84. The birth of a goddess.
Yoshino followed her teammate willingly out of the gates, fully trusting his lead. Treacherous thing trust was, young love even more so. She held all questions in as the darkness closed in, followed onto his steps, closer and closer so that when the trap closed in, there was nothing and no one else to blame but herself.
In her darkest moments, she blamed her sensei – Jiraiya-sama – for bringing them closer together. More than a team, a family. But then the blame goes to herself. She was a fool because of course they weren't. Her family was the Nara – overbearing they sometimes were, but they never…they would never…
It didn't hurt. In fact, most of it was numbness - a headiness. Sometimes, there was the sickening cold of his tools against her skin, the rush of disinfectants to her nose, and the light – blinding light to her eyes.
He would talk too, reciting his procedures and what he was doing, and why. How he would improve next time, if there was any improvements to be had. His plans for her eggs, her clan's biology, her future children's…
A shiver ran beneath her skin.
In those moments, she chose to close her eyes, delving into the shadows of her mind readily and with abandon. There she sought protection and solace. There she looked for comfort. For strength.
There, she found something she never thought she would.
Shadows look back when you stare at them, and take the shape of either what you desire or fear the most, she had known this all her life.
Yoshino curled into herself, without hope and without feeling. She was done. She was only waiting. The lust for life she once had, she has given up, to fly away on their own. Leaves blown away in the wind, released totally into oblivion.
In this emptiness something surged.
'Yoshino'
It whispered.
Inoichi watched in the side lines as strange markings circled around his nakama's body, prepared to break this strange mind-walk in a moment's notice. He has not encountered anyone who has memories of themselves unconscious – unless this said memory was planted by another.
Nevertheless, he was trained to pick out memories like that, but at the moment, his training points out that this one was not a plant.
Her mind was heavily occupied by shadows, similar to the usual ones Shikaku summons, but at the same time, not quite.
He had the strongest suspicion that Yoshino's mind wasn't like this before. The haze that normally surrounded people's memories was never like this. Strange literal shadows lurked in her mind-space. He kept watch of them, although they seemingly just circle around him, keeping distance.
He had the weirdest feeling of eyes watching him.
His instincts told him to break the jutsu for his safety, but his curiousity got the best of him. That, and this was his best friend's future wife. They needed his word to clear that Yoshino was kidnapped and that she was not somehow a part of the whole ruse. They need to make sure she was in the clear. That there is nothing suspicious left planted in her mind. It was not that people think she was a potential traitor, but one must cut loose ends when one can.
But how can he say to them - to his friend - that nothing was wrong with her mind?
A shiver ran through him as a gentle breeze rushed past him.
'Yoshino,' he heard a woman whisper.
Yoshino's eyes opened as if in answer, the black marks bleeding out of from her skin. Tendrils of the spilled black ink rose up from the growing swathe on the floor, until the formless black coalesced, curving into a figure of a woman standing before Yoshino. It grew until it was hovering over her body like a reflection, while strange other figures formed around them.
Inoichi tried to step back from the growing shadows coming closer towards him. He had to leave soon before the shadows reach his feet. He had a feeling they were…or Yoshino was now pushing him away.
There was a heart-pounding moment until the figure slowly closed in on his friend's body, slowly molding itself perfectly on her like second skin, and melting away - melting away into her.
The shadows receded all of a sudden as if pulled in through a vacuum but within the next breath came a force that blasted him off her mind.
''Inoichi!'' Hands forced him back and held him still. ''Are you okay?'' He came slowly to reality, breathing hard with Chouza yelling at his ear. ''What happened?''
The Yamanaka blinked, eyes finding the people watching him. His eyes fell to Shikaku then to his sleeping bride-to-be.
''Tell us, is she safe?'' Shikaku's father spoke.
Inoichi gulped, unable to look away. He traced her clear skin, the strange markings nowhere to be found.
''I think…I think I need to be a Nara to understand. But— but at this moment, I cannot tell, Nara-san.''