AIKO TIME TRAVEL NEW STORY (writing game! you have a week to participate)

The catch is that I will only continue one of them, the most popular one. You can vote here, on my Patreon. I'll also link it at the bottom.

Scenario 1: ROOT era Aiko travels to the past

The transition from the underground tunnel system to open air felt different and vastly worse than usual. Her vision blurred out at the massive congestion of old, rotting fuinjutsu work at the exit. It had melded together into a monstrous knot that caught on her tongue seal and the fuinjutsu in her side pouch.

Her stomach lurched. Her skin vibrated. She escaped out into the training grounds and kept going, trying to outrun the pounding in her heart.

It had to be some sort of training scenario. Aiko felt her stomach clench like a rock as she stared into the hateful light of Konoha at peace. “Kai.” She said it quietly. Someone stopped and looked at her with a distant pity and then merged back into the crowd. 

The vista didn’t change. Konoha laid out in front of her like a fat and lazy housecat, teeming with thousands of people who had not yet been crushed under the weight of a demigod. 

She took a shaky breath. She considered, very seriously, going back down into ROOT’s headquarters and throwing herself on Danzo’s mercy. 

‘Oh.’ Aiko put a hand up to start to feel her head for bumps. Did she have, like, a head injury? She had been really tossed around in training today. That would be a neat explanation for why she thought she was sometime in the past and that Danzo could be helpful. Unfortunately, there was no sign of a serious concussion.

Wow. She felt legitimately sad.

Well. She still had her blue wig and ANBU mask on. At least no one would immediately see her face and know that she didn’t belong. Aiko made her way out into the streets to try to get her bearings. 

It was bright enough to hurt her eyes. The city was flatter and denser than she had ever seen with the lines of historical housing divisions. It should have seemed less grand than the taller towers she was familiar with. But the roofs were a vivid cacophony of traditional red and blue tiles and the streets were cobblestone, not shitty modern cement. The population– it had to be at least twice as dense as she had ever seen. It didn’t look like her city.

She inhaled shakily.

‘I’ve never seen it like this. I knew the older shinobi were right when they talked about Konoha being diminished, but I just didn’t expect it.’

The city was teeming with people in outdated fashion. The roads were narrower than she remembered, but she sort of knew where the neighborhoods were. Aiko didn’t allow herself to hesitate. She leapt out into the streets and upwards, dashing across the roofs. Faint blurs of movement around her felt like enemies uncomfortably close. She kept her nerves locked down tight. Even in an era of peace, she knew that if she looked out of place she would look like an infiltrator.

‘Oh fuck. If I am not in some sick training exercise genjutsu, I essentially am an infiltrator. They won’t care that the state I’m loyal to is… Well. It won’t be easily explained.’

She should probably figure out when she was. 

Scenario 2: Amnesiac Aiko is kidnapped from the hospital by 28yo lunatic Obito while sleeping, left in kamui for protection by Obito, and picked up by the wrong time period Obito.

“Wait here.”

A large man warped away with the words, leaving them strangely insubstantial in the air.

She blinked to awareness, which was the closest thing to intelligence that she seemed to have available. Curious,  the girl stared out into the void. The world was a series of grey boxes that jutted up into cold, still air. 

‘They’re like buildings.’

She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. She scraped a hand along the surface she was on in an information gathering impulse.

The information she gathered was that it was rough. Dry. Some sort of composition of tiny stones held together with something else. 

She had no idea what that meant. 

“I don’t have any idea what to do.” She put her hands on her hips and stared, contemplative, into the infinite and distant darkness.  “But I feel like I should be investigating.” 

Well! The only thing to do was to follow her impulses and see where that led her. She started a circular search pattern, fanning out from the spot where she had come into being.

Oh. She stopped and tasted that thought. Had she just started to exist today? She blinked.  

‘It’s as good a theory as any.’

“Ah!” 

Someone squawked and flapped their way to fall ignominiously off the cube they had just appeared on. 

Huh. She felt her face screw up into …judgment. She was judging him. She crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side as the stranger came back into sight.

For an instant, it was almost like seeing the man who had told her to wait.  

But, like, a funhouse mirror version.

“Who are you?” He pointed at her with his whole hand.

She narrowed her eyes. “How the hell would I know?” the girl asked, with towering condescension. 

He blinked at her, sort of, because he actually had only one eye, so it was like humorless winking.

Hmm. “Is a secret an essential component to a wink?” she asked.

He stared at her some more. “Wha?” the guy said, intelligently. He was significantly taller than her, with pale skin, dark hair, and loose clothing.

Hmm. The girl frowned at him. He really wasn’t coming off cool. He was about the same size and body type of the man who had told her to wait. But he seemed… young. 

“You’re just a boy,” she said scornfully. 

He squawked at her again. “You’re just a girl!” His voice reached a high pitch, a good octave above hers.

She blinked in affront. “That can’t be right. I feel very grownup.”

He scoffed. “That’s the proof that you’re a child. If you were an adult, you would feel unprepared, alone and afraid for the responsibilities you don’t feel ready to confront.” He ticked this off on his fingers as he talked.

They existed in a shocked silence. 

Oh. Shit. He was cool. She realigned her worldview to accept this information. He was now the most impressive person she had ever known.

“...I changed my mind,” she said. “I respect you. What are we doing?” 

He winked at her again, but in shock, without any insouciance. That’s fine. He didn’t have to be funny for her to follow him. “I was just like… working on some plots,” he said. 

She shrugged. “For all I know, I like plots. Are they evil?”

His whole face twitched, except for the 40% of it which was frozen by scar tissue. “...They might be.”

Cool. “This might as well become my identity.” She was philosophical about it. 

“Are you for real?” he asked desperately. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

“I literally do not know the answers to those questions, and I don't care, either.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Also, you told me to wait here.”

“I did not–”

“A guy who looked just like you but cooler and older.”

“...Okay. I’ll accept this.” 

Scenario 3: Adult Aiko travels to the past.

“This is not my fault,” Aiko said instantly. She was just covering her bases. Of course it was her fault. Who else could be responsible? She was supposed to be in a council meeting and she had been fiddling with some experiments behind a folder. 

An Akimichi that she didn’t know gave her a sideway look, lips curled up in mild amusement. He patted her on the head as he passed like she was a child. 

It was soothing. She grinned at him and waved. “Thank you.” It was touching! No one ever gave you encouraging head pats after you became a military dictator. “I appreciate you!” Aiko hollered after him. 

His smile got a little wider and he saluted on his way past. Then he was gone, mixing into the crowd of people she didn’t know.

Ah, wait. She was the Hokage. She knew everybody. They all came to her office and she saw pictures of her staff all the time. She should probably recognize at least half of the people on the street. Also, they should recognize her since she was, like, the military dictator who ruled them with an iron fist and the occasional pizza party.

“Oh,” Aiko said, putting her hands on her hips and turning in a bemused circle. “That’s troubling. I should be troubled. I’m going to start feeling some sort of distress any moment now.”

She failed to talk herself into it. 

“I guess I just have to keep a great attitude and go about, unbothered.” She sniffed and tried to fight back a yawn, the last vestige of boredom from that meeting. “Okay, uh.” She pursed her lips. “I can figure out when I am. If I care. Do I care?” Aiko ran a hand through her hair. “I should probably just go back home. Right? I should go back right now and finish up that meeting. I’m not going to be doing that, let’s be honest.” She rubbed her hands together. “This is obviously a different time of year, I love the weather right now. I’m just going to have fun with this.”

“Hey, lady.” An Uchiha police officer blurred into place in front of her, frowning in concern. “You’ve been talking to yourself for a while. Is everything all right?” He was young and handsome. His uniform didn’t have any bloodstains or fading from the sun yet. 

She blinked at him. Wow. He was a relic of the past. That was so neat! She hadn’t seen one of these guys in forever. “It’s sweet of you to ask,” Aiko said. “I’m doing pretty well! You?”

He blinked at her. “...I’m fine.”

Aiko leaned forward to give him a friendly pat, just like the strange Akimichi had done to her. She’d enjoyed it. It was nice to share nice things.

The police officer followed the motion with a sort of baffled acceptance. “...Thanks.”

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