An Inch of Gold

Interlude III

When Mitsuki wakes again, he can feel his extremities once more, though he wishes he couldn't. Pain radiates throughout his entire body, and his head swims, the sensation akin to standing up too fast, except it doesn't go away and he is lying supine.

He is strapped tightly to some kind of gurney, and someone has stripped him of his shirt and shoes, leaving arms and ankles exposed. Wires and tubes snake into his arms, intravenous lines dripping something yellow into his body. When he tries to build up his chakra, to destroy the offending tubes with lightning, or slip into his senjutsu, nothing happens.

Chakra and strength dampening mixture, he realises with a nauseous feeling in his stomach.

It is not entirely because of the situation he is in, or the memories it evokes. His body feels too light somehow, and he cranes his head—it's difficult, because something heavy is strapped across his forehead and temples to keep him in place—but he can see the lines of dark red liquid draining out of him.

"Exsanguination," he realises out lout.

"Clever boy," the woman's voice rasps, and his eyes flick across the small room. The woman remains fastened to the wall, but her eyes are trailing figures that move around the room. Mitsuki can't get a great look at them, but he thinks that's where the smell of unwashed bodies comes from.

The woman needs hands, and these creatures act as such for her.

"There are quicker methods than this, then," he tells her calmly, while trying to locate an exit or any information that might aid in his less-than-likely escape.

"Not if you are meant to remain alive," she replies coolly. "Not if more is needed. As soon as you reach the lowest amount of blood needed to survive, we will replenish."

"For what purpose?"

"To take more."

He clenches his fists, and immediately regrets it, because the movement makes his head spin.

His eyes rest on several bulky pieces of tech arranged beside the woman. He hadn't noticed them before, but now he wonders how he couldn't have.

"I've seen those before," he says thickly. "In my...parent's lab."

The equipment works much like a ninja tool, allowing an individual to store up their specialized abilities and target them somewhere specific. Another machine amplifies abilities over a large area. Used together, though...

There's a sneer in her voice when she speaks.

"I learned much, watching your parent and his underling," she says coldly. "And by being used by them, like a tool, and discarded just as easily."

"That's what's causing the ghosts," Mitsuki realises. "You're reaching through time...and the fallout is settling over everything. Different timelines are interacting with each other."

She sniffs.

"The first attempt to use the machine did not work. It caused a small rip in the timeline. Too small and too unstable. It needs time to warm up."

"But the longer it runs, the larger the area it affects," Mitsuki protests. "The residual energy would bleed out over this entire area. It might even reach other countries."

"It is an operational risk," the woman dismisses.

One of the creatures—he sees now it resembles a bat and human hybrid—nears him and replaces the IV bag with more of the yellow fluid. "My abilities have always had a drawback. I may travel back in time, but once I do, interacting with my past-self causes me to wink out of existence. I lose all the knowledge I have gained. If I were to go back now...my past self would simply repeat all the same mistakes."

His brains struggles to parse what she is saying as the newly added drugs begin to work. "But with the machine that allows you to set a target, you can protect yourself from the fallout."

"Yes. I can effect change from here and remain safe from the consequences. A timefield within changing time."

"Then why...do you need me?"

"The problem with this machine is it was built based on Orochimaru's original model. It has biometric controls to prevent anyone other than him to operate it," she says. "Or anyone who does not share the same DNA." She smiles grotesquely. "But now we have more than enough of that."

つづく

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