Chapter Three:
Revelation
Johan opened his eyes slowly, his vision blurry with sleep. 'Why was I sleeping?' he wondered trying to clear his head. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, wincing slightly as his chest reminded him of his cracked ribs.
He looked around suddenly aware that he was not in the hospital anymore. The sterile white that dominated the place was replaced with dark stone. The room was square shaped and the walls looked like they had been dug out. A large horizontal mirror was set into the wall to his left and a small door near the far corner of the mirror. Though he had my suspicion it was not a normal mirror as it looked eerie similar to one-way-mirrors he'd seen in a lot of different police shows. One single bright light-bulb hanged freely from its power cord which ended in a small light switch by the door.
He felt anxious about it all, if not a fair bit scared. His mind ran marathons in his head trying to puzzle everything that happened together, to make sense of everything. This felt far too much for a joke, he knew no one that would ever do something this intricate… and felt far too weird to be… serious… Because how many kidnappers would go out of their way to cosplay characters from an old manga series?
Johan sat silent on the bed, still trying to make all this make sense to him. Feeling restless he swung his legs of the side of the bed and made to rise. The next thing he knew he painfully greeted the cold and hard concrete floor in a full body hug.
"Ow…" he whimpered where he lay, paralysed in pain. 'What happened?' he wondered confused.
He had somehow completely missed the floor… or rather the floor was further away than he thought. It had not looked that far…
He slowly gathered himself up from the floor, wincing as pain ached along his knees hand hands. 'Something's wrong.' He thought, 'something's really wrong with all this!'
Johan dragged himself to his knees and sighed. He felt his limbs tremble with adrenaline, his heart beat strong and loudly in his ears and he had problem controlling his breath.
He recognized the symptoms of shock as easily as he could walk. He reached up to dry off the tears that threatened to break free. He finally admitted he was scared. He glanced towards the mirror; his gut told him he was watched.
The door clicked and opened, gaining Johan's attention. Another grey suited head-band wearing man stepped through the portal followed by the weirdly bandaged guy from before.
Johan stood up grunting slightly as his new injuries hurt.
The first thing he noticed was how tall they were. He barely reached their chests… which were odd… That would mean they were well over two metres tall… which was weird… the other was that the new guy wore glasses.
"Slept well?" the glasses wearing guy asked, as he walked up with an arrogant smirk, which was irritating to look at. It did not help that he literally looked down upon him, he felt like a child… 'Wait a minute?'
"Please sit down and answer our questions." The glasses wearing guy said and gestured towards the bed… which was only high enough to reach my own chest and around the lower hip of the two men.
"What the fuck is going on!" Johan shouted in confusion, it hurt his head trying to wrap his head trying to understand.
"Language youn-"
"Why's everything so fucking large around here?" he continued not noticing the frown that came on the man's face from being interrupted.
"Sit down kid." The bandage wearing blind-man growled.
"Kid? What the fucks wrong with you. You look no older than me!" Johan heatedly answered back which he promptly regretted when he was roughly lifted by the collar of the hospital gown and was brought face to face with the odd man's face.
"Now you listen here you little shit. Sit. Down! And shut up." Johan was shocked and could only nod in response, and after, was thrown roughly onto the bed, "Good."
The blind-man backed away a step behind the glasses-man who cleared his throat.
"Well…" Glasses glanced behind him at Bandage, "as I said before. We would like to ask you a few questions."
Confusion and anger was evident on Johan's face as he crossed his arms in front of him but otherwise did not respond.
"Your name is Johan Hemmer, correct?"
Johan nodded but stayed silent.
"Okay… have you ever been in contact with ninja before?"
Johan raised an eyebrow and scoffed, at that moment he knew they must believe him to be stupid… or they were insane mad men.
"Yeah, right." he said muttering under his breath.
"Um… okay…" Glasses said and cast a quick glance over at his older compatriot looking lost. Bandaged just stood relaxed and blindly watched on in silent observation. "um… do you know why you are here?"
"I don't even know where I am, dimwit."
Glasses visibly bristled at the insult.
"You can all stop playing this sick little game of yours." Johan waved a hand dismissively in the air.
"Game?" it was the Bandage asked incredulously, "You think this is a joke? Kid, watch around you. Do you think we are joking?"
Johan glared at the man.
"What else could it be? Who in their right mind would take this seriously when you dress up like that?" he retorted.
Bandage said nothing as he grabbed Glasses by the shoulder and pulled him with him. Seconds later the door swung shut, leaving Johan even more confused about the odd behaviour.
Inoichi stood silent behind the see-through mirror and watched their youngest member make a fool of himself. It was a tad amusing that the brave and cocky kid could make grown men spill their darkest and most guarded secrets in a matter of moments but was stumped when faced by a small child… though he had to concede that the child, this Hemmer, was a very unique subject.
Either the kid was crazy, lying or… damaged, brainwashing were always unpredictable. You could as easily take away a memory or completely wipe the brain of everything, even the ability to breathe. Either way in hindsight it was probably a bad idea to assign Mozuku to the task.
A thought strengthened when Tonbo decided enough damage had been done and quickly retreated.
"Nicely done Mozuku-san, one could almost believe you rehearsed it all." he greeted the boy as he entered.
Mozuku looked away embarrassed. It had been awkward trying to interrogate the weird kid.
Inoichi turned his attention towards Tonbo.
"So?"
"Brainwashed, all the signs are there. Confusion, irritation… he even lacked basic hand-eye coordination." Tonbo said slightly concerned.
"As you suspected… that is not good." Inoichi looked out the mirror watching the kid moving around, stumbling like a toddler.
"What do you think we should do?"
"I think the only thing we can do is using the Psycho Mind Transmission."
"Are you sure?" Tonbo asked but quickly added, "I mean what if it's a trap?"
Inoichi rubbed his chin as he thought it over.
"True… ask Ibiki-taichou if we can use the Saiko Denshin#."
"Hai." Tonbo together with Mozuku left which left Inoichi on his own.
'Am I becoming soft?' he asked himself as he watched the kid seemingly relearn to walk… all he could see was the image of his own daughter in the same seat as the boy… what would he do? He would have without a blink of an eye try to reverse the damage done to his princess' mind. If he could not repair the boy… then at least he would learn who was doing this and put a stop to it.
He sighed as he continued to watch over the boy.
'What has happened to me!?' was the prominent thought in Johan's mind.
He was currently walking around the room, stumbling every few few steps, as a means to keep his mind from panicking. Shortly after the weird kidnappers had disappeared out of the room he had discovered his own… lack of height… he looked as himself… fifteen years ago!
He had ruled out dreaming, it just did not feel like a dream. Which left him very few options. Either he was insane and hallucinating in the looney bin or… it was all real. But if it was real then how? Many different scenarios played in his mind, most coming from old fan fictions he's read in the past and old daydreams.
Actually the more he thought about it the less… panicky he felt. It even went so far to become hope. He actually hoped he was trapped in the Naruto verse. At least that was the ideal case… worst was he was trapped inside the lair of some deranged scientists with a fascination for cosplaying and a youth serum… which made less sense truth be told.
He walked around the room stopping now and then by the mirror to try and peek through. He did not succeed in it though as he could only see his own darkened image, which was disappointing to say the least.
His chest still hurt but it was manageable; Pain only came if he forgot to take shallow breaths.
The door opened, to his relief, after a long while. A while that felt like hours. Out stepped a blonde grey suited man, like the others, though he wore a black trench coat. The man's shoulder length hair was set up in a high ponytail. The older man's face was weathered in age as the features looked like they were carved out of stone… though still carrying a warm fatherly look… or it was just the small friendly smile the man sported.
Unlike the others Johan recognized him. The current, or rather former, head of the Yamanaka clan. 'What was his name again… Inoichi? Inochi… Ino… something starting on Ino… ' he thought trying to remember the name.
The Yamanaka took a few steps inside.
"Please, follow me." he said gesturing for Johan to follow as he turned to leave.
Johan started after him with a uncertain 'Okay'. The outside corridor was not much different from my prison cell. Walls and ceiling seemingly carved out of the rock with an oddly smooth floor in contrast. The bandage man and another new bespectacled man took up positions a step behind him. If Johan had not been looking around he swore he would never have noticed them. Even his own bare feet made more sound than the three men combined as one silently led him down the hallway and the two others equally silent followed.
Yamanaka lead him into a large room dominated by a particular device that made Johan get cold feet as he started to lag behind. Two hands descended upon his shoulders as his two guards forcefully led him towards the machine.
It was the same grey device that he had seen in use. A machine designed to help search another person's memories.
"No." Johan muttered as he tried to fight the grip of his two guards, "No, no, no!" It was no use of course as he got manhandled forward. They even went so far to lift him up of the ground. "For fuck's sake, no! Please no! I don't-" his increasing panic attack was cut short as he felt a cold hand at the base of his neck and he fell limp in the two men's grip.
Nothing but his eyes responded to him as he could only watch on has they strapped him in.
"I am sorry Johan-san, but this is the only way." Yamanaka said as his hands flashed in a series of hand seals, "hopefully you will thank me later."
A large callused hand descended down upon his forehead and everything went white…
Inoichi knit his eyebrows together in concentration as he combated the initial wave of information flushed at him. He soon got control over the flow and started to navigate through the boy's psyche. It was oddly… complete to have been manipulated. Brainwashing and other kinds of mental manipulation always left a kind of… mark. He started to sift through the first piece of memory he could find.
He walked through a forest wading through the low growing thicket and underbrush. His eyes narrowed in search of the lucrative mushroom growth. His basket was still half full of the yellow fungi. Another plastic bowl shared space in the basket filled with a random assortment of berries. The forest was unfamiliar as both trees and plants looked…unfamiliar…
Inoichi quickly abandoned it as it only raised more questions and answered none. He plunged into another memory.
He was playing in a schoolyard… tag was the name of the game, with other kids no more than ten years old. Exhaustion of constant running started to set in. Then the school bell rang signifying the end of recess…
Once again Inoichi abandoned the memory. Hewas confused more than ever as he continued to surf the outer layer of each passing thought and memory. Nothing looked familiar as odd buildings, things and tools swam across his vision. Heck even things he recognized looked odd and oppressively more advanced. Metal self-propelled carts, small devices that could do seemingly anything and store many times a library's worth in information. He even remembered seeing a world map which the elemental nations did not appear on. Something was wrong… everything was to detailed to be artificial…
As he continued to dive in and out of memories and glancing at others, something caught his attention.
He was watching a show on the computer, incredible machine that was, he concluded. On it he watched something that made his skin crawl. He saw himself, as a moving drawing; Cartoon… anime, he deciphered it was called. Fighting alongside his old teammates defending Konoha from invading sand and… sound ninja?
Another memory was even more disturbing, at least to him, he saw his own daughter… at least it looked like her fawning over what looked like the last Uchiha boy Sasuke. In a room full of ninja from other countries, the first test of the chunin exam…
Inoichi was concerned, no, disturbed by the images and sounds he saw and heard. Voices of others he eerily recognized. This was huge…
He drew his hand away from the boy's forehead as if he'd been burned. The two shinobi who had helped him looked up as they cut their chakra from the machine, looking concerned.
"Yamanaka-sama, what's wrong?" Dokuraku Mawashi asked Inoichi worried that something might have gone wrong.
"N-no, I am fine Mawashi-san." he said then pointed at the boy. "Keep watch and see to it he doesn't escape."
He turned around and marched as fast as he could, without going into a jog, out of the room. 'Hokage-sama needs to know!' was all he thought as he forced others to dive out of his way as he stormed passed.
A/B:
#Saiko Denshin is the Japanese name of the Psycho Mind Transmission jutsu, but I use the name for the machine instead, as it is not clear if the technique can be used without it or not as two different sources can't agree. But I have decided to say that it amplifies the effect and, in this case, helps protect the user from certain countermeasures.
