Heading Home

Missions:

Everyone had hoped that defeating the Avatar of Nightmares would lead to everything going back to normal, but that wasn't proving to be the case. Gun and Kana had to return through the rift that they'd entered to ensure they ended up back in Sakura. That meant traversing back through the Land of Dreams but because of the Avatar's altering of the boundary between the Land of Dreams and the Land of Nightmares, more rifts were opening on their own. This meant that the kunoichis would be encountering more nightmares as they traversed the Land of Dreams. There was no avoiding it, but at least the nightmares were no longer working as a group like they were when they were under the control of the Avatar of Nightmares. Likewise, the rifts had proven to be much less stable than the ones the Avatar of Nightmares had been forming, evidenced by the ease with which the Dream creatures were able to close them: even simple physical attacks were able to pop the rifts now.

Harpy Gun flew overhead, trying to scout a direction for the two to go. There were mountains to their left, snow topping the top third of and dense, green forests covering the rest of the mountain. Obviously Gun wouldn't have any trouble with the terrain, since she could fly, but Kana was an oversized metal behemoth so making her way through thick underbrush might prove more troublesome for her. Before her eyes, an unnaturally hued bubble appeared out of nowhere and began to grow before a squirrel, which seemed to be infected with some sort of undead virus, started crawling out of the rift. Gun, without really thinking, swung her mace into the squirrel's head before its back legs were able to escape the bubble. The blow caused the squirrel to turn to smoke and ended up in the rift popping. Gun wasn't sure if the rifts were able to be popped with force because the Avatar of Nightmares was no longer causing them or if it had to do with realized that even now, new rifts were forming in this land and there were still plenty the two kunoichis could do to help.

Looking down at Kana, she motioned that she was going to keep to the skies for now. She zoomed off, her large wings providing a good deal of force and sending the harpy hurtling forward at speeds which Gun could barely achieve in her normal form. Her mace almost seemed invisible as she swung it around at speeds most people couldn't see it. She wielded it through one new rift to another new rift, popping them before anything could escape into this realm. To say she was working would be lie because Gun was really enjoying herself and, as they say, You never work a day in your life if you do what you love. Gun wasn't sure if it was the flying that made this endeavor so much fun, the popping bubbles, or the weird and unnatural creatures that she got to see while doing it, but she was sure this was a real blast. The danger from earlier seemed nonexistent now that the Avatar of Nightmares had been dealt with. She actually worried that she was a weirdo because she did legitametly enjoy seeing what things other people were dreaming about. Like some sort of sick pleasure seeing what was going on inside the heads of others.

She cast those thoughts aside as she hurled another javelin downward at a red jumpsuit wearing individual who seemed like they were about to call some building sized metal animal to help them fight. The weapon impaled the ranger in the chest, instantly thwarting their attempt at summoning. She then fly towards another rift and smashed it with her mace.

Gun was curious what would happen if a rift was closed while the creature that had come through it was still here and vice versa, would killing a creature destroy the rift that it came out of? So far, it seemed like rifts were akin to doors: things could go through them but weren’t inherently tied to them. This meant all the rifts needed to be closed and all the nightmares needed to be vanquished. Gun looked down at the ground, Kana was smashing and burning and removing all sorts of leftover nightmares with her dream form. Swooping down just until she was feet from the ground, Gun impaled a nightmare that looked like a shinobi, a line through their ninja headband, clearly indicating themselves as a missing ninja. Taking the speed she had gained from her steep descent, she began going back up, gaining altitude. In doing so, she lifted the ghoulish shinobi into the air with nothing but the javelin which had impaled it. It didn’t take long before it disappeared into a puff of smoke.

To say the skies were safe wasn’t exactly true, there were nightmares flying around, as there were dreams. Some of the aerial combat caught Gun’s attention and she watched in amazement as a white horse with wings battled a black dragon. The pegasus was so bright and so white that it appeared to be shining. The black dragon seemed to be absorbing all light, appearing to have matte skin that reflected no light. The two flew around each, circling and occasionally confronting each other stories above the other battling dreams and nightmares. The beasts were clearly majestic creatures, both equally graceful in the sky. It almost looked like dancing as the two moved in reaction to the other’s movements. The slightest of turns by one would result in a turn from the other and it seemed like a game of chess and strategy. Every move resulted in a counter and every counter resulted in a counter of its own. Neither could leave their wings unprotected because one damaged wing meant a disastrous fall to the ground below. Watching  from a distance made it seem like two true masters at work and Gun almost let a rodent wearing a cape catch her off guard.

Her javelin’s tip coated in a sharp layer of water sliced the rodent in two as it tried to drop on her from above. She had happened to sense the change in airflow and was able to react in time. The smoke caused by the rat’s destruction dissipated into the air as Gun readied a javelin. She wasn’t sure if interrupting the two beasts was the right play, and she worried about accidentally hitting the pegasus, but she went ahead and hurled her spear at the dragon. As mentioned, the dragon was a master and managed to fend off an attack from the pegasus and evade Gun’s spear, but a fireball from below caught the dragon unaware. Looking downward, it’s own mouth beginning to glow orange with its own fiery attack being prepared.

However, the white hoof of the pegasus came smashing down atop the dragon’s head, closing its mouth and extinguishing the flames that had been about to roar from the dragon’s mouth. The next attack, Gun’s Sacred Spear technique, was about to pierce the dragon’s dark hide. The pegasus dealt a final blow, causing the dragon to disappear in a puff of smoke. Turning towards Gun, the pegasus nodded and despite the horse’s simple gesture, Gun knew that it was thanking her for her part in its survival. She nodded back and then smashed a couple tiny rifts that had formed nearby. Gun’s harpy form couldn’t hide the joy that Gun was feeling and the exhilaration that she felt.

Looking back down to the earth below, Gun scanned the array of creatures until she found Kana. The two of them seemed to have little difficulty in this battle as the nightmares that remained were much less organized and even less powerful without the Avatar of Nightmares powering them up. It was little more than taking out the trash at this point, but if they didn’t do it properly, one of these nightmares could be used by the Avatar later to once again invade the Land of Dreams. The same could be said of the rifts between the two lands.

Deciding to experiment with her dream form a bit more, Gun dive bombed towards a nightmare that resembled a werewolf, being half man and half wolf. She swooped and struck her legs out, using her sharp talons to grab the man’s upper arms and then shifting her wings to provide lift. She flew upwards, the werewolf nightmare in her talons. It tried swiping its monstrous claws at Gun's legs, but she kept swerving left and right and all around to keep the nightmare from being able to reach her. Gun swooped back down, using the lupine as a weapon, smashing it face first into other nightmares. As she continued flying and smashing one nightmare into a plethora of others, a trail of smoke was left behind her. She was just about to head into another group of nightmares when the werewolf in her grasp succumbed to his injuries and poofed into smoke. Her javelin was used instead, impaling three nightmares in one swoop before returning to the skies. Gun once again checked the area for Kana, seeing her partner still swinging that flaming sword. The sword was nice for Gun to quickly and easily find Kana even amongst the chaotic battlefield that they now found themselves in. Gun decided to touch base anyways, swooping down and landing next to Kana.

"This is much easier than before." Gun said, getting Kana's attention. "How you doing?"

WC: 1602

The trek back to Sakuragakure was proving itself to be more troublesome for one half of the duo that made up Gunshin and Kana, while Gunshin flew easily and freely in the skies, Kana was forced to brave the wilds on her own, her heavy armor that once made her feel strong and powerful were now cumbersome and made her slow while her flaming weapon, once a symbol of awesome strength had so far burnt a few bushes and probably would've caused a forest fire if Kana didn't reabsorb the flames before they spread to the nearby greenery. "Get a flaming sword Kana.... It will be cool Kana.... This will be completely practical to use in the real world Kana..." She muttered to herself in misery as she kept trudging through the forest, holding her sword carefully right in front of herself to avoid catching anything else on fire by accident, she only swung the blade when a nightmare creature had the misfortune of crossing her path or trying to escape through one of the weaker rifts that were appearing throughout the dream world, probably the final last ditch effort of the nightmare world to terrorize the waking world, nothing more than the dying thrashes of a failed invasion determined to cause as much damage as it could manage before things fell back to normal.

It was mostly clean up duty at this point as the raw numbers that had given the duo trouble were long since gone and most of the nightmares left, while probably a threat in the real world fell with ease in the dream world, she was certain the stone creature she had finished slicing in half would greatly damage any sword she swung at the thing but instead her flaming sword sliced through the thing like butter. Kana could only assume this was a result of the dreams only being made up of some sort of energy here that allowed these things to take form and break the law of reality, thus allowing people to dream up outright impossible things like a constantly burning sword for example, Kana was sure she'd be sweating greatly just from the heat of the flames constantly burning away so close to her body, hell those flames might just be burning her hand even if the handle was somehow able counteract the natural heat the blade should be generating.

Glancing up at the sky, Kana had been keeping an eye on her friend on the off chance some random flying nightmare would decide to target her friend's wings and try to take her out of the sky, she had seen a few nightmares and dreams fighting for air superiority, white dragons of mystic stature had struck down oversized crows that had seemed more deranged that those found in the real world, yet this air battle she had managed to catch was between a more darker, sinister dragon trying to attack a Pegasus that was swiftly dodging it's attacks, the two creatures flying in and out of each other's attacks to try and clip the other's wings to bring down their enemy. Kana had to admit, she could probably sit back and watch the two things fly around each other all day, their movements were swift and agile, narrow misses from afar almost made the two appear to be interlocked, one would move in for an attack and the other would move out of the way, ducking and weaving yet never separating from each other. It didn't take a genius to realize why that was, the dragon was probably like many others and could breathe fire, meaning if the Pegasus decided to back off, it'd find itself being roasted alive and Kana somehow doubted the thing had it's own ranged option or even a way to defend itself from the flames.

It was also no surprise when she watched her friend prepare to strike at the dragon, her javelin was already being prepped to be thrown and while Kana didn't doubt the thing would be quite deadly, Kana wasn't exactly helpless down here either, running through an old set of hand seals, Kana begun to spit a series of fireballs up toward the dragon as either cover fire or to catch it off guard, she wasn't sure what she'd manage but having extra hands when dealing with such creatures was never a bad thing. She watched as the massive dragon avoided the first strike by the Pegasus and barely manage to avoid the second strike by Gunshin before being struck by the fireballs, the large reptile letting out a roar as it begun to build up the flames for it's own counter attack, something Kana had welcomed as she brought up her right arm, ready to absorb the fire to use against the beast but that moment never arrived as the Pegasus struck down the dragon in it's distracted state, causing the mighty beast to fall from the skies and crash into the ground below, undoubtedly to begin the process of fading away.

Her victory was short lived however, the sound of movement forced Kana to prepare herself for more nightmares, a single large bat flew at her with it's large fangs ready to puncture her armor and probably through her entire body if she allowed it to strike her freely, alas the thing failed to consider that her sword and arm was far longer than it's fangs as Kana thrust the sword forward and impaled the creature, forcing it to come to a quick and painful stop before her arm ignited into flames to speed along it's dusting process. Swiping the sword to the right, Kana swung her left arm into the jaw of the freakish bone covered wolf, it's bone protrusion snapping alongside it's jaw as it flew into the tree with a whine, before it could force itself back to it's feet, Kana's own armored boot would stomp onto the creature's side, snapping it's spine with another whine before it begun to fade into dust just as Gunshin flew by to inquire about her state of affairs, Kana only letting the flames on her right arm fade away.

"Honestly, trying to not burn the forest is harder." Kana admitted as she extended her right arm toward the tree branches that had been caught in the flaming sword's path, the flaming effectively being sucked into the orb in a swirl, as if the fire became a liquid for a moment before the orb began to glow slightly brighter than before. "That and walking back. Such bullshit that you get to fly while I have to walk all the way." Kana added with a sigh rolled her shoulders to ease up the muscles, the earlier battle against the nightmare horde had still left her a bit tired and worn down, but it wasn't anything that a nap wouldn't fix when they get back to the real world. "You're doing good though, you're pretty much destroying most of the rifts before I can even get to them." Kana had to admit that it was nice to see Gunshin being as effective as she was in this area, she was like a rocket at times, flying from point to point and ruthlessly wiping out entire packets of nightmare creatures before Kana could even arrive to back her friend up, instead the duty of clean up felt more like Kana was cleaning up whatever Gunshin had missed or glossed over rather than the duo combing through the area as a team.

"We'll keep going, destroy what we can before we make it back to home. I kinda wanna stay here a bit longer anyways, I mean when's the next time that I'm going to be able to use a flaming sword like this?" Kana also had to admit that despite her earlier whining about the impractical part of carrying a firing sword through a very much flammable environment, she still found the concept of a flaming sword super fucking cool and part of her was going to miss having this thing around. She'd probably be able to create a mimicry of the sword in the real world with a jutsu but it wouldn't be the same and she probably wouldn't even use it as well as she could if she had trained the way of the sword and it's techniques like Gunshin had.

WC: 1,400
MWC: 3,002

Gun nodded as Kana told her to keep doing what she had been doing. Every nightmare they destroyed was one less nightmare that could lead to trouble in the real world; likewise, every rift they destroyed was one less way for the nightmares to get to the real world. She wondered if other shinobi would try to weaponize the rifts; she could see some people choosing to purposely destroy rifts that lead to their home country and leave the ones that lead to their enemies. Gun didn’t want to do this for 2 reasons: one, Sakura didn’t really have any enemies yet, and two, it would take more time to figure out which rifts went to which places. The time needed to do that could be problematic, especially if you found yourself stranded in the Land of Dreams. For now, Gun couldn’t think about that, there were evil doers and nightmares to vanquish!

Gun took back to the skies, moving her mace back to her hip. She had decided to try a new jutsu that she’d just recently learned. In fact, it was a new jutsu using a new element! She had recently learned how to utilize lightning to complement her water element. While water was very versatile, lightning had a destructive power that water just couldn’t quite replicate. With her right hand free of a weapon, she began focusing lightning chakra into her palm. It took her a bit of time as she flew through the sky to amass enough lightning for the jutsu to be effective, but once she heard the characteristic chirping sound; she knew it was ready. A slight chuckle escaped from her as she realized that she was now part bird and she was using a jutsu that sounded like one thousand birds, even taking its name from that sound. She wondered if her harpy form came from the jutsu or if it was just a happy coincidence.

With her palm holding the high concentration of lightning, Gun flew at top speed towards a giant nightmare that the Dream creatures seemed unable to defeat on their own. It easily stood over 100 feet tall and appeared like a giant ape. Its brown fur was evident and its large chest was Gun’s target. The kunoichi had seen many others attack the oversized gorilla, but their attacks had failed to even faze the creature. Gun hoped that with her quick flying speed and Chidori’s characteristic penetrative power she could penetrate the beast’s hide enough to send it back to the Land of Nightmares. She circled around the creature, gaining speed as she did so. Dream creatures were constantly attacking the large ape while Gun’s chirping electricity kept going. Taking the moment, Gun’s left wing dipped downward while her right went upward, turning her towards the beast. With a strong flap, Gun propelled herself faster at the beast’s heart, assuming Nightmares have similar anatomy to the creatures they’re based on. Jutting her highly concentrated lightning covered palm forward into the beast’s chest, Gun’s arm thrust through the gorilla’s hairy hide. She was elbow deep in the gorilla’s chest before it turned into smoke and she found herself surrounded by the smoke.

The lightning in her palm slowly dissipated as Gun surveyed the area around her. She was excited that her newest jutsu had been successful. The feeling of all the lightning coursing through her hand like that was exhilarating, but even better than that was the fact that it had worked in taking down the giant ape nightmare. Gun wished she had more time to train before all of this had happened, because she had also learned to fuse her water element and lightning element into the advanced element named Storm. Unfortunately, she hadn’t mastered any jutsu with the element so she was unable to use this opportunity to practice. It was a shame, but the veil of smoke surrounding her gave her an idea for another technique she could practice using: Hidden Mist.

Gun flew upwards, using her spear to thrust another rift out of existence. Seeing a group of Nightmares atop a small hill, protecting each other from the Dream creatures that were surrounding them, Gun chose them as her target. She flew down, landing just at the bottom of the hill before beginning to run through the string of hand seals that she knew were necessary for the Hidden Mist jutsu: Ox, Snake, Ram, and, lastly, Tiger. After the seals, a thick mist began pouring out of Gun’s mouth as if she were vomiting. The mist spread outward, easily covering the hill and all of its inhabitants. Naturally, the Dream creatures hesitated and waited to see if the mist was friendly or the work of an evil Nightmare. Gun, with the aid of her doujutsu, could see the heat signatures of the Nightmares atop the hill. They still stood in a circle, protecting each other, but Gun was able to easily pick them off by throwing javelins at them from the bottom of the hill. The last Nightmare left, she rushed at and thrust her spear into his chest. The mist cleared as did the smoke from all of the vanquished Nightmares.

WC: 867
TWC: 2469
MWC: 3869

Kana watched as her friend took to the skies once more to resume her battle against the remnants of the nightmare invasion, although if Kana was being honest with herself, the duo probably could've just returned home without delaying themselves in this battle, the dream creatures were quite ready to defend their part of the world now the worst of the nightmare's invasion was over, the strange brighter creatures may not be as inherently deadly as their nightmare counterpart but watching an unicorn impale a bandit made her reconsider how harmless some of the so called friendly creatures truly were. With a soft sigh to herself, Kana continued trudging through the forest, her attention wasn't on full alert as she probably would've been out in the real world but she did keep half an ear out for any signs of trouble coming her way, so when she heard movement to her left she turned to face what she assumed to be her enemy only to come face to face with a rather odd sight.

"That little son of a bitch...." Kana muttered as she looked another version of her real self yet unlike the strange future copy that fought for the nightmares, this copy of herself was the same age as her real self yet she was wearing a wedding dress instead and judging by the lack of action, she must've been a dream of someone. Someone who was going to die as soon as she got out of here. "What? Jealous? Maybe if you weren't such a bitch all the time, you could be married too, old hag." The wedding copy of herself mocked her, rather or not this Kana knew that she was speaking to herself was a mystery but the words were pretty spot on, assuming one made Kana decide to actually care about love. She was fucking 13 fighting for her life as a kunoichi, she didn't really pause to consider romance before. "Shut up. Just please shut up. I don't wanna have to kill a dream." Kana said with a heavy sigh as she resumed trudging forward, ready to forget about this encounter and let her weird wedding copy go about whatever the fuck she was doing, hopefully fighting instead of looking for that brat.

"Pft, as fucking if you could. I'm one of the strongest kunoichi in Sakuragakure you know, I could crush a tin can like you easily." The wedding copy continued to insult her, following after the real Kana like she took it personally, which Kana had to admit, she probably should've seen that coming. "Debatable. But right now, let's focus on killing more of the nightmares, less about killing each other." Kana told her wedding copy, as she seen another small packet of nightmare creatures turn their attention toward her and her weird wedding copy, the bride growling but quickly began to perform some hand seals as Kana ran into the first nightmare creature, a rather fast lion of some kind, it's mane was made out of fire and it's fur was an black, even it's eyes seemed to be just a gateway to fire and as the creature roared, a burst of fire spilt from it's mouth and if it wasn't for the orb absorbing the flames, it probably would've hurt pretty badly.

Retaliating quickly, Kana swung her blade through the lion's head, the creature's roar cutting out as the blade sliced cleanly through and causing the nightmare to fade into whatever these things were made out of, turning her attention up toward the skeleton donning strange black and blue armor, she was surprised to see that the bride Kana took care of the creature already, a large green fire ball consuming the skeleton who begun to fade away. "The fuck was that?" Kana had to ask her dream copy, she sure as hell didn't know any large fire jutsu, let alone any way to produce green flames or rather or not that was even possible. "Yeah, I'm just that strong, my flames burn so hot that they're green. It's super rare." Her wedding copy answered happily and proudly, a fact that was straight up bullshit, if anything the flames should be blue. At least Kana was pretty sure that's how fire works, she had to admit she wasn't the expert on fire but green flames felt more like it would be a result of weird chakra tricks rather than intense flame.

"Now come on loser, I got a husband to save." The little bride declared as she begun to lead the way forward, leaving an annoyed Kana behind as she struggled to accept that the creepy little brat was dreaming about being married to her and also being saved by her while also somehow, for some reason, he thought she had some super strong fire ninjutsu, he didn't even know she was more of a medic than a typical ninjutsu user. "Just a dream.... Just a dream of a brat.... He doesn't deserve to die.... Yet...." Kana muttered to herself as she followed after her wedding copy, she probably wasn't going to go kill her little brat neighbor, that would look bad on her record, but maybe if she decided to spar with him and things went a little too far and he got a little hurt, well, it wouldn't be her fault, she just thought he would be stronger and it would all just a be a terrible accident that caused him little fragile arm to snap in two like a fucking twig.

WC: 925
TWC: 2,325
MWC: 4,794

While flying through the sky, Gun had entirely missed the interaction between the Dream Kana and the Bride Kana that occurred below. It was sad, because Gun would have found the whole thing rather entertaining. Alas, Gun, in her own harpy dream form, flew through the skies, launching ranged attacks at different rifts and nightmares as she saw them. It was beginning to seem like the war was mostly over: there were far more Dreams than Nightmares at this point and they were doing a suitable job of driving the Nightmares out or outright vanquishing them. If Gun weren't having so much fun, she might have been more interested in getting home than continuing to aid the Dreams in this battle. Summoning one of her javelins back, by using the Armoury Seal, Gun swung it around and coated it in watery chakra before striking another rift. As she continued battling, she began to wonder about other Breathing Styles like the Water Breathing that she was currently using. She knew there were other Breathing Styles, but, until recently, she had no access to other elements except for Poison. With Poison seeming to be a very uncommon element, she hadn't been able to find any info on a Poison Breathing Style. However, now that she had learned how to utilize both Lightning and Storm, she wondered if there were a Breathing Style for either of those elements. With all of this Dream business going on lately, she hadn't had time to access any of Sakura's libraries or ask the village leader, Merlin, for assistance. He had offered Gun and Kana access to new jutsu when they became available, but Gun also figured that meant access to information regarding styles that may already exist in the world too.

Seeing as Lightning was one of the five basic elements, Gun was almost one hundred percent certain that someone had developed a Lightning Breathing  Style. It only seemed natural that if someone had made a Water Breathing Style, someone else would have created a Lightning Breathing Style. But that made Gun wonder if a Storm Breathing Style had already been created; if not, was Gun the person to create a Storm Breathing Style? If she could create a Storm Breathing Style, could she also develop a Poison Breathing Style. She pondered the idea, not sure if she was capable of creating a whole new Style on her own as she moved through the air in such a way as to align herself with two rifts. She then launched the Sacred Spear technique, using it to destabilize both rifts at once. The poor Nightmares that had been trying to jump into them finding themselves no longer having a target to aim for. Gun proceeded to attack them as well with a few aerial maneuvers and javelin thrusts. A flock of ravens or crows (she couldn't tell the difference) began flying around Gun. She tried swatting at them with her free hand, slicing at them with her javelin's barbed tip, and thrusting at them but they seemed to be quite adept at maintaining a distance that kept them just out of Gun's reach.

Getting frustrated, Gun activated Third Form: Flowing Dance allowing her to create watery contrails all throughout the sky. A couple ravens had been unlucky enough to be hit by her swinging spear as she moved throughout the sky. Three more ravens failed their evasive maneuvers and were unable to avoid the water while in flight. And the last five birds had been confined to a much smaller area than they normally took up which was quickly attacked by the harpy form of Gun. All five birds were quickly dispatched by a large swinging strike which easily removed wings from bodies. Gun was pleased with how the technique had worked, especially since this was her first time utilizing it in midair. She decided to head back down to Kana to check in. Even now it was becoming very clear that the remaining Nightmares were either attacking out of desperation or a lack of caring for their own well being. It didn't seem like there was a whole lot more Gun and Kana could do but find the rift and head back home. Of course, Gun had a bit of sadness about the prospect, she liked the freedom of flying around and wasn't ready to say goodbye to her Dream Form. But as she came to a landing behind Kana, she wondered if she could somehow develop flight in her regular body. She already had the Lightness Skill which allowed her to fall at a rate and direction of her choosing. If she could somehow better that technique or develop it further, perhaps flight wasn't just something she dreamed about.

The idea brought a slight smile to her face as she looked to Kana's large metallic form, "Looking pretty good here." Gun usually took orders from Kana, so she was hesitant to say "Ok, let's go home." Instead, she opted for the more subtle "looks good here" statement which, she thought, would relay her belief that this area was in a place that they could move on without worry that the Dreams would fall, but also allowed Kana the freedom to respond as she saw fit. If Kana wanted to continue here, she could say so and Gun would be alright with it. Though the two kunoichis had never officially designated one of them as leader nor one of them as follower, their personalities and natural relationship had sort of made the official designations unnecessary.

WC: 929
TWC: 3398
MWC: 5723

The little bride and Kana continued their journey ahead, easily wiping out any nightmares that they stumbled across, for a weird incorrect copy of herself as a bride, the wedding copy wasn't all that bad, she seemed to rely a lot on fire jutsu rather than any of her actual jutsu, which mean whatever the fuck they fought during the nightmare invasion was more accurate to Kana's own fighting style but Kana would be lying if she said some of the jutsu her copy had might be worth investigating and seeing which is viable for her to learn, she may not have the "super rare" green flames of her dream copy but the core concepts should be easily taken for herself if she so wanted. She probably wouldn't but if she had decided to take on more offensive fire jutsu, it wouldn't be the worst idea to have some ideas floating around, speaking of offensive jutsu, Kana glanced up at the sky to watch her friend as she fought against a flock of birds with a flurry of water based attacks, wiping the birds out with as much ease as the real world probably would've been.

"What's up with the bird?" The little brat asked as Gunshin made her return to the duo, Kana sighing as she seemed content to ignore the little brat for the time being, instead she listened to her friend declare the area to be all good, a fact that was quite apparent as the pockets of resistance faded the closer the duo got to the gateway back to the real world, although rather or not that meant they should leave was another thing altogether, the dreams would more than likely secure their section world now and they seemed quite content to destroy the rifts instead of using it to invade the real world. Although rather or not that was because they didn't want to invade or because they couldn't use those rifts was a whole other matter, if this little bride was as loving as the brat seemed to think the real Kana was capable of, she'd probably be trying to cross the rift into the real world to be with her beloved.

"We'll focus more on the rifts, there might not be as much nightmares to deal with but I don't like there being rifts being left behind, all it'd take is one particularly bad nightmare to sneak it's way in for it to be a pain in the ass in the real world." Kana declared, giving a partial reason on why she wanted to remove as many of the rifts from the field before the duo left, admitting in front of a dream that she didn't trust them not to use the rifts for their own ends probably wouldn't work out so well for them. "Come on you old hag, I asked you a question. What's up with the bird? She seems familiar." The wedding copy demanded looking Gunshin's dream form up and down to try and pin down why she felt she knew the harpy, Kana only rolling her eyes and letting out another sigh. "This is Gunshin. Gunshin, meet the dream of a dead brat." Kana finally chose to address the elephant in the room, introducing her creepy bride copy to her best friend.

"Gunshin?! Oh my god! I didn't know you were here! What happened? When did you become a bird? Shouldn't you be getting ready to be my maid of honour? Should we get you a new dress? Oh and have you seen Tatsuo? I've been looking everywhere for him since the nightmares came and ruined everything!" The little bride rambled on as she excitedly began to question Gunshin's dream form, glossing over Kana's casual threat over murdering the would be husband that was her neighbor in order to question their best friend about what the sudden shift in appearance, revealing the little wedding copy wasn't exactly aware of their real identities before Kana introduced the two to each other. "Yeah, yeah.... Save the wedding talk for later... Nightmare invasion isn't going to stop itself." Kana finally spoke after a small bit to let the bride talk to the apparent maid of honour, which honestly probably would happen if Kana ever did get married on account of the fact her friend circle was composed of just the one person. Not that Gunshin would only win by default, even if Kana made more friends, the duo were friends for far too long for just anyone to come in and replace her as the best friend.

"I'll signal you when it's time to go." Kana told her friend as she dragged the little bride by the back of wedding dress while she struggled to free herself, kicking and clawing at the metal gauntlet. "I can walk by myself you bitch! Let go of me! Gunshin, we'll get you a dress later! Tell me if you find Tatsuo too! Ow, stop it already you old hag!" The little bride managed to bark at Kana while trying to get in a few more words to their best friend, Kana really wished they had teamed up with another dream for this little journey but a creepy bride of herself was proving to be relatively effective, friendly fire wasn't much of an issue since the orb didn't seem to care that the flames were "super rare and super strong" as it absorbed any potential "accidental" fireballs sent her way, the little bitch probably thought she was slick the first time around, claim it was an accident and a new jutsu she had just learnt so she didn't know how to make it work right, but if this dream was similar enough to her real self, she trained that damn jutsu to perfection before thinking about bringing it into battle, the last place she wanted to fuck up a jutsu was in the middle of a mission, so Kana made it a point to master any and all jutsu before thinking about using it during missions.

WC: 1,010
TWC: 3,335
MWC: 6,733

"...bird?" Gun just heard the end of the Dream’s question as she landed, but Gun was too shocked by what she saw to worry too much about what the Dream had asked. Standing before her was a child bride version of Kana, white wedding dress and all. She couldn’t hold back a giant smile from forming on her face as she looked back and forth between the two Kanas. One Kana was the one she was familiar with, just dressed in a hate wedding dress, and the other Kana was a giant Amazon in armor. Gun had never imagined seeing Kana like either of the two standing before her; it just made her smile grow bigger. She was trying very hard to keep from laughing out loud in Kana’s face. She knew them both well enough to know that neither would appreciate that.

"We'll focus more on the rifts, there might not be as much nightmares to deal with but I don't like there being rifts being left behind, all it'd take is one particularly bad nightmare to sneak it's way in for it to be a pain in the ass in the real world." Gun nodded, barely listening to her partner, her head looking back and forth between the two.

"Come on you old hag, I asked you a question. What's up with the bird? She seems familiar."

"This is Gunshin. Gunshin, meet the dream of a dead brat." Gun finally couldn’t hold it in and burst out laughing.

"Gunshin?! Oh my god! I didn't know you were here! What happened? When did you become a bird? Shouldn't you be getting ready to be my maid of honour? Should we get you a new dress? Oh and have you seen Tatsuo? I've been looking everywhere for him since the nightmares came and ruined everything!" Gun’s laughing ceased as the bride kept talking. She was confused: despite armored Kana introducing bride Kana as a Dream, the bride version didn’t seem to realize she was a dream or, perhaps, she thought this was a version of Gun from the Dream world.

"Yeah, yeah.... Save the wedding talk for later... Nightmare invasion isn't going to stop itself." Gun finally stopped looking at bride Kana to look at the other one. She was glad that the Kana she knew was still herself, even if she looked totally different than herself.

"I'll signal you when it's time to go." Kana said to her, Gun simply nodded. Her face was still covered in a giant smile as she took back off to the sky. As her wings flapped and she was propelled upward, Gun tried to remember what Kana had told her to do. She’d been so busy laughing at the existence of a bride version of Kana, she hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention to the armored version’s directions.

"I can walk by myself you bitch! Let go of me! Gunshin, we'll get you a dress later! Tell me if you find Tatsuo too! Ow, stop it already you old hag!" Gun heard the bride Kana yell as Gun flew away. A chuckle escaped her lips as she left the two Kanas to bond.

"Oh right! The rifts!” She remembered that Kana had instructed her to focus on the rifts while the Dreams could work on any straggling Nightmares. She wondered if she had a dream version of herself out here running around, but Gun doubted anyone dreamed about her enough. Of course, if it hadn't been for all of this weird Dream and Nightmare stuff invading Sakura, Gun and Kana wouldn't have known that Tatsuo was dreaming about Kana. It just meant there was a possibility that someone could be out there dreaming about her. Once she was in the sky, she looked out, seeing the battles as they took place.

Aiming one of her javelins, Gun fired the weapon at a rift nearly 60 meters away from her. The javelin destroyed the weak and unstable rift and Gun summoned the weapon back to her hand. With the abundance of Dreams out and about and the noticeable lack of Nightmares, Gun and Kana didn't have much in the way of obstacles to destroying rifts. Earlier, they had to fight and defend themselves, but they'd done such a good job stopping Nightmares, that it had grown much simpler. She looked around, fixing her eyes on another rift.

WC: 734
TWC: 4132
MWC: 7467

Kana knew that Gunshin would get a kick out of this, the little bride copy of herself was weird but if Kana had seen a little bride of Gunshin running around like a love sick puppy, she'd die laughing at the fact, so when the inevitable happened and the little harpy began to laugh, Kana grit her teeth and fought back the blush as she valiantly continued on with the original goal while the wedding version of herself seemed too caught up on Gunshin's new dream form to even care about the laughter their best friend was having at their expense. Stupid, lucky girl, had it been anyone else, Kana probably would've smacked them at the back of their head and tell them to focus on the mission but alas she instead pretended to not see the shit eating grin on her best friend's face and continued on with the mission, dragging the little embarrassing brat with her before she started to sprout some other random nonsense, bad enough she had decided to ramble on to Gunshin, last thing she needed was for the little bride to talk about her wedding to her neighbor in any further detail.

"Let go of me, god damn it! Don't make me burn you, bitch!" The little bride barked as she kept her futile struggle until the real Kana decided they had gotten far enough away from Gunshin that she would be safe to let the creepy wedding copy go free to continue their own cleaning of the dream world, mainly the rifts and whatever small bit of nightmares that remained at this point. Between Kana, Gunshin and the dreams, the nightmares were easily being wiped out and Gunshin's earlier declaration of it being all good was more than likely true, they could easily just leave and allow the dreams to deal with the rifts but the worry about any dreams trying to invade for good reasons were more far too high to leave that up in the air. "Finally, don't you fucking do that again, next time I won't be so nice." Bride Kana warned as she readjusted her dress, smoothing it out and dusting herself off while she glared at the real Kana who only rolled her eyes at the idly threat, between the two the fight would be far easier than the future copy of herself due to the dream form being able to absorb fire and bride Kana using purely fire ninjutsu so far, although personally she'd pay to see the bride vs the future copy, mostly to see what the two would say to each other.

"Come on, deal with the rifts first and then you can go do your little wedding faster." Kana reminded the copy as she began marching forward to deal with another rift, content to the let the little bride finish adjusting her dress before following along so the duo can end this faster, the real Kana wanted to get away from the creepy bride version of herself while the dream probably wanted to return to the soon to be dead brat. "Yeah, yeah, I know how this shit goes..." The bride muttered as she fired series of small fireballs toward a rift and a nightmare that tried to enter it, the rift burning away as the nightmare, a strange imp like creature screamed and flailed around as it burnt away before fading into smoke as Kana continued forward toward another rift of her own, the flaming sword at the ready to strike it down.

"He promissssed usss a free world! Why musssst we be condemned?" A nightmare screeched as it lunged at Kana, a strange snake human hybrid that was massive in size, it's clawed hand wrapping around her legs and waist and dragging Kana through the dirt as it raced away, dragging the knight away from the rift. "Don't care, die!" Kana roared out as she allowed her form to be consumed with fire once more while bringing the blade down onto the hand of the snake, severing it with ease while igniting it and parts of the snake's arm as well. "You weren't meant to be here! You invade the invaderssss! What cruel irony!" The snake woman hissed, letting out a bitter laugh as a realization dawned on her, although how this nightmare figured out Kana was an outsider while the dream version of herself failed to even realize Gunshin wasn't the same maid of honour that was apparently in the brat's dreams was beyond her. "Clever but pointless, the invasion is over. You lost. I'm going home." Kana said with a roll of her eyes, the snake was large and smart but if the nightmare invasion in it's peak had failed, it'd be embarrassing if Kana somehow managed to fall here, instead she lunged at the snake with the blade at the ready, the snake only hissing and swiping with her tail in a futile attempt to defend herself.

The tail dropped to the ground, twitching as it burnt while the snake screamed in pain and tried to slither away with from Kana, only for a strange green fire dragon to bite down onto the snake's upper body and consume her in a burst of fire. "What's wrong tin can? Can't deal with a little snake?" The bride taunted as she stood proudly from behind the real Kana, only some sweat having built up from having to chase after the real Kana and the snake creature who tried to drag her away from the rift. "You get rid of the rift?" Kana questioned her wedding copy, the bride only rolling her eyes. "Well no duh, if the snake bitch wanted to drag you away, clearly it was something important. So I burnt it and a few more nightmares tried to rush me, but you know me, burning brighter than the stars." The smug little bride couldn't help but brag about her little dream abilities, and Kana knew for a fact that the little brat probably thought that whole burning brighter than a star thing was some very deep and cool compliment, when it reality it only made Kana's blood boil as she reminded herself the brat can dream what he wants, as long as it remained only in a dream and Kana never knew about said dream, it would be fine, that was the only saving grace the little brat had going for him.

"Whatever, let's get going." Kana said with a sigh, ready to begin wrapping up their little adventure in the dream world and by extension, forgetting about the creepy bride version of herself, the memory would be better off being forgotten alongside the strange future copy of herself she had encountered here, neither of them were true reflections of herself and only a pale copy of the real thing after all. Weaving hand seals together, Kana looked up to the sky and fired 6 fire balls into the air, the only actual fire jutsu she knew and something she knew would grab Gunshin's attention, the only signal she truly had to alert her friend to the fact that they were now preparing to leave the dream world behind.

WC: 1,200
TWC: 4,535
MWC: 8,667

She sped forward, her javelin at the ready. Dreams and Nightmares were still battling and Gun made her way through them to work on removing the remaining rifts. It dawned on her then that these rifts were quite tricky. Some of them, clearly, had Nightmares coming out of them: in other words, they were rifts from the Land of Nightmares into the Land of Dreams. However, Kana and Gun had used a rift into the real world to get to the Land of Dreams, so some rifts also went to the real world. And judging by the news they'd heard before coming into the rift, these rifts were opening everywhere in the world. She wondered if any of the Nightmares that she'd vanquished had actually been Dream versions of real people entering a rift into the Land of Dreams, like Gun had done. She hoped not, but it was too late to worry about the details.

Tucking her left wing around her body and flapping with all her strength with the right, Gun performed a barrel roll, spinning while parallel to the ground. It allowed her to pass by a large elephant like Dream and, with her javelin pointed in front of her, easily destroy the rift that had been opened near it. Gun swooped back to the skies and scanned them. The skies were clearing, both the dark clouds that once invaded with the Nightmares, and the amount of Dreams and Nightmares that fought in the skies. With fewer Nightmares around, the Dreams were all down near the ground. Even the number of rifts left in the skies were practically zero. Up here, Gun felt free and, now, she felt safe. The white fluffy clouds were pushing back the dark nefarious ones, just like the Dreams below were pushing back the Nightmares. Gun was sure that her and Kana weren't the only two people from the real world who had come to this place, even Sakura had likely sent some higher ranked shinobi, but Gun was finally able to take in the beauty of the Land of Dreams. She wondered if she'd ever be able to come back, doubting that it would ever happen. She just enjoyed the warmth and the view, knowing that she had a limited amount of time before she and Kana would have to return.

She looked down to Kana, the large armor clad one with a flaming sword and the other one in a white dress shooting fire. They had definitely had an epic adventure here in the Land of Dreams and, so far, it seemed like both would be able to return to the real world without any losses. She was glad that they'd been able to make this adventure and that both of them had managed to make it out without any injuries. She hoped that all of the other Sakura shinobi had proven to be as lucky as the two kunoichi. She used her javelins with expertise to destroy the last few rifts that remained in the skies. She took one more glance. From her vantage point, she could see the world differently than some of those limited to the ground. Below her, where the two Kanas were, it was basically a grassy field, but to Gun's left was a large mountain range and a beach could be seen in the opposite direction. And while that, in and of itself, wasn't a crazy sight in the real world, these were like different pictures that didn't actually connect. There was like a dreamy, white cloud like barrier between the mountains and the plains rather than a  natural connecting point where the two met. Gun could only presume that they were dreams of separate people, or groups of people. She presumed, because they were so large and well formed, that they were dreams of real places. Those mountains probably did exist and with multiple people dreaming of them, they had formed here and solidified well enough for people to battle on them. The sight of these locations touching but in such an unnatural way was a sight to behold and one Gun doubted she'd forget for a long time to come.

Gun could tell that her time in this world was running low, so she cut her sightseeing short and got back to work. She flew back down to the ground, using her talons to claw at a Nightmare as it tried to attack a beautiful princess all dressed in pink. With the Nightmare's head crushing in her talons and puffing into smoke, Gun swung her javelin to her left, removing the rift that had gotten larger there. From what Gun could tell, there weren't but a few more rifts left and Gun could see Kana not too far away. They were making their way back to the dream of Sakura's village center, where the two kunoichi had entered this world from and, hopefully, where they would find the exit back to their world. They were almost there and Gun was both glad to be almost home and sad to leave this form and world behind. She nodded to Kana one more time before leaping forward, crossing from the dream of a grassy plain into the dream that resembled Sakuragakure no Sato. While they weren't home yet, they were certainly getting close.

WC: 889
TWC: 5021
MWC: 9556

"Alright brat, we're done here. You can go find someone else to annoy." Kana dismissed the little bride version of herself with a simple wave of her hand as she begun to march forward to return back to the portal that should bring them back to Sakuragakure, trusting that Gunshin would begin to do the same with the signal being given. "I'm going to assume you and bird Gunshin are from another dream, huh?" The little bride guessed, seemingly a bit reluctant to say goodbye but Kana suspected it was mostly because Gunshin was going to be leaving and the maid of honour Gunshin was nowhere in sight, either because her little brat of a neighbor didn't dream her into existence or maybe because that version of Gunshin had fallen in battle, she doubted her neighbor thought her friend was anything special, just the meek and weak friend of his crush. "Something like that. I'll keep her safe." Kana spoke simply, already knowing what her little wedding copy was going to say and the threat that was on the tip of her tongue disappeared as she simply sighed and turned away. "You better. I'll find you if something happens to her." The little bride grumbled as she begun to retreat further back into the world of dreams, although what exactly dreams did in their free time was beyond Kana, maybe they just mingled and went about their business or maybe they just waited to reconnect to their dreamer, she could imagine her little bride copy waiting for the little brat of a neighbor if only because he thought she would be so loving.

"There you are, seems like we're finally done here. Gotta admit, I'm going to miss my sword and armor." Kana spoke to her friend as she flew in nearby, landing with ease and making it seem like this was just a normal everyday thing for her friend to be flying around and attacking like a bird of prey, something that she was pretty sure Gunshin was going to miss as much as Kana was gonna miss her own dream abilities, the burning sword and armor that can absorb fire was super fucking cool, even the ability to set herself ablaze was pretty handy and something she'd probably look into herself is she thought she was capable of doing so in the real world. "But I think we've spent more than enough time here, let's go home." Kana declared as she begun to lead her friend through the portal back to the real world, feeling the weight of her armor fade away alongside the rest of the weird taller, stronger and more mature body to leave her back into a formless void until she felt the familiar old shape and sensations of the real world, the wind in her hair, the solid ground behind her feet, the smell of sweat and nature from the training grounds, even the fatigue of her chakra taking a beating had welcomed her and likely welcomed Gunshin as the duo finally returned home.

WC: 510
TWC: 5,045
MWC: 10,066