[Fic] "An Alternate Solution to the Problem of Madara" -- Naruto/Chronicles of Narnia
sabriel requested: Naruto | Naruto & Chronicles of Narnia | tea
Note: For unknown reasons, this ficlet insisted on happening in the world of Tides and Undertow, which goes AU from the manga right after the Rescue Gaara arc. (A brief summary of the AU is available here.) I haven't written any of "Leaves," the first proper sequel, but I did write Troy in Reverse, aka the opening of "Sparks" (the second sequel), wherein Team 7 kill Orochimaru and Kabuto, and then go try to do something about Akatsuki. This ficlet is set a couple days after that fight.
Susan requires less explanation, but it's probably best to be on the safe side. So! She is post-TLB, and has dug up the green and yellow rings to go traveling between worlds now that she's lost her ties to England. The bow is not her Gift, just something she picked up along the way.
Summary: The wilds of Sound Country are the next best thing to the middle of nowhere. Travelers are few and far between. Unexpected meetings are thus narratively inevitable. (1,450 words)
(Apologies to
cofax7 for the title! I couldn't resist.)
[AO3 crosspost!]
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An Alternate Solution to the Problem of Madara
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"So you're saying there's like, a thousand worlds out there, and you can travel between them?" Naruto asked, wanting to be very sure he hadn't misunderstood the foreign woman who'd appeared in the middle of his team's campsite without any detectable trace of a ninjutsu technique. They'd trashed Hidden Sound almost as thoroughly as they'd trashed its master, but who knew how many minions Orochimaru might have had, and how many might want to avenge his death? He wasn't getting any crazy-evil vibes off this lady, though, and she sure didn't look like she came from anywhere in the elemental countries.
And wouldn't it be cool if her story were true?
The woman shrugged, or at least as much as Sakura's binding jutsu and the tree she was tied to allowed. "I don't know if it's possible to count the number of worlds. Some are always being born, just as others are dying. But yes, I have a tool that lets me reach the place between worlds, and from there -- if you have the strength of will -- you can go anywhere."
Worlds could die? That was creepy to think about, even if the idea of new baby worlds was awesome -- and kind of cute, besides.
(Dying worlds might also be useful, a cold voice in the back of his mind pointed out -- the little part of him that made plans and watched for weak spots and thought of every way each new jutsu could be used to kill. They still hadn't figured out what the hell Madara's goal was, or how to fight some of his minions, but you couldn't take over or destroy or hypnotize the world if you weren't in the world. It would be best to make everyone in Akatsuki change their minds, of course! But if they couldn't manage that, well, Naruto didn't want to dump his world's problems on innocent people -- that wouldn't be fair at all -- but if they could drop all of Akatsuki into an empty, doomed world and let its death consume them too... Yeah. Useful.)
He didn't say any of that, though, didn't let it show outside his head. "Strength of will? No problem! And going anywhere sounds neat. I guess that's why you're still traveling instead of settling down."
Behind him, Sasuke coughed. "I still think this is a setup. Think how many people want to find us, especially now that we've proved they need to take us seriously. Coincidences don't exist."
Naruto rolled his eyes. "Don't listen to Sasuke, he's just an old grumpy-pants. Anyway, if you can go anywhere, why'd you come here? Did our world look extra awesome from outside? Could you see in and you knew we were the most interesting people to meet?"
(Could she identify a dying world without traveling there herself? Would she, if she knew why he asked?)
This time it was Sakura's turn to cough. "Narcissist," she muttered.
The foreign woman smiled. "All worlds look the same from the outside: round pools of water in a dreaming wood. I will admit that so far, yours is more interesting on the inside than a number of others I've visited. Generally when I appear in the middle of a forest, it takes more than a minute for people to notice, let alone to capture me."
Naruto grinned. "Heh. Just a coincidence, I bet! This part of Sound Country is about as middle-of-nowhere as you can find -- we were just, you know, passing through at the wrong time. Or the right time. Whichever! About that capturing, though... you're pretty good with those arrows, but you kinda suck at hand-to-hand. You might wanna work on that."
Sakura flicked her fingers against his ear. "Don't give tips to potential assassins. You can't turn everyone into your friend," she said fondly.
"And stop messing around. We have places to be," Sasuke added.
"You're on a mission?" the foreign woman asked. "In that case, please don't let me delay you."
"You're not gonna ask what we're trying to do, or whose side we're on?" Naruto asked.
(That could be good or bad. If she didn't care about their world, she might not have any qualms about stranding Akatsuki somewhere else, but on the other hand, someone who didn't care about the morals behind a mission might not see any point in helping out in the first place. And it wasn't like they had any money to pay her with, to create a contract.)
"I'm not from this world. I have no context to understand or judge your answers," the foreign woman pointed out. "Even if you said you were trying to destroy your entire world, that might simply be intended to prevent an even greater catastrophe. But judging by your treatment of me and each other, you don't seem particularly bloodthirsty or unreasonable, so I'm willing to assume good faith on your part."
Naruto glanced at his teammates. "Give us a minute," he said to the woman, then painstakingly set up the illusion of silence Sakura had worked so hard to teach him in Kuronami.
"We can't trust her," Sasuke said the minute he felt the jutsu lock into place.
"I agree," Sakura added, then raised a hand to forestall Naruto's protest. "But we can't just kill her, either. That's immoral -- and shortsighted, too. We don't know how her world-jumping tool works, or even what it is. What if we set it off by accident? What if we can't destroy it, and somebody else found it and learned its secrets? Different worlds must have different rules, and not all of them can be friendly."
Naruto frowned. "Hey, Sakura-chan, have you ever--"
"No, I've never had any contact with other worlds, but why shouldn't they exist? And if they do, statistically some of them must be ruled by evil, or have laws of nature that are incompatible with ours."
"And how do we know this woman isn't from one of the evil worlds?" Sasuke asked. His fingers tapped impatiently on the hilt of the sword he'd claimed as a trophy in Hidden Sound.
Naruto made a face at him. "We don't know, but listen. I had a thought. Did you catch what she said about dying worlds? If we can't talk to Madara--"
"Trust me, we can't," Sasuke said.
"You don't know for sure! But if he won't change his mind, or if some other members of Akatsuki won't change their minds, then what if we could take them out of our world and put them--"
"--in one that's empty and near its end, and let them die with it," Sakura finished, having picked up on his train of thought. "If the stranger is willing to help us, that might work. It's a little cold, though."
Naruto grimaced. "Yeah, I know. It's not like I want to do that. But it's good to have backup plans, right?"
"It would be simpler to take the tool from her and use it ourselves," Sasuke said.
"That doesn't mean it'd be right," Naruto said firmly. "Come on, she doesn't feel like she's gonna go all whirlwind of death or anything, and you can't make friends if you don't take a few chances now and then. Let's untie her and see what happens."
Sasuke frowned and Sakura sighed, but neither objected when he dropped the silence genjutsu and picked up the foreign woman's quiver and bow. Sakura unraveled her binding and Sasuke dropped down onto the ground beside the guttering remains of their campfire.
"We'll give you the benefit of the doubt too," Naruto said, holding out the bow and quiver. "Here's your stuff. If you wanna skip right back out of our world, that's okay, but if you wanna stick around a while, you can share our fire and have a ration bar -- we already ate the squirrel, sorry -- and I'll tell you all about our adventure. It's a cool story, even if it isn't finished yet! If you stick around even longer, you can see how it ends and then tell people in other worlds all about us, which is even cooler."
The foreign woman slung her weapons over her shoulder with a quiet smile. "It's been a long day. I could use some food," she said. "Is there any chance of tea to accompany your story?"
"As long as you don't poison it, sure," Naruto said. "So okay, I'm Uzumaki Naruto and these are my teammates Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke. We're on a mission to save the world from Sasuke's crazy great-granddad and his evil minions. And you are...?"
"Susan Pevensie," the foreign woman said. "Pleased to meet you."
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End of Fic
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I still kind of want to write my other idea for this prompt, which is basically "Five Times Uzumaki Naruto Opened a Door Into Cair Paravel," but that wants to be a longer story than I feel like writing at this particular moment, so I'm going to sit on it and see what happens. :-)
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