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Time Braid, Chapter 9Needless to say I made my next loop a short one, and ended it thinking of Naruto again. But alas, it wasn't that easy. I tried again the next loop, and the next, but after a half-dozen failures I was finally forced to concede that there must be more to it than that. I did, however, notice a few oddities about the loop end that I'd missed in my initial explorations.
The first time around I blew off the exam to spend the day training. I was perfecting my ability to do taijutsu drills while water-walking with a Rasengan in each hand, an exercise that simultaneously challenged my control and endurance. I kept at it all day, with just a couple of breaks for meals, and only stopped about fifteen minutes before the loop end. I thought I'd established long ago that my one-day loops ended at 1:47 AM, but it seemed like the shared loop had ended a few minutes early and I didn't want to take chances.
The next loop I knocked off training an hour early, thinking that maybe I needed to spend more time thinking about Naruto to trigger a crossover. I'd spent at least an hour wandering through the ruins of Konoha reminiscing before our shared loop, and I couldn't think of anything else I'd missed. So I settled myself under a tree at the edge of the lake I'd been training on and tried to recapture the same state of mind.
About twenty minutes later the loop reset.
Further investigation revealed that not only was the reset point not fixed, it was considerably influenced by my own state of mind. If 1:00 AM rolled around and I was just waiting for the loop to end it would reset right away, but if I was in the middle of something it would considerately wait for me to finish first. Unless I never stopped, in which case the reset would come right around 1:47.
"That sounds suspiciously like some person is controlling it," Hinata pointed out when I explained the situation.
"Maybe, but I think it's actually tied to our own minds somehow," I disagreed. "That last shared loop the reset didn't happen until after I woke up and did your memory copy, even though I was asleep at one AM. It wasn't until I was finished and kissing Naruto goodbye that it triggered. So either my thoughts are affecting it, or whoever controls it is reading my mind."
"Or they can see the future," Hinata pointed out. "Surely anyone who can send you back in time repeatedly could send themselves notes as well?"
I groaned.
"The more I know, the more confusing this gets!" I complained.
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