Connecting the Dots: Perpetuation

Perpetuation

“Glad as I am to see you back in one piece, Naruto, I have to tell you things look very bad right now.”  Tsunade leaned across her desk.  “It might have been safer for you to stay in the other dimension.”

Naruto shook his head.  “There’s no way I’m leaving you guys to deal with this by yourselves.  Besides…” He flashed a cocky smile.  “…you forget who you’re talking to.  I’m Naruto Uzumaki, and I’ll definitely save everyone!  Believe it!”

“Naruto, I don’t think you understand the situation.”  Tsunade sighed.  “The Raikage is dead.  Killer Bee is dead.  The Tsuchikage has been critically wounded and is in intensive care.  Nearly half of our ninja force has been decimated.”

“You said Kabuto left Madara though, right?”  Shikamaru spoke up from his position against the wall.  “That should make things easier.”

Tsunade shook her head.  “He did, but he’s back.  I don’t know why Madara let him back in—Kabuto must have some trump card—but we’re seeing Edo Tensei’s on the front lines again.  And the fact that Kabuto’s back…”

“…means Sasuke must be back as well.”  Sakura sighed.

“It appears the League was unable to capture him in time,” noted Shino.

Neji nodded.  “Or they did, and Madara simply intercepted the return signal.”

“If he could do that, why didn’t he pick up Naruto when we teleported back?”  Kiba had slumped on the floor in complete defiance of protocol and basic manners.

A quiet voice spoke up from the rear.  “Spectre may have helped with that.”  Avoiding the questioning gazes, she shrugged.  “He said he needed us to return home.”

“Look, whatever.”  Tsunade  waved her hands irritably.  “I don’t quite follow all this mumbo-jumbo you kids are spouting anyway.  The point is, now that you’re here, the battle is on again, and we are in a vastly weaker position!  Kabuto and Madara may have cards they haven’t even played yet, and we’re down to our last shinobi.”

“You’ve got us!” pointed out Naruto.

Tsunade sighed.  “And as I said before, Naruto, that’s great, but twelve kids don’t make up for the half-army of ninja I don’t have.  Don’t take this the wrong way, but twelve kids barely make up for losing Kakashi’s abilities.”

Every eye turned to Sakura.  “It’s true.”  She said quietly.  “I did a full examination.  It’ll be months before he’s fit for active duty, and I don’t know if his Sharingan will ever be usable again.  A kamui of that magnitude was just too much.  Frankly it’s a wonder we made it at all.  Or should I say a miracle…?”  She raised her eyebrows at Hinata.

But Hinata just shrugged.  “I don’t know.  It’s possible he also helped with that.”’

“So there you have it.”  Tsunade threw up her hands.  “Our best shinobi down, or incapacitated and half our force gone.  If we’d gone full out at the start… who knows what might have happened.  The Kages could have fought together, perhaps, we could have taken on the tailed beasts, it could have…”

“That’s irrelevant.”  Shikamaur interrupted.  “There’s no time for ‘what could have been.’  We need to focus on right here and now.”

Slumping suddenly, Tsunade nodded.  “You’re right of course.”  She muttered.  “It’s just… the situation’s really bad.  We’ve even started arming civilians, but what can they do without techniques?”

“Ahem.”

Everyone turned to regard a strangely blushing Tenten.  “I…. may have a suggestion.”

-------

It was an eyeball.  A glowing red one with several black flecks flickering about in its depths, and more importantly, connected to a bizarre organic device with a sort of computer screen.  The dark grey flesh apparently fused with the front of it was new, but apart from that, the item was unmistakeable.

It might be an eye, but it was not JUST an eye, and it had Diana wondering if her not-quite-boyfriend was insane.  Granted, he’d been sane—quite correct, actually—the other times he’d crossed the League, but this… this was…

“Bruce, explain to me again why you have the projector we destroyed last week.”  She asked, not looking away from the eyeball.

A snort came from the man stationed at a tank on the far side of the room.  “Because it leads to another dimension, that’s why.”

“Okay, now tell me HOW you have the projector we destroyed last week.”

“Because you never destroyed the actual projector,” answered Batman without turning.  “You destroyed a copy I fabricated and planted at the location I gave Clark.  The real projector—this one—I removed from a warehouse in Jump City shortly after the other ninjas left.”

Diana closed her eyes.  “So in defiance of the League and the treaty we signed with the Konoha ninjas, you saved this thing and brought it here—“ she glanced up at the vaulted ceiling, “—to the Batcave sublevel.”  Still staring at the ceiling, she frowned.  “Why am I not surprised to find you have a lead-lined secret bunker that no one else in the League knows about?”

“Because you know me as a paranoid bastard who keeps things to himself, Princess.”  It was impossible to read Batman’s expression, particularly at this distance.

“So why are you telling me?” asked Wonder Woman, finally turning from the Sharingan and walking over to the crimefighter.  “This is pretty big, Bruce.  I should tell Clark.”

Bruce still did not turn from the tank.  “But you won’t.”

“No,” said Wonder Woman with sigh of defeat, glancing away in frustration.   Damn manipulative…  “I won’t.  But could you at least provide me with a reason why NOT to, so I feel better about it?  I thought you wanted the link to be broken.”

“Broken, not destroyed.  Let’s say I am keeping my options open, and providing a safeguard while I’m at it.  If any of the ninjas use that jutsu again, whatever is sent should come out here.”  Finally finishing whatever he was doing with the tank, Batman faced her.  “Definitely useful to have a controlling element.”

Wonder Woman glanced off to the side.  “So that’s why you had that bomb vault with the blast doors built.”

“Exactly.”  Batman indicated the device.  “Anything that comes through will be trapped in that vault, instead of simply popping up wherever on the planet.”

“Then why not just keep the eye?  Wouldn’t that have the same effect?”  Eyes narrowed in suspicion, Diana watched Bruce begin wheeling the device into the vault.  “That thing you said to Shikamaru back then… about wanting to have Tenten on your side… you’re thinking of using the portal, aren’t you?”

Batman snorted, lifting the projector and carefully positioning it on a stand in the vault.  “Please, Princess.  Even if I managed to extract all the chakra from the soldier pills and foodstuffs they left behind, I should scarcely be able to activate it more than twice.  And even then, I would probably teleport right in front of their Hokage.”  Striding out of the vault, he pressed a few buttons on a panel nearby and the massive door swung shut.  “As I said, I’m merely keeping my options open.  It can be useful to have a friend in need.”

Puzzled, Diana blinked at Batman as he strode along to another vault door, one of five set in the wall.  “Bruce, I’m not really following you.”

Batman stopped and turned to face her.  “Defeating Luthor would have been much more difficult—and potentially more costly—without the help of the ninjas.  During their stay here, they contributed much to our understanding of battlefield tactics and unarmed combat.  And that’s not even counting the material they left behind—foodstuffs, soldier pills, stray kunai, chakra-saturated hunks of earth and metal…”

“All of which you’ve spent every waking moment since they left locating and allocating.  That’s another thing I don’t get.”

“Let’s say I’m interested in whether chakra can be reproduced.”  A truly disturbing smile spread over Batman’s face.  “But that is not the point.  The point is that despite the… initial unpleasantness, the incident nonetheless had some very helpful side-effects.  With a more graceful initiation, further dimensional exploration could prove to be quite rewarding.”

“’Further’ exploration?”  Diana watched in alarm as Batman punched a code into the panel adjoining the other door.  “What are you talking about?”

Batman snorted as the door swung open, revealing a metallic ring surrounded by an assortment of computers and equipment.  “You know quite well what I’m talking about, Diana.  Exploration of other dimensions.  Other parallel universes.  Deliberate insertion into other worlds.  And, possibly, informal alliances with them.”

“What, like an interdimensional League?”  Wonder Woman watched in amazement as Batman walked up to the foremost of the computers and booted it up.  “Bruce, this isn’t like you.  You’re not a team player, you don’t trust others.”

“You forget, in some instances here, I wouldn’t be trusting others.  I’d be trusting myself.  Have already, in fact.”

Diana’s hand flew to her mouth.  “You didn’t discuss this with Lord Batman, did you?”

“He IS the foremost expert on dimensional wormholes.  And I find it interesting that my double was the only one among the Justice Lords who we could trust,” responded Batman.  “I’m not so arrogant as to suppose that that would hold true across other dimensions, but it certainly gives me something to work with.  And whatever dimension under discussion, the decision of who to trust and who NOT to trust would rest solely with me.”

“So THAT’S why you don’t want Clark in on this.”  A look of amused cynicism settled on Wonder Woman’s face.

“Essentially, yes.  Clark is too trusting.  Short-sighted too, for someone with eight different kinds of vision.  He probably WOULD want to destroy the projector.”  The computer was now running and Batman’s fingers flew over the keys in a flurry of typing.

Nodding sardonically, Wonder Woman glanced to the portal.  “So that’s your plan?  Power up this device and go to some random dimension?”

“I would never go to ‘some random dimension,’” answered Batman.  “This model of the portal allows me to see images of the world before I visit it.  Look.”  Moving aside, he gestured Wonder Woman to come forward and look at the screen.

Diana came forward and studied the screen carefully for a few moments.  She opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again.

“Why,” she said carefully, “would someone shoot—are those webs?—from their fingers?”

“That,” answered Batman, “I don’t know.”