics, my cohort will be participating in many events to show what psychics can do if allowed to use their gifts freely."
"Walter Beckett, BBC." Said the next reporter in English, introducing himself. "What went into deciding who participates in which event?"
"It was agreed that I was the best, so I got first dibs." Tanya said, "Then after my dance card was full, the others picked from what was left."
A few more questions in various languages passed, until one that Tanya didn't expect to hear came up. "Dick Ebersol, NBC. Why are you the one participating? What's in this for you?"
Tanya blinked. "It's not anything hard to understand." Tanya said, confused but deciding to just be honest. "If we win, we were promised genuine Olympic Gold Medals, even if the non-psychic winner gets one too. This is the only time in history a psychic like myself would have a chance to win them, and winning a gold medal at the Olympics…" Tanya stared off into the distance, reminiscing. "Let's just say it's a dream I thought was long dead."
Seventeen swimming golds. Ten weightlifting golds. One for tennis. Seven for shooting, three for firearms, four for archery. Four for jumping. Four for throwing. Plus fourteen more for various individual events that she fit in to fill her schedule. It was a bit regretful that there wasn't a kendo event, but fencing served as an adequate substitute.
After the domination of the games by her and the other Psychonauts, it was agreed that Psychics simply could not be competed against fairly by non-psychics, even in a physical competition. This solidified the ban on Psychics in the Olympics, but did trigger the creation of the PSIlympics, which was certainly a compromise that Tanya could get behind.
She bought a very nice display case for all of her medals. Looking at it always puts a smile on her face, to see all that gold. Not a single speck of silver to be seen.
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[1998, Age 34]
Tanya stretched as she looked over her new desk. The Psychonauts had been good to her… but she was done with them. Had been for a while, really, but it was difficult to move on and give up on all of that fame and those laboratory resources.
In the end, it was a cluster of changes that provided her the push to move on. Visha's passing at the ripe old age of 16 (that's 112 in dog years, after all), the promotions of her parents to administrative positions instead of field work, Eric going into high school and starting to bring girls home, the casanova… Mary's move-out and having kids of her own…
It was time to leave Mystery, focus more on her own company. Over a decade of developing human resources, recruiting more engineers, the refinement of the technology, and the pouring in of military-industrial complex money…
The company needed to diversify, move on to commercial applications. The science was ready. After years of work, she had finally cracked the barrier between the artificial thought of electronic minds and the signals of true thought, with the psitanium/gold microchip. With this technology, a psychic signal can be converted to an electronic one, and vice-versa.
The headquarters controlled the most important part of her new company: the software. When they were just serving the United States military and her allies, the number of simulation units outstanding at any one time was around five thousand, easily handled by a single artisanal workshop staffed to the appropriate scales.
Now, with the power of automation, they had actual factories coming online. Tanya expected to be operating at a loss for some time as the market demand caught up with what she was offering, but she had plenty of capital to sustain things for the time being, as their original business was still providing vital income to keep things running. The military was very interested in the more advanced models that can be controlled from a console instead of requiring a psychic operator, and once they managed to work out the bugs of networking the things into a shared psychic enviroment… That's when they can use it for infantry, not just training on vehicles. Big potential contract there.
"Miss Dovsa, your eleven o'clock is here." came the pleasant mental voice of her secretary. Mrs. Fairwell was her secretary back when she got that promotion to technical administrator at the Motherlobe, and she had followed Tanya to her new company, properly incentivized with a generous pay package.
"Send him in." Tanya sent back, sipping her coffee. It had taken years, but she finally had found someone who could match her old adjutant's coffee making skills. Or her memory of the coffee had decayed enough that she couldn't tell the difference.
A brain ball rolled into her office. "Hello, Tanya! It's nice to see you again." Otto's cheery voice came from the speakers. His 'meat body' as he liked to put it, had expired the year before, accumulated enough health problems that the man had taken the plunge and transitioned to a brain ball full time. He was the oldest of the Psychic Seven, after all.
"Likewise." Tanya said, smiling back. "Now, you mentioned a business proposal in your email?"
"Well, I mostly just wanted to see you in person again." Otto admitted, "I haven't seen you since I retired the old meatsuit."
"Have you undergone maintenance today, by the way?" Tanya asked, reaching down into her minifridge. "I have some nutrient fluid here." There were two people with brain balls in her workforce, so because they had an in-office cafeteria (a nice one, in her opinion) they needed to have some on hand to remain ADA compliant. It wasn't a large burden.
'I'm fine, thank you." Otto said pleasantly. "Now, I know you've been working on psitanium-integrated robots offhandedly. I want to work with your company and design a full android body for myself."
Tanya huffed in amusement. "Life as a brain ball is more inconvenient than you thought?" She asked.
"Much more." Otto replied, "I tried to make my own, but… it was harder than I thought it would be. All those fiddly joints, and balance is a nightmare. I could only manage to make a glorified set of extra arms for my brain ball, they use up too much psychic energy." A sighing noise came from his speakers. "I need your help."
Ah, he kept failing at the mechanical side of things. Making a floating shell is easy enough, that's what the brain ball is after all, but it's wasteful, inefficient. Something that can support its own weight and can stay in place without consuming large amounts of energy would be much better.
Fortunately, she had been working on this problem for a while. "I'd be happy to help." Tanya said, "We'll need a contract, of course. But your insight into the nature of psitanium and the practical engineering behind the brain ball will be invaluable to our work." Specifically, the parts of the brain ball that assisted in suppressing dysphoria, one of the more recent developments to come out of Otto's work. Better integration with the proprioception of the user would vastly accelerate the acclimation timetables.
"I mean, the reason I kept the brain ball so small was because your brain alone produces so much less psychic energy than it does when it has a body supporting it, so I had to keep it light." Otto admitted, "But I'm ready to work at a deficit, supplement with psitanium sand, if it means I don't have to sleep for fourteen hours a day."
Tanya frowned. "Is it really that bad?" She asked, "I know you're pioneering the life extension applications of the technology, but according to the models…"
"I know what the models said, I made them." Otto said, the lights on his brain ball flashing red. "But the amount of energy my brain's producing over time is dropping faster than the models predicted. If supplementing it with psitanium support to reduce the psychic strain doesn't slow it down, I'm going to end up worn down to nothing in less than twenty years."
Tanya hummed, nodding to herself. "Well, I plan on following your footsteps, so ensuring that every avenue is investigated is in my best interests."
While she was in good enough shape that she hasn't truly felt the ravages of age, much like in her first life (which she finally outlived!), that will eventually change.
Still, she took out her personal Psychoportal. "Shall we move this meeting to a face to face to start drafting the terms?" She asked.
"Excellent."
---------------------------------
[February 22, 2013. Age 48]
Tanya walked into the train station wearing a funeral kimono. She had debated, off and on, how to celebrate this day, but decided that a Japanese vacation would be the best way to do it.
There were plenty of people giving her odd looks, with the majority of them probably thinking that the random foreigner didn't know they were wearing funeral garb. Still, she was far too rich to care about those people, so she slowly walked to her destination, incense stick in hand.
Slightly out of her way was a man wearing a suit, looking devastated as he walked numbly with no clear destination. It took a moment for her to figure out why this man drew her attention, but then she realized why: he was thinking about how he just lost his job. Picking up surface thoughts without getting inundated with the input was a bit like moving through a routine: most thoughts were perfectly mundane, things picked up a thousand times before, and thus were as easily discarded as the sounds of people walking. But if someone was to suddenly say your name, the mind seized on that input and brought it to conscious attention, even if there was otherwise nothing noteworthy about the sound. There were thousands of people in the building, so finding one that had lost their job today wasn't that odd.
She still had a few minutes before the train arrived… "Excuse me." Tanya said to the man politely. "Forgive me if I'm being rude," Just to emphasize her 'foreigner' credentials, she added a bit of an American lisp to her words, dropping her words at the consonant. "-but are you feeling alright?" Subtly, she sent telepathic waves to him, encouraging him to mirror her level of propriety instead of his first instinct.
At first, the man tensed in the usual panic when dealing with a social situation that was outside the rules society had laid down. But he calmed down when the hypnotic suggestion provided an alternative framework for him to use, and slumped. "No." He said simply. "I got fired today." He groaned. "What am I going to tell my wife? I have children!"
"You did? How awful." Tanya said sympathetically. "I thought that it took a lot to get fired in this country."
"That depends on why they're firing you." He clarified, "Fabricating warnings and excuses isn't that hard if your boss is anal enough." Even as he said that, guilt radiated from the man's thoughts. They weren't fabricated. "They're very harsh on mistakes."
"I know a bit about how to run a business." Tanya said, adding a bit of a haughty affectation, just an arrogant American here. "People who make mistakes just need extra training. Do they do Personal Improvement Plans here?"
The man flinched. Tanya shifted her subtle telepathic encouragement to keep him honest. She was basically giving him some free therapy, he shouldn't mind. "They do…" He said, trailing off as he tried to figure out how to make himself sound good. "But that arrogant trash that fired me should have given me another chance!"
This was getting a little spooky, actually. Nevertheless, Tanya gasped dramatically after checking her phone's clock. Still have some time. "How many chances did he give you?" She asked curiously.
He didn't say it, but his mind clearly said the number 'five'. "Not enough." he said, deflecting the question.
"Well, when my employees get on a PIP, I usually give them five chances. Some of the other CEOs I'm sort of friends with think that's too much, I should give them three at most, but the only people who can't be helped are those who refuse to be helped." Tanya said, rattling off the words airily despite their honesty. Really, very few of her employees need even two chances before turning whatever issues they had around or leaving the company voluntarily, but she also tended to pay a bit more attention to HR matters than other CEOs. The human resources of a company are the most important and valuable ones, after all. Human productivity has no limit.
His guilt spiked, and he looked over her for what may have been the first time. "...Why are you here, anyway?" He asked, changing the subject.
"I'm holding a funeral." Tanya replied, gesturing with the incense stick. "Ah, here's the train now."
She walked up to where the train was soon to be and lit the tip of the incense stick with a thought. She withdrew a piece of paper, on which was drawn her best artistic rendition of her first life's appearance. It was a bit anime, she admitted, made her cut a more impressive figure than she did in reality, particularly given the dramatic pose, but it's not like she could have a photograph. After the doors opened, she stepped aside and continued to look at the picture, trying to figure out what she should think about. Was this a good idea? Mom said it was, but…
After the train left, the jobless man stared at her dumbfounded. "Who was he?" He asked.
"He was…" She trailed off. "-in another life. He was murdered on this day, by being pushed in front of a train. I'm still not sure how I should feel about him." She took a deep breath. The incense was a nice one, the same scent she used oh so long ago to mourn her grandfather. Dredging up those faint memories to figure out how to properly conduct this ceremony was probably the hardest part. "He was a flawed man, as are we all. He didn't deserve to die, but few do. Some days I reject his influence entirely, other days I cling to his memory with all my might." She does with her second life too, even if she was less than two years from having lived more years in this one than the other two combined. "It's… complicated."
"I think it speaks well of you, to honor those who came before." The man offered sympathetically.
"Thank you." Tanya said, letting the tears flow. Before she could restrain the impulse, she asked him: "What was your job, by the way?"
"Ah, I am an artist." He said, doodling on air. "I did concept art."
…Was she seriously considering this? Damn her bleeding heart. With a flourish, a business card was in her hand. One of the Japanese ones she had made to make nice with the locals for the Japanese market. "Sober up, call this office tomorrow to set up an interview. I'm not going to guarantee anything, but…" She looked him over once more, clearly looking at his trembling hands and the nostrils he was occasionally rubbing. "...we do provide care for addictions. They are solvable problems."
He looked surprised, but politely took the business card from her. "...Thank you very much." he said respectfully, then left.
It wasn't until the evening, when she was back in her hotel room, that she knew how to cap off this day.
DosvaTanya you communist scum! ✔
@therealtanyadosva
Happy Time Travel day everyone! I'm so excited to finally have absolutely no idea what's coming next!
As was incredibly predictable, the rest of her night was spent laughing at the internet exploding at her announcement, only occasionally tweeting more fuel for the fire.
Well, she also fit in some exercise, but that was just keeping the old meatsuit in working order; old age was kind of a bitch, but it was nice to actually feel old when she feels old, so it was a pleasant change of pace.
- Location
- United States
... But I want more. Will there be a follow up story with her 4th incarnation?
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Holy shit she admitted it.
Epilogue 2
Requiem_Jeer
The Most High
[2015, Age 51]
"And… Stream on." Tanya said to herself, pressing the mental button that communicated that command to her setup. Automatically, the announcement that the stream was starting was sent on all of her social medias.
Instantly, the viewer count started ramping up to the thousands, proof that she had adequately hyped up her debut as a streamer.
There was a one-minute 'Stream starting soon' screen between her hitting the button and the stream actually starting, which she had filled with a collage of her favorite True Psychic Tales panels, but she took a quick glance at the mirror as she waited for the timer to get to zero.
While Tanya had thought, before she got them, that she would wear her wrinkles with pride, it bothered her enough to see them that she finally used those long-ago makeup lessons to start concealing what remained after the strict regimen of expensive skin care methods removed the bulk of them. She still wore her hair short, having long since mastered how to make the curly locks look presentable instead of being a chaotic mess.
For the stream, she decided to wear what now passed as her everyday wear, a neat lightly-colored blouse, green today, along with a labcoat and some sensible navy slacks. Finishing off the look were her reading glasses currently worn around her neck on a chain, as she had started to become a bit farsighted with age and thought they made her look a bit more respectable.
Three… two… one… action. "Hello everyone!" Tanya said cheerily, using all of her 'rich auntie' energy. "Welcome to my new live streaming website, charitystreams.com!" Simplicity was best. "All money donated to any streamer on this website will be donated to the designated cause in full, the overhead comes out of my own pocket, so don't worry about that."
Tanya glanced at the chat display, a projected screen that was placed far enough away and with a big enough font to be easily read. "Okay, lots of questions here. All in good time. First, introductions! As I'm sure all of you know, I am Tanya Dosva, inventor. As the owner of the site, my charity is the default one for anyone who wishes to stream for a good cause without having strong feelings for any cause in particular. The Degurechaff Foundation supports many things, but the unifying ethos is that it is anti-violence. Mostly, this is anti-war, providing support for child soldier rehabilitation, war refugees, things of that nature. The Foundation's website is in the link below, in the box designated for the current stream's charity."
The moderators for her chat, a helpful group, were already posting the questions deemed 'on topic' in a separate chat window for her to address. The quick and dirty AI she coded with language processing (simplicity itself with psitanium computing) controlled a counter by each question noting how many times it came up. "Now, I'm seeing the most common question is what I'm going to be streaming. The twitter poll over the last two weeks was surprisingly even, " Of the eight options, five of them were within two percent of each other, although the actual winner was 'show off my research', "-so I've decided to do a little bit of everything today. When I feel like it, I'll run a few more streams, each dedicated to one of those options. First, I'll give you all a tour of my house." Tanya paused. "...Well, this house. It's the one I consider my primary residence: my Houston mansion. I do a lot of my research here, which requires a lot of space, and it's logistically easier to get all of the highly specialized equipment I need when I'm in one of the thick arteries of international trade." Also, she's been doing a lot of space-oriented research lately, so being able to invite NASA eggheads over has been a large advantage. Not to mention the medical research, which was also a large strength of the city.
…Well, zero state-based income taxes and favorable aircar regulations were a bit of an advantage too. Some states had banned her mecha-car, forcing her to own multiple aircars. "Moving on," Tanya said, walking out of the room and letting the streaming setup follow her, the filming AI she coded for the purpose shifting around obstacles like a professional. After a few turns, she presented the first tour destination. "This is my living room. As you can see, it looks pretty much like any other, just… more expensive. I have an entertainment setup, couches, and decorative displays." She spent a few minutes going over the displays before moving on. "This is my kitchen. It's very fancy and can handle large quantities, as you can see." She could use telekinesis to short-cut all of the issues that could arise from using a restaurant-quality kitchen for personal meals, after all. She just ordered delivery when she didn't feel like cooking, and had a catering company on contract to send over cooks and food whenever she had large parties. "Over here is my private dining table, when I'm eating with personal friends or family." Tanya pointed to a door on the opposite side of the kitchen from the dining table, which was close enough that the person cooking could socialize with the people sitting at it. She was usually the one cooking when she had family over, after all. "Through that set of double doors is the big rich person dining room, for when I have business meetings over a meal. It seats one hundred and twenty and has a stage for any announcements that need to occur."
The rest of the non-work areas of the mansion was more of the same, each room having its own designated purpose and reason for her to need it that way. "-although admittedly, I've yet to have the guest wing occupied at capacity. So I probably have too many guest rooms." Tanya said, going to the final part of the tour. "Finally, this is my bedroom." She announced, opening the door and showing it off. Immediately, her cat awoke from her nap. "This is Byakko-chan, my cat. She's a Bengal tiger with the rare leucism mutation resulting in a white coloration while retaining the stripes that albino tigers lack." The tiger rumbled as it wandered over and nuzzled Tanya, who gave her a big hug.
"Are you done with all the talking?" Byakko-chan asked, as the only reason Tanya had such an exotic beast as a pet was that zoolinguism made it a lot easier to domesticate individual examples of otherwise wild species.
"Not yet, Byakko-chan." Tanya whispered back. "Do you want to play with your toys?"
"I want a meat fruit." Byakko-chan replied, whining in a way that provokes sympathy and pity. Spoiled beast…
"I'll get you one, go to the garden and wait for it." Tanya promised, before turning back to the camera. "Now seems like a good time to take a break. All that talking has made me thirsty, so take five minutes to stretch your legs, replenish your own victuals, things of that nature. I have to fill a pumpkin with ground meat for Byakko-chan. She loves those things, and I have to limit her to one per day." Most mammalian pets, personality-wise, could be compared unflatteringly to toddlers. In this case, Byakko-chan was one of those who insisted on watching the same movie hundreds of times, with the number of things she liked able to be counted on one hand, and being utterly disinterested in new experiences for the most part. But sleeping while laying against a seven hundred pound mountain of contentedness-radiating warm fur was exquisite, so she tolerated her pet's eccentricities. "See you soon!"
---------------------------------
With her pet happily batting at her treat in the background, a refreshing glass of lemonade down her throat and a steaming cup of coffee in her hand, she started up the stream again. "I'm back!" She announced, walking down the back garden's cobbled path to the separate buildings where she did her research. "So next we'll do the actual winner of the poll, showing off my latest research!" She said cheerily, walking into the first building. "Anyone who's been paying attention to my academic publications and my company's press releases won't find anything revelatory, but there's a difference between the dry delivery of science and seeing the labs for yourselves."
Tanya took a moment to check the chat and the various outputs of the moderators and AI. "Yes, Byakko-chan's a little spoiled, she's gotten a bit chunky." She said, nodding in agreement. "Moving on, this is my robotics laboratory." She said, showing off the various displays. "This is where I make all those little features of my company's robots, both the psitanium AI cores and the various optimizations and features I incorporate into the chassis."
Her laboratory was largely modular, with the walls and ceiling filled with frames that held boxes, machines, and tools that she used telekinesis to fetch. "The intent of my research is to improve the full-body replacement technology, improve the end-of-life care facets of the robotic chassis." She opened up a specific case. "This is the model that's intended to be my own replacement, in case something happens to my body without my brain getting injured."
The gynoid that she had created as her emergency body was reasonably utilitarian, dressed in a utility jumpsuit. She zipped it open to show off the chest, which was a gaping hole with lots of little connectors. "This would be where the biopod would be slotted in. In case you don't keep up with the latest medical advances, a biopod is a bit like a brain ball, but smaller, meant to be slotted into a larger device like this one." She waved the camera in closer, and the AI controlling it obliged. "This bit is where the nutrient fluid connects to the tanks in the hips, this is the pump that would keep the fluid cycling…" She zipped down further, showing the hips. "Nature's own design is best for this part. This is the bit that functions as both the bladder and kidneys, filtering out any waste toxins from the biopod's fluids and venting it along with excess water. This tube here with the gizmos along it analyzes the fluid input from the mouth, determining if it is suitable for introduction to the biopod's systems, and if not, it ejects it back out with this pump here." Much like a space habitat, a human body was mostly plumbing. Naturally, any life support system would follow suit. "It's a continuous replenishment system instead of a normal brain ball undergoing periodic flushing, which should reduce dysphoria through the emulation of these biological systems."
Tanya continued to show off the features of full body replacement technology, each of which was patented by someone, not necessarily her. "The sensory feedback from the synthetic skin is, of course, the largest obstacle to improvement, so we're throwing a lot of money and man-hours trying to figure out a combination of psitanium, our new patented synthetic nerves, and various structural materials and assembly methods that can provide both sensitivity and durability at the lowest possible price point."
She glanced at the chat again. The raw feed was, of course, basically impossible to parse due to how fast it was going, but her moderators and analytical AI indicated… that she should move on. "Well, that's enough in the robotics lab." Tanya announced, "While yes, my company does do a lot of actual robots instead of full-body replacements, I don't personally do much for that part of the business anymore. My work in psitanium AI cores forms the foundation of that particular industry, and some parts of my work in this lab can equally benefit those…" Tanya shrugged. "Eh."
She moved on to her second lab. "Now this is where I do my space research. I have fully isolated this lab from as many factors as I could, a fully closed system, in an attempt to work out long-term habitation. As not many people know, psitanium in space is… trickier than one might think. Outside of a biosphere, psitanium breaks down a lot faster than it does within one, so isolation, saturation, and ruggedization are the buzzwords of the industry."
The window into the closed system… well, it was actually a screen outputting the data fed from the internal sensors, but it was made to look like an observation window. Anyway, through the window was a hydroponic farm, filled with specially engineered crops designed to both feed the crew and produce a much larger ratio of psychic energy than ordinary plants, which is used in the habitat's psitanium-based technology.
She cycled the display to the various rooms of the habitat. "The current inhabitants are all chimpanzees, rabbits, and mealworms with a few robots handling anything the monkeys neglect. I occasionally check in with them but they have enough entertainment options and know what they're getting into, so it's a decent approximation of real conditions. Over there is the psitanium sand generator that's extracting the amount of psychic energy that would be creating artificial gravity, so that's taken into account. The current experimental run's been going for only four days, and the record before needing to shut it down is two months. My goal is to keep it going for a full year." She was considering adding chickens, too, but that should probably wait until it goes for a human trial. The chimps will eat the rabbit meat, but they preferred the mealworms and that did complicate the attempt to create an environment that can sustain a biosphere for an extended period. "Obviously, entropy alone makes creating a truly self-sustaining system a fool's errand, but if I can set up a space habitat that can handle ten years before needing additional resources, that opens up literal worlds of possibilities."
After a moment of basking in the science, cycling the display some more, she turned and left. "Those are my two current research projects; I don't have that much time to do science or development anymore, but I make do." This was some false modesty, she only needed maybe a half hour a day going over the various data points of her space habitat research to ensure she stays on top of things and produce a report for later. The robotics lab was more of a hobby, thrice a week she spent a half dozen hours or so tinkering for fun. It was productive tinkering, but she had an army of scientists and engineers working on those same problems, so more often than not she was just incorporating their latest advances into her emergency body or her robot maid or what have you instead of actually developing anything.
"Now, with that out of the way, let's move on to the next part of the stream: video games!" Tanya cheered, "I've started a poll for which ones I'll play, for varying stream experience. Whether you'd prefer to see me enjoy myself, struggle, or suffer, or if you'd rather see me in a mental world or still in the physical one, I put an option for all the possibilities I could think of. Until then, I'll put us on another break so I can set myself up in the gaming room with some snacks."
---------------------------------
[2030, age 66]
One thing that Tanya had never expected to actually happen was the alien invasion. They had crippled what few military assets remained in space and orbit as their opening move, and if there was any human still off earth and alive… Well, none were answering the calls.
Over the decades, the proliferation of psychic technology had successfully transitioned the Psychonauts from an espionage agency to a regulatory one. They still did the research and health care they did before, but the mandate to counter international psychic malfeasance had more or less been replaced wholesale with 'ensure no one's making mind control devices or anything with the now-abundant psitanium'.
As such… they ended up as humanity's last hope after the Aliens attained complete orbital supremacy and destroyed most of the actual militaries. The only issue was… the Motherlobe was considered a sufficiently military installation that it was not spared.
"Grand Head Aquato." Tanya greeted from her desk, fine-tuning an experimental coilgun. "Congratulations on your promotion."
Razputin Aquato snorted. "Yeah, yeah, it's good to see you too, Tanya. How's the billionaire's life treating you in this occupation?"
Tanya scowled. "The X-rays decided that because I was one of the pioneers in space travel, that they should hit all of my assets with ortillery." Honestly, she wouldn't be so stupid as to keep all of her military hardware on public databases. They only succeeded at pissing her off. "Killed all my pets." She sighed angrily. "Well, with Otto's mechanical keister finally giving up the ghost, and with the total loss of the Brainframe, your little resistance movement needs a Chief Engineer. That would be myself." She waved to the large empty space that was her new facility. "I have a few workers and assistants, but no fully accredited engineers. You'll need to recruit some for me if you want this place to produce the equipment the science department will reverse engineer for you." She also had plans to dip over there when she wasn't busy to help out herself, but while Lili Aquato was a brilliant scientist, she couldn't possibly fill the Chief Engineer role. "In the meantime, I will be doing my best to provide and maintain the finest military hardware humanity has at its disposal." She smirked, "Well, and maybe fit in a few of my own advancements."
"...Are you trying to sound like a videogame tutorial?" Razputin asked.
Tanya burst out laughing. "Caught that? First thing I noticed when I saw this secret underground base was 'this is just like XCOM'." She took a deep breath to calm down from the humor. "More seriously, I do actually think we can get some key insights to the X-ray's technology if your commando squads capture some samples." She rolled her chair over to a cabinet and took out a single alien pistol. "This one's too damaged for me to get a lot of info from, the only reason it looks as good as it does is that I fixed up the casing. But look at this." She withdrew the 'ammo', which was more of a battery. "This is psilirium, but…" She waved it around with absolutely no safety containment.
"...It's stable." Razputin whispered. He took it from her hand and inspected it closely. Razputin had not aged terribly well, to be honest. He was large and muscular, but that frame was weighed down further by the fat of a big eater that never stopped when their metabolism slowed down in his thirties. He was still far more agile and dexterous than anyone who looked like that should be, but he was downright clumsy compared to the feats he could manage in his youth. The man was a wonderful father to his children, though. "This… this changes everything."
"Exactly." Tanya replied, "But it's also currently inert, and I can't even figure out how to get it to explode, much less do something productive. Whatever they do to make it stable, they have to undo it in order to get any work out of it. So we need to learn how they manage it." She had long since figured out how to turn psitanium into the far more energy-dense psilirium, but the interference it emitted made it not particularly useful in all but a few very limited situations. "Razputin, it was with psilirium that I proved that faster than light travel was possible, albeit not practical." Until now, it was one of her biggest mistakes, given just how many scientists since then have lost their lives or gotten severe brain damage from the stuff. "If we can crack what these aliens have… We'll be able to take the fight to them."
In the end, what truly mattered was not the guns, nor the technologies, but instead the telepathic counter-invasion Razputin spearheaded, turning the invasion force of slave battalions against their masters and incorporating them into a new United Earth Federation.
But they still got the psilirium tech.
---------------------------------
[2102, Age 138)
In the end, immortality was a pipe dream. While a psychic's brain was certainly far more resilient than it should be, even using every iota of medical technology to keep it going, there were limits.
Otto had symptoms matching this before he died to the invasion. One of the first things a psychic engineer did when they got really serious nowadays was to optimize their dreams, reducing the amount of time required to sleep to about two to three hours a day. Even with that optimized sleep, Otto had to sleep six at the end.
The more information stuck in the brain, the more work was required to keep it going. Tanya had learned how to trim out unneeded memories more efficiently, but after over one hundred years of life, she still spent seven hours a day just keeping up with it, letting her mechanical body rest in unneeded sleep.
Was this inevitable? Was it just impossible to retain as much life experience as she had? How would this impact her reincarnation? She didn't know.
Pretty much all of her friends were dead by now, anyway. Over the last few decades, she had grown more withdrawn, with her only socialization being random online friends on game servers and forums that she frequented anonymously. Exactly the same situation she was in when she died the first time.
Tanya looked out her window display. She had her own space station mansion, so had a beautiful view of Venus. Interstellar travel didn't really agree with her. She had thought if they found a peaceful alien civilization, or a new colony world that could sustain human life without terraforming, she'd leave the solar system, but until then… no. It was too dangerous. Not in an exciting way, either. In a boring way. She'll stay home, thank you.
…She was tired. Did she really want to keep going for the thirty to forty more years she could theoretically eke out of this life? To get any more than that would require basically making her a continual amnesiac, forgetting large swathes of her post-retirement life in order to leave space for more. Did she want to do that?
…No. Not really. She had long relinquished all but the tiniest scrap of control over her companies and assets, and they've already gone and basically corrupted themselves in the name of higher profits and greater growth instead of her preferred style of honest dealings and steady growth. Her disappointment was immeasurable when she discovered what her company's management thought were adequate work benefits nowadays. Ruined that whole day.
Well, she should at least set all of her affairs in order. As part of her retirement, she had divested herself of a lot of responsibility and influence, but she still needed to, at least, make up a new will. That alone is going to take weeks to fully handle. Better get started.
---------------------------------
"I still think this is medically inadvisable." The soft tones of her medical AI said as she prepared her own execution.
"Noted." Tanya replied drily. "Still doing it. If I can't reincarnate normally, I'll be doing it manually."
This was actually an overstatement. Due to being a psychic, the amount of control she had over her mind was incredible, but there was large swathes of it that were set in metaphorical stone, unable to be deleted like less important memories were. She had improved the thoroughness of that deletion, yes, but even if she could completely wipe her old memories… she was too hesitant to take that step.
After all, whatever she did here is probably going to be carried over to her next life, so she had to be careful. While there wasn't really anyone left in this life close enough to feel the tragedy of her passing, that didn't mean she should sentence some unknown parents to the results of whatever brain damage she inflicted upon herself by attempting to delete her most precious memories.
So instead, she buried them. Her entire mind sunk deep into itself, laying a sturdy foundation. She won't remember a thing consciously, and hopefully, she'll be able to grow attached to whatever life she goes off to.
She left conditions. Leaving the hypothetical innocent child she was turning herself into completely on her own could end poorly, if the conditions in her new life were bad enough. Being convinced that her death was imminent, the grief of losing a loved one tragically mixed with the anger of vengeance, realizing the monstrosity of her own actions… these conditions and more would unseal a portion of her memories in an attempt to preserve the life of the child.
It was likely that what individuality that child had would be overwhelmed by her own experiences if that happened… but it was not a guarantee.
Who knows? Maybe this new her would even do things that Tanya never could, like fall in love. How exciting! And… there.
With the last of her thoughts locked away, the nameless child experienced the total sensory isolation of a biopod disconnected to any outside stimulus for a second before the disintegrator completely obliterated Tanya's brain.
On to the next great adventure…
"And… Stream on." Tanya said to herself, pressing the mental button that communicated that command to her setup. Automatically, the announcement that the stream was starting was sent on all of her social medias.
Instantly, the viewer count started ramping up to the thousands, proof that she had adequately hyped up her debut as a streamer.
There was a one-minute 'Stream starting soon' screen between her hitting the button and the stream actually starting, which she had filled with a collage of her favorite True Psychic Tales panels, but she took a quick glance at the mirror as she waited for the timer to get to zero.
While Tanya had thought, before she got them, that she would wear her wrinkles with pride, it bothered her enough to see them that she finally used those long-ago makeup lessons to start concealing what remained after the strict regimen of expensive skin care methods removed the bulk of them. She still wore her hair short, having long since mastered how to make the curly locks look presentable instead of being a chaotic mess.
For the stream, she decided to wear what now passed as her everyday wear, a neat lightly-colored blouse, green today, along with a labcoat and some sensible navy slacks. Finishing off the look were her reading glasses currently worn around her neck on a chain, as she had started to become a bit farsighted with age and thought they made her look a bit more respectable.
Three… two… one… action. "Hello everyone!" Tanya said cheerily, using all of her 'rich auntie' energy. "Welcome to my new live streaming website, charitystreams.com!" Simplicity was best. "All money donated to any streamer on this website will be donated to the designated cause in full, the overhead comes out of my own pocket, so don't worry about that."
Tanya glanced at the chat display, a projected screen that was placed far enough away and with a big enough font to be easily read. "Okay, lots of questions here. All in good time. First, introductions! As I'm sure all of you know, I am Tanya Dosva, inventor. As the owner of the site, my charity is the default one for anyone who wishes to stream for a good cause without having strong feelings for any cause in particular. The Degurechaff Foundation supports many things, but the unifying ethos is that it is anti-violence. Mostly, this is anti-war, providing support for child soldier rehabilitation, war refugees, things of that nature. The Foundation's website is in the link below, in the box designated for the current stream's charity."
The moderators for her chat, a helpful group, were already posting the questions deemed 'on topic' in a separate chat window for her to address. The quick and dirty AI she coded with language processing (simplicity itself with psitanium computing) controlled a counter by each question noting how many times it came up. "Now, I'm seeing the most common question is what I'm going to be streaming. The twitter poll over the last two weeks was surprisingly even, " Of the eight options, five of them were within two percent of each other, although the actual winner was 'show off my research', "-so I've decided to do a little bit of everything today. When I feel like it, I'll run a few more streams, each dedicated to one of those options. First, I'll give you all a tour of my house." Tanya paused. "...Well, this house. It's the one I consider my primary residence: my Houston mansion. I do a lot of my research here, which requires a lot of space, and it's logistically easier to get all of the highly specialized equipment I need when I'm in one of the thick arteries of international trade." Also, she's been doing a lot of space-oriented research lately, so being able to invite NASA eggheads over has been a large advantage. Not to mention the medical research, which was also a large strength of the city.
…Well, zero state-based income taxes and favorable aircar regulations were a bit of an advantage too. Some states had banned her mecha-car, forcing her to own multiple aircars. "Moving on," Tanya said, walking out of the room and letting the streaming setup follow her, the filming AI she coded for the purpose shifting around obstacles like a professional. After a few turns, she presented the first tour destination. "This is my living room. As you can see, it looks pretty much like any other, just… more expensive. I have an entertainment setup, couches, and decorative displays." She spent a few minutes going over the displays before moving on. "This is my kitchen. It's very fancy and can handle large quantities, as you can see." She could use telekinesis to short-cut all of the issues that could arise from using a restaurant-quality kitchen for personal meals, after all. She just ordered delivery when she didn't feel like cooking, and had a catering company on contract to send over cooks and food whenever she had large parties. "Over here is my private dining table, when I'm eating with personal friends or family." Tanya pointed to a door on the opposite side of the kitchen from the dining table, which was close enough that the person cooking could socialize with the people sitting at it. She was usually the one cooking when she had family over, after all. "Through that set of double doors is the big rich person dining room, for when I have business meetings over a meal. It seats one hundred and twenty and has a stage for any announcements that need to occur."
The rest of the non-work areas of the mansion was more of the same, each room having its own designated purpose and reason for her to need it that way. "-although admittedly, I've yet to have the guest wing occupied at capacity. So I probably have too many guest rooms." Tanya said, going to the final part of the tour. "Finally, this is my bedroom." She announced, opening the door and showing it off. Immediately, her cat awoke from her nap. "This is Byakko-chan, my cat. She's a Bengal tiger with the rare leucism mutation resulting in a white coloration while retaining the stripes that albino tigers lack." The tiger rumbled as it wandered over and nuzzled Tanya, who gave her a big hug.
"Are you done with all the talking?" Byakko-chan asked, as the only reason Tanya had such an exotic beast as a pet was that zoolinguism made it a lot easier to domesticate individual examples of otherwise wild species.
"Not yet, Byakko-chan." Tanya whispered back. "Do you want to play with your toys?"
"I want a meat fruit." Byakko-chan replied, whining in a way that provokes sympathy and pity. Spoiled beast…
"I'll get you one, go to the garden and wait for it." Tanya promised, before turning back to the camera. "Now seems like a good time to take a break. All that talking has made me thirsty, so take five minutes to stretch your legs, replenish your own victuals, things of that nature. I have to fill a pumpkin with ground meat for Byakko-chan. She loves those things, and I have to limit her to one per day." Most mammalian pets, personality-wise, could be compared unflatteringly to toddlers. In this case, Byakko-chan was one of those who insisted on watching the same movie hundreds of times, with the number of things she liked able to be counted on one hand, and being utterly disinterested in new experiences for the most part. But sleeping while laying against a seven hundred pound mountain of contentedness-radiating warm fur was exquisite, so she tolerated her pet's eccentricities. "See you soon!"
---------------------------------
With her pet happily batting at her treat in the background, a refreshing glass of lemonade down her throat and a steaming cup of coffee in her hand, she started up the stream again. "I'm back!" She announced, walking down the back garden's cobbled path to the separate buildings where she did her research. "So next we'll do the actual winner of the poll, showing off my latest research!" She said cheerily, walking into the first building. "Anyone who's been paying attention to my academic publications and my company's press releases won't find anything revelatory, but there's a difference between the dry delivery of science and seeing the labs for yourselves."
Tanya took a moment to check the chat and the various outputs of the moderators and AI. "Yes, Byakko-chan's a little spoiled, she's gotten a bit chunky." She said, nodding in agreement. "Moving on, this is my robotics laboratory." She said, showing off the various displays. "This is where I make all those little features of my company's robots, both the psitanium AI cores and the various optimizations and features I incorporate into the chassis."
Her laboratory was largely modular, with the walls and ceiling filled with frames that held boxes, machines, and tools that she used telekinesis to fetch. "The intent of my research is to improve the full-body replacement technology, improve the end-of-life care facets of the robotic chassis." She opened up a specific case. "This is the model that's intended to be my own replacement, in case something happens to my body without my brain getting injured."
The gynoid that she had created as her emergency body was reasonably utilitarian, dressed in a utility jumpsuit. She zipped it open to show off the chest, which was a gaping hole with lots of little connectors. "This would be where the biopod would be slotted in. In case you don't keep up with the latest medical advances, a biopod is a bit like a brain ball, but smaller, meant to be slotted into a larger device like this one." She waved the camera in closer, and the AI controlling it obliged. "This bit is where the nutrient fluid connects to the tanks in the hips, this is the pump that would keep the fluid cycling…" She zipped down further, showing the hips. "Nature's own design is best for this part. This is the bit that functions as both the bladder and kidneys, filtering out any waste toxins from the biopod's fluids and venting it along with excess water. This tube here with the gizmos along it analyzes the fluid input from the mouth, determining if it is suitable for introduction to the biopod's systems, and if not, it ejects it back out with this pump here." Much like a space habitat, a human body was mostly plumbing. Naturally, any life support system would follow suit. "It's a continuous replenishment system instead of a normal brain ball undergoing periodic flushing, which should reduce dysphoria through the emulation of these biological systems."
Tanya continued to show off the features of full body replacement technology, each of which was patented by someone, not necessarily her. "The sensory feedback from the synthetic skin is, of course, the largest obstacle to improvement, so we're throwing a lot of money and man-hours trying to figure out a combination of psitanium, our new patented synthetic nerves, and various structural materials and assembly methods that can provide both sensitivity and durability at the lowest possible price point."
She glanced at the chat again. The raw feed was, of course, basically impossible to parse due to how fast it was going, but her moderators and analytical AI indicated… that she should move on. "Well, that's enough in the robotics lab." Tanya announced, "While yes, my company does do a lot of actual robots instead of full-body replacements, I don't personally do much for that part of the business anymore. My work in psitanium AI cores forms the foundation of that particular industry, and some parts of my work in this lab can equally benefit those…" Tanya shrugged. "Eh."
She moved on to her second lab. "Now this is where I do my space research. I have fully isolated this lab from as many factors as I could, a fully closed system, in an attempt to work out long-term habitation. As not many people know, psitanium in space is… trickier than one might think. Outside of a biosphere, psitanium breaks down a lot faster than it does within one, so isolation, saturation, and ruggedization are the buzzwords of the industry."
The window into the closed system… well, it was actually a screen outputting the data fed from the internal sensors, but it was made to look like an observation window. Anyway, through the window was a hydroponic farm, filled with specially engineered crops designed to both feed the crew and produce a much larger ratio of psychic energy than ordinary plants, which is used in the habitat's psitanium-based technology.
She cycled the display to the various rooms of the habitat. "The current inhabitants are all chimpanzees, rabbits, and mealworms with a few robots handling anything the monkeys neglect. I occasionally check in with them but they have enough entertainment options and know what they're getting into, so it's a decent approximation of real conditions. Over there is the psitanium sand generator that's extracting the amount of psychic energy that would be creating artificial gravity, so that's taken into account. The current experimental run's been going for only four days, and the record before needing to shut it down is two months. My goal is to keep it going for a full year." She was considering adding chickens, too, but that should probably wait until it goes for a human trial. The chimps will eat the rabbit meat, but they preferred the mealworms and that did complicate the attempt to create an environment that can sustain a biosphere for an extended period. "Obviously, entropy alone makes creating a truly self-sustaining system a fool's errand, but if I can set up a space habitat that can handle ten years before needing additional resources, that opens up literal worlds of possibilities."
After a moment of basking in the science, cycling the display some more, she turned and left. "Those are my two current research projects; I don't have that much time to do science or development anymore, but I make do." This was some false modesty, she only needed maybe a half hour a day going over the various data points of her space habitat research to ensure she stays on top of things and produce a report for later. The robotics lab was more of a hobby, thrice a week she spent a half dozen hours or so tinkering for fun. It was productive tinkering, but she had an army of scientists and engineers working on those same problems, so more often than not she was just incorporating their latest advances into her emergency body or her robot maid or what have you instead of actually developing anything.
"Now, with that out of the way, let's move on to the next part of the stream: video games!" Tanya cheered, "I've started a poll for which ones I'll play, for varying stream experience. Whether you'd prefer to see me enjoy myself, struggle, or suffer, or if you'd rather see me in a mental world or still in the physical one, I put an option for all the possibilities I could think of. Until then, I'll put us on another break so I can set myself up in the gaming room with some snacks."
---------------------------------
[2030, age 66]
One thing that Tanya had never expected to actually happen was the alien invasion. They had crippled what few military assets remained in space and orbit as their opening move, and if there was any human still off earth and alive… Well, none were answering the calls.
Over the decades, the proliferation of psychic technology had successfully transitioned the Psychonauts from an espionage agency to a regulatory one. They still did the research and health care they did before, but the mandate to counter international psychic malfeasance had more or less been replaced wholesale with 'ensure no one's making mind control devices or anything with the now-abundant psitanium'.
As such… they ended up as humanity's last hope after the Aliens attained complete orbital supremacy and destroyed most of the actual militaries. The only issue was… the Motherlobe was considered a sufficiently military installation that it was not spared.
"Grand Head Aquato." Tanya greeted from her desk, fine-tuning an experimental coilgun. "Congratulations on your promotion."
Razputin Aquato snorted. "Yeah, yeah, it's good to see you too, Tanya. How's the billionaire's life treating you in this occupation?"
Tanya scowled. "The X-rays decided that because I was one of the pioneers in space travel, that they should hit all of my assets with ortillery." Honestly, she wouldn't be so stupid as to keep all of her military hardware on public databases. They only succeeded at pissing her off. "Killed all my pets." She sighed angrily. "Well, with Otto's mechanical keister finally giving up the ghost, and with the total loss of the Brainframe, your little resistance movement needs a Chief Engineer. That would be myself." She waved to the large empty space that was her new facility. "I have a few workers and assistants, but no fully accredited engineers. You'll need to recruit some for me if you want this place to produce the equipment the science department will reverse engineer for you." She also had plans to dip over there when she wasn't busy to help out herself, but while Lili Aquato was a brilliant scientist, she couldn't possibly fill the Chief Engineer role. "In the meantime, I will be doing my best to provide and maintain the finest military hardware humanity has at its disposal." She smirked, "Well, and maybe fit in a few of my own advancements."
"...Are you trying to sound like a videogame tutorial?" Razputin asked.
Tanya burst out laughing. "Caught that? First thing I noticed when I saw this secret underground base was 'this is just like XCOM'." She took a deep breath to calm down from the humor. "More seriously, I do actually think we can get some key insights to the X-ray's technology if your commando squads capture some samples." She rolled her chair over to a cabinet and took out a single alien pistol. "This one's too damaged for me to get a lot of info from, the only reason it looks as good as it does is that I fixed up the casing. But look at this." She withdrew the 'ammo', which was more of a battery. "This is psilirium, but…" She waved it around with absolutely no safety containment.
"...It's stable." Razputin whispered. He took it from her hand and inspected it closely. Razputin had not aged terribly well, to be honest. He was large and muscular, but that frame was weighed down further by the fat of a big eater that never stopped when their metabolism slowed down in his thirties. He was still far more agile and dexterous than anyone who looked like that should be, but he was downright clumsy compared to the feats he could manage in his youth. The man was a wonderful father to his children, though. "This… this changes everything."
"Exactly." Tanya replied, "But it's also currently inert, and I can't even figure out how to get it to explode, much less do something productive. Whatever they do to make it stable, they have to undo it in order to get any work out of it. So we need to learn how they manage it." She had long since figured out how to turn psitanium into the far more energy-dense psilirium, but the interference it emitted made it not particularly useful in all but a few very limited situations. "Razputin, it was with psilirium that I proved that faster than light travel was possible, albeit not practical." Until now, it was one of her biggest mistakes, given just how many scientists since then have lost their lives or gotten severe brain damage from the stuff. "If we can crack what these aliens have… We'll be able to take the fight to them."
In the end, what truly mattered was not the guns, nor the technologies, but instead the telepathic counter-invasion Razputin spearheaded, turning the invasion force of slave battalions against their masters and incorporating them into a new United Earth Federation.
But they still got the psilirium tech.
---------------------------------
[2102, Age 138)
In the end, immortality was a pipe dream. While a psychic's brain was certainly far more resilient than it should be, even using every iota of medical technology to keep it going, there were limits.
Otto had symptoms matching this before he died to the invasion. One of the first things a psychic engineer did when they got really serious nowadays was to optimize their dreams, reducing the amount of time required to sleep to about two to three hours a day. Even with that optimized sleep, Otto had to sleep six at the end.
The more information stuck in the brain, the more work was required to keep it going. Tanya had learned how to trim out unneeded memories more efficiently, but after over one hundred years of life, she still spent seven hours a day just keeping up with it, letting her mechanical body rest in unneeded sleep.
Was this inevitable? Was it just impossible to retain as much life experience as she had? How would this impact her reincarnation? She didn't know.
Pretty much all of her friends were dead by now, anyway. Over the last few decades, she had grown more withdrawn, with her only socialization being random online friends on game servers and forums that she frequented anonymously. Exactly the same situation she was in when she died the first time.
Tanya looked out her window display. She had her own space station mansion, so had a beautiful view of Venus. Interstellar travel didn't really agree with her. She had thought if they found a peaceful alien civilization, or a new colony world that could sustain human life without terraforming, she'd leave the solar system, but until then… no. It was too dangerous. Not in an exciting way, either. In a boring way. She'll stay home, thank you.
…She was tired. Did she really want to keep going for the thirty to forty more years she could theoretically eke out of this life? To get any more than that would require basically making her a continual amnesiac, forgetting large swathes of her post-retirement life in order to leave space for more. Did she want to do that?
…No. Not really. She had long relinquished all but the tiniest scrap of control over her companies and assets, and they've already gone and basically corrupted themselves in the name of higher profits and greater growth instead of her preferred style of honest dealings and steady growth. Her disappointment was immeasurable when she discovered what her company's management thought were adequate work benefits nowadays. Ruined that whole day.
Well, she should at least set all of her affairs in order. As part of her retirement, she had divested herself of a lot of responsibility and influence, but she still needed to, at least, make up a new will. That alone is going to take weeks to fully handle. Better get started.
---------------------------------
"I still think this is medically inadvisable." The soft tones of her medical AI said as she prepared her own execution.
"Noted." Tanya replied drily. "Still doing it. If I can't reincarnate normally, I'll be doing it manually."
This was actually an overstatement. Due to being a psychic, the amount of control she had over her mind was incredible, but there was large swathes of it that were set in metaphorical stone, unable to be deleted like less important memories were. She had improved the thoroughness of that deletion, yes, but even if she could completely wipe her old memories… she was too hesitant to take that step.
After all, whatever she did here is probably going to be carried over to her next life, so she had to be careful. While there wasn't really anyone left in this life close enough to feel the tragedy of her passing, that didn't mean she should sentence some unknown parents to the results of whatever brain damage she inflicted upon herself by attempting to delete her most precious memories.
So instead, she buried them. Her entire mind sunk deep into itself, laying a sturdy foundation. She won't remember a thing consciously, and hopefully, she'll be able to grow attached to whatever life she goes off to.
She left conditions. Leaving the hypothetical innocent child she was turning herself into completely on her own could end poorly, if the conditions in her new life were bad enough. Being convinced that her death was imminent, the grief of losing a loved one tragically mixed with the anger of vengeance, realizing the monstrosity of her own actions… these conditions and more would unseal a portion of her memories in an attempt to preserve the life of the child.
It was likely that what individuality that child had would be overwhelmed by her own experiences if that happened… but it was not a guarantee.
Who knows? Maybe this new her would even do things that Tanya never could, like fall in love. How exciting! And… there.
With the last of her thoughts locked away, the nameless child experienced the total sensory isolation of a biopod disconnected to any outside stimulus for a second before the disintegrator completely obliterated Tanya's brain.
On to the next great adventure…
- Location
- Argentina
Let me guess, actual X-COM next?
- Location
- new york
That alone doomed them. They dares to harm her furry friends.
I don't think the Afterlife wants her and will do anything to move her along to her next life so she doesn't stick around for long.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
This is blatant sequel bait.
Requiem_Jeer
The Most High
You realize that literally Lord of the Rings ended that way without a sequel?
...shit, did someone write that?
That said, yeah there's gonna be a few subsequent lives in more epilogues as I work out the ideas, which may be expanded into full stories if it's voted on in the monthly poll.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Sure, but the afterlife Frodo was preparing himself for was Christian heaven without going out and saying it, while this one is reincarnation.
Epilogue 3 (Fourth Life: Sakura Haruno)
Requiem_Jeer
The Most High
Sakura was a bright girl. She picked up walking and talking faster than any of her peers, which gave cause for her proud shinobi parents to declare her a prodigy. Most tellingly, the great bloodlust of the nine-tailed fox, the hateful malevolence inimical to all humans, barely disturbed her sleep.
In the Village Hidden in the Leaves, the natural place for geniuses to go is the Ninja Academy.
Once there, she flourished in the academic subjects, but found herself middle of the road at best when it came to the more physical facets of the career. As there wasn't currently a war going on, she was subtly encouraged to form bonds with her peers, to train her body over her already-splendid mind, and to not rush towards the battlefield.
It worked exactly as intended. While a more rigorous regimen might have created a jounin out of the girl sooner, Kakashi agreed that it was better to give her a more ordinary career, more time to develop her skills before being thrust into the spotlight of being a Genius.
Besides, she balanced out Sasuke and Naruto nicely. She wasn't terribly committed to the ninja lifestyle (which was another reason), and that sensibility backed by her iron will already let Sasuke relax a bit, even if she immediately tried to parlay that into something romantic. It was a child's crush, wanting the thing that was written of so fancifully, the idea of love more than anything else.
It was why, when he submitted his students to the Chuunin Exams, he expected them to learn a valuable lesson that the Wave mission didn't, because no one mission could teach all one needed to know. But he didn't expect them to run into anything that they couldn't handle, all three of his students were fine ninja.
He was wrong.
---------------------------------
"Tch. Of course." Tanya muttered as she noticed her alarm trap triggered. She could feel their killing intent from here.
Despite the intended goal being to essentially renew herself, she hesitated to actually break her mind apart, so she made sure there was a process to re-absorb all of that knowledge and just enough memories to understand the context of them. The foundations of herself were stable enough that she doubted she'd ever become someone she could not abide, so while it was a large risk, she had thought it through.
Sadly, one of her more desperate contingencies had activated. The elder ninja, Orochimaru, had executed a telepathic attack with his killing intent (an interesting technique, to be sure) and it had affected Sakura badly enough that it counted as an intrusion, unlocking not only her secret memories but also bringing forth the Argent.
Doing something so unstable in the presence of someone so deadly… she should have died. That was partially the point, after all. Just a little 'fuck you' to whoever tried to kill her, with a chance of being mentally whole in her fifth life.
But Orochimaru, in addition to being a psychopath, was also a scientist. He was intrigued as to her 'bloodline limit' as he put it, and attempted to use his mental invasion seal on her as well.
That… had almost worked. She fought it off, but the damage… Sakura was dead. Only the barest scraps of her personality remained, unsalvageable. It was tragic, but she had some children to save. She had managed to save enough memories that she had a pretty clear idea of what was going on, fortunately. Even if she didn't like having to be signed up for the military again.
Unfortunately, Naruto was struggling from what Sakura's memories said was some kind of elaborate seal on his stomach, although how the snake managed to put so many symbols on the boy so fast instead of just gutting him… Well, if there was any reason for her to doubt that Orochimaru let them live on purpose, that killed it. Sasuke was still out, suffering from the infestation she had fought off. She needed to figure out how to astrally project with this chakra stuff…
As usual, thinking of the insensate boy sent unfamiliar flutters through her stomach, her pulse speeding up and her face warming. One of the few connections that had remained from the old Sakura was the childish crush on the boy, as Tanya had prioritized her strongest bonds with people second only after the raw memories.
Still, a crisis was at hand and her resources were limited. Address that later. She had taken all of the various trapmaking materials her teammates had on them and assembled what she could during the break. The enemies were cautious, having noticed the alarm and then started carefully disarming them from outside the danger area, paying very close attention to any manual triggers.
None of the techniques Sakura learned would be useful here. So… time to start improvising. She cycled through handsigns, molding her psychic energy with her body's energy together and feeling out the kind of effect she wanted. Genjutsu usually used… yes, this feels right. Her experience with magic and psychic energy was very useful for this kind of thing, she noticed. She cleared the chakra out of her coils and started from the beginning. "Yin release: Promise of Victory." As the hypnotic jutsu settled in, Tanya took one of her explosive tags and prepared to throw the attached kunai.
"We're clear!" The lead ninja said, when that was emphatically not the case.
The girl seemed to be a bit more attuned to genjutsu, though. The method Tanya had used was different, but in a way it was even more blatant to those who could resist it. "No, you idi-"
It was too late. The boy ninjas blew right past her triggers, and while one managed to recover by showing his jutsu hand, metaphorically and literally, using a wind technique to blow away the projectiles, the other one got clipped by the swinging log, breaking his arm. He was able to recover, throwing himself onto another tree… which was exactly where Tanya threw her explosive the instant he had committed to the movement.
One down.
She was exhausted, she was grieving, and she was worried for her teammates. She had little illusion that she would be able to defeat both of her enemies.
Fortunately, she didn't have to.
---------------------------------
Once the cavalry's battle with the remaining two sound ninja was finished, Sasuke had woken up. The psychic aura of Orochimaru lingered and surged with his consciousness, but it calmed down as Sasuke realized the danger had passed.
"Are you alright?" Rock Lee asked, concerned for her safety. What a nice boy. She felt nothing for him, though. Whatever Sakura felt for him, it was gone. Tanya spent a moment going through the memories… Ah. She met the boy recently, he flirted with her.
"I'm a little light-headed." She lied, "But that's just adrenaline." She added, "I'll be fine."
"Hn." Sasuke grunted, looking through the cave at the six other leaf ninja.
Tanya shifted her expression to the utmost of seriousness. "There was a foreign jounin that tried to kill us." She said seriously. "He infected Sasuke with his soul, and hit Naruto with a nasty seal."
"...Soul? Really?" Ino said skeptically. From Sakura's memories, this girl used to be her best friend… but Tanya felt nothing but a pang of jealousy. Was that it?
"Well, he hit me with it too, but I awoke a… bloodline limit? I think? Which protected me." Tanya clarified. It was not the best explanation, but it worked for now by admitting she might be wrong. "It's a part of himself that's supposed to burrow into your mind." She took a moment to let that sink in. "He said it was a gift, a recruitment incentive to desert Konoha and join him."
Naruto started to wake up, which was quite the nice coincidence, that the two boys woke up close to each other. Sasuke spoke next: "What kind of bloodline limit?" He asked intensely, his determined glare one of the most adorable things Tanya had ever seen.
"I can elaborate later, but tactically speaking, I have an abundance of Yin chakra and an enhanced intuition when it comes to using it productively." Tanya said carefully. "So expect me to pull out some unusual improvisations. A full explanation will be provided when the test is over and I can include Kakashi in the explanation."
"Ah, what hit me?" Naruto asked.
"A jounin, apparently." Shikamaru snarked. Tanya also felt nothing for this boy, but her memories were pretty sparse on him anyway.
"Orochimaru hit you in the stomach with an elaborate seal." Tanya informed him, which caused the rest of them to freeze.
"Damn snake bastard!" Naruto shouted, clutching his stomach. He also looked around nervously. Hm?
"Pardon me," Neji said. He was one of Rock Lee's teammates. "-but did you say Orochimaru? The traitor?"
Tanya paused, trawling through the carefully husbanded academic knowledge Sakura accumulated. Orochimaru… Ah. Current military dictator's personal student, fled justice after 'atrocities'. The history text was sparse, but it didn't seem terribly concerning at the time. Still, she needed to deflect. "...I think I need to lie down." She said, faking dizziness. "I can barely think."
Shikamaru snorted at the assertion. He must have seen through her faking. Troublesome. "If that's barely thinking, I think I'd like to play shogi with you."
"I'm quite good." Tanya warned him, which only provoked a grin. She had played a lot of games in her time. But… has she ever as Sakura? She wasn't sure. "Now, I believe there is the matter of the scroll?"
"It's ours." Neji asserted.
Ino huffed. "Oh no it isn't! It's ours!"
"First, we should assess: Who has which scrolls?" Tanya pointed out. "Our first scroll is Heaven." Orochimaru had attempted to burn it, but that was very shortly after he unleashed his killing intent, which meant saving that was the first thing Tanya did, when all she had to go on was 'enemy is trying to do something'. "The one that was on the body is Earth."
"Tch. Troublesome." Shikamaru muttered, "We have Earth too." Lucky!
"We have both." The girl in Rock Lee's team, who had never introduced herself, said.
"Then if you could, as fellow Leaf ninja, assist us in getting to the tower despite our injuries, I would owe you a debt." Tanya said diplomatically.
"...Sakura, are you sure you're okay?" Ino asked. Hm, she must be acting far out of character. It was a little disheartening to know that her other self was a boor, but it is what it is. She should have been given the chance to bloom.
Tanya smiled fakely, deliberately conveying brittleness. "I am not. I will never be the Sakura you knew again. But that explanation can wait." Best not to lead her on.
At Ino's devastated expression, Tanya immediately regretted it. She thought they weren't that close and/or disliked each other!
"Of course we will help you!" Rock Lee proclaimed. "If I cannot escort you safely, I will run around the Forest of Death twenty times along the fence in penance! I only ask that you go out on a date with me!"
Tanya was caught a bit off guard at the forwardness, but remembered that she was not the ancient brain in a robot, but instead a young girl again. Tanya's eyes drifted back to Sasuke, who kept his face passive. Her empathy wasn't quite working at full capacity, but what remnants of the skill persisted in this world indicated that he was feeling a mite possessive.
…Well, inciting jealousy was a time honored method of goading recalcitrant romantic partners, and she was currently leaning towards keeping that most precious childish wish of Sakura's… "Okay. I'll give you a chance. Impress me." Tanya said calmly. "Start with carrying Naruto, whatever that seal is, it's really messing up his chakra." Naruto winced at that, presumably embarrassed at the frank admission of weakness from her.
Ino gaped. "Are you drunk?" She asked, genuinely.
Tanya polled the memories again. "...I thought you'd be ecstatic that I'm exploring other options." She said, tilting her head.
"Yes, but… Look at him!" Ino said, gesturing wildly.
"Ouch." Choji, who had been snacking this whole time, said. "He's right there, Ino."
"Nothing you say can quench my flames of youth!" Rock Lee shouted jubilantly. "I have a date with the beautiful Sakura!" He lifted Naruto in a fireman's carry, to the boy's strenuous objections, and leapt to a tree. "Let us be off!"
Tanya turned to Sasuke. "How are you?"
"Hn. I can still fight." Sasuke said, which set off another cascade of feelings that Tanya enjoyed for a moment before following Rock Lee. Fortunately, chakra reinforcement and psychic reinforcement were basically the same thing. The former was even easier, in fact.
---------------------------------
Once their old schoolteacher (who Tanya had not managed to save any kind of information about, not even in memories related to subjects the man had taught) had finished explaining to them their pass, they had two more days to wait until they could leave the forest. Even explaining Orochimaru's actions only got a 'the Hokage knows about Orochimaru already and has sent a task force' which was probably because of that large snake the man summoned, if she had to guess, and a 'international treaties mean that you're stuck with the medical care you can provide yourselves only unless you're pulling out of the exam'. Iruka heavily hinted that they should pull out.
Tanya wanted to, but Sasuke and Naruto both refused. So, it was up to her.
"What are you doing?" Sasuke asked, lying shirtless on the ground.
Tanya hummed as she strained her senses to attempt to divine what was going on. "You're the one who rejected competent help." Tanya said, "So I'll need to try this my way." She had been studying the differences between chakra and psychic energy for a few hours, and she thinks she can manage... "Yin release: Astral projection."
Just as planned, her mind projected outside of her body, which now slumped down. Hm. She wonders… dry. Okay, it doesn't work like that here. That's good. Now, for the hard part…
"Sakura?" Sasuke asked, her name on his lips sending a shiver down her spine that she felt even without a spine. Having a crush was so inconvenient… But nice. How long would it linger, she wondered? "Did you just do this so you could sleep on my back?"
Tanya dove into Sasuke's head.
---------------------------------
There was a red moon with an odd symbol illuminating a residential area. It was far more… based in reality compared to other minds she's seen, the architecture was all sensible and there weren't any voids or hazards.
This is probably a memory.
Tanya checked themselves. As expected, she had taken her old astral appearance, her own with just enough age to be distinguished without being withered. When she was about forty-five, in other words. Still… she should modify her appearance.
With a single hand seal, her astral body now looked like her current physical body aged up to a similar level. Well, if her projections vis a vis her measurements were unduly influenced by her old svelte body, that was just how it went. She did make sure to lengthen her hair, though. It now fell down to the small of her back.
Still, Tanya started walking. There wasn't anything in the actual geography that directed her anywhere in particular, but by obeying her intuition, she went straight towards where the mind would naturally drift.
In this case, a massacre.
Hm, did she know about this already? From Sakura's memories… ah! Sasuke was the last survivor of his large family, who were all killed in a single night. A massive tragedy.
The one murdering all of the black-haired black/red-eyed people was a black-haired young teenager with sharp cheekbones and red eyes, the same symbol reflected in the moon. As typical for a memory, the murderer didn't acknowledge her presence, and she walked along, paying attention to the smaller details.
Oddly, there weren't many to see. Typically, a mental image like this would have distortions that reflect thoughts of the place instead of a relatively clean recollection. Instead, all that was here was the memory, with melting shadows showing the frayed edges of it.
Hm… what would explain this? It could just be a different mental construction in this world… wait. Construction. Was this… a psychic construct?
Tanya looked at the one metaphorical piece of this place: the Moon. "Hmmmm…" Tanya reached up and clenched her fist around the moon, focusing her will to execute her task. After a great exertion of effort, using a trick of perspective that only ever works in mental worlds, the moon crumbled in her grip.
The red tinge of the memory faded, and instead the place was awash in moonlight and darkness. The boy-murderer's eyes did not change, but he wept as he executed his grim task, and there was a second murderer, a man wearing a mask and wielding a kusarigama attached to a war fan. The masked man slipped through solid objects effortlessly, avoiding counterattacks from the resistance that was now visible.
"Interesting…" Tanya murmured as she followed the boy-murderer, the focus of the memory, to a house.
Before this killing, there was a dramatic confrontation, which… yes, a younger Sasuke walked in on right as the murderer killed… his parents? Yes, his parents.
"If you want to kill me," The boy-murderer, Sasuke's big brother Itachi, said, "-despise me, hate me, live a loathesome life. You will become a rival for me to measure my vessel against… you have that hidden potential." With madness in his eyes, he continued: "This is why I'm allowing you to live, for my sake. One day, when you have the same eyes I do, come and stand before me!"
His eyes flashed red… and so did the entire mental world as Sasuke screamed. The moon had returned to its previous state, and Itachi's tears were gone, replaced with an expression of insane satisfaction.
Hmmmm… interesting. Whatever method Itachi used to create this hypnotic technique, it is quite potent. It's also horrific, and Tanya wants to rip the boy's spine out through his throat, but it also seemed like… Itachi was deliberately casting himself as the villain. Why conceal the other actor? It was a mystery.
But as interesting as this was, and she really should address it eventually… This is not why she's here. She started moving in earnest, trying to find a deeper portion of the mind beyond the constructed trauma carousel that blanketed it.
"...It occurs to me that it's been over a century since I've actually done a solo mind delve in a hostile mind." Tanya muttered to herself. It didn't really come up in everyday life. When was the last time? Oh, it has been less than a century. It was to help soothe Mary's great granddaughter after that unfortunate business. "How does it go again?" Eventually, she found a shrine that had an ominous stairway leading down. Perfect. Like riding a bike.
Oddly, the basement of the shrine looked like an actual basement. Weird. There was a half-obscured tablet that… seemed to outline secret magic eye lore. Interesting. So when Itachi mentioned his weirder-than-normal eyes, he meant this 'Magenkyo Sharingan', which is attained by killing your closest friend.
But in the shadowy limits of the memory, she heard the shuffling of scales, the movement of a snake. It was subtle, but there. "Orochimaru!" She shouted, "Leave this place, or I will remove you."
The symbol on Sasuke's neck, the seal that Orochimaru bit onto him, appeared on the floor, and a mental projection of the man rose out of it. "Well, how curious." He said, lucid in a way that archetypes or constructs weren't. A true sliver of himself, then. "I'm afraid if you are trying to pique my interest by approaching my age, you're wasting your time." he said drily. "I've never subscribed to that sex and romance nonsense."
"Same." Tanya said, nodding along. "But I wanted to see if I could experience it. It was working. You ruined that."
"...Oh. You're not Sakura at all." Orochimaru said, surprised. "You're someone else. How fascinating. Why pretend to be such a useless little girl?"
"Because I got bored after my first century and a half and wanted to try again." Tanya said, tapping her foot. Well, the more important consideration was that her mental faculties were on a steady decline, but her stated reason was also correct.
Orochimaru gaped. "...You've cracked the secret of immortality?" He asked in wonder. "Tell me! What jutsu do you use?" His composure had cracked. He really wanted it.
Tanya shook her head ruefully. "I'm afraid I can't help you." She said, feeling somewhat sympathetic to the monster after seeing the desperation in his eyes. "You are merely a fragment, after all."
The projection startled. "Oh, yes. Of course. I am not a shadow clone, even if you told me I'd need to rejoin myself. But I'll eventually do that."
Humming, Tanya thought about her odds of tricking him. "If you allow me to extract you, and instead sequester you in an object seal to return to your original self, I will tell you everything I know of my immortality."
Orochimaru's eyes narrowed. "Ah. You don't know why you're immortal." He said, spitting to the side. He saw through her deception easily.
Tanya shook her head. "No, I know why, it's just not voluntary on my part. I wouldn't know how to apply it to you."
"Hm. Decisions, decisions…" He took a moment to assess the deal. "...No, the Sharingan is too valuable. I will decline your offer."
"Then die." Tanya said, golden cracks forming on her astral self.
---------------------------------
Tanya returned to her new body with a bit of a headache, but that was normal. The seal on Sasuke's neck spurted like a punctured artery, the liquid quickly evaporating while the remnants of the seal flaked and sublimated away. "That should do it." She said smugly, swatting Sasuke's back. After a beat, Tanya turned him over. "Oh, he passed out." He looked so broody even while asleep. It was cute.
"Well, what do we have here?" A literal snake wrapped around Tanya's neck, startling her at the sudden arrival. Ah, she got distracted! Orochimaru's back! The snake lifted her tiny preteen body and turned it to face…
…Wait, no. That was just the proctor, Anko. Out of her sleeve was the snake that was lifting her up. It wasn't even a constrictor snake, so it was vaguely impressive that it could even support her weight. Tanya calmed down after the snake flicked its tongue on a major vein, just lightly enough to make clear where the venom would be injected if she was anything but compliant. "I was instructed that while medical supplies were provided, medical nin were only to be accessed if we were to forfeit." She explained calmly. "As I was outvoted, I had to administer such aid on my own." She waved her hand in Sasuke's direction. "So, I did."
Anko's eyes narrowed. "...Are you telling me that you managed to cure the Cursed Seal of Heaven?" She asked,
Tanya stared at the proctor unflinchingly. "It was barely attached. I imagine if I had given it time to burrow into him it would have been difficult to fix with such a simple procedure." At least, that made sense to her. She wasn't really involved with the Psychonauts except peripherally when that epidemic of malicious psychics inserting pieces of themselves into other people's minds was happening, and she knew time was a factor then. She was unclear on the specifics.
Whatever knowledge the proctor had, and given the snakes may be the old ninja's student or daughter, on the nature of Sasuke's affliction, Tanya's explanation seemed to make sense to her so she let the snake let go of Tanya's neck. "You get to live." Anko announced, "For now." She added.
Tanya resisted the urge to roll her eyes. If this much weirdness was enough to call for an execution, Kakashi wouldn't have survived to his current age. "Does your presence mean that the exam is over?" She asked politely.
"No, but as the proctor I can medically disqualify people." Anko said bluntly. "...Looks like the Uchiha brat's fine enough to continue." She looked around. "Where's the orange brat?"
Tanya shrugged. "Last I checked he was networking with the foreign ninja downstairs. But that was before the procedure, and…" She stretched her back a bit. "-I'd guess that was about four hours ago." It was about noon to one when she started right after lunch, and she was feeling a little hungry again.
"It's five in the evening." Anko supplied.
"Yes, four hours." Tanya confirmed, "I'll summon him." She walked to the stairwell and took a deep breath before shouting: "NARUTO! GET YOUR BUTT OVER HERE!"
"Coming, Sakura!" Naruto shouted back. After about twenty seconds, the ninja in question was right in front of her. "Are you okay now?" He asked, oddly pleased with his rude summoning, "I was beginning to think you'd never yell at me again!" He laughed at his own joke.
Tanya sighed. "I'll explain everything once we can get Kakashi to listen too. It's a long story, and I don't want to continually repeat it." She gestured to Naruto, turning towards Anko. "Here he is." She said.
Anko grabbed Naruto's shirt and pulled him into the room where Sasuke was peacefully sleeping. "Okay brat, show me the seal." She said bluntly. Naruto flinched, nervously glancing at Sakura. "I need to see what that bastard did to you." She elaborated, "She told me there was a seal on your stomach, so as the proctor I'm going to check it out. If you don't, I'm going to disqualify your ass and then the Hokage'll look at it instead."
Naruto took a deep breath and visibly put on his mask of bravado. "Ah, it's fine! Nothing to worry about!" He took off his jacket and shirt, now matching Sasuke. He looked at his blank stomach in confusion. "Uh…"
Anko sighed. "Channel chakra." She ordered, taking out a piece of paper from her pocket. Naruto formed a ram seal and did so, causing the ink to appear on his stomach. "Okay, so…" She looked between the paper and the seal. Glancing at it, Tanya noticed that it was a copy of the seal, except for… "These five marks aren't supposed to be there." Anko muttered to herself, taking out a brush and inking the copy with them. "Okay, you're done." Anko declared. Naruto stopped channeling chakra. "I'll take this to the Hokage."
Well, glad to see that things are operating with at least somewhat reasonable speed.
---------------------------------
The ruling from on-high on Naruto's seal was 'it can wait', which was not what Tanya wanted to hear but she supposed in an international competition there was a need to be seen as impartial with the contestants.
The third exam was a publicized tournament, and due to scheduling issues there could only be so many contestants, the seventeen passes too much. A brief set of one versus one matches were used to thin the herd, with one person getting a "random" pass to make nine contestants. That person was Naruto, which meant that he could immediately get his seal problem treated. Given that he was selected first, this was blatantly rigged in his favor.
The results weren't particularly important. Sasuke fought Kiba, who was a boy who fought by training his dog how to use ninjutsu to turn into a copy of him, letting them tag-team Sasuke. Unfortunately for him, Sasuke was too skilled and composed to let such a disadvantage defeat him, crushing both the dog and the boy with ease.
Tanya found themselves sighing simultaneously with Ino at the victory, heart fluttering. "So cool…" She murmured, riding out the novelty of having a crush instead of suppressing it like she kind of wanted to.
Her own battle was against probably the strongest enemy: Gaara. He gave off the same desperate vibe that she saw frequently when dealing with others who had empowered survival drives. So she decided to immediately forfeit, as Kakashi had arrived and advised her to do so.
Now that that was over with, it was time to finally face the music. The day after those preliminaries, after faking normal interactions with Sakura's parents, she gathered everyone who was invested in Sakura's announcement in one place and, once everyone's attention had been gathered, took a deep breath.
"Hello. I have some bad news for you all: Sakura is dead. I'm sorry." She said, bowing in apology.
Predictably, it took some time to get everyone to calm down from that.
In the Village Hidden in the Leaves, the natural place for geniuses to go is the Ninja Academy.
Once there, she flourished in the academic subjects, but found herself middle of the road at best when it came to the more physical facets of the career. As there wasn't currently a war going on, she was subtly encouraged to form bonds with her peers, to train her body over her already-splendid mind, and to not rush towards the battlefield.
It worked exactly as intended. While a more rigorous regimen might have created a jounin out of the girl sooner, Kakashi agreed that it was better to give her a more ordinary career, more time to develop her skills before being thrust into the spotlight of being a Genius.
Besides, she balanced out Sasuke and Naruto nicely. She wasn't terribly committed to the ninja lifestyle (which was another reason), and that sensibility backed by her iron will already let Sasuke relax a bit, even if she immediately tried to parlay that into something romantic. It was a child's crush, wanting the thing that was written of so fancifully, the idea of love more than anything else.
It was why, when he submitted his students to the Chuunin Exams, he expected them to learn a valuable lesson that the Wave mission didn't, because no one mission could teach all one needed to know. But he didn't expect them to run into anything that they couldn't handle, all three of his students were fine ninja.
He was wrong.
---------------------------------
"Tch. Of course." Tanya muttered as she noticed her alarm trap triggered. She could feel their killing intent from here.
Despite the intended goal being to essentially renew herself, she hesitated to actually break her mind apart, so she made sure there was a process to re-absorb all of that knowledge and just enough memories to understand the context of them. The foundations of herself were stable enough that she doubted she'd ever become someone she could not abide, so while it was a large risk, she had thought it through.
Sadly, one of her more desperate contingencies had activated. The elder ninja, Orochimaru, had executed a telepathic attack with his killing intent (an interesting technique, to be sure) and it had affected Sakura badly enough that it counted as an intrusion, unlocking not only her secret memories but also bringing forth the Argent.
Doing something so unstable in the presence of someone so deadly… she should have died. That was partially the point, after all. Just a little 'fuck you' to whoever tried to kill her, with a chance of being mentally whole in her fifth life.
But Orochimaru, in addition to being a psychopath, was also a scientist. He was intrigued as to her 'bloodline limit' as he put it, and attempted to use his mental invasion seal on her as well.
That… had almost worked. She fought it off, but the damage… Sakura was dead. Only the barest scraps of her personality remained, unsalvageable. It was tragic, but she had some children to save. She had managed to save enough memories that she had a pretty clear idea of what was going on, fortunately. Even if she didn't like having to be signed up for the military again.
Unfortunately, Naruto was struggling from what Sakura's memories said was some kind of elaborate seal on his stomach, although how the snake managed to put so many symbols on the boy so fast instead of just gutting him… Well, if there was any reason for her to doubt that Orochimaru let them live on purpose, that killed it. Sasuke was still out, suffering from the infestation she had fought off. She needed to figure out how to astrally project with this chakra stuff…
As usual, thinking of the insensate boy sent unfamiliar flutters through her stomach, her pulse speeding up and her face warming. One of the few connections that had remained from the old Sakura was the childish crush on the boy, as Tanya had prioritized her strongest bonds with people second only after the raw memories.
Still, a crisis was at hand and her resources were limited. Address that later. She had taken all of the various trapmaking materials her teammates had on them and assembled what she could during the break. The enemies were cautious, having noticed the alarm and then started carefully disarming them from outside the danger area, paying very close attention to any manual triggers.
None of the techniques Sakura learned would be useful here. So… time to start improvising. She cycled through handsigns, molding her psychic energy with her body's energy together and feeling out the kind of effect she wanted. Genjutsu usually used… yes, this feels right. Her experience with magic and psychic energy was very useful for this kind of thing, she noticed. She cleared the chakra out of her coils and started from the beginning. "Yin release: Promise of Victory." As the hypnotic jutsu settled in, Tanya took one of her explosive tags and prepared to throw the attached kunai.
"We're clear!" The lead ninja said, when that was emphatically not the case.
The girl seemed to be a bit more attuned to genjutsu, though. The method Tanya had used was different, but in a way it was even more blatant to those who could resist it. "No, you idi-"
It was too late. The boy ninjas blew right past her triggers, and while one managed to recover by showing his jutsu hand, metaphorically and literally, using a wind technique to blow away the projectiles, the other one got clipped by the swinging log, breaking his arm. He was able to recover, throwing himself onto another tree… which was exactly where Tanya threw her explosive the instant he had committed to the movement.
One down.
She was exhausted, she was grieving, and she was worried for her teammates. She had little illusion that she would be able to defeat both of her enemies.
Fortunately, she didn't have to.
---------------------------------
Once the cavalry's battle with the remaining two sound ninja was finished, Sasuke had woken up. The psychic aura of Orochimaru lingered and surged with his consciousness, but it calmed down as Sasuke realized the danger had passed.
"Are you alright?" Rock Lee asked, concerned for her safety. What a nice boy. She felt nothing for him, though. Whatever Sakura felt for him, it was gone. Tanya spent a moment going through the memories… Ah. She met the boy recently, he flirted with her.
"I'm a little light-headed." She lied, "But that's just adrenaline." She added, "I'll be fine."
"Hn." Sasuke grunted, looking through the cave at the six other leaf ninja.
Tanya shifted her expression to the utmost of seriousness. "There was a foreign jounin that tried to kill us." She said seriously. "He infected Sasuke with his soul, and hit Naruto with a nasty seal."
"...Soul? Really?" Ino said skeptically. From Sakura's memories, this girl used to be her best friend… but Tanya felt nothing but a pang of jealousy. Was that it?
"Well, he hit me with it too, but I awoke a… bloodline limit? I think? Which protected me." Tanya clarified. It was not the best explanation, but it worked for now by admitting she might be wrong. "It's a part of himself that's supposed to burrow into your mind." She took a moment to let that sink in. "He said it was a gift, a recruitment incentive to desert Konoha and join him."
Naruto started to wake up, which was quite the nice coincidence, that the two boys woke up close to each other. Sasuke spoke next: "What kind of bloodline limit?" He asked intensely, his determined glare one of the most adorable things Tanya had ever seen.
"I can elaborate later, but tactically speaking, I have an abundance of Yin chakra and an enhanced intuition when it comes to using it productively." Tanya said carefully. "So expect me to pull out some unusual improvisations. A full explanation will be provided when the test is over and I can include Kakashi in the explanation."
"Ah, what hit me?" Naruto asked.
"A jounin, apparently." Shikamaru snarked. Tanya also felt nothing for this boy, but her memories were pretty sparse on him anyway.
"Orochimaru hit you in the stomach with an elaborate seal." Tanya informed him, which caused the rest of them to freeze.
"Damn snake bastard!" Naruto shouted, clutching his stomach. He also looked around nervously. Hm?
"Pardon me," Neji said. He was one of Rock Lee's teammates. "-but did you say Orochimaru? The traitor?"
Tanya paused, trawling through the carefully husbanded academic knowledge Sakura accumulated. Orochimaru… Ah. Current military dictator's personal student, fled justice after 'atrocities'. The history text was sparse, but it didn't seem terribly concerning at the time. Still, she needed to deflect. "...I think I need to lie down." She said, faking dizziness. "I can barely think."
Shikamaru snorted at the assertion. He must have seen through her faking. Troublesome. "If that's barely thinking, I think I'd like to play shogi with you."
"I'm quite good." Tanya warned him, which only provoked a grin. She had played a lot of games in her time. But… has she ever as Sakura? She wasn't sure. "Now, I believe there is the matter of the scroll?"
"It's ours." Neji asserted.
Ino huffed. "Oh no it isn't! It's ours!"
"First, we should assess: Who has which scrolls?" Tanya pointed out. "Our first scroll is Heaven." Orochimaru had attempted to burn it, but that was very shortly after he unleashed his killing intent, which meant saving that was the first thing Tanya did, when all she had to go on was 'enemy is trying to do something'. "The one that was on the body is Earth."
"Tch. Troublesome." Shikamaru muttered, "We have Earth too." Lucky!
"We have both." The girl in Rock Lee's team, who had never introduced herself, said.
"Then if you could, as fellow Leaf ninja, assist us in getting to the tower despite our injuries, I would owe you a debt." Tanya said diplomatically.
"...Sakura, are you sure you're okay?" Ino asked. Hm, she must be acting far out of character. It was a little disheartening to know that her other self was a boor, but it is what it is. She should have been given the chance to bloom.
Tanya smiled fakely, deliberately conveying brittleness. "I am not. I will never be the Sakura you knew again. But that explanation can wait." Best not to lead her on.
At Ino's devastated expression, Tanya immediately regretted it. She thought they weren't that close and/or disliked each other!
"Of course we will help you!" Rock Lee proclaimed. "If I cannot escort you safely, I will run around the Forest of Death twenty times along the fence in penance! I only ask that you go out on a date with me!"
Tanya was caught a bit off guard at the forwardness, but remembered that she was not the ancient brain in a robot, but instead a young girl again. Tanya's eyes drifted back to Sasuke, who kept his face passive. Her empathy wasn't quite working at full capacity, but what remnants of the skill persisted in this world indicated that he was feeling a mite possessive.
…Well, inciting jealousy was a time honored method of goading recalcitrant romantic partners, and she was currently leaning towards keeping that most precious childish wish of Sakura's… "Okay. I'll give you a chance. Impress me." Tanya said calmly. "Start with carrying Naruto, whatever that seal is, it's really messing up his chakra." Naruto winced at that, presumably embarrassed at the frank admission of weakness from her.
Ino gaped. "Are you drunk?" She asked, genuinely.
Tanya polled the memories again. "...I thought you'd be ecstatic that I'm exploring other options." She said, tilting her head.
"Yes, but… Look at him!" Ino said, gesturing wildly.
"Ouch." Choji, who had been snacking this whole time, said. "He's right there, Ino."
"Nothing you say can quench my flames of youth!" Rock Lee shouted jubilantly. "I have a date with the beautiful Sakura!" He lifted Naruto in a fireman's carry, to the boy's strenuous objections, and leapt to a tree. "Let us be off!"
Tanya turned to Sasuke. "How are you?"
"Hn. I can still fight." Sasuke said, which set off another cascade of feelings that Tanya enjoyed for a moment before following Rock Lee. Fortunately, chakra reinforcement and psychic reinforcement were basically the same thing. The former was even easier, in fact.
---------------------------------
Once their old schoolteacher (who Tanya had not managed to save any kind of information about, not even in memories related to subjects the man had taught) had finished explaining to them their pass, they had two more days to wait until they could leave the forest. Even explaining Orochimaru's actions only got a 'the Hokage knows about Orochimaru already and has sent a task force' which was probably because of that large snake the man summoned, if she had to guess, and a 'international treaties mean that you're stuck with the medical care you can provide yourselves only unless you're pulling out of the exam'. Iruka heavily hinted that they should pull out.
Tanya wanted to, but Sasuke and Naruto both refused. So, it was up to her.
"What are you doing?" Sasuke asked, lying shirtless on the ground.
Tanya hummed as she strained her senses to attempt to divine what was going on. "You're the one who rejected competent help." Tanya said, "So I'll need to try this my way." She had been studying the differences between chakra and psychic energy for a few hours, and she thinks she can manage... "Yin release: Astral projection."
Just as planned, her mind projected outside of her body, which now slumped down. Hm. She wonders… dry. Okay, it doesn't work like that here. That's good. Now, for the hard part…
"Sakura?" Sasuke asked, her name on his lips sending a shiver down her spine that she felt even without a spine. Having a crush was so inconvenient… But nice. How long would it linger, she wondered? "Did you just do this so you could sleep on my back?"
Tanya dove into Sasuke's head.
---------------------------------
There was a red moon with an odd symbol illuminating a residential area. It was far more… based in reality compared to other minds she's seen, the architecture was all sensible and there weren't any voids or hazards.
This is probably a memory.
Tanya checked themselves. As expected, she had taken her old astral appearance, her own with just enough age to be distinguished without being withered. When she was about forty-five, in other words. Still… she should modify her appearance.
With a single hand seal, her astral body now looked like her current physical body aged up to a similar level. Well, if her projections vis a vis her measurements were unduly influenced by her old svelte body, that was just how it went. She did make sure to lengthen her hair, though. It now fell down to the small of her back.
Still, Tanya started walking. There wasn't anything in the actual geography that directed her anywhere in particular, but by obeying her intuition, she went straight towards where the mind would naturally drift.
In this case, a massacre.
Hm, did she know about this already? From Sakura's memories… ah! Sasuke was the last survivor of his large family, who were all killed in a single night. A massive tragedy.
The one murdering all of the black-haired black/red-eyed people was a black-haired young teenager with sharp cheekbones and red eyes, the same symbol reflected in the moon. As typical for a memory, the murderer didn't acknowledge her presence, and she walked along, paying attention to the smaller details.
Oddly, there weren't many to see. Typically, a mental image like this would have distortions that reflect thoughts of the place instead of a relatively clean recollection. Instead, all that was here was the memory, with melting shadows showing the frayed edges of it.
Hm… what would explain this? It could just be a different mental construction in this world… wait. Construction. Was this… a psychic construct?
Tanya looked at the one metaphorical piece of this place: the Moon. "Hmmmm…" Tanya reached up and clenched her fist around the moon, focusing her will to execute her task. After a great exertion of effort, using a trick of perspective that only ever works in mental worlds, the moon crumbled in her grip.
The red tinge of the memory faded, and instead the place was awash in moonlight and darkness. The boy-murderer's eyes did not change, but he wept as he executed his grim task, and there was a second murderer, a man wearing a mask and wielding a kusarigama attached to a war fan. The masked man slipped through solid objects effortlessly, avoiding counterattacks from the resistance that was now visible.
"Interesting…" Tanya murmured as she followed the boy-murderer, the focus of the memory, to a house.
Before this killing, there was a dramatic confrontation, which… yes, a younger Sasuke walked in on right as the murderer killed… his parents? Yes, his parents.
"If you want to kill me," The boy-murderer, Sasuke's big brother Itachi, said, "-despise me, hate me, live a loathesome life. You will become a rival for me to measure my vessel against… you have that hidden potential." With madness in his eyes, he continued: "This is why I'm allowing you to live, for my sake. One day, when you have the same eyes I do, come and stand before me!"
His eyes flashed red… and so did the entire mental world as Sasuke screamed. The moon had returned to its previous state, and Itachi's tears were gone, replaced with an expression of insane satisfaction.
Hmmmm… interesting. Whatever method Itachi used to create this hypnotic technique, it is quite potent. It's also horrific, and Tanya wants to rip the boy's spine out through his throat, but it also seemed like… Itachi was deliberately casting himself as the villain. Why conceal the other actor? It was a mystery.
But as interesting as this was, and she really should address it eventually… This is not why she's here. She started moving in earnest, trying to find a deeper portion of the mind beyond the constructed trauma carousel that blanketed it.
"...It occurs to me that it's been over a century since I've actually done a solo mind delve in a hostile mind." Tanya muttered to herself. It didn't really come up in everyday life. When was the last time? Oh, it has been less than a century. It was to help soothe Mary's great granddaughter after that unfortunate business. "How does it go again?" Eventually, she found a shrine that had an ominous stairway leading down. Perfect. Like riding a bike.
Oddly, the basement of the shrine looked like an actual basement. Weird. There was a half-obscured tablet that… seemed to outline secret magic eye lore. Interesting. So when Itachi mentioned his weirder-than-normal eyes, he meant this 'Magenkyo Sharingan', which is attained by killing your closest friend.
But in the shadowy limits of the memory, she heard the shuffling of scales, the movement of a snake. It was subtle, but there. "Orochimaru!" She shouted, "Leave this place, or I will remove you."
The symbol on Sasuke's neck, the seal that Orochimaru bit onto him, appeared on the floor, and a mental projection of the man rose out of it. "Well, how curious." He said, lucid in a way that archetypes or constructs weren't. A true sliver of himself, then. "I'm afraid if you are trying to pique my interest by approaching my age, you're wasting your time." he said drily. "I've never subscribed to that sex and romance nonsense."
"Same." Tanya said, nodding along. "But I wanted to see if I could experience it. It was working. You ruined that."
"...Oh. You're not Sakura at all." Orochimaru said, surprised. "You're someone else. How fascinating. Why pretend to be such a useless little girl?"
"Because I got bored after my first century and a half and wanted to try again." Tanya said, tapping her foot. Well, the more important consideration was that her mental faculties were on a steady decline, but her stated reason was also correct.
Orochimaru gaped. "...You've cracked the secret of immortality?" He asked in wonder. "Tell me! What jutsu do you use?" His composure had cracked. He really wanted it.
Tanya shook her head ruefully. "I'm afraid I can't help you." She said, feeling somewhat sympathetic to the monster after seeing the desperation in his eyes. "You are merely a fragment, after all."
The projection startled. "Oh, yes. Of course. I am not a shadow clone, even if you told me I'd need to rejoin myself. But I'll eventually do that."
Humming, Tanya thought about her odds of tricking him. "If you allow me to extract you, and instead sequester you in an object seal to return to your original self, I will tell you everything I know of my immortality."
Orochimaru's eyes narrowed. "Ah. You don't know why you're immortal." He said, spitting to the side. He saw through her deception easily.
Tanya shook her head. "No, I know why, it's just not voluntary on my part. I wouldn't know how to apply it to you."
"Hm. Decisions, decisions…" He took a moment to assess the deal. "...No, the Sharingan is too valuable. I will decline your offer."
"Then die." Tanya said, golden cracks forming on her astral self.
---------------------------------
Tanya returned to her new body with a bit of a headache, but that was normal. The seal on Sasuke's neck spurted like a punctured artery, the liquid quickly evaporating while the remnants of the seal flaked and sublimated away. "That should do it." She said smugly, swatting Sasuke's back. After a beat, Tanya turned him over. "Oh, he passed out." He looked so broody even while asleep. It was cute.
"Well, what do we have here?" A literal snake wrapped around Tanya's neck, startling her at the sudden arrival. Ah, she got distracted! Orochimaru's back! The snake lifted her tiny preteen body and turned it to face…
…Wait, no. That was just the proctor, Anko. Out of her sleeve was the snake that was lifting her up. It wasn't even a constrictor snake, so it was vaguely impressive that it could even support her weight. Tanya calmed down after the snake flicked its tongue on a major vein, just lightly enough to make clear where the venom would be injected if she was anything but compliant. "I was instructed that while medical supplies were provided, medical nin were only to be accessed if we were to forfeit." She explained calmly. "As I was outvoted, I had to administer such aid on my own." She waved her hand in Sasuke's direction. "So, I did."
Anko's eyes narrowed. "...Are you telling me that you managed to cure the Cursed Seal of Heaven?" She asked,
Tanya stared at the proctor unflinchingly. "It was barely attached. I imagine if I had given it time to burrow into him it would have been difficult to fix with such a simple procedure." At least, that made sense to her. She wasn't really involved with the Psychonauts except peripherally when that epidemic of malicious psychics inserting pieces of themselves into other people's minds was happening, and she knew time was a factor then. She was unclear on the specifics.
Whatever knowledge the proctor had, and given the snakes may be the old ninja's student or daughter, on the nature of Sasuke's affliction, Tanya's explanation seemed to make sense to her so she let the snake let go of Tanya's neck. "You get to live." Anko announced, "For now." She added.
Tanya resisted the urge to roll her eyes. If this much weirdness was enough to call for an execution, Kakashi wouldn't have survived to his current age. "Does your presence mean that the exam is over?" She asked politely.
"No, but as the proctor I can medically disqualify people." Anko said bluntly. "...Looks like the Uchiha brat's fine enough to continue." She looked around. "Where's the orange brat?"
Tanya shrugged. "Last I checked he was networking with the foreign ninja downstairs. But that was before the procedure, and…" She stretched her back a bit. "-I'd guess that was about four hours ago." It was about noon to one when she started right after lunch, and she was feeling a little hungry again.
"It's five in the evening." Anko supplied.
"Yes, four hours." Tanya confirmed, "I'll summon him." She walked to the stairwell and took a deep breath before shouting: "NARUTO! GET YOUR BUTT OVER HERE!"
"Coming, Sakura!" Naruto shouted back. After about twenty seconds, the ninja in question was right in front of her. "Are you okay now?" He asked, oddly pleased with his rude summoning, "I was beginning to think you'd never yell at me again!" He laughed at his own joke.
Tanya sighed. "I'll explain everything once we can get Kakashi to listen too. It's a long story, and I don't want to continually repeat it." She gestured to Naruto, turning towards Anko. "Here he is." She said.
Anko grabbed Naruto's shirt and pulled him into the room where Sasuke was peacefully sleeping. "Okay brat, show me the seal." She said bluntly. Naruto flinched, nervously glancing at Sakura. "I need to see what that bastard did to you." She elaborated, "She told me there was a seal on your stomach, so as the proctor I'm going to check it out. If you don't, I'm going to disqualify your ass and then the Hokage'll look at it instead."
Naruto took a deep breath and visibly put on his mask of bravado. "Ah, it's fine! Nothing to worry about!" He took off his jacket and shirt, now matching Sasuke. He looked at his blank stomach in confusion. "Uh…"
Anko sighed. "Channel chakra." She ordered, taking out a piece of paper from her pocket. Naruto formed a ram seal and did so, causing the ink to appear on his stomach. "Okay, so…" She looked between the paper and the seal. Glancing at it, Tanya noticed that it was a copy of the seal, except for… "These five marks aren't supposed to be there." Anko muttered to herself, taking out a brush and inking the copy with them. "Okay, you're done." Anko declared. Naruto stopped channeling chakra. "I'll take this to the Hokage."
Well, glad to see that things are operating with at least somewhat reasonable speed.
---------------------------------
The ruling from on-high on Naruto's seal was 'it can wait', which was not what Tanya wanted to hear but she supposed in an international competition there was a need to be seen as impartial with the contestants.
The third exam was a publicized tournament, and due to scheduling issues there could only be so many contestants, the seventeen passes too much. A brief set of one versus one matches were used to thin the herd, with one person getting a "random" pass to make nine contestants. That person was Naruto, which meant that he could immediately get his seal problem treated. Given that he was selected first, this was blatantly rigged in his favor.
The results weren't particularly important. Sasuke fought Kiba, who was a boy who fought by training his dog how to use ninjutsu to turn into a copy of him, letting them tag-team Sasuke. Unfortunately for him, Sasuke was too skilled and composed to let such a disadvantage defeat him, crushing both the dog and the boy with ease.
Tanya found themselves sighing simultaneously with Ino at the victory, heart fluttering. "So cool…" She murmured, riding out the novelty of having a crush instead of suppressing it like she kind of wanted to.
Her own battle was against probably the strongest enemy: Gaara. He gave off the same desperate vibe that she saw frequently when dealing with others who had empowered survival drives. So she decided to immediately forfeit, as Kakashi had arrived and advised her to do so.
Now that that was over with, it was time to finally face the music. The day after those preliminaries, after faking normal interactions with Sakura's parents, she gathered everyone who was invested in Sakura's announcement in one place and, once everyone's attention had been gathered, took a deep breath.
"Hello. I have some bad news for you all: Sakura is dead. I'm sorry." She said, bowing in apology.
Predictably, it took some time to get everyone to calm down from that.
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
This is almost too good not to continue it, but the series would not progress in a remotely normal manner, if any disbelief would be kept. I'm almost sad this likely can't split off.
- Location
- Argentina
That was quite blunt but then again Tanya doesn't care much if she dies...
Ooh, interesting. That said, there's a pretty good chance of a bad end for Sakura!Tanya just from being in Naruto, though not as bad as if she reincarnated in any other village.
Hmm. Given the conditions on awakening, I'd guess Worm or Marvel/DC for the increased chances of needing to save her future self from a fate worse than death of some flavour.
Hmm. Given the conditions on awakening, I'd guess Worm or Marvel/DC for the increased chances of needing to save her future self from a fate worse than death of some flavour.
- Location
- Askew to the British Isles
given her psychonaught training I'd have thought she'd reincarnate as Ino but Sakura with her inner voice makes sense too. Another way I could have seen it developing is Tanya being inner Sakura.
Requiem_Jeer
The Most High
She actually was, which is why the starting sequence described a Sakura that was just a little off compared to normal Sakura.
- Location
- United States
So will this get it's own thread? I was drawn in for the initial less poorly written Sakura but I am down for more Tanya.
Requiem_Jeer
The Most High
In no circumstances will this ever get its own thread, but psychoprotective supplementary chapters have always been an option of the monthly patreon poll since the story has been around. The side story tab is a result of that winning.
I've even explicitly listed that such a result winning again will initiate a subvote, more Sakura being one of the options.
I've even explicitly listed that such a result winning again will initiate a subvote, more Sakura being one of the options.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I would love to see more of this! Or perhaps other options for fourth life.
Evonix
Aspiring Lovecraft antagonist.
- Location
- Canada to 2 sigmas
Something I was thinking about after the description of the Collective Unconscious is that if Being X is an egregore(thought-construct of a collective) that would explain how it can connect to minds, why it's so insistent people think about it in the way it prefers, it's arrogance(being a product of modern Christians interpretation of God) and it's powers being less than omnipotence and omniscience despite it's claims. It could also explain how it can reach between worlds and why they're similar, if the Collective Unconscious is not limited by universes and it's organized by mental distance then minds from similar cultures would be grouped together even across universes.
Theoengineering could be an interesting career in Tanya's later life and let her study it as something not completely ineffable. It could also mean her fourth incarnation could be the accidental result of her own explorations rather than Being X trying again.
Anyway on the subject of what was actually written that Naruto cross was fun, I'd be interested reading more.
Theoengineering could be an interesting career in Tanya's later life and let her study it as something not completely ineffable. It could also mean her fourth incarnation could be the accidental result of her own explorations rather than Being X trying again.
Anyway on the subject of what was actually written that Naruto cross was fun, I'd be interested reading more.
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