A/N: Trying to get out of a writing slump! This is what popped out. It might be mildly self-indulgent whoops.
She won't be able to survive that.
The moment the bang echoed around the space, Konoha moved on instinct, going faster in that way that seemed so strange compared to everyone else even though it felt perfectly normal to him. He wasn't quite sure where the thought had come from, but a moment later, pain exploded through his body from his abdomen. A scream sounded from beside him, and a shout from behind, but it was okay. Even as he collapsed to one knee, he knew that that girl—Takane, wasn't it?—hadn't been harmed.
Even a pain as great as this was fine if it meant that his friends were okay.
Though, this was really an almost overwhelming amount of pain. It felt like all his muscles had frozen, and he couldn't even gather the energy to speak.
Ah, getting shot hurt a lot more than he'd expected.
"My, my, my. I'm surprised that had an effect on your indestructible body."
The man who looked so much like Mr. Tateyama, the Mr. Tateyama who had taken him in and given him a place to stay and allowed him to eat and sleep so much and meet these people, walked right up to him while saying such an unsympathetic thing. He couldn't even lift his head enough to look him in the eyes as he got closer, but it was probably enough that he could at least watch the gun still in his hand. That was the gun that could take away all of his friends, if he didn't do anything to stop it.
But then he couldn't keep his eyes on it after all, as fingers grabbed his hair and dragged his head upwards. There was barely any pain in it at all, compared to the agony in his abdomen, but even still he was unable to resist it in his current state. Instead he found himself staring directly at this person who wasn't Mr. Tateyama, and at this distance the difference was all the more clear. This was not any of the expressions he had seen on this face ever before. Those red eyes weren't anything he had seen on this face ever before.
"Time's up. Disappear."
Suddenly the face in front of him flickered, and—vanished? No, it was still there, in front of him, but Konoha was also seeing… something else. A vast, white expanse in an empty world. It seemed to stretch on forever, with small piles on the ground here and there to break up the monotony. He hesitated to look away, but after a moment, curiosity got the better of him. Even though he turned in this expanse, it seemed his gaze didn't move away from Mr. Tateyama's face. As if that and this were two completely separate worlds.
Looking closer at them, he realized that the piles were all full of familiar objects. There was one slightly to his left that was overflowing with Chinese dishes that looked like those he remembered eating when Mr. Tateyama had taken him to a restaurant a week ago, a set of chopsticks like those he'd broken at first when trying to separate them, and a small toy police car that reminded him of the one that had made such a loud noise the moment they had stepped outside afterwards. Farther away and to his right were a bunch of flowers, like those in the park that he'd been shown to several months ago, with a taiyaki like the one he'd eaten, the bench he'd dozed off on, and a balloon like the one he'd caught out of the sky when a small child had let go of it.
They continued like this, sparsely dotting the space around him. Each one evoked a nostalgic sense from him, more dull the further away from him they went, until the farthest one he could spot, where a collection of tubes and strange equipment surrounded a stretcher.
And at his feet, jerseys of so many different colors. A cell phone. A stuffed triceratops. A toy truck. The croquettes that had been cooked for dinner last night.
Ah, those had been so tasty. He just couldn't stop eating them until they were gone.
"How empty. It's like you're not even a person at all, isn't it?"
He suddenly realized that wound among the piles a large black snake had appeared. Konoha lifted his head to look up at its face, and the moment his gaze met those red eyes, he realized that the image he was seeing outside of this space matched the one he was seeing inside.
… Not quite. Though it was as if the color had only gone dark an instant ago, Mr. Tateyama's eyes were no longer that red that they had been. It seemed time was indeed moving forwards outside this place.
"You're that thing from inside Mr. Tateyama." But instead of there, it was now here.
It chuckled. "That's exactly right. And now I'm here to claim this body that you've so perfectly set up for me. But ah, there's still the matter of this little mess… Well, since you're barely more than a construct anyway, it doesn't even matter if I do this first."
It suddenly twisted, and though Konoha was aware that the motion had brushed one of those scattered piles backwards and away from the two of them, he found he could no longer recall what had been in it. "… Eh…?"
The snake shifted again, sweeping a second pile backwards, and this time he moved fast enough to watch. But the moment the objects dispersed, it was like they had scattered from his memories, and though he grasped for what they had even represented, they were already gone.
"No… No, wait…!"
With each twist of the serpentine body, more and more fell away. Even when he anticipated it, when he turned to look, it was like the very images themselves had been ripped from his mind the moment the piles fell. Objects disappeared before his eyes, minutes and hours and days fell away, and he could do nothing but stand rooted to the spot.
"Stop it…!"
The voice hadn't been very loud, but even over the sound of the snake shifting about it cut through the open space and straight to Konoha's ears. Even the monster in front of him seemed to pause and lift its head, and Konoha turned to look as well.
Behind him was a boy he didn't recognize, though somehow he felt extremely familiar. He was seated in a bed, and scattered around him, stretched out for what seemed like forever, were large, indistinct piles all but covering the ground. They seemed to overwhelm the space near him, far more densely packed and taller than Konoha's piles had been. And while Konoha couldn't make out any of the items or shapes, he got the feeling that those piles weren't meant for him, anyway.
After all, the entire collection came to an abrupt halt a bit of a distance away from him, leaving a large empty space for that which belonged to him. Though he seemed to no longer have anything to fill that space with, except what little still remained in the last pile at his feet.
The boy seemed surprised that Konoha had turned, or that the snake had stopped, or perhaps both. He seemed to be breathing heavily, but when he spoke in a somewhat soft voice, it reached the entire space regardless. "Don't do this. Don't do this to him. I'd never wish for that! Not when he's finally found our friends…!"
"Ah, it's you again. It's been a while. Weren't you listening to what I said out there, though? I know you could hear it, but I'll say it again anyway. I'm not here to grant your wish. Both of you are useless at this point, so just shut up and stay where you are."
It shifted again, and Konoha moved on instinct. Before the last pile could get swept away he tore himself free of whatever had been holding him and stepped over the pile to take the blow from the snake's body full-force.
It hurt. It hurt a lot. It was like getting shot before, but this time the pain truly was in his whole body. But he knew that he couldn't let this last pile disappear. This was the pile he treasured the most. This was the one he wanted to allow to grow more.
"I won't… let you." It hurt so much, and he still managed to get out the words.
There was a pause, but then the snake began laughing again. "Ah, how pathetic. Well, I suppose this is good enough anyway. Fine. I'll let you keep what little remains, for all the good it will do you."
Suddenly he felt something wrapping tight around him, and he shivered—but it wasn't in here. Outside, in the other place he was still seeing, something was wrapping around his body. The laughter continued to echo around this space, and even as he was having trouble moving with the pain, he felt his movements being even further restricted. He was—screaming, out there. Already screaming as it squeezed, taking his body away from him. He wanted to shake free of it and he couldn't. He wanted to do something in here and he couldn't.
It felt like it was so tight it was suffocating him. Cutting him off from the outside world. It was such a dark, terrifying feeling, unlike anything he'd ever known. Completely consuming him, until the space in here was all that was left to him.
Bit by bit, it numbed. Not just the pain, but the very feeling in his fingers and toes, the sensation of his knees pressed to the ground… everything. The outside world had gone black, and all he could feel was something empty and cold wrapped around his very core. He tried, desperately, to lift his arm. Or even to just move a single finger. Nothing responded. It was as if he was completely trapped, powerless, helpless as whatever this was overwhelmed him entirely.
A moment later he realized that a third person was in this space with them, though he had no idea how long this had been the case. The snake was completely gone, and instead there was a figure, familiar yet different, exactly the same yet entirely not. A mirror in the dark. Himself, yet wrong.
"Thank you for your service, you two! Enjoy the rest of the show."
The lights came up on the outside world again. Konoha startled and reached out to try to move, but his body didn't response the way it was supposed to. It didn't respond to him at all.
It laughed a terrifying laugh, and then the body which was no longer Konoha's stood up and lifted a hand.
"Just as I thought, this body is the best after all!"