How Long Was I Out?

There was a pressure on each of her shoulders as R and Roku had placed their hands there just as she had instructed them to. She had done this time and time again. Everything was prepared. She knew her destination. She knew which way her target was headed and the best point to ambush them. She had even recruited a small team to help with the job, a team that she was now invested in for better or for worse. Now, it was time to go.

Alice's hands came together. Ram. Tiger. Dog. Snake. Ram. There was a bright flash of crimson light.......and then nothing. Not the smell of fresh, forest air. Not the chirping of birds or cool touch of the Fire Country breeze on her skin. There was no sun, no stars, no moon, no clouds. Not even Roku and R were there with her, wherever 'there' was. There was just, nothing.

"Hello? Roku? R? Are you guys there? Taishi? Hello?" Her voice rang out, echoing in the empty space. Her eyes darted from side to side scanning for any hint of danger, her sword was already drawn and held at the ready in her right hand. Her left was prepared to make a flurry of seals if need be. She waited like that, trying to discern anything she could about her surroundings. First a minute went by, then another, then another. She tried again. "Taishi? Roku? R? Hello? Can you guys hear me? Hello!" Still, the only response she got was the unnerving echo of her own voice in this strange, void-like place where nothing seemed to exist. No one else seemed to have made the trip with her either. It was only her. Only Alice.


Again she waited, hoping beyond hope that she would hear something besides that incessant silence or the echo of her own voice. Again she was disappointed. Over and over the cycle went, with Alice shouting in the hope that someone would eventually hear her and then the disappointment that came with only the sound of her own voice echoing back at her. It went on like that for an hour, then three, then five until an entire day had gone by before Alice let herself calm down a bit, sheath her sword and stop expecting an attack at any moment. It felt like her strength was being drained from her slowly, like she was actually physically getting weaker and her chakra reserves were being depleted. There was no food there, wherever she was, and no water. She knew she wouldn't be able to survive long without those necessities, so she started working on the problem at hand: how the fuck to get out of that place.

Now that she had her wits about her again and wasn't on high alert mode anymore, Alice began trying to at least get some help. She knew that using Vanish had somehow gotten her stuck here and so she wasn't keen on using it to get back. The first thing she tried was tracking the mark seals she had placed on R, Roku and Taishi. Unfortunately, wherever she was wouldn't allow her to do that. Each use of the technique just made her feel more weakened, as if instead of activating it only served to hasten her energy being drained. Still, she had to continue trying. So the next thing she tried was bringing them to her. One after another she tried to summon everyone she could think of to her aid. Roku. Taishi. R. Brooke. Ryu. She even tried to summon Kazuo to her, but none of her attempts succeeded.

"AAGGHAHH!" she screamed as she drew her sword and sliced the air hopelessly frustrated. How long had she been in there now? A day and a half? Two? It was hard to tell. There was no sun or moon here to help her keep track of time. No stars or anything else. Just pure nothingness. She still had no food or water, and was no closer to finding her way out of that place. To make things worse, she was unquestioningly sure at this point that she was being drained of her energy. At one point she had tried using her sword to open a portal to, well anyone she could really, but even that hadn't worked. The young Nara girl was beginning to think that if she had any chance of escaping this place at all, it would be using Vanish to get out of there while she still had the energy to do so. It was the technique that had brought her there, after all, so theoretically it should be able to get her out, right? Still, the thought of trying and just ending up trapped somewhere else, somewhere worse only made her even more apprehensive of the idea.

"Ugh! I guess I really don't have a choice. Welp. Here goes nothing." she said to herself, taking a deep breath and preparing to use Vanish once more to get the fuck out of that place. Ram. Tiger. Dog. Snake. Ram. Another flash of crimson light and everything went black. There was a flash of something, an image of someone she had never seen before. A man with white hair, silver eyes and scars all over his body like stitches. He wore a maniacal grin, and then the image was gone and Alice once again found herself at the campsite where she had eaten with her new recruits. She couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief at the familiar sight, though something wasn't quite right about it.

It was definitely the same campsite she remembered, but there were some very obvious and unsettling differences. The first was that the whole place was covered in half a foot of snow. The second was that there were absolutely no signs of human life whatsoever. Only a few fresh deer tracks in the snow leading through the camp and that was it. The dead beast they had used for me just a few days ago, if that, looked decayed and scavenged by every animal that could get their claws on it. That shouldn't be right. Even if she was gone for four or five days the campsite shouldn't look like this. It seemed more like she had been gone for....well months at the very least. That was definitely not a good sign.

"Damnit. Where the hell are you guys..." Alice mumbled to herself as she began casting the Mark Seal Tracking technique to try to locate any or, hopefully, all of her companions. A few moments later and she had her answer, though it wasn't one she had wanted. Most of her companions couldn't even be located, including Brooke and Roku. The only ones she could actually get any type of location from at all were Taishi and R, who were both apparently somewhere in Fire Country. Also not a good sign. Judging from how she had left them, it was more than likely they were being held captive in Konohagakure, especially if they got cocky and tried to finish the job without her.

"Damnit, damnit, damnit! I come back from, whatever the hell that place was and now I cant sense most of my contacts, the kids I had recruited are probably being held captive in the fucking Hidden Leaf Village and I'm seeing some strange, psychotic white-haired guy with stitches all over his body like Roku and Sorethin Had! Just one problem after a fucking nother I swear. Shit! Well I guess I at least better head over to the damn Leaf and try to get these two out. Then I can worry about the creepy Ragdoll guy after that." Making up her mind to not let getting trapped in that strange place stop her from using one of her most versatile jutsu, Alice formed the necessary hand seals to cast Vanish once more to take her to the gates of Konohagakure no Sato. Ram. Tiger. Dog. Snake. Ram. She took in a deep breath as the last seal was formed and she expended the necessary chakra to cast the technique she'd used many times before.

Nothing happened. There was no flash of crimson light. There was no sense of being pulled through space. None of the usual signs of the technique activating at all. She hadn't gone anywhere. The technique hadn't activated. "Ohhhhh son of a bi-" her words were cut short as her vision blurred and she fell to her knees clutching her head. She was still so weak. Her body felt heavy, she was nauseated and her head was swimming. And in that moment another problem became vivdly clear: that void-like place had weakened her so much that her most powerful techniques were out of her reach. As she focused she could feel her chakra reserves slowly beginning to replenish themselves, but it was so slow and she was so hungry and dehydrated that she couldn't really tell just how long it would take for her body to get back to full strength.

This was bad. This was very, very bad.

After a moment or two she was able to stand back up. She turned to scan all of her surroundings now, not trusting her sensory skills to detect everything after that. She went slow, circling the camp as she made sure to take in every detail in case she had missed anthing before. Once she was satisfied there was no immediate danger, she a nearby tree stump that somehow managed to not have any snow on it and sat down to try to come up with her next move. The first thing she needed to do was find out exactly how weak she had become. It was painfully clear to her that she couldn't use any S ranked techniques in her current state, but what about A ranked techniques? Or even B ranked ones? She knew she could use C ranked and below, considering her use of Mark Seal Tracking to locate Taishi and R. That only left A and B ranks up to question. Better to start with the higher ranked and work her way down, no?

Alice took a deep breath and focused herself. Then she made two hand seals in an attempt to cast one of her clan's secret techniques. Rat. Bird. Her intention was to use the Nara clan's Shadow Sewing technique to extend her own shadow and use it to pierce the trunk of a nearby tree, but her shadow hadn't even flickered. That answered that question. A ranked techniques were also out of her reach. Things were looking worse and worse by the minute. She had one last hope and that was that at least she would be able to cast B ranked techniques. If she could do at least that much then she knew she could find someone and....persuade them to help her until she regained her full strength.

Fingers crossed, she tried to use one of her favorite techniques: the Shadow Clone jutsu. To her surprised delight, two separate clones of herself appeared from a brief cloud of white smoke. She could only manage to summon two clones now compared to her normal four, but at least she could do it. That meant that B ranked techniques were still within her grasp! A ray of light in this ridiculous situation she had found herself in. With a relieved smirk on her face, Alice dispelled the two clones and began thinking of how to best move forward now that she had a fair grasp on her current capabilities.

Or at least she thought she did....

Something still tugged at the back of her mind, something potentially important. Everything that had happened, that still is happening, was a whirlwind in her mind. Meeting Taishi, R, and Roku. Planning to use them for this job. Getting stuck inside of the void. And that pale white face with silver eyes and white hair with scars like stitches. Everything was a blur.....which was probably why she hadn't noticed immediately what else was missing. She couldn't feel any of the seals that Ren had placed on her so long ago. That calm sense of relief that had washed over her just moments ago vanished, and her breathing became quick and shallow. Her palms were sweaty, knees weak, and her arms felt heavy. She hadn't realized how much she had come to rely on the power those seals had granted her. Now that they were gone she felt....naked, vulnerable. A feeling she hadn't had since before she had killed her father and finally freed herself. Panic was setting in, and she was losing control.

She was going to have to find a way to get those seals back. Or similar ones at least. Could she do it herself? Maybe. It was certainly something worth looking into, and she had seen more than one person skilled in the art of fuinjutsu creating seals. Of course if she were to do this it would mean focusing less on the art of weapon use and entirely on this, which was probably a better option anyway considering how she felt at the realization that the seals that were once placed on her were now gone. Yes, she could do it. She would do it and it would be worth it. With that out of the way her panic began to subside and she was able to get back to the other problem at hand: rescuing Taishi and R. In order to do that she was going to need more bodies. Whether they be actual partners or simply meat shields didn’t really matter at this point, as long as they helped her to accomplish her goal. So, Alice Nara headed out toward the nearest Market to find exactly what she needed.

[exit]
TWC: 2,308
Claiming 11 stats
2,000wc to learn Nature Chakra Proficency skill non-summon version
308/500 to put nature chakra into [url=naruto-role-play-rpg.forumotion.com/t22835-shadow-sewing-technique]Shadow sewing[/url]

Approved.