:: memory :: knocking on heaven's door
[BELL'S MEMORY FROM THE FREE MEMORY EVENT)]
Bell had just picked up a sandwich for lunch from the bazaar when the memory event struck the Sphere.
He was thrown into a battle.
There wasn't much time to explore his surroundings, but Bell could smell dust and smoke, charred buildings and bodies. He could hear shouts and explosions. It smelled of fear, anger, desperation...
Left eye open--the Sharingan, he remembered from their information--the scene slowed to a crawl, allowing the Bell of the memory to focus on his attack. A cackle of electricity surged in his hand as he moved in for the kill behind his black-cloaked adversary. (A black cloak with red clouds...) When the man dodged, Bell's internal surprise was tangible.
(How could he have seen me?)
(Unless...)
Bell didn't have much time to wonder about what his other enemy, an orange-haired man dressed in the same cloak (a uniform?) with a face full of piercings, might have to do with the first. The first man, a spiked-headed brute, ditched his cloak suddenly and revealed six arms and a razor-like back piece.
(What is he? Some sort of altered human? A battle-puppet? A robot?)
The second enemy held out a hand, and Bell felt a surge of energy from him. Seemingly against his own will, Bell's body lurched forward, up and off his feet and through the air toward the enemies, like a pin drawn to a magnet. Unable to stop his forward momentum himself, Bell reached into a pouch and withdrew a weighted chain. A solid throw later and he was tethered to a nearby broken pillar. The chain brought him to a shaky and only temporary halt.
Any reprieve that provided only lasted a mere second, if that, before Bell lurched forward again, his hand yanked free of his anchor and body again falling fast towards the saw's edge. The serrated edges tore through his skin, penetrating completely and skewering him through his chest and out his back...a fatal blow...
The air crackled with lightning as Bell, safely at a distance, watched himself dissolve into static that electrocuted the six-armed man.
(An illusion? No. ...Sort of.) A false version of himself made of lightning and...chakra, perhaps. Bell, the real Bell from the memory, was behind some fallen pillars and masonry and had been the whole time, but even so, he knew what the clone had seen. It had been him in a way and when it dissolved, and its memories became his own again, like some sort of out of body experience.
(Strange, but useful technique.)
A giant pair of fists meanwhile made short work of the saw-man, pounding him into the ground with a massive crater. The fists, as well as the arms they attached to, quickly shrunk back to normal proportions and Bell saw that the arms belonged to a rather ...large man and the kid beside him who appeared to be the man's son. "...That's one down, ~~~" Maybe that had been his name.
"I was prepared for this," Bell replied from beneath the rubble. Even with the limited knowledge Bell had of his own arsenal of tricks, he figured that clone trick couldn't be pulled off too many times again before he was out of energy. The effort showed in his voice. "But I'm glad I can store my chakra." (Store it, hm? Another technique worth looking into.)
"Are you okay, ~~~?"
"Somehow," was Bell's answer.
"~~~, how's your chakra level?"
"I used a ***, so I only have about half my chakra left." Half. Bell wondered how often ninja fought such an opponent on only half their power--and how often one walked away from such a fight alive. He was lucky to have comrades there. Where, though, were Gai and Team Seven? Was this before their time together? After? Had they all gone their separate ways? Were they battling elsewhere in the ruins? ...Had they died? In this memory, Bell could not be much older than he was in Edensphere, nor much younger. Whatever event this was, it was recent. "Honestly, fighting this type of opponent for a long time will be tough. However," he added. "I think I've worked out a little of his ability."
"Dad, here he comes!" The orange-haired enemy was moving in for an attack, and when the ninja closed in on him...
Bell threw a kunai through the air, some sort of smoke-bomb attached to it. He and his allies used the smoke to take shelter in the wake of the explosive attack.
"What did he do?" the father asked.
"He deflects all attacks," Bell explained. "He has the ability to pull and push things from his centre. It seems he controls gravity and repulsion forces. He doesn't seem able to use it in quick succession though. There seems to be an interval before he can use it again."
And that little window of opportunity, Bell knew, was what they planned to exploit. The last attack had left their team strewn across the ruins where they had been blasted away from their opponent, but if they could use an attack to distract their enemy, get him to raise the shield while one of them moved in close... and then they would kill him before he could bring it back up...
"Everyone was floored by the last attack!" the son protested. "If he can deflect everything, how can we beat him?"
His father was of the same mindset. "The interval is short. We can't get close to him."
"But we have to aim for that," Bell heard himself say almost as if he were in the moment now instead of hearing it play back. "I have an idea. Can I count on you guys?" The question seemed almost unnecessary, even to Bell who had no memory of these men. They wore the headbands Bell and Gai had found in the Sphere. They were all of the same group of ninja. They were comrades. He trusted himself to have teammates he could trust in battle...
They hatched a plan...
...The ground cracked. Bell surged out from under the ground, kunai aimed at their enemy's chest. Quickly, though, before he could make contact, he was repulsed by the gravity field the enemy had erected around himself.
"You move well," the enemy said coolly. "You also have an array of Jutsu. Failing to kill someone like you would mean trouble for me in the long run." Bell should like to hope so.
Two rolling masses which were the father and his son performing a jutsu, barreled into the area. They whipped up chains which had been waiting on the ground and pulled them tight around the middle of their enemy.
Bell was on his feet already, rushing forward, that same strange electric power encompassing his hand like before, at the beginning of the memory, aimed for the enemy's chest. But the six-armed man rose up--(How? Wasn't he dead or destroyed?!)--and placed himself between Bell's hand and the orange-haired man, shielding him. Undaunted, Bell pushed his attack through the body.
It exploded.
When the dust cleared, Bell was buried waist-deep in rubble. Standing above him, unscathed, was his enemy, the orange-haired man.
"Seems like you really can't move," the man said. "Seems like you're not a ***." Bell took this to mean he wasn't a clone. He was himself, flesh and blood. No do-overs this time. "Now I'll have you die. This is the end." A nail wiggled up from a broken board at the enemy's feet. As it flew up, the orange haired man caught it between his thumb and forefinger casually. "Know Pain."
"...I can't dodge from this range," Bell felt himself murmur. Again, the left eye surged to life, draining his chakra reserves while tracking the nail's path slowly across the short span of battlefield separating Bell and his enemy...
Bell wasn't sure what he did this time, but the nail...vanished. Like it was warped out of time and space.
The orange haired man was gone. He had left them for dead.
Bell could faintly here the kid calling out to his dad and raised his head, barely able to keep himself up, tired as he was.
"You can cry...later...Chouji..." That must be the boy's name. Bell held on to it. If they ever met this boy again, he wanted to be able to give Chouji his name. He couldn't have been any older than Spring and Seven were in Edensphere and he was a good kid, it seemed, and a good ninja. Chouji and his father were wonderful teammates. Bell only wished he could have saved the boy's dad. But there were others around, Bell was sure of it. They were protecting someone, fighting for something. The battle wasn't over yet. (Maybe mine is. I can't move.) "If...you can still move...tell +++...about Pain's powers. You have to figure out a way to fight him!"
Blinking through tears and surprise, Chouji said asked something..
"Save your surprise for later! You have to tell her about Pain... Run!" Chouji hesitated.. "Don't let Choza's sacrifice have been for nothing!" Choza and Chouji. A father and son...
(A father and son...)
"You sure are persistent!" (...Damn. Couldn't he just stay dead?) It was the six-armed man. From that barely-remaining puppet-like body, a projectile weapon shot out. Even as Bell heard himself yell for Chouji to run, he knew that alone would not be enough to save the kid.
(I'm going to protect him, but I'm barely holding myself up as it is. I'm working off of reserve chakra; I know, I can feel it draining. The Sharingan Eye is draining just using it.)
(This will be the last of my chakra. ...Then what?)
(I can guess what.)
(What happens when you bleed yourself dry. ...You die.)
But the information was valuable, the enemy was strong, and Chouji would make it. IF. And only IF. Bell could defend him. This was why Bell was here...to protect his comrades... To protect those important to him.
(What did I think about here, the first time, knowing I was dying/about to die?)
(Who did I think about?)
The missile vanished, just like the nail. Chouji was still running. He would make it. His information would make it. Hopefully.
It was out of Bell's hands now.
Everything was a cold emptiness. A quiet acceptance of death. He was dying. Maybe he was already dead...
(Maybe I'm dead...)
Bell was standing in the middle of the bazaar, holding his paper-bagged sandwich.
Bell had just picked up a sandwich for lunch from the bazaar when the memory event struck the Sphere.
He was thrown into a battle.
There wasn't much time to explore his surroundings, but Bell could smell dust and smoke, charred buildings and bodies. He could hear shouts and explosions. It smelled of fear, anger, desperation...
Left eye open--the Sharingan, he remembered from their information--the scene slowed to a crawl, allowing the Bell of the memory to focus on his attack. A cackle of electricity surged in his hand as he moved in for the kill behind his black-cloaked adversary. (A black cloak with red clouds...) When the man dodged, Bell's internal surprise was tangible.
(How could he have seen me?)
(Unless...)
Bell didn't have much time to wonder about what his other enemy, an orange-haired man dressed in the same cloak (a uniform?) with a face full of piercings, might have to do with the first. The first man, a spiked-headed brute, ditched his cloak suddenly and revealed six arms and a razor-like back piece.
(What is he? Some sort of altered human? A battle-puppet? A robot?)
The second enemy held out a hand, and Bell felt a surge of energy from him. Seemingly against his own will, Bell's body lurched forward, up and off his feet and through the air toward the enemies, like a pin drawn to a magnet. Unable to stop his forward momentum himself, Bell reached into a pouch and withdrew a weighted chain. A solid throw later and he was tethered to a nearby broken pillar. The chain brought him to a shaky and only temporary halt.
Any reprieve that provided only lasted a mere second, if that, before Bell lurched forward again, his hand yanked free of his anchor and body again falling fast towards the saw's edge. The serrated edges tore through his skin, penetrating completely and skewering him through his chest and out his back...a fatal blow...
The air crackled with lightning as Bell, safely at a distance, watched himself dissolve into static that electrocuted the six-armed man.
(An illusion? No. ...Sort of.) A false version of himself made of lightning and...chakra, perhaps. Bell, the real Bell from the memory, was behind some fallen pillars and masonry and had been the whole time, but even so, he knew what the clone had seen. It had been him in a way and when it dissolved, and its memories became his own again, like some sort of out of body experience.
(Strange, but useful technique.)
A giant pair of fists meanwhile made short work of the saw-man, pounding him into the ground with a massive crater. The fists, as well as the arms they attached to, quickly shrunk back to normal proportions and Bell saw that the arms belonged to a rather ...large man and the kid beside him who appeared to be the man's son. "...That's one down, ~~~" Maybe that had been his name.
"I was prepared for this," Bell replied from beneath the rubble. Even with the limited knowledge Bell had of his own arsenal of tricks, he figured that clone trick couldn't be pulled off too many times again before he was out of energy. The effort showed in his voice. "But I'm glad I can store my chakra." (Store it, hm? Another technique worth looking into.)
"Are you okay, ~~~?"
"Somehow," was Bell's answer.
"~~~, how's your chakra level?"
"I used a ***, so I only have about half my chakra left." Half. Bell wondered how often ninja fought such an opponent on only half their power--and how often one walked away from such a fight alive. He was lucky to have comrades there. Where, though, were Gai and Team Seven? Was this before their time together? After? Had they all gone their separate ways? Were they battling elsewhere in the ruins? ...Had they died? In this memory, Bell could not be much older than he was in Edensphere, nor much younger. Whatever event this was, it was recent. "Honestly, fighting this type of opponent for a long time will be tough. However," he added. "I think I've worked out a little of his ability."
"Dad, here he comes!" The orange-haired enemy was moving in for an attack, and when the ninja closed in on him...
Bell threw a kunai through the air, some sort of smoke-bomb attached to it. He and his allies used the smoke to take shelter in the wake of the explosive attack.
"What did he do?" the father asked.
"He deflects all attacks," Bell explained. "He has the ability to pull and push things from his centre. It seems he controls gravity and repulsion forces. He doesn't seem able to use it in quick succession though. There seems to be an interval before he can use it again."
And that little window of opportunity, Bell knew, was what they planned to exploit. The last attack had left their team strewn across the ruins where they had been blasted away from their opponent, but if they could use an attack to distract their enemy, get him to raise the shield while one of them moved in close... and then they would kill him before he could bring it back up...
"Everyone was floored by the last attack!" the son protested. "If he can deflect everything, how can we beat him?"
His father was of the same mindset. "The interval is short. We can't get close to him."
"But we have to aim for that," Bell heard himself say almost as if he were in the moment now instead of hearing it play back. "I have an idea. Can I count on you guys?" The question seemed almost unnecessary, even to Bell who had no memory of these men. They wore the headbands Bell and Gai had found in the Sphere. They were all of the same group of ninja. They were comrades. He trusted himself to have teammates he could trust in battle...
They hatched a plan...
...The ground cracked. Bell surged out from under the ground, kunai aimed at their enemy's chest. Quickly, though, before he could make contact, he was repulsed by the gravity field the enemy had erected around himself.
"You move well," the enemy said coolly. "You also have an array of Jutsu. Failing to kill someone like you would mean trouble for me in the long run." Bell should like to hope so.
Two rolling masses which were the father and his son performing a jutsu, barreled into the area. They whipped up chains which had been waiting on the ground and pulled them tight around the middle of their enemy.
Bell was on his feet already, rushing forward, that same strange electric power encompassing his hand like before, at the beginning of the memory, aimed for the enemy's chest. But the six-armed man rose up--(How? Wasn't he dead or destroyed?!)--and placed himself between Bell's hand and the orange-haired man, shielding him. Undaunted, Bell pushed his attack through the body.
It exploded.
When the dust cleared, Bell was buried waist-deep in rubble. Standing above him, unscathed, was his enemy, the orange-haired man.
"Seems like you really can't move," the man said. "Seems like you're not a ***." Bell took this to mean he wasn't a clone. He was himself, flesh and blood. No do-overs this time. "Now I'll have you die. This is the end." A nail wiggled up from a broken board at the enemy's feet. As it flew up, the orange haired man caught it between his thumb and forefinger casually. "Know Pain."
"...I can't dodge from this range," Bell felt himself murmur. Again, the left eye surged to life, draining his chakra reserves while tracking the nail's path slowly across the short span of battlefield separating Bell and his enemy...
Bell wasn't sure what he did this time, but the nail...vanished. Like it was warped out of time and space.
The orange haired man was gone. He had left them for dead.
Bell could faintly here the kid calling out to his dad and raised his head, barely able to keep himself up, tired as he was.
"You can cry...later...Chouji..." That must be the boy's name. Bell held on to it. If they ever met this boy again, he wanted to be able to give Chouji his name. He couldn't have been any older than Spring and Seven were in Edensphere and he was a good kid, it seemed, and a good ninja. Chouji and his father were wonderful teammates. Bell only wished he could have saved the boy's dad. But there were others around, Bell was sure of it. They were protecting someone, fighting for something. The battle wasn't over yet. (Maybe mine is. I can't move.) "If...you can still move...tell +++...about Pain's powers. You have to figure out a way to fight him!"
Blinking through tears and surprise, Chouji said asked something..
"Save your surprise for later! You have to tell her about Pain... Run!" Chouji hesitated.. "Don't let Choza's sacrifice have been for nothing!" Choza and Chouji. A father and son...
(A father and son...)
"You sure are persistent!" (...Damn. Couldn't he just stay dead?) It was the six-armed man. From that barely-remaining puppet-like body, a projectile weapon shot out. Even as Bell heard himself yell for Chouji to run, he knew that alone would not be enough to save the kid.
(I'm going to protect him, but I'm barely holding myself up as it is. I'm working off of reserve chakra; I know, I can feel it draining. The Sharingan Eye is draining just using it.)
(This will be the last of my chakra. ...Then what?)
(I can guess what.)
(What happens when you bleed yourself dry. ...You die.)
But the information was valuable, the enemy was strong, and Chouji would make it. IF. And only IF. Bell could defend him. This was why Bell was here...to protect his comrades... To protect those important to him.
(What did I think about here, the first time, knowing I was dying/about to die?)
(Who did I think about?)
The missile vanished, just like the nail. Chouji was still running. He would make it. His information would make it. Hopefully.
It was out of Bell's hands now.
Everything was a cold emptiness. A quiet acceptance of death. He was dying. Maybe he was already dead...
(Maybe I'm dead...)
Bell was standing in the middle of the bazaar, holding his paper-bagged sandwich.