Sasuke's eyes swept across the cavernous hall he found himself in. Behind him, tall double doors stood closed as if to prevent his escape. A central aisle led up to a dais where a mess of twisted and bent swords formed a throne.
The skulls of some form of creature lined the sides of this great hall, some of them as large as what he imagined the skull of Manda would look without all the muscle and scales.
And, of course, sitting on the sword throne atop the dais, the figure of man looked down at him with a sheathed sword across his lap.
Sasuke almost laughed. The first time he did something like this, he ended up in a stare down with the Kyuubi inside Naruto's seal. On the second, he emerged into the vile, flesh-like mindscape of Orochimaru's body-stealing jutsu.
Did this man really think he could intimidate him?
Smirking, Sasuke walked forward across the carpeted central aisle of the throne room. Narrow mosaic windows let in slivers of sunlight into the hall, while a walkway on one side of the room served as a sort of gallery.
A thousand or more people could fit into the room, yet it was only the two of them here. Sasuke took in the sitting man as he stepped closer. A young man pale as the moonlight, tall and sharp as a spear with long hair that fell down to his shoulders white as a sheet of paper. A reddish brown birthmark stained one side of his face.
And, curiously, the man looked back at him with red eyes. For a moment Sasuke thought he'd met some long-lost Uchiha cousin of his, until he realized they were normal red eyes and not the Sharingan. The man was an albino, surely.
"Interloper," the man's voice boomed across the room. "You do not belong here. Leave this realm and go back to whence you came."
Much like he did with Dacey Mormont, Sasuke ignored the man's babbling and kept on walking. He moved closer to the sword throne and noticed a flicker of unease flashed through the man's pale face.
The sword on his lap suddenly came gleaming out of its scabbard. The steel of the sword had a rippling pattern to it that seemed to dance in the sunlight. It was no Kusanagi, but it had a certain charm to it that he didn't mislike.
The man stood and pointed the sword at him. "Leave now, interloper, and you shall not face my wrath."
With his voice echoing around the room, his words might have sounded scary had Sasuke's sharp eyes not noticed the slight trembling of the man's hands. He was having trouble carrying the burden. Not the sword, but the illusion of the throne room and his youth as well.
Sasuke stepped onto the dais and up onto the stairs that lead to the throne.
"Stop!" The man began to sound desperate. "Leave now!"
When the tip of the man's sword touched his chest, Sasuke finally came to a stop. "Break the illusion or I will break it myself," he said.
The man snarled, trying to press the sword forward to impale him. Sasuke let his smirk grow.
"Let's see what you really are." Then he flexed his chakra.
Reality shattered. The throne room around them collapsed like broken pieces of glass to reveal the dirty truth underneath. Instead of giant skulls and carpeted halls, Sasuke found himself standing in some sort of cave facing a monstrosity of man and tree.
Roots criss-crossed a body that looked more corpse than living human. Even with his Sharingan, he had a hard time determining where man began and tree ended. But it was the same man from the throne room, he could tell. His chakra felt the same, and the red-stain birthmark still marred his face.
"You should not be here, interloper," the man rasped. His voice held none of the impetus from before.
"Yet I am," Sasuke said. "What of it?"
"You should not be," the tree man insisted. "Your presence has already caused untold damage. You are… you are an entire symphony disturbing a single, delicate song."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "And I should care about your song why?
"It is not my song! It is the hopes of this world. A world you have now put in jeopardy."
Sasuke was well aware he held enough power to destroy a world, but that didn't mean he was inclined to do so. "How?"
"The enemy. The cold ones. Your presence strengthens them. It has strengthened even me, to the point I could craft that illusion. And you have only been in this world for a few hours."
"You speak of the source of the cold chakra from the north," he said.
The tree man gave him the equivalent of a nod. "I will show you. Please, do not break the illusion."
With a shrug, Sasuke let the tree man take hold of reality and shape it. Soon they were flying above the icy forests beyond the Wall. The man took the shape of a tree-eyed raven while Sasuke remained as himself.
North and north they flew, until forest became jagged rock and snow turned to ice, where rivers were frozen blue swords cutting through the landscape and the light of the sun could not seem to touch the ground.
"There," the three-eyed raven said as they stopped flying mid air. A dark wing pointed to some point beyond the horizon. "There, in the heart of winter, the enemy of all humanity lies. Dormant, but not dead. Your presence might finally awaken it. And worse, give it strength beyond what it already has."
At that moment, a huge surge of chakra pulsed angrily from deep beneath the ice. The three-eyed raven squawked in fear and the illusion shattered once more.
Back in the cave, the tree man was gasping for breath in his coffin of roots.
"Do you feel it now?" he asked in a shaky voice.
Sasuke remained unmoved. It wasn't a lot of chakra compared to the amounts Sasuke himself had. Nothing, really, but he could imagine how terrifying that might be to someone with as little chakra as the tree man.
"You seek to frighten me away by showing me a den of insects as if I could not simply step on them," he told him.
The tree man seemed horrified by his words. "You are delusional! You don't understand, you—"
"Enough," Sasuke cut in. "My path is my own whether you like it or not. Do not bother me again, or you will find me a worse enemy than whatever slumbers beneath the ice."
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he was back at the campsite, the fire still crackling nicely beside him. Tilda and the children were snoring and sleeping soundly. Barely more than a second had passed.
Sasuke sighed as he felt the chakra signature of the three-eyed raven that had followed them fly away. Annoying. A half-tree man who refused to die seeking to tell him what to do.
He could've reassured the man by telling him he would deal with whatever stirred from the icy anthill, but he might as well let the man stew in his fear. That would teach him to try and scare him with the most childish illusion he'd ever seen.
Still, this world was turning out to be more interesting than he expected. An enemy to fight in the future, skulls of creatures as big as Manda, and a grand throne room with swords for a throne. What else would he find as he continued to travel?
Leaning back against the oak tree, Sasuke let himself fall into a light sleep. Above him, through the snow-covered trees of the forest, a red comet streaked across the sky.
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