~Kiyome POV~
Hearing Soutarou's words, "Kuniochi are Scary." His crazed look, and then his feigning of normalcy…
A hidden smile spread across Kiyome's face and she thought,
Her eyes shifted past his fading presence, past the black water of his spiritual plane, past the "dream" or rather this segment of Soutarou's spiritual plane wasn't fully hers anymore. Where she could feel it. That wretching pressure again… That "presence" that truly didn't belong, that being above all three of them… Immediately, Kiyome's victorious smile thinned.
Kiyome's eyes flickered for a moment before turning dark in realization,
Her fingers flexed. If she couldn't fully control her descent… Then at least she would control something. No… she would control the mark the dream left on him. So when he woke up… He'd finally- $#*($#(*$&**(#*$(*...........
Kiyome stepped closer to a blue particle of Soutarou's fading form, and the water under her feet rippled like glass. Her gaze softened in a way that should've been gentle…and yet somehow felt worse, almost twisted… Yet also tame. Kiyome's thoughts rippled across the plane
A beat rang out. Then, behind the softness, something feral flashed. Her thoughts churned and the water of the spiritual plane became chaotic,
The spiritual plane shuddered. The edges of reality seemed to peel away for a moment like wet paper. And somewhere in the distance far above the "sky" of his spiritual plane a cold interface flickered like it was losing signal. Kiyome clicked her tongue in sheer annoyance, "Tch… Already tugging at your spiritual plane. Well… No matter… The seed have been sown… I win this round… Now then…"
She leaned in towards the blue fragment clutched in her hands, close enough that her breath, that should've been warm, felt like a blast of ice… Like it was chilled to the coldest winters of frozen hell itself...
"Wake up," she whispered, it was like a command to the very multiverse itself and a promise to Soutarou at the same time. And then she snapped her fingers and the world seemingly cracked and faded away.
~Soutarou POV~
Coldsweat covered Soutarou's back. Before he turned to the system and flickered through the Menu and debated whether or not to click the remove and unbind.
Before a moment of hesitancy passed and Soutarou shook his head, before looking around himself. He lay upon the same white infirmary bed that he was on earlier. He sighed in relief that the real Kushina, the real Naori, the real Mito, the real Tsunade, and the real Mikoto were all safe and alive. Yet still he blankly stared off at the ceiling, grimly thinking of the multitude of possibilities as fear flickered in his eyes…
~Naori & Mito POV~
A somewhat lazy and content person, Mito rarely took things upon herself. Only when they crossed her bottom line, like the realization of Hashirama's failures, the realization of Madara's survival, and the need of the new generation did she act at all.
And when she acted… Mito preferred a plan, a decisive one to knock the enemy into disarray and then sweep them off their feet in one go! Yet reality is often disappointing… Still she loved planning, having a contingency so that way she could laze in peace like the old red haired foxy loaf she was.
So when she saw the dishevelled, sweaty, panicked Naori, who was breathing harder than a damn E-Rank wind style jutsu. She scowled and became visibly irritated.
Mito gritted her teeth and calmly said, "Out with it."
Naori paused for a moment before muttering, "I-I casted a genjutsu on Soutarou… It… it…. Umm… Got hijacked?"
Mito's shoulders drooped immediately and she formed a handsign creating a low chakra shadow clone to dispel memories back to her main body before clutching head in absolute dismay.
You see… What she hated were surprises that suddenly seemed like someone was holding her at knife point… and Naori… Naori not only held the knife at her, but stabbed it through her Right and Left Common Carotid Arteries in one go, all while holding her family hostage with the population of China acting as the Hostage Guards. Giving her a few seconds to fully heal, before needing to fight two billion members of the terracotta army…
Mito clenched her jaw and calmly or rather feigned calmness and politely said with her eyes closed, while smiling, but not smiling, "What Genjutsu. And why did you use Naori-chan?"
Naori put her hand up in explanation before quietly saying, "I-I thought you were being too soft on Soutarou… So… So I cast Izanami on him… To force him… To force him to overcome his inability to kill…"
Mito crushed the pen in her hand causing ink to spill all over it, before Mito rolled her sleeve up and raised her hand before deciding against violence and thinking,
Mito muttered outloud, "Fuck."
Mito took a deep breath before roaring with her red buns becoming a mess of flying red hair and her eyes turning menacing, "NAORI!!! SOUTAROU IS A KEY PART OF OUR ATTACK PLAN! PUTTING HIM A GENJUTSU WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA! WORSE YOU LOST CONTROL OF IT! FOR ALL WE KNOW HE'S IN AN ETERNAL LOOP EATING SHIT RIGHT NOW! I SWEAR TO THE SAGE OF SIXTH PATHS IF HE TURNS OUR BROKEN I'M BREAKING ALL OF YOUR BONES AND THROWING YOU INTO KATSUYU'S ACID AND REGENERATION PITS TO SUFFER ETERNALLY!"
Mito held Naori by the collar and shook her in rage before letting go of her collar and saying, "What took control of your genjutsu?"
Naori's Mangekyo activated for a split second, just long enough that Mito could feel the recoil of fear behind Naori's eyes… To which Naori looked away and said, "I-I don't know… It's much stronger than me… I completely lost control… My sharingan wouldn't work at all…"
Mito clutched her forehead and said, "Now you understand why Tobirama was so paranoid about your clan? He was god damn right, you damn stupid Uchiha!"
Naori grimaced and her eyes turned into teary poached egg shape.
Mito said, "Whatever… It's already been done… Go get Tsunade and Kushina again. Let's go see the extent of the damage."
~Soutarou POV~
As Soutarou's thoughts spiralled he sweated harder, to the point his clothes were literally drenched. He was panting and almost feverish…
Feeling trapped and claustrophobic for a moment, he forcefully tried sitting up. Only to almost instantly regret it, because his body felt heavy… Not injured heavy… Not even exhausted, stressed, or even fearful heavy… But the kind of heaviness or rather pressure of the grim memory of his bones, hair, arms, legs, skull, skin, eyes, teeth, nails, fingers, toes, muscles, even his own genitals being crushed, cut, destroyed, burned, mutilated, ripped out, and seared in the manner to imprint the memory of pain.
His eyes flickered as the memories of the genjutsu became convoluted, his real world memories, his original world memories swam. Before some stabilizing force washed over him.
[Unusual emotional disturbance detected… Attempting to use counter measures…. Countermeasures failed…. Administrator override: Calm down user… It'll all be ok soon… Manager notice: I'm here for you user… Whatever you need.]
He felt a bit more calm reading those messages, before warily watching them too. His eyes darted and flickered across the white room, the white curtains, the white bed, the white walls, and the ivy attached to his arm, before he viscerally flinched. And softly touched his cheek as if expecting it to be bruised…. Looking at his arms and legs he calmed down again… and finally felt his 'little brother', as the Chinese would say, still intact and in one piece his mind truly relaxed a bit.
Though he stared warily around the room…
'Who was Kiyome though…'
Soutarou's eyes glanced back to the status menu he'd pulled up with a mental tug of 'Status.' His eyes remained glued to the light blue status window and the large red letters that red…
[Remove and Unbind? Y/N]
His finger actually went up towards the screen, despite knowing clicking it wouldn't do anything, as a sharp thought arose, 'If I really cut this off… Will I finally get back my life? My freedom? Will I be able to get rid of this fear?'
Yet another thought blarred just like before… 'Then what? I just die? The world wants me dead… No rather it wants me locked up in a basement so it can ride me like there's no tomorrow.'
Soutarou's eyebrows twitched before he clenched his teeth. And lowered his hand. He didn't press it, he didn't call out to confirm the message. He hated that he didn't do it. He stared at the option that seemed to laugh at him. Before a new message appeared on top of the system's light blue. Instead of the Manager's *Ding!* Or the Admin's *Jingle!*, a new sound rang out in Soutarou's mind, *Boop*
[Notice: User session has been forcibly terminated by the Executive.]
Soutarou's eyes narrowed and he thought, 'Executive? Is that any different than the manager or the administrator? No… Who could it even be….... Kiyome… it has to be-'
As his mind flashed to the raven haired, raven eyed, scratched headband wearing woman, his gaze turned conflicted, but his palms still turned sweaty before the screen flickered again like it was a bit embarrassed.
[Warning: Continued attempts to access… 'restricted information' will result in penalties.]
Soutarou's eyelid twitched as he thought, 'So now you want to act normal again… Go figure… All of a sudden after being the worthless system… You want to pretend to play the helpful little system again…'
[*Jingle* Administrator Note: Prior Failures are completely the Executive's fault.]
[*Ding* Moderator Note: Prior Failures are completely the Administrator's fault.]
[*Boop* Executive Note: Prior Failures are both the fault of the Administrator and Moderator.]
'Heh…'
Soutarou closed the panel without much thought before his eyes landed on a head of messy red hair, tearful purple eyes and a pout that could be labeled as Kushina from a mile away. Before a worried partially maternal and unreadable gaze was visible from the blonde haired, brown eyed Tsunade gave him a soft look. All while a guilty and blank expression Naori held her head lower, while Mito had those creased eyebrows and a crossed arm posture that seemed to scream, "Are you ok baby?"
The group seemed to want to say something to Soutarou, before Soutarou's eyes locked onto Naori with his sharingan glowing deeply and omitting a heavy pressure. Soutarou's voice rasped, "Why...? Why did you do that...? Please give me an... explanation…"
The room stilled into an eerie and awkward silence….
***Author's Note: From this point on I'll be changing the different system 'bosses' sounds to clarify who is who…
Manager: *Ding!*
Administrator: *Jingle!*
Executive: *Boop* ***