The mission flyer practically crumpled in Rika’s grip as she tore it from the pre-approved board in the Primus Tower. Border Defense Unit: Threat Neutralization. B-Rank. She didn’t bother reading the fine print about "high combat capability required." A smirk, practiced and razor-sharp, painted her face as she tossed the paper up and caught it.
"A B-Rank? Please. They’re basically paying me to take a walk in the sand," she muttered to nobody in particular, her jade green eyes flashing with an arrogant confidence that successfully masked the hum of anxiety beneath her skin. "Easy money."
The walk out to the Desert Expanse was blisteringly hot, but her sleeveless tunic and lightweight gear made the trek bearable. She didn't mind the solitude; the desert was quieter than the village, free from the staring eyes that always seemed to judge the 'clanless freak.'
Her target wasn't hard to find. The tracks in the shifting sands were distinct, leading her over a cluster of dunes until she spotted them. A small pack of Hykals. Three of them. Their tan, target-spotted fur blended into the environment, but it was their faces that gave them away. They sat in the shade of a rocky outcropping, panting heavily, their muzzles pulled back in that eerie, permanent grin that earned them the moniker of 'mocking dogs'.
Rika cracked her knuckles, the heavy, dense weight of her Seikon energy already pooling in her limbs. No hand seals required. She’d just crush them with a Kinetic Blast and be back in time for dinner.
She focused, her vision shifting to perceive the shimmering, erratic strings of time vibrating in the air around her. She reached out, intending to pull on a string to create an epoch slow and catch the beasts off guard.
But as her metaphorical fingers brushed the fabric of space-time, the world stuttered.
A flash of grayscale interrupted the vibrant, sun-drenched desert. Standing barely ten feet to her left was a Time Echo. It was her—colorless, distorted, and facing the opposite direction. The grey Rika’s eyes were wide with a terror that the real Rika spent her entire life trying to hide.
Rika froze, her breath hitching in her throat. She hadn't cast Broken Timeline. She hadn't consumed the chakra, nor had she pulled the temporal strings to summon a past or future self. Yet, there she was.She felt something inside her shifting.
Suddenly, a wave of profound, nauseating déjà vu slammed into her. The heat of the sun, the smell of the arid wind, the grinning faces of the Hykals—it all felt recycled. A terrifying thought pierced her mind: 'I've already done this. I've been here. What did I forget?' Rika got the sudden feeling that something wasn't right in her timeline, something was slipping.
The grey echo of herself mouthed a word she couldn't decipher, then shattered like glass, dissolving into the wind. Rika was confused.
Paranoia, cold and absolute, gripped her heart. Were her handlers watching her again? Was she slipping? Her temporal strider mutation was a delicate balancing act, and the thought of her mind moving faster than her reality terrified her. The fear threatened to crack her carefully constructed mask.
'Am I the time echo?' Another thought that made something in her gut turn. Her heart thumped hard in her chest, but before she allowed herself to become breathless, she steadied herself. Slightly.
She needed a distraction. So, she did what she always did when overwhelmed: she leaned into violence.
"Hey losers!" Rika shouted, though the taunt sounded a fraction too shrill, a little too desperate.
The Hykals snapped to attention, their mocking grins turning into snarls as they bolted toward her, surprisingly fast. Rika didn't wait. A heavy, magnetic blue aura—the telltale sign of her Cobalt variant—flared violently to life around her. She threw her hands forward, treating her massive reserves like a physical extension of her limbs.
A thick, invisible wall of kinetic force manifested instantaneously. It slammed down onto the charging pack like a falling fortress. The impact kicked up a massive geyser of sand and dust, accompanied by the sickening crunch of bone. Two of the Hykals were instantly crushed under the sheer, unyielding weight of her raw energy. The third, clipped by the edge of the Kinetic Blast, yelped and tried to scramble away.
Rika didn't give it a chance. She closed the distance with gravity-defying acrobatics, her movements an unfair abuse of physics, and delivered a devastating, heavy-handed strike to the beast's skull, putting it down permanently. She didn't flinch; hell, she hardly felt a thing.
The desert fell silent again, save for the rush of blood pounding in her ears.
She stood over the beasts, her chest heaving, her green eyes darting frantically across the empty dunes. She waited for another echo. She waited for the strings to snap. Nothing happened. It felt like something would, she felt goosebumps on her skin. A chill despite the smoldering heat.
Gathering the required proof of the kill was a blur. Rika moved on autopilot, her mind racing a hundred miles a minute.
She looked down at the red-stained sand, then back towards the village. At least it was safer, somewhat. The desert had too many threats.
'I need to regain control of the village.... Maybe it was a one-time thing....' Rika thought to herself, and sighed heavily. She needed to be strong. She needed to be strong for the village and her team. She couldn't let this get to her. And even as she thought that, her chest still felt tight.
Rika barely remembered the walk back to the village; she was a little jumpy, seeing shadows in the corners of her eyes. That unsettling feeling, like a buzzing in the back of her head, just wouldn't go away.
By the time she returned to the Primus Tower to turn in the mission, her mask of bravado was firmly back in place. She dropped the proof on the desk, offering the clerk a cocky grin as she waited for her pay.
But as she walked out into the streets of Sunagakure, the heavy pouch of coins in her pocket offered no comfort. She looked at the faces of the villagers passing by, the shadows stretching across the sandstone walls. Everything looked normal.
But Rika’s skin crawled. The lingering taste of déjà vu sat at the back of her throat. Something was wrong. Something was missing from her memory, and her own timeline was fraying at the edges.
She just didn't know why.
[WC 1088]
[Topic made/left]
"A B-Rank? Please. They’re basically paying me to take a walk in the sand," she muttered to nobody in particular, her jade green eyes flashing with an arrogant confidence that successfully masked the hum of anxiety beneath her skin. "Easy money."
The walk out to the Desert Expanse was blisteringly hot, but her sleeveless tunic and lightweight gear made the trek bearable. She didn't mind the solitude; the desert was quieter than the village, free from the staring eyes that always seemed to judge the 'clanless freak.'
Her target wasn't hard to find. The tracks in the shifting sands were distinct, leading her over a cluster of dunes until she spotted them. A small pack of Hykals. Three of them. Their tan, target-spotted fur blended into the environment, but it was their faces that gave them away. They sat in the shade of a rocky outcropping, panting heavily, their muzzles pulled back in that eerie, permanent grin that earned them the moniker of 'mocking dogs'.
Rika cracked her knuckles, the heavy, dense weight of her Seikon energy already pooling in her limbs. No hand seals required. She’d just crush them with a Kinetic Blast and be back in time for dinner.
She focused, her vision shifting to perceive the shimmering, erratic strings of time vibrating in the air around her. She reached out, intending to pull on a string to create an epoch slow and catch the beasts off guard.
But as her metaphorical fingers brushed the fabric of space-time, the world stuttered.
A flash of grayscale interrupted the vibrant, sun-drenched desert. Standing barely ten feet to her left was a Time Echo. It was her—colorless, distorted, and facing the opposite direction. The grey Rika’s eyes were wide with a terror that the real Rika spent her entire life trying to hide.
Rika froze, her breath hitching in her throat. She hadn't cast Broken Timeline. She hadn't consumed the chakra, nor had she pulled the temporal strings to summon a past or future self. Yet, there she was.She felt something inside her shifting.
Suddenly, a wave of profound, nauseating déjà vu slammed into her. The heat of the sun, the smell of the arid wind, the grinning faces of the Hykals—it all felt recycled. A terrifying thought pierced her mind: 'I've already done this. I've been here. What did I forget?' Rika got the sudden feeling that something wasn't right in her timeline, something was slipping.
The grey echo of herself mouthed a word she couldn't decipher, then shattered like glass, dissolving into the wind. Rika was confused.
Paranoia, cold and absolute, gripped her heart. Were her handlers watching her again? Was she slipping? Her temporal strider mutation was a delicate balancing act, and the thought of her mind moving faster than her reality terrified her. The fear threatened to crack her carefully constructed mask.
'Am I the time echo?' Another thought that made something in her gut turn. Her heart thumped hard in her chest, but before she allowed herself to become breathless, she steadied herself. Slightly.
She needed a distraction. So, she did what she always did when overwhelmed: she leaned into violence.
"Hey losers!" Rika shouted, though the taunt sounded a fraction too shrill, a little too desperate.
The Hykals snapped to attention, their mocking grins turning into snarls as they bolted toward her, surprisingly fast. Rika didn't wait. A heavy, magnetic blue aura—the telltale sign of her Cobalt variant—flared violently to life around her. She threw her hands forward, treating her massive reserves like a physical extension of her limbs.
A thick, invisible wall of kinetic force manifested instantaneously. It slammed down onto the charging pack like a falling fortress. The impact kicked up a massive geyser of sand and dust, accompanied by the sickening crunch of bone. Two of the Hykals were instantly crushed under the sheer, unyielding weight of her raw energy. The third, clipped by the edge of the Kinetic Blast, yelped and tried to scramble away.
Rika didn't give it a chance. She closed the distance with gravity-defying acrobatics, her movements an unfair abuse of physics, and delivered a devastating, heavy-handed strike to the beast's skull, putting it down permanently. She didn't flinch; hell, she hardly felt a thing.
The desert fell silent again, save for the rush of blood pounding in her ears.
She stood over the beasts, her chest heaving, her green eyes darting frantically across the empty dunes. She waited for another echo. She waited for the strings to snap. Nothing happened. It felt like something would, she felt goosebumps on her skin. A chill despite the smoldering heat.
Gathering the required proof of the kill was a blur. Rika moved on autopilot, her mind racing a hundred miles a minute.
She looked down at the red-stained sand, then back towards the village. At least it was safer, somewhat. The desert had too many threats.
'I need to regain control of the village.... Maybe it was a one-time thing....' Rika thought to herself, and sighed heavily. She needed to be strong. She needed to be strong for the village and her team. She couldn't let this get to her. And even as she thought that, her chest still felt tight.
Rika barely remembered the walk back to the village; she was a little jumpy, seeing shadows in the corners of her eyes. That unsettling feeling, like a buzzing in the back of her head, just wouldn't go away.
By the time she returned to the Primus Tower to turn in the mission, her mask of bravado was firmly back in place. She dropped the proof on the desk, offering the clerk a cocky grin as she waited for her pay.
But as she walked out into the streets of Sunagakure, the heavy pouch of coins in her pocket offered no comfort. She looked at the faces of the villagers passing by, the shadows stretching across the sandstone walls. Everything looked normal.
But Rika’s skin crawled. The lingering taste of déjà vu sat at the back of her throat. Something was wrong. Something was missing from her memory, and her own timeline was fraying at the edges.
She just didn't know why.
[WC 1088]
[Topic made/left]