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edenfallingThis is part 20 of An Ounce of Prevention, a Naruto/Harry Potter crossover that I started as a giftfic for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
askerian.
Technically, it's an insertion of one HP character/plot device into the Naruto world, but that does count as a crossover of sorts. "An Ounce of Prevention" will not affect canon in either series; that is, it takes place during the Naruto timeskip, and significantly before CoS in HP. (Which gives away at least part of the ending, but whatever. *grin*)
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Chapter 20: Three Can Keep a Secret
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Sakura watched the diary burn, feeling unaccountably cold. This was it. Tomu was dead. Her mission was over. She clasped her hands to keep from rubbing at her arms.
After a minute, the blue-white flames faded to yellow, then orange, and then winked out.
The diary lay on the stone floor, unharmed.
Sakura's stomach dropped.
"That's... different," Kakashi said, after a moment of echoing silence. "That jutsu can burn through iron. Paper shouldn't leave more than a smear of ash on the ground."
Anko crouched beside the diary and poked it with a kunai. Then she waved her hand a few inches over the cover. "It's not radiating heat," she said. She touched the spine with one finger, and then picked the book off the floor. "It's like the fire never happened. What the hell kind of power does it take to ward off a furnace? And how did Hanjimono do it? He can't touch anything physical, right?"
Sakura dug her fingers into her palms, trying to distract herself from her fading nausea. "I don't think so. But... maybe the protection is part of the seal? Tomu said it was meant to make the original him immortal. An immortality jutsu wouldn't be any good if anyone could unravel it."
Tsunade folded her arms and frowned. "I refuse to believe that anything is indestructible. There's a way to destroy the book. The question is, how do we find its weakness?"
"I could go back inside---" Sakura began.
"No." Kakashi's voice was flat and cold, the command tone he'd so rarely used back when he was her teacher. "No one is taking that risk."
Tsunade raised an eyebrow, but made no comment.
"It's not a risk if I take him down at the start," Sakura argued. "Then you could interrogate him."
"No," Kakashi said again, glaring at her.
Sakura laid her hands flat on the table and glared back. "There's no other way to question him! And anyway, what if the weapons or techniques that can destroy the diary don't exist in our world? We could spend years trying to find Tomu's weakness -- why not take another hour and be sure of the answer, whatever it is?"
There was no sense stumbling around in the dark, after all. And if this didn't work, she'd try another tack, anything to end this. She hated feeling weak, but she couldn't concentrate on mental locks for the rest of her life. It was hard enough to remember them now, right after Tomu had nearly destroyed her.
"She has a point, Hatake," Anko said with a pointed grin.
Sakura relaxed a fraction of an inch.
"Not the one you're thinking of," Tsunade said, standing and walking around the table. She held out her hand for the book, which Anko reluctantly turned over. "There's no guarantee we'll ever be able to destroy the diary. There's also no guarantee we'll be able to keep it safe and secret while we experiment. But we've been forgetting one option."
She tapped the book against her open palm. "One of my summons brought it to our world. I think we should send it back."
Anko and Kakashi stared consideringly at the diary. Sakura bit her lip. "Um. But the diary was already in non-space, not in Tomu's world," she ventured. "If a slug drops it on its way home, it'll probably get dragged back to our world by some other summons, sooner or later. And next time we won't know where to find it." Or if Tomu's link to her would still be active.
"Another good point. Remember our worst case scenarios -- what do you think Orochimaru could do with the imprint?" Kakashi asked, leaning back against the window frame.
Tsunade waved her hand, sharply, slicing the diary through the air like a knife. "Trust me, I have a very clear and unpleasant idea of how that would play out. But how long do you really think we could keep the book hidden? Four people is already too many, especially when at least another dozen know we're all up to something dangerous, even if they don't have any details. It can't hurt to ask -- at the least, maybe we can send the book off to one of the sub-dimensions. Slugs can't write; Hanjimono would be helpless there."
"Fair enough," Kakashi said after a moment.
Tsunade smiled acidly. "Your Hokage is humbly grateful for your permission. Now back off and give me some space."
"Someone's in trouble!" Anko singsonged as Kakashi ambled around the table to stand by Sakura's side. "Someone's on the shit list. And his name is---"
Tsunade stopped halfway through pricking a small cut on her thumb. "Anko, shut up. I'm trying to concentrate." A single drop of blood trickled down the blade of her kunai.
Sakura bit her tongue to keep from laughing at Anko and Kakashi's mirrored pouts.
"Thank you," Tsunade said, wiping the kunai on her sash. She knelt and pressed her hands to the floor. "If you two idiots haven't screwed my aim all to hell, I should get Kikaikuji, one of the slugs who brought the book to me. If you have screwed up my aim, I'm docking your pay and giving Sakura a bonus for being the only sensible person in the room."
Sakura bit her tongue harder, but she couldn't quite hide her smile.
Tsunade closed her eyes. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu."
---------------------------------------------
End of Chapter
Back to Once Burned
Continue to If Wishes Were Horses
Read the final version on ff.net
---------------------------------------------
First I was distracted by wedding stuff. Then, this past week, writing has been like pulling teeth.
No. Worse than that. Like tweezing blood-gorged ticks out of the back of my neck without aid of a mirror.
But I'm about halfway through chapter 21, and I fixed the really egregious potential continuity error, so I thought I might as well post this to keep the inter-chapter gap from getting too ridiculous. *grin*
askerian.Technically, it's an insertion of one HP character/plot device into the Naruto world, but that does count as a crossover of sorts. "An Ounce of Prevention" will not affect canon in either series; that is, it takes place during the Naruto timeskip, and significantly before CoS in HP. (Which gives away at least part of the ending, but whatever. *grin*)
---------------------------------------------
Chapter 20: Three Can Keep a Secret
---------------------------------------------
Sakura watched the diary burn, feeling unaccountably cold. This was it. Tomu was dead. Her mission was over. She clasped her hands to keep from rubbing at her arms.
After a minute, the blue-white flames faded to yellow, then orange, and then winked out.
The diary lay on the stone floor, unharmed.
Sakura's stomach dropped.
"That's... different," Kakashi said, after a moment of echoing silence. "That jutsu can burn through iron. Paper shouldn't leave more than a smear of ash on the ground."
Anko crouched beside the diary and poked it with a kunai. Then she waved her hand a few inches over the cover. "It's not radiating heat," she said. She touched the spine with one finger, and then picked the book off the floor. "It's like the fire never happened. What the hell kind of power does it take to ward off a furnace? And how did Hanjimono do it? He can't touch anything physical, right?"
Sakura dug her fingers into her palms, trying to distract herself from her fading nausea. "I don't think so. But... maybe the protection is part of the seal? Tomu said it was meant to make the original him immortal. An immortality jutsu wouldn't be any good if anyone could unravel it."
Tsunade folded her arms and frowned. "I refuse to believe that anything is indestructible. There's a way to destroy the book. The question is, how do we find its weakness?"
"I could go back inside---" Sakura began.
"No." Kakashi's voice was flat and cold, the command tone he'd so rarely used back when he was her teacher. "No one is taking that risk."
Tsunade raised an eyebrow, but made no comment.
"It's not a risk if I take him down at the start," Sakura argued. "Then you could interrogate him."
"No," Kakashi said again, glaring at her.
Sakura laid her hands flat on the table and glared back. "There's no other way to question him! And anyway, what if the weapons or techniques that can destroy the diary don't exist in our world? We could spend years trying to find Tomu's weakness -- why not take another hour and be sure of the answer, whatever it is?"
There was no sense stumbling around in the dark, after all. And if this didn't work, she'd try another tack, anything to end this. She hated feeling weak, but she couldn't concentrate on mental locks for the rest of her life. It was hard enough to remember them now, right after Tomu had nearly destroyed her.
"She has a point, Hatake," Anko said with a pointed grin.
Sakura relaxed a fraction of an inch.
"Not the one you're thinking of," Tsunade said, standing and walking around the table. She held out her hand for the book, which Anko reluctantly turned over. "There's no guarantee we'll ever be able to destroy the diary. There's also no guarantee we'll be able to keep it safe and secret while we experiment. But we've been forgetting one option."
She tapped the book against her open palm. "One of my summons brought it to our world. I think we should send it back."
Anko and Kakashi stared consideringly at the diary. Sakura bit her lip. "Um. But the diary was already in non-space, not in Tomu's world," she ventured. "If a slug drops it on its way home, it'll probably get dragged back to our world by some other summons, sooner or later. And next time we won't know where to find it." Or if Tomu's link to her would still be active.
"Another good point. Remember our worst case scenarios -- what do you think Orochimaru could do with the imprint?" Kakashi asked, leaning back against the window frame.
Tsunade waved her hand, sharply, slicing the diary through the air like a knife. "Trust me, I have a very clear and unpleasant idea of how that would play out. But how long do you really think we could keep the book hidden? Four people is already too many, especially when at least another dozen know we're all up to something dangerous, even if they don't have any details. It can't hurt to ask -- at the least, maybe we can send the book off to one of the sub-dimensions. Slugs can't write; Hanjimono would be helpless there."
"Fair enough," Kakashi said after a moment.
Tsunade smiled acidly. "Your Hokage is humbly grateful for your permission. Now back off and give me some space."
"Someone's in trouble!" Anko singsonged as Kakashi ambled around the table to stand by Sakura's side. "Someone's on the shit list. And his name is---"
Tsunade stopped halfway through pricking a small cut on her thumb. "Anko, shut up. I'm trying to concentrate." A single drop of blood trickled down the blade of her kunai.
Sakura bit her tongue to keep from laughing at Anko and Kakashi's mirrored pouts.
"Thank you," Tsunade said, wiping the kunai on her sash. She knelt and pressed her hands to the floor. "If you two idiots haven't screwed my aim all to hell, I should get Kikaikuji, one of the slugs who brought the book to me. If you have screwed up my aim, I'm docking your pay and giving Sakura a bonus for being the only sensible person in the room."
Sakura bit her tongue harder, but she couldn't quite hide her smile.
Tsunade closed her eyes. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu."
---------------------------------------------
End of Chapter
Back to Once Burned
Continue to If Wishes Were Horses
Read the final version on ff.net
---------------------------------------------
First I was distracted by wedding stuff. Then, this past week, writing has been like pulling teeth.
No. Worse than that. Like tweezing blood-gorged ticks out of the back of my neck without aid of a mirror.
But I'm about halfway through chapter 21, and I fixed the really egregious potential continuity error, so I thought I might as well post this to keep the inter-chapter gap from getting too ridiculous. *grin*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-28 02:02 am (UTC)"Thank you," Tsunade said, wiping the kunai on her sash. She knelt and pressed her hands to the floor. "If you two idiots haven't screwed my aim all to hell, I should get Kikaikuji, one of the slugs who brought the book to me. If you have screwed up my aim, I'm docking your pay and giving Sakura a bonus for being the only sensible person in the room."
That part just had me laughing so much!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-28 02:11 am (UTC)Besides, humor is a perfectly valid coping method when trying to deal with stress and unfamiliar situations! Some people think that's one* of its main evolutionary justifications. :-)
*The other justification is building social cohesion.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-28 03:11 am (UTC)[TL;DR] thoughts about writing women
Date: 2008-06-28 04:04 am (UTC)I used to get annoyed that most of my stories seem to revolve around women -- not because I dislike writing women, but because I wondered if I was incapable of writing men. But I seem to be able to write men when I want to, or when a man works better in a certain story position than a women would, and I am thus not resigned, but actively pleased that I write women so often.
I always come back to a rather uncomfortable epiphany I had in my teens. I was contemplating story ideas -- idly juggling fragments in an attempt to piece together an interesting plot -- and came up with a story that involved a teenage girl becoming a warrior and defending a kingdom. And I thought to myself, "No, I can't do that. Tamora Pierce already did that in her Song of the Lionness quartet."
About two seconds later I felt like smacking myself. Because seriously, how many THOUSANDS of stories have been written about young men becoming warriors and defending their homes? And I thought I couldn't write about a young woman becoming a warrior because I'd seen ONE version of that story?
...
Which is a long and tangential way of saying that I like writing women. Not just women kicking ass (though that is, indubitably, fun), but women being people. We're half of humanity -- maybe even 51 or 52 percent of humanity -- and we have every right to be seen and heard and respected.
So yeah. Writing Tsunade is fun. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-28 08:04 am (UTC)Aww, Kakashi is worried for her! >D
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-29 02:03 am (UTC)Besides, not all conflicts are won by beating people up. Sometimes you win by outthinking the enemy, or changing the playing field. Can't destroy the diary? Get rid of it instead!