Naruto swam back to consciousness and was promptly assaulted by the worst headache he'd had since Uncle Jiraiya decided to figure out how much it would take to get him drunk—strictly as part of his counter-intel training, of course. He moaned and pressed one hand to his forehead in a futile attempt to squeeze out the pain.

"You'll be all right," said a woman's voice that he didn't recognize.

He sat up fast, ready for a fi— He grabbed his head and moaned. Sage's ballsack, it was splitting in half!

"Move slowly," the woman said. She was sitting in a chair across from him, curled up with her legs tucked under her, staring at him with vague interest. Her hair was red with white streaks, her face was narrow, and she wore a long white kimono. She was no one he had ever seen.

"Where are we?" Naruto asked. "And who are you?"

"We are here," she said. "And I am myself. Who else would I be?"

He tried to glare but couldn't manage it, being too focused on the pain.

"What's up with my head?"

"It's torture."

He winced. "Look, lady, Hatake Kakashi has been one of my instructors since I was four, okay? I know all about mindgames and stupid answers to perfectly sensible questions. Now are you going to answer my questions or not?"

She frowned, confused. "I have."

Naruto groaned and pushed himself upright, doing a quick appraisal of his surroundings. Maybe this was another one of Uncle Kaka's test scenarios? The white-haired lunatic considered the words 'good training' synonymous with 'anything that sucks for Naruto'. The boy couldn't remember the number of times that he'd woken up to find himself in some sort of insane situation. One time he'd been stark naked in the middle of the woods, slathered in barbecue sauce with no idea which way was home. Another time, he'd been chained up in a trunk, which promptly got kicked off the side of a ship and started sinking fast.

Right now, however, he was in a small room, perhaps ten feet by ten feet. The walls were painted white and the only furniture was the bed he'd been lying in and the chair where the woman sat. There was one window, it was in the door on the wall opposite the bed, and it was blocked by a sliding metal plate on the outside. The door had no handle and the hinges were on the opposite side.

"Bad idea," the woman said, following his eyes.

"Oh? Why?" He doubted she knew the specifics of his plan—whoever she was, it was very unlikely that she knew of his skill with the Rasengan—but the general 'smash the door down and escape' idea was pretty obvious.

She looked at him the way you looked at very stupid children. "It's your door."

"Lady, you are really getting on my nerves. Either start making sense or get out of the way while I take a knife to that door." He cut a few handseals and raised his hand, pushing chakra into the spitting, swirling orb of the Rasengan—

Which completely failed to materialize.

He stared at his empty hand. That had never happened to him before.

"Ninjutsu doesn't work in here," she said.

"Thanks for letting me know," he grumped, right before another spike of pain went through his head. "Oh, Sage's swollen ballsack, what is going on with my head?"

The woman looked at him like he was the dumbest creature to ever besmirch the good name of the world. "It. Is. Torture."

"That's not helpful, lady. Ow." He sat down on the bed again, bending forward with his head clutched in both hands. It would have been nice to make a couple of shadow clones to hold his head closed for him.

She seemed to ponder that for a moment, the way a shogi master might ponder a Go puzzle.

"The Earth Rendering has besmirched the name of the Absent Death," she tried. "He claims his skills are faded and do not apply to the needs of communion. Death carves at the door to the great hall because the chancellor will not allow him to look through the window, but the daimyo is safe in his bed. The noise awakens him and he feels the pain of his castle for it is made of his bones. He attempts to summon a servant but the bell pull is not where he expects and he doesn't recognize that it is actually his hair because, again, the stones of the castle were carved from his bones."

Naruto looked at her for a moment. "Okay, that sounded batshit crazy. I've been trying and failing to dispel a genjutsu for the last minute and a half, so I have to assume that what I'm seeing is real, which means you're real—"

She shrugged, cocking her head to one side. "Perception."

He paused, thoughts derailed. "What?"

"My existence," she clarified. "Perception." She raised her left hand to about shoulder height. "Exist?" She lowered it and raised the right hand. "Don't exist?" She shrugged, dropping both hands into her lap. "Perception."

"Riiiight. Is this one of those things about how 'everyone has their own conception of reality that is real for them', or maybe 'a hallucination is still real to the person having it'?" He waited but there was no response. "Okay, well, for the moment let's assume you do exist, okay?"

"Okay. I exist."

He sighed, settling back on the bed and leaning against the wall. He was careful to keep one eye on the woman, just in case. She hadn't done anything threatening yet, hadn't even moved, but that didn't mean she couldn't. Now, time to back up and figure out what was going on.

"I remember being on the beach," he said slowly. "I just don't remember why."

"You were the worm for Little Turtle."

"..."

"You were the worm dangled in front of Little Turtle, but wrapped in steel so that he would break his jaws on you. He didn't, but all his friends did. Then the dawn came and ground you beneath bloody wheels. They unwrapped all your steel and flew away with you and Little Turtle in their claws. The bloody wheels tore open your brain and nightmares spilled out, so you ran to your innermost den and have hidden here ever since. You forgot to bring all of you with you, though, so conversations become circular once you fall through your empty head. I try to keep the path straight but there are so many threads to untangle and they all pull on each other when you move one of them. Straightness is very much a question of perception."

Naruto frowned, pieces coming closer together so that he could almost see the picture they formed. "Right...I was on the beach with Sensei, training with clones. Uncle Jiraiya was there, and Grandpa, and...ow." He whimpered as a particularly vicious spike of pain went through him.

"The Absent Death grows frustrated," the woman said sadly. "He has disappointed his master for so long and all of the papers are hurled to the ground in crumpled balls. Beware, for he is beginning to pry at the castle's foundations. If he does not stop soon then the donjon will collapse and the light of the ancient stars will be lost to the sky once more."

Naruto grunted, pressing tight on the sides of his head as the pain grew worse. "Lady, you are seriously three dango and a maki roll short of a bento box, you know that?"

She nodded. "It's true. Also, the box is inside out."

"Ye—aaagggh!" Naruto rolled to the floor, hands coming away from his head as an instant of visceral horror banished the pain to unimportance. "Grandpa, no! Look out!" He reached out, but there was nothing for it but to watch his funny, sweet, loving, insanely lethal grandfather get cut down by that fucking bastard with the ghost of a spiny turtle wrapped around him. The Naruto he remembered being surged to his feet but there was a noise from above him and suddenly he was flying through the air and the world became red agony and vanished under a tidal wave of his screams.

o-o-o-o​

Naruto swam back to consciousness and was promptly assaulted by the worst headache he'd had since Uncle Jiraiya decided to figure out how much it would take to get him drunk—strictly as part of his counter-intel training, of course. He moaned and pressed one hand to his forehead in a futile attempt to squeeze out the pain.

"You'll be all right," said a woman's voice that he didn't recognize, speaking from just above him.

He sat up fast, a kunai appearing in his hand as he lunged forward to gut the looming threat. Less than six inches from her throat he collapsed, dropping the kunai and grabbing his head. Sage's ballsack, it was splitting in half!

"Move slowly," the woman said. She was standing over him, completely calm, with her hands folded behind her, staring at him with vague interest. Her hair was red with white streaks, her face was narrow, and she wore a long white kimono. She was no one he had ever seen.

"Where are we?" Naruto asked. "And who are you?"

"We are here," she said. "And I am myself. Who else would I be?"