Other world chimera [Naruto fanfic]

240. Caffeine

“Alright, who gave Tomoka coffee?” Hinata asked with her hands on her hips trying her best to ignore the utter mayhem going on behind her. A few weeks have gone by since the trio met Maine’s crew. Today they were going to do an extermination gig. However, as soon as they arrived at the location Tomoka… well…

“My leg!” Yeah, someone gave her a carbonated can of coffee not knowing what would happen. 

“Uh… me?” Sasha answered, cringing a little hearing the screams coming from the poor sixth street members. Hell, some of them looked like they were having PTSD episodes from the unification war. Nozomi opened her mouth to say something however at that very moment she was interrupted by a very recognisable scream.

“Was that a wilhelm scream?” Nozomi asked as she turned around to see a guy flying through the air. 

“Focus Nozomi.” Hearing Hinata’s tone, Nozomi just shrugged. What was she to do? No one has so far figured out how to stop Tomoka once she gets caffeinated. Best bet is to wait for her to crash after the effects wear off. 

“What kind of chrome does she have to do that? Sandevistan?” Maine for his part couldn’t remove his eyes from the sight in front of him. Tomoka was moving like she was possessed. Dashing from cover to cover while shooting, hell some of the bullets she shot would ricochet around hitting people hiding behind cover. 

“No, she has a cyberdeck tho.” It was then that they saw multiple people from sixth street suddenly immolating as their crome leaked flammable chemicals onto their overheating servos. 

“Should we go help them?” Dorio asked while watching Becca having the time of her life shooting from behind cover using a stolen rifle. 

“I mean, if you want to get in the middle of that.” Hinata pointed behind her just in time for a nade to go off igniting a large gas tank resulting in a big explosion that made her hair fly every which way. Mad cackling could be heard from the gremlin and the red-head as they enjoyed the chaos. 

“Nah thanks Choomba, I’m good.” Seeing what was happening Pilar decided to not get involved. He didn’t want to die today, thank you very much. 

A while later all sixth street gangsters were dead. Hear or rather not hearing any more gunfire the rest decided to go search for their members in the mess. The first one to be found was Becca who was currently busy gathering guns with a wide smile on her face. 

“Hey Becca, know where Tomoka is?” The gremlin just pointed further into the warehouse. It was then that Tomoka walked into view from behind some crates carrying a box with a wide smile on her face.

“Package secured!” Seeing the state she was in everyone raised an eyebrow. Tomoka’s hair looked like she had been strolling through a storm, not too far from the truth that. What was even more eye-catching was the visible blood shot eye and bleeding nose. 

“Tomoka, are you alright?” Hinata asked while motioning to her nose so Tomoka would realize she was having a nosebleed. 

“Yeah, I think I abused the deck a bit too much and my brain too. Boi, am I going to have a nasty headache once I wake up.” Having said her part Tomoka fell face first on the floor while holding the box above her head. 

“Is she going to be fine?” Rebecca asked while trying to hold all the guns. Sure, most of them were trash but she could use them for parts or sell them, waste not what not and all that. 

“Yeah… probably. Hey, Maine, mind driving us to Vik’s?” Nozomi asked while she took the box from Tomoka's hands before handing it to Maine. 

“Sure thing.” 

“Woo coffee!” Suddenly everyone turned to see Tomoka still in the ground reaching for a can of carbonated coffee. In an instant Hinata was there kicking the can as far away as she could.

“NO MORE COFFEE FOR YOU!” The glare Hinata gave Tomoka could have frozen hell a few times over.

“Ouw but I like coffee.” Having said her part, Tomoka's face once again hit the floor as she passed out. 

A while later Tomoka woke up with the mother of all headaches on Vik’s operating chair. Her cyberdeck had gotten hot enough to cause her brain matter to get inflamed. Thankfully, it hadn’t been enough to cause any permanent damage. 

“I have half the mind to take that thing out of your skull before you cook your brain.” Vik complained in that fatherly fashion as he gave Tomoka one last check. 

“In my defense, I was given coffee.” Hearing that made Vik stop for a moment to raise a questioning eyebrow. What had coffee to do with anything?

“Ah, right, well you see Tomoka has a special constitution. Caffeine for her is like cocaine for normal people. Actually scratch that, it's like a mixture of cocaine and alcohol. Then again, alcohol makes her act all mellow so that doesn’t work that well.” The rest of Hinata’s rambling went ignored by Vik as he figured out what she wanted to say. 

“Well, as your doc I prohibit you from drinking coffee again.” Hearing Vik’s orders Tomoka pouted petulantly. She really liked the taste of coffee but no one would let her drink it. So what does it matter that she gets a bit crazy when she drinks it? The world would survive… probably. 

“Fine, now changing the subject. Have you figured out anything from the instant heals we gave you?” Hearing this made Vik deflate a little. He is no techie and even then, he doubts any run of the mill techie could figure out what is up with those things. 

“No, those things are way outside of my league.” Hearing Viks answer, Tomoka just shrugged. She had expected as much to tell the truth. 

“Now unto more important things!” From her jacket Tomoka pulled out a piece of chrome still covered in blood. It looked like a high end neural link, the type that would be attached to a good portion of someone’s spine.

“Where did you get that?” Vik asked with a wry smile. He could guess to tell the truth, specially taking into account he could see bits of bone and flesh attached to the thing. 

“Well, you see. It all started when I went for a walk.” And so, Tomoka began telling the story of how she was minding her own business when this sixth street gangoon decided to conveniently fall in front of her dead.

“So I thought that it would be a waste to leave this behind so I took it.” By the end Nozomi was on the ground laughing her lungs out while Hinata and Vik gave tired sighs. 

“Anyway, What do you say to getting this thing installed?” Tomoka asked Hinata, still holding the piece of bloody chrome in her hand.

“I am guessing that it is a sandevistan.” Tomoka just shrugged before answering Hinata.

“I would guess so, the guy was moving really fast before I flatlined- I mean, before he suddenly fell dead.” Yeah, no one was buying Tomoka’s blatant lie but then again, no one felt like calling her out on it. 

“Before any of that I will need to clean it and run diagnostics.” Vik said while taking the piece of chrome from Tomoka. 

After cleaning the thing and running some diagnostics on its systems Vik was able to figure out what it actually was. The body of the thing is in fact a neural link as expected, a military grade one if slightly old. The sandevistan on the other hand isn’t as old though nothing out of this world either. 

“Alright, this thing is a zetatech sandy. Not the best out there but not the worst either. While it can’t accelerate you all that much it can last a lot longer.” After saying that Vik began explaining some of the sandy’s parameters. 

Depending on how well Hinata could handle the acceleration she could keep it up for up to a whole minute of real time. Taking into account its acceleration of twenty five percent, which isn’t all that much mind you, Hinata could experience up to a minute and half of relative time to the one minute of real time. 

“Although it’s not much, I think you should get it installed. That way, you can get used to time acceleration and you could get a better one in the future.” Tomoka reasoned while stretching a little. She had been seated on a rather uncomfortable plastic chair while they waited for Vik to finish the diagnostics. 

“Sure, though this will put me out of commision for a while since we have no more insta-heals.” With that said Hinata looked towards Vik waiting to see if he agreed to the installation. 

“Normally I would be against installing new chrome so soon after a previous installation. However, taking into account you three used that miracle drug I guess I can make an exception this time.” That said Vik went ahead to get everything ready as Hinata got comfy on the operation chair. 

“Now all we need to get is your Keren Nozomi.” Nozomi just shrugged at that. She could wait for it since she has already gotten used to not having her eye powers for now. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t want the Kerenzikov. 

“Meh, I can wait. And to tell the truth I am more interested in getting some reinforced ankles. I miss being able to jump around more than anything else.” Having heard her, Tomoka and Hinata nodded.

““Same.”” It was then that Vik entered the room, ready for the operation. 

“I have some contacts that might be able to get some for cheap. The kind athletes like basketball players use. With those you should be able to leap a few good meters off the ground. Though I won’t be installing them on you if you don’t wait the necessary time for recovery.” That last part had been directed towards Hinata who nodded a bit dejected. 

Knowing Vik, that recovery time would be around a month or more. This also made Nozomi go into thought, what did she care more for, the ability to leap or the keren. In the end she just gave a mental shrug, she would instal whichever came first.

A few hours later Hinata stood up from the operating chair with her new neural link and sandy installed. Carefully she moved this way and that feeling of the flexibility of the implant on her back. The extra weight felt a little weird and that lever in the back of her mind that would activate the sandy was a somewhat strange sensation. 

“Everything alright? No pain or discomfort?” Vik, always the diligent doc asked as he cleaned his implements. Hinata for her part just shook her head. Vik had done a spectacular job as always. 

“Good, take this, two puffs now and then two in the morning until it runs out. No using the sandy until tomorrow evening at the earliest. Preferably don’t use it at all for the week. Other than that, you are good to go.” With that done the trio left Vik’s.

“Heh, in other words Hinata, don’t pull a David.” Hearing Tomoka’s comment made the other two smile. Afterall, David had used the very experimental mil-spec sandy the very same day a shitty doc had installed it without anesthesia.

“Come on Tomoka, you know I am not like him. After all, he is built differently.” Hinata’s smile turned into a mocking grin. 

“Yeah, he was built stupid.” Nozomi added before the three of them laughed. Sure, they enjoyed shitting on David but when the chance came they would try and save him, and his mother if at all possible. 

After walking through the back of Misti’s they came face to face with the goth looking owner, Misty herself. She was currently bussing herself by shuffling her deck of tarot cards. Clearly bored due to the lack of customers. 

“Oh, you girls are done? Care for a read?” Misti’s expresion lit up with the hope of some company as she pointed to her deck of cards. 

“Sure thing Misty, I had actually wanted a read for a while but every time we came I kinda forgot.” Tomoka answered quickly as she moved to the front of the counter, almost vibrating in place.  

Misty’s readings in the game had been spot on and so she had been wondering what kind of reading she would get. Sure, she could ask Oracle for her future and a bunch of other things but that would be lame. 

“Eager are we. Okay let's start then.” Having said that Misty gave the deck one last shuffle before taking out four cards placing them face down.

“Now I will ask you to be the one flipping them over. I have found that this way the readings tend to be more accurate.” Nodding Tomoka flipped the first car. In it a burnt city in the form of a man apeared.

“The world, reversed. Normally the world represents the end of a journey in a fulfilling way, completion and harmony. The world is the end of the fool's journey. Reversed it is the end of the journey in an unsatisfying way, incomplete without closure, without harmony. This card represents your past.” 

Tomoka closed her eyes thinking about it. Her first life was like that wasn’t it. It had ended suddenly, it had ended unfulfillingly, a complete waste of a life if you ask her. Even before that it would still fit. She was incomplete, not having connected with her true self then. Truly, Misty’s reading was quite something. 

Opening her eyes, Tomoka flipped the next card. In it two indistinct people were kissing. Their genders couldn’t be figured out but seeing the card one could tell they love each other very much. 

“The lovers. Representing union, partnership, not necessarily romantic but it could be such all the same. It represents the half of another, be it a person, an object or something else. It is a good omen in most instances.” 

Tomoka smiled seeing a similar smile on her lovers. This card fitts too, after the end of her first life, her first journey she met her lovers, her partners, her anchors and her better halves. The ones that helped her put herself together. With that smile still present she flipped the next card.

“Death. Many would hear the name of the card and think it represents something bad but that is not the case. Death represents the end of a cycle and the beginning of another, change would be the best word to describe it.” 

Once again it did fit perfectly. Her old broken self died when she worked with her lovers to put herself back together. Her old cycle ended and a new one with a complete her, a new here began. Finally she flipped the last card. 

“The fool. Interestingly, it is rare for someone who has such a journey already to have a future represented by the fool. The fool is innocent, a free spirit searching for a journey, a new beginning.”

And what a fool she is, isn’t she? Tomoka would forever be a fool looking for a new journey, a new adventure accompanied by her lovers. A journey that would never end as despite all that she knows all that she is and all that she could do, she is still the innocent free spirited fool looking to travel the world for a fulfilling journey.   

“Thanks misty.” Tomoka smiled, this little card reading had helped her a lot. Even now she feared for the future to an extent. Sure, she is confident nothing could ever go wrong as long as she is involved. Even then, emotions are hard things to control. She would know, she failed spectacularly doing so in the past. This card reading had helped her keep her head up and just enjoy the journey ahead.