（ it was one of the people she'd helped at the docks who pulled her towards the parade, affixing ribbons to the collar of her jacket in a gaudy array of colours like the spill of a waterfall towards her hips. she'd tolerated it, as much as having anything as easy to grab as long hair put her on edge — but after all, part of being a shinobi is being able to blend in with the population anywhere. there's no real reason not to participate. she lets herself be guided along, lost in the thronging crush of bodies. people are eager to hand out candy she politely turns down, and drink she graciously refuses.
it's funny, that even years after the fourth war, her mind can relate everything back to it somehow. this innocent gathering, where there's no real danger to be had, harkens strongly to the mobs of white zetsu they'd fought on the fields, and she finds herself smelling blood and offal even when there's none. the crowd presses in, people butting shoulders and arms against her, children careen senselessly into her legs, shrieking in what has to be delight but that translates through that war-filter to horror and fear. perhaps that's why she misses him at first. why, when he stumbles into her she barely reaches to steady him, and when her fingers clasp on at his arm it's as if the world has given way beneath her feet. the weightless lurch leaves her breathless, and her vision is strangely blurred. she feels completely severed from her senses, the uncanny out-of-body experience she's heard people describe near death — looking at her own face wearing a mask of confusion and lingering horror.
at first, it's taken clinically. she's experiencing an adverse reaction to the crowds, she's disassociated from the experience — she just needs to sit somewhere quiet a moment and breathe. but when she opens her mouth to say as much, her teeth feel wrong. they sit strangely behind her lips and the press of her tongue finds a faint chip to an incisor she's certain wasn't there before.
she blinks, and looks down. why is she so tall? and what is she —
she wearing?
she makes a sound that's a perfect marriage between dismay and shock, and then claps a hand over her mouth because the sound that came out was absolutely nothing like her. that hand — the right one, because that's the only one this body has — stifles the high-pitched squeak that would have otherwise followed, because this is sasuke, she's in sasuke's body somehow.
her first thought, apropos of nothing, is that she's somehow performed ino's mind transfer jutsu completely by accident. enough strange things have gone on with her powers that she'd be willing to believe it, but even that explanation falls feebly flat.
one thing is certain, they need to get out of this crowd.
she grabs... herself, her own body, and starts cutting diagonally to get out of the crowd. later, perhaps, she'll think of the fact that people developed a tendency to scatter rather than remain in the path of her onward march, but at the moment she's only thinking of getting out.
safety, in this instance, is the beacon of a crumbling wellhouse, and she shoulders the door in and hauls both herself and — her...self? inside. her chakra feels wrong, static and ozone rather than the gentle solidity of earth, and it's making her so unsettled she feels claustrophobic. ）
Sasuke — （ no time for honourifics, her voice is low and urgent and as familiar as her own in a way that's still startling to hear — ） is this something the Rinnegan can do?
no subject
it's funny, that even years after the fourth war, her mind can relate everything back to it somehow. this innocent gathering, where there's no real danger to be had, harkens strongly to the mobs of white zetsu they'd fought on the fields, and she finds herself smelling blood and offal even when there's none. the crowd presses in, people butting shoulders and arms against her, children careen senselessly into her legs, shrieking in what has to be delight but that translates through that war-filter to horror and fear. perhaps that's why she misses him at first. why, when he stumbles into her she barely reaches to steady him, and when her fingers clasp on at his arm it's as if the world has given way beneath her feet. the weightless lurch leaves her breathless, and her vision is strangely blurred. she feels completely severed from her senses, the uncanny out-of-body experience she's heard people describe near death — looking at her own face wearing a mask of confusion and lingering horror.
at first, it's taken clinically. she's experiencing an adverse reaction to the crowds, she's disassociated from the experience — she just needs to sit somewhere quiet a moment and breathe. but when she opens her mouth to say as much, her teeth feel wrong. they sit strangely behind her lips and the press of her tongue finds a faint chip to an incisor she's certain wasn't there before.
she blinks, and looks down. why is she so tall? and what is she —
she wearing?
she makes a sound that's a perfect marriage between dismay and shock, and then claps a hand over her mouth because the sound that came out was absolutely nothing like her. that hand — the right one, because that's the only one this body has — stifles the high-pitched squeak that would have otherwise followed, because this is sasuke, she's in sasuke's body somehow.
her first thought, apropos of nothing, is that she's somehow performed ino's mind transfer jutsu completely by accident. enough strange things have gone on with her powers that she'd be willing to believe it, but even that explanation falls feebly flat.
one thing is certain, they need to get out of this crowd.
she grabs... herself, her own body, and starts cutting diagonally to get out of the crowd. later, perhaps, she'll think of the fact that people developed a tendency to scatter rather than remain in the path of her onward march, but at the moment she's only thinking of getting out.
safety, in this instance, is the beacon of a crumbling wellhouse, and she shoulders the door in and hauls both herself and — her...self? inside. her chakra feels wrong, static and ozone rather than the gentle solidity of earth, and it's making her so unsettled she feels claustrophobic. ）
Sasuke — （ no time for honourifics, her voice is low and urgent and as familiar as her own in a way that's still startling to hear — ） is this something the Rinnegan can do?