Transcendence

As the wind carried the leaves in the forest, so would the chakra surrounding him carry the man through spacetime to his destination. Or at least such was his intention when the bubble made of Naoki's chakra completely enveloped his form and everything went dark with the shift through dimensions. At first the former leader of Shimagakure did not even notice anything wrong - traversing the world in this manner had become quite the common practice for the young man. Maybe all this would have been different had he paid attention, but Naoki's mind was someplace else, dealing with the most recent events, grieving loss of a clanmate as well as dealing with the discovery that Denkiteki was still alive. Maybe a minute passed before he noticed that something was not right. His technique - transfer through the world of emptiness, usually did not take so long. The bubble with the person inside it would normally only spend a few seconds in this dimension and then reemerge in the real world. This time however it seemed to carry him far longer and there were no signs of it ending. A minute or two was well within accepted margin of error so at first the Uchiha was examining his surroundings and the chakra that carried him with Sharingan. But as time passed and the chakra began to degrade Naoki was struck with fear. There was no way out, the bubble was not designed to keep him alive in here for so long and there was no way of telling what would happen if it collapsed - most likely he would not survive. Grinding his teeth the herald of the Mist observed as the shell of protection crumbled around him. In anticipation of the unknown he did his best to coat his form with chakra, as much chakra as possible. But then the bubble popped and the man was swallowed by the world of emptiness.

There was no light nor was it darkness. He could hear no sound but it was not silence. The very first sensation that the man felt was what he imagined drowning would feel like. Drowning at the bottom of the deepest ocean. No way to go back and the weight of an entire world keeping you from going forward, an immense pressure. Naoki felt himself moving, dragged somewhere. He attempted to resist, no good could come from submitting to this dimension. But his efforts seemed completely futile. It was as if he was caught in a flow of a great river. Albeit slow the flow was simply unstoppable. Something should be done, the chakra coating him would not hold for long and then he is surely doomed. In the nothingness his sharingan would flicker, not that there was any way to tell or somebody beside him to actually see. In fact, he was not even sure if he had a body here, but he tried to use it anyways. Spinning in the dark the crimson eye would take on a new form, pattern of a swirled triangle taking shape as Naoki's Mangekyou took in everything around him. It seemed that the flow stopped and the pressure ceased. It was as if he was now suspended in an eternity of shimmering silver light. It stretched into nothingness far far away, if there was such a thing as distance here. The spinning triangle in his eye focused and the Uchiha could now see that the flow curved. His eye followed it and saw it meet, or rather never end, for it was a circle. And it was filled with feelings, dreams, emotions. Egos. It was people's selves that flowed in this wheel of time, it was also what would have drowned him. But at that instant came understanding. Although the transfer failed, he still had one more ability that could pull him from here before his chakra failed. Three Wheel Embodiments was a technique to shift dimensions and although it normally worked only with the most close of dimensions, as if there was distance, he was the one who designed both moves. If it took a moment or a thousand winters he could not tell. But the man remained still with his focus solely on shifting back to his home plane. He could feel his chakra fail and his body starting to disappear.. And then there was light again and he could breathe.

Staring at the surface of moss and grass the Uchiha was battling for each breath. The concept of time was still blurred to him so he could not tell for certain if a few minutes passed or a few moments before he noticed the blood. His blood, which apparently he was kneeling in a pool of. That track of time slipped even further and the next thing he knew he was laying face in the dirt and it was no longer the light of the sun that shined on him like in the previous picture, but the glimmer of the night sky. With barely any strength he pushed off and looked around. There was enough light from the moon to tell his surroundings and he seemed to be in some kind of tundra forest. A major blood stain was on the grass some couple meters from him. The man figured that's the spot where he appeared and that he crawled a bit before losing consciousness and hopefully sleeping for a few hours. Or who knows, maybe it was a whole day, the blood did not really seem recent at this point. Since his body was mostly numb the thought to look for wounds did not occur to him quickly. I was only then that he would notice the major gash across his left shoulder. There were other wounds, smaller ones thankfully. His ankle was also busted, probably from the landing. The gash on the shoulder seemed to be the most serious injury of them all and also the origin of all that blood, but it was no longer bleeding and already the man could feel it starting to heal. The power of Senju vitality sustained him, without it it was doubtful that he would have survived. Looking around, somewhat having trouble to focus, the male shinobi could smell moss all around him and the moisture in the air. It was not surprising that such an environment would have lakes or at least ponds. It took him some thoughtless minutes to locate the nearest pool of water. Crawling up to it he would scoop a handful and give it a sniff. Luckily it was drinkable, so he gulped it down and then some. After a few handfuls Naoki rolled onto his back and got his breath. He noted that the stars seemed familiar and with even further relief fell asleep again.

This time his rest was shorter. When he woke up it was still rather dark, but you could no longer see the stars. A light fog was raising from the lake and slowly creeping across the land. It was most likely less than an hour until dawn. Feeling much sharper now the Uchiha somehow got up and limping and dragging his right foot walked up and leaned on a tree. His eyes would dart around, gathering each detail. These woods were different than Naoki was used to, almost completely composed of conifers, most color seemed washed out and it was quite dank - he noted while lifting his injured and now wet foot out of a small pool at the base of the tree. Shortly after the male would notice a few dots of color that with a little focus he identified as wild berries. Dragging himself to the spot he would take one for a closer inspection and then throw it into his mouth. It was actually a cranberry. After removing the red from a few bushes he would figure to look around some and with the help of chakra found his way to the top of the nearest tree. These woods were reasonably deep, before him he could see several lakes and some mountains in the distance. A distant smoke gave away the location of people and after focusing his sight the injured managed to make out a village. That was his best source of information although he would probably not risk staying there for a rest, not in this state anyways. He was a wanted man and it would be truly bad if he was attacked.

After getting down to the surface and resting until the the sun appeared between the trees the former leader of Shimagakure opted to take a look at his wounds again. They were healing, but it was still a long way to go. Rather conflicted about not knowing any healing jutsu to fix himself up Naoki figured he would need help of a medical ninja if he was to get on his metaphorical feet soon. Following that line of thought led him to remember that he may have a medical ninja at his disposal and that was his artificially created human, his Exemplar named Vigil. Even now he could feel Vigil's chakra, he seemed healthy. This put to rest almost any remaining doubts that Naoki did not return to his own world, but to someplace else. He did not however choose to summon Vigil for his assistance. He would gather some intel first, it was better to proceed cautiously here. As long as nobody knew he was here he was safe. Luckily all of his equipment survived the tragedy. Using some bandages he patched himself up the best he could. Before moving up he figured filling up his stomach was a good idea. Extending his arms Naoki released his chakra to the surrounding bushes. Not much was needed for this small task. After a few seconds small red berries would begin floating towards him. Putting his hands together he would gather and then feast on them. Afterwards the Uchiha would suppress his chakra and begin his silent journey towards the village.

He probably could have gotten here near instantly using teleportation, but the man was still distrustful of his Transfer through the World of Emptiness technique, since he had not yet confirmed what the hell happened and why. So instead he walked the distance and it took him the better part of the day. Of course on his way there he would occasionally stop for some berries. It was not apple season apparently, as the few such trees he found were barren. Mushrooms and meat would have needed cooking and he did not dare produce fire, not that he had much strength in him to chase game or look for mushrooms, he simple took what he found on the way. Eventually he got there and came the question of how exactly to proceed. He would have preferred not giving away that he was ever here, but how else would he extract information. Hiding in a shrubbery right on the border of the village Naoki was wondering what action to take. That's when he noticed something different. A man was not far from him carrying logs and that man seemed stretched, as if his phantom or a constant afterimage could be seen. Except it was not him really, it was more like a videofilm, scenes of what happened to him previously. Naoki focused on one such scene and saw the very same man. In this scene the man was inside a building, so was Naoki, standing right beside him though completely unnoticed. In the scene the man was talking to a woman that Naoki realized was the inn keeper and she told the man to go get some wood for the night before it got dark. Shifting back Naoki focused on another moment, it was a different scene. Once again he was standing beside the man observing as the man was carving something from a small piece of wood. He would continue doing so for a bit, while there were some kids playing in the distance. After some time he would walk up to one of them and with a smile give a wooden flute that he had carved to a boy that Naoki understood to be his son. The scenes of mundane life of this man changed a few more times before Naoki managed to pull out. He gasped and covered his left eye which was downright burning with pain. He did not experience something like that with the other one, but this was a bit of a forced activation. Realizing more or less what this power was Naoki would compose himself and try one more time, this time attempting to control and look for specific details that he needed. Sifting through the most recent weeks of the single father Kinomaru the Axe-driver Naoki was looking for anything regarding his safety, if there were ninja in this village, if he was looked for. Not finding anything he began looking to answer his other questions. Soon he found out that this village is part of the Earth Country, the closest one to the border with the Land of Snow and was actually on a decently traveled route. Finding memories of events known to him Naoki would roughly measure that he missed close to a year. The failure of his teleportation technique most likely sent him adrift on the currents of time for almost a year. Luckily the world had not changed all that much. Looking through every detail Naoki could not find any contradiction, any event that was different from how it was in his world. Of course, a lowly axe driver on some backwater village had little knowledge of the shinobi affairs that Naoki was interested in but it was enough. He was satisfied with his answers and stopped. Though the pain returned the Uchiha endured and made a note to himself that this technique should be practiced more. With that he withdrew from the village and finally resolved himself to risk a teleportation. Making a seal of confrontation the herald of the Mist was surrounded by a bubble of chakra which then contracted and in a blink he vanished from these woods.

2360 w.
[Long story short: Naoki's teleportation failed and he drifted a year into the future. The rest is just an interesting story

Exit into Mountains of Lightning Country
Using all the words for unlocking of Ashuku
remaining ~300 words to complete it I'll use from my unallocated WC from refunds]