CH_10.37 (403)

Yamanaka Inenpachi's office was one of the calmest and quietest places Takuma knew, and yet, his time there was never so. He and chaos were always double-booked every time he visited.

"Are you ready?" asked Inenpachi as he closed his journal.

After spending numerous sessions with the iryō-nin, Takuma wanted to know what he had written about him in that medical journal, but it was always out of reach, and Inenpachi always told him no and redirected their conversations. He even considered breaking into the office at night to take a peek by himself, but doctor-patient trust went both ways, and he didn't want to be fired/ditched.

"No, but come on, let's do it," Takuma sighed, feeling all energy leaving his body.

It had been two weeks since his team had captured the three ROOT agents. With some time to spare, he had been visiting the clinic three times a week for regular sessions. He didn't want to do it and had cancelled every appointment up to then, using work as an excuse, but then Inenpachi directly called him to come in, and Takuma couldn't refuse because he felt guilty about refusing the man who was trying to help him. He also realised that he had to visit if he needed to make progress on the Shadow Clone Jutsu problem.

"You can't reject those memories, Takuma. They're yours," Inenpachi said.

Takuma saw him slowly weave hand seals and clutched the armrests. As fascinating as the experience of entering his mind had been the first time, it slowly grew old, especially after the memory remnants, or whatever was gunking up his mind—they didn't know yet—punished him for even the slightest hint of hostility.

He felt as though he was shot through a claustrophobic, dark tunnel with a light at the end via canon until the moment he reached the light, when everything went dark and he woke up in the Ring's underground tunnels, which had been painted the colour of his previous home. Under the dim lights, he made his way to the central hub and looked back to find Inenpachi missing. They had quickly found that outside presence made things cagey in his mind, so the Yamanaka had been keeping away, keeping an eye on things from the outside, leaving Takuma alone, which made him increasingly more uncomfortable.

He pushed through multicoloured curtains and arrived in the central hub. His brain floated in the middle with strands over strands of yarn shooting out of it that connected to corkboards covering the walls.

And of course, then there was the unavoidable black wall that split the room and brain in half.

He stepped off the corridor and floated into the cavity. He had been there enough that he didn't feel the need to explore the brain or waste his time, and only move when Inenpachi urged him to.

The black vault door, with its giant wheel, was so dark that it seemed to absorb light. He had tried kicking it down once but had lost half of his mental manifestation's body. It was a stupid, emotion-driven decision which let him experience more pain than he had imagined in his two lives and left him with a day-long migraine that made him want to kill himself. But that did make absolutely clear how much power the 'boy' held in his mindscape. Inenpachi tried to wrap that up as an optimistic finding that increased their knowledge. It was a good try, but that didn't change that he still felt depressed about it.

Takuma took a deep breath as he raised his hand to touch the door when something that had never happened to him happened.

In every session, he had been trying to open the door and gain entrance. Even though the black wall wasn't his creation, it was still in his mind, and he had more or less learned how to force it open. However, Inenpachi made it clear that forcing things would only make things worse.

So, every session, he had been trying to coax the vault in the wall to open and invite him inside, but it never budged, not as much as creaked.

He didn't know what to do or say to make any progress.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked Inenpachi numerous times.

"People don't like parts of themselves and ignore them because they deem it ugly, but to make any progress, they first must accept that it's part of them. You need to communicate."

The heavy wheel slowly spun, retracting the metal rods locking the door, before the door opened with a creak that filled the room.

"It's open," he said as he gazed into the darkness.

"Well done, Takuma! I knew you could do it," Inenpachi's voice echoed in the room.

"No... I didn't do anything," Takuma whispered as he floated away from the door, his instincts screaming danger at him.

Eight tentacles, hauntingly similar to Water Release: Water Tentacles, but made from black water, shot out of the darkness. It was unnerving how the tentacles wrapped around his arms, legs, torso, and neck—just like how he would do it.

No matter how much he struggled, he wasn't able to shake off the tentacles as they dragged him into the darkness. That's all he wanted in every session, but he didn't think this was the way to go about it.

"Doc—!"

He was swallowed by the darkness in the middle of calling out for help. The door swung closed behind him as the wheel-controlled rods locked the doors shut, returning peace to the light side of Takuma's central hub.

"Takuma? Takuma! I can't reach you. Where are you?"

Inenpach's voice echoed in the central hub cavity, but there was no one to hear or respond to him.

———

 .

In his clinic's office, Inenpachi opened one eye and stared in shock at his patient. He still had a connection with Takuma's mind, but his presence had vanished. It was a strange feeling he couldn't describe, because he had never experienced anything even remotely like it.

The shell of Takuma's mind was still there, but the core had disappeared.

He closed his eyes and delved deeper into Takuma's mind, arriving at the central hub to find it in normal condition, but the owner was nowhere to be seen. He floated up to the black wall and was instantly met with the familiar pressure bearing down on him. This was one of the two reasons why he stayed out when Takuma was in his central hub. His mind hated Inenpachi's presence, and while it wasn't lethal or threatening as long as he didn't try to force things, the piercing discomfort was, to say the least, gratingly unpleasant.

He weaved hand seals and spread more of his mental influence inside Takuma's mind until he finally felt something and snapped his head towards the vault door.

Takuma was on the dark side of his central hub.

———

 .

Takuma stood in a grey space that seemed to stretch infinitely in all directions. If not for him whipping around his body to look around, he couldn't tell he was moving because his vision remained the same. He tried to calm down and calm his heart beating from panic, and thought about what had happened. He was pulled into the darkness behind the black wall and immediately tried to look for the 'boy' that Inenpachi had told him about.

He didn't know what was happening, but he was in unknown territory with a hostile entity, and that was so without his usual tools of combat. He was probably in the greatest danger of his life.

"Looking for me?"

Takuma flinched as he turned around to face the voice, only to be utterly stunned to be looking at himself. A grey-skinned version of him with solid black eyes stood before him. Inenpachi had described a nine-to-ten-year-old boy dressed in rags, but he was seeing a teen the same age as him, dressed in a grey version of the Leaf uniform.

"...H-How?"

"What, surprised?" The Grey-Takuma smirked and then looked at his new body when a split second of disgust shone in his eyes before being replaced by complicated emotions. "I had to... You showed up, trying to erase me out of existence, so I had to stand up to a growing threat—to protect myself from you."

The venom in the voice surprised Takuma.

"What are you?" he asked.

Grey was taken aback before anger twisted his face, making his solid black eyes look even more terrifying. "How dare you ask me that! I should be asking you! Who are you?!" he yelled with anger.

"I am Ta—"

"Don't you dare!" He took a step towards Takuma, who took a step back. "I am Takuma! You're a thief! You took my body from me!"

"It wasn't my choice! I didn't ask for this!" Takuma lashed back, feeling a sudden urge of overwhelming emotions. He had been suffering every day in the face of a future that threatened to destroy him. "I didn't want to live your shitty life!"

"And yet you are living it anyway... You live as I suffer, even in my death! You use my body, my name, my identity to be someone I would never have been. You have forced me to take this form," his tone dripped with abhorrence as he stared at his hands. "You're a parasite, a leech who's using what rightfully belongs to me. I-I..."

An intense mess of emotion broke out on Grey's face as he buried his face in his hands, looking as though he was on the verge of breaking down in tears. He turned his back on Takuma and walked a few steps away in silence to hide his tumultuous feelings.

Seeing him like that, Takuma felt guilty for a moment. While he had considered that he might have killed the boy in taking over his body, he had never blamed himself for taking over the body, but as he watched his grey form, he momentarily felt remorse, only for him to steel himself and push aside those emotions.

It was never his choice. There was nothing he could have done about it. He wrestled in silence for a moment as the emotions tried to surface despite his best efforts.

"What do you want?" he eventually asked, doing his best to keep his voice steady.

"Stop poking your nose where it doesn't belong." Grey turned to glare at him after a pause. "Even if you've stolen almost everything, I won't concede this last bastion. Stay away from me, or I swear that I'll make your pathetic existence miserable. Do not test me!"

Takuma narrowed his eyes at the blunt words and immediately wanted to bite back and tell him to fuck off when he felt a faint tug behind his navel, growing stronger by the moment, until he started to rise.

Grey's lip twitched in anger. "Fucking Yamanaka," he snarled out, looking up at Takuma. "Remember my words. Stay away. Even if you have control over my body, I still hold control over the deepest part of my being. The dead don't have anything to lose. Push me and I'll find a way to destroy you even if it's the last thing I do."

As Takuma floated away, he stared down at Grey, who glared back, until he was sucked into the narrow tunnel like he had done when he arrived into the space.

———

 .

Takuma woke up with a start. It felt like his body was on fire as the memories of the encounter with an unknown were seared into the back of his dry eyes. He had undoubtedly gained some knowledge, but simultaneously, he had gotten more confused from what he had seen. His head hurt, and his thoughts and emotions were a complete mess.

"Takuma, are you alright?" Inenpachi breathed a sigh of relief as he removed his hands from Takuma's head and slowly backed away with exhaustion painted on his face. The man was sweating an alarming amount, to the point that it had dampened his shirt collar.

"...No, Doc. I'm not alright," Takuma replied without any power in his voice.

He didn't think if he would ever be alright.

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