Torrent:

Rather than a trickle or drop, it is a cascade of water or substance, strong and fast-moving. A sudden, violent, and copious outpouring; an outburst, a barrage, an onslaught.

Often unstoppable.

He breathed in deep.

He didn't know how. He didn't know why… but he was back.

The others… he… he couldn't think of them. Not now. They had spoken of a possibility, a chance as infinitesimal as it was, but that was all theory.

Wasn't it?

Had they… sent him back? Shouldn't he remember if they had? Had things really gotten so bad that this was all they had?

Of course things were. Things had been worse than "bad" for a while now and all his friends and comrades, still stuck there without him and he was-

He breathed out, a shuddering gasp of a thing that hurt his lungs.

He… can't think of that. He was here and now and he was already busy. He made sure of it, even if it was a bit… messy.

There was so much blood—on his face, across his body, in his mouth—that most of what he could see was red. It wasn't the frothy light of Kurama's chakra shroud that dipped his world in the color. No, he was covered in it; he could feel it slide across his skin.

So much so that his hair was dyed red.

He supposed shouldn't give it a second thought; it wasn't anything particularly new.

He breathed in and breathed out.

_T_O_R_R_E_N_T_

Naruto woke gasping for breath and when she opened her eyes, everything burned. She felt the sear in her lungs first, shuddering fire and pain. Then her eyes from the bright light and her muscles from strain and her skin from… Kami knows what. And her hands and her head and her shoulder. Oh Kami her shoulder!

She hadn't realized when she moved to grip at her shoulder until the fresh blood was dripping into the crux of her elbow, sharp nails pricking into her skin. It hurt even now. It hurt more than any other hurt Naruto knew and her fingers still tingled with almost-numbness. For a moment, the red haired genin swore she could hear the vicious chirping scratching at her ears. Scratch scratch scratch.

She dug into her shoulder harder, biting down as her vision swayed in front of her.

Scratch scratch scratch.

Everything burned, but her mind was cold and numb. She could barely feel the coarse sheets twisting beneath her. She couldn't focus on the thick breeze, heavy with brackish moisture; she couldn't even try as her brain was muddled in the pain.

With an agonizing breath the room was suspended quiet.

And yet Naruto's breaths hitched and her muscles froze because it was in that quiet, that she saw… things. Her mind sharpened so fast it split her in half.

People.

"Wha-what the…"

Blue waters trying to drown her, dyeing red. Blood, desolate deserts, a crater where hundreds—no thousands, and Naruto didn't think she even knew thousands of people—were smeared into its depths.

Naruto's eyes widened, then shut, but everything still played on the back of her eyelids so she opened them again wide as witness. Her heart trilled, roared, pounded against the shackles of her ribs and she knew it wasn't going to stop.

A blonde-haired man, shouting and bubbling a coalescence of red and orange as he charged. A man, pale and sickly, with robes torn away and a face on his chest, pulsing—Naruto could feel the tears as her body went numb—and a blob of grey-white cracking madness and rage that shifted and twisted and was so unnatural that… She saw it, heard it, felt smelt tasted the blood on her dry tongue and Naruto didn't know if she was awake. Naruto couldn't tell if she was awake or still just dreaming and the scream caught in her throat.

A dead, pale gaze boring straight through her as if it saw nothing and everything.

An eye hanging in the sky as if a moon.

Pain. So much pain that came from nowhere and everywhere and went as slowly as it came, pulsing within her and promising to tear her head apart.

Her throat constricted around the air within her, pushing it out, rejecting it from her lungs as a breathy gasp. Red red redredredredREDRED on her and around her and in her and—!

Naruto couldn't scream but she needed to but she couldn't breath and she needed to and then black spots began to twinkle in her sight and—

Darkness flickering in her peripherals, a taunting swirl of an almost image she couldn't make out and Naruto's jaw clenched. Red mist engulfing it, unable to clarify, clouding and making her heart scream and want to tear from her chest. Her eyes darted to the corners and shadow in an attempt to just see and the world wouldn't let her. A thunder of chakra attempted to converge in her hand and she clenched a fist, hearing the sizzle of skin.

She couldn't make a sound and the sky, violent with clouds, converged on her and she was choking, crying, gasping, tingling and numbness that crawled up her mouth and she couldn't move under its pressure.

She tried not to panic; she really did.

As small puff of air snuck from her mouth, it was all that was needed. The quiet shattered against the force of Naruto's scream.

The door burst inward, the top hinge flying off useless as Kakashi appeared in the doorway. His eye flashed in the dark wildly and his fingers twitched with adrenaline, for hand signs as chakra surged through him. And so he stood there, quietly, until she too became quiet. No words of strength or comfort left his lips. Just as Naruto was choking on the darkness and air around her, so was he.

The stared at each other for a time before Kakashi blinked. His face, mask and tilted hair and sole eye. His body tense and ready to move, but his gaze stricken on her form. Naruto's mouth clacked shut and her arm dropped, drawing her sensei's gaze to the already healing wound. Her eyes shone dark purple as they watched a muscle in Kakashi's jaw jump and as they followed the slow swallow of his throat.

Intact. She didn't know where the thought came from, beside it originating within herself, but it was all she could think. Intact. Naruto followed the lines of his throat upwards—intact—to his jaw—present—past his hidden mouth and nose and up to his eye. Kakashi blinked again.

Then he was gone as if he were never there at all. Maybe, Naruto thought as she blinked away shimmering swirls in her vision, he never was. She was unsure if she were awake or wading through nightmares. But she could breathe now and see the shadows around her as just that, shadows stationary and tranquil and quiet.

It was in that quiet that Naruto wondered if she had secretly begun to go crazy.

_T_O_R_R_E_N_T_

Hey... guys... *hides*

You have an update, its amazingly short (I told myself I'd never write less than 3k a chapter and yet here we are) but I needed to get something out. I'm still working on this and have been working on it, but I'm having super issues with confidence in my plot/narrative choices so forgive me (I personally hate this interlude/chapter so). I'm also in graduate school (throughout the summer, too!) so I'm kinda busy? Still, no excuses.

I have a quick poll on my profile. I'm still looking for a beta to get my ass in gear. Yes.

Koby Out.