Chapter 2: The Scholar Scholar Equation.
The fumes in the laboratory of Gohan Uzumaki were not the odour of dust and dusty books but rather the odour of ozone and sense. He was encircled by holographic screens which displayed upward cascades of information: Prana frequency harmonics, quantum chakra signatures and real time variations of the geomantic ley lines of Shinra. The Golden Scholar sat in the middle with a disturbing quietude. His green eyes, a keen quick intelligence in influx of the Uchiha, were dedicated to the readings.
His sensors were struck three seconds before it struck the planet.
Naruto experienced a nauseating depiction and Sasuke brushed off this phenomenon as an insignificant flaw, whereas Gohan observed a flawless, frightening formula on his displays. The Prana waveform had been jagged into an inverse spike. It was not the ambient energy of the Sacred Forest which had merely varied, but rather turned round.
There are impossible, he said to himself as he flicked a crystalline control panel with his fingers. "The energy didn't dissipate. It was negated."
His Prana Vision had been switched on. The world became smaller and was substituted by the radiant tapestry of energy lines, which intersect each other. He perceived the rich gold of the Prana of his father, the dark powerful purple of the woods, the rich blues of the water masses in the distance. A narrow black-violet line of anti-Prana cut through it all--a cold, rigid, absolute scar not only sucking the energy out of the way but reestablishing the laws of existence of the place to prohibit it.
"Chrono Theorem, activate. Simulate the vector, he ordered, his voice low yet anxious. The hologram was moved and a 4-dimensional representation of the area was projected. The black filament flashed and at every flash the probability field contracted to one, awful, possibility.
Potential Vacuum Formation in the Localized Pranic Area: 99.8%.
TEMPORAL HORIZON To event: 72hours +/- 12.
Gohan's blood ran cold. A Prana vacuum was never an explosion, an implosion of reality. It would not only kill life, but would uncreate it, and leave in its place a blank where energy had been amputated--a sterile spot in the Universe.
This wasn't an attack. It was an erasure.
Father.... the Prana Kage... they must know. The quickest way was a Spirit Clone. He made the hand seal and a perfect, glowing copy of himself glowed into being. He implanted the vein, the possibility, the time scale, the essentials of life, into the clone. "Go. First, to my father. Then, to the Kage's tower. Do not stop."
The clone nodded. Its countenance was an ingredient of intentional haste. It went through the wall of the lab, at a speed of thought.
Gohan saw the Prana signature of the clone shot across his sensory display, a bright spot that was going away on the deadly, expanding blankness. He breathed one sigh of relief a moment. The warning was over. At this point, he was able to work on a counter-equation.
The repose was exactly seven seconds.
The point of brightness of the signature of his clone on the holographic map abruptly halted. Then it began to flicker. It had a foreign energy signature, of which his database had not known beforehand, about it. It appeared on his screens as a glittering organic-like wave: a gorgeous, prismatic design that was devouring.
"What is that?" he muttered, leaning forward. His Prana Vision was focused on the anomaly. The dying eyes of the clone had seen it: a cloud of rainbow light, made of tiny, geometric forms, which acted with a cold, groupthink. They did not attack the clone, they clung to it.
He could hear himself, twisted though his senses as those of the clone dissolved: The energy... it is not being taken up... it is being... catalogued. My very Prana... my DNA... my very signature signature is being--
The connection severed.
The signature of the clone did not simply disappear on the hologram. It had been carefully disassembled and its energy and data patterns swallowed by the waving wave. One stroke of the foreign signature satisfied, and winked out of existence.
Suddenly, Gohan Uzumaki was left in silence of his lab that was deafening. The symbol that was used on his wall as far as the golden book was to demean him appeared to be biting him. His hands, which were generally so steady, shook a little on the console.
He had not only failed to send a warning. He had given a sample: a sample of his Prana, his genetic composition, to an opponent who studied through eating.
The formula of his mind narrowed down. The variables changed - the idea of a natural disaster to a conscious intelligent threat. A Prana Vacuum was 100 per cent probable. And the time telling had turned into a contest.