AN: Happy day! Update day!
Chapter 7: Revelations
Before he could even react, a hand was forcefully slapped onto his head, and then everything Kazu saw faded away and was replaced with a dimly lit white room.
"I guess it really isn't possible then."
The voice echoed strangely in the landscape. Kazu turned in surprised panic and came face to face with an old, probably in his thirties, masked man sitting cross-legged behind bars right behind him.
An embarrassing squeak erupted from the normally calm five year old as he sat down hard. The man laughed a bark-like laugh. It wasn't malicious or threatening in any way, but warm and genuine; in fact it actually sounded slightly familiar. The man smiled at him from underneath the mask and Kazu took in the other's appearance.
He had spiked silver hair that slumped off to the side of the his head without lessening their gravity defying quality. He wore a dark blue sleeveless mask shirt with a white scarf around his neck, standard Shinobi pants and shoes that were bound at the shins, and blue arm guards with silver plating. He was pale, but healthy looking with a jagged scar over his left eye. His left, glowing, crimson...
Oh, Kami...
"You!" Kazu sputtered out as he sprang back to his feet. "You're the one from the dreams... You..." The memories came back in a sudden rush. "You're him. You're-" Kazu stopped suddenly and peered up at the familiar stranger's odd eyes. "Who are you anyway? And why am I here?"
The man shoved one hand into his pocket and rubbed the back of his head with the other.
"Who I am doesn't really matter right now. At least not until we get this little meeting figured out, because this-" the man glanced around with narrow eyes at the blanketing white, "place, has been completely scrubbed clean. Like a memory seal gone crazy or something. I was just trying to block that man's chakra from entering your system and ended up getting pushed back with into your mind-scape with you. So I have no clue what you're doing here."
Kazu felt some pieces click together.
"You're not my conscience are you?" The man stared at him for a second before bursting out laughing again. Kazu frowned, puzzled and slightly embarrassed that the man was laughing at him. "What's so funny?" His guess made sense... Didn't it?
"No I am not your conscience!" He said between laughs. "And although I many be currently in your mind, I technically have no name so I technically can't tell you." Well that, told Kazu nothing about him. Somehow, he trusted the mysterious man who was strangely trapped in a prison in his mind.
"So, I can call you whatever I want?" He asked. The man nodded with an eye smile. Kazu though a moment about names before coming up with a good one. He turned and smiled brightly at his new companion. "I'll call you Kikuto-san."
The man blinked and asked, "Kikuto?" The younger nodded.
"You reminded me of chrysanthemums." He said, mischief within his tone. "Calm, soothing, simple, and spiky looking!" After a few seconds of silence, both of them burst into laughter. Somehow the comparison between the flower and the man was so ironically apt that it was hilarious.
"You are so cheerful." Kikuto chuckled. "I thought you would have been more frightened of me, considering I'm not really a part of you."
Kazu smiled at him serenely.
"You're a nice person in the dreams." He said. Kikuto looked up at the boy questioning. "Lots of bad things happened to you, but you still cared a lot about your friends. You kept going for them." Kikuto's eyes widened.
"How did you know that?" He whispered and gripped the bars. "I didn't- that's not- what did you-?"
"At the black stone. You were crying when I woke up. It was hard to figure out who I was at first because you were like me. You were sad because you were alone. You had Red Dreams and I had to watch." Kazu said. "Then you kinda disappeared until that night at the compound."
Kikuto flinched at the memory. When Kazu's mind practically broke, they had almost... Shit, there's definitely a seal or two messing up the kid's psyche. Kikuto thought. Besides the one keeping me locked up in here, or it could be the same one and our personalities are too similar to not meld together the instant of contact when the seal weakens.
"I'll try and get you out of here, alright?" Kikuto suggested. Kazu nodded vigorously. "But we gotta take care of that-"
Suddenly the area surrounding them changed as a drop of color exploded onto the area and Kazu slumped to the floor clutching his head. Instantly Kikuto was up on his feet and pushing against the cage bars to get a hold of his host. "Kazu!"
The blonde haired man burst into the area of white, scattering color and light everywhere.
Immediately Kikuto's killing intent rolled towards the man in waves.
It was the interrogator.
The man turned to him sharply but paused as a dark energy from behind the bars stretched towards him with astonishing speed. The man braced himself for the impact, but it never came. He gazed suspiciously at the spiked energy poised right above him and then looked at the other being who had his hand stretched out like a claw between the bars.
That man's voice would forever be burned into his mind along with the freezing electric burn of his killing intent.
"Get. Out."
He was practically ripped out of the young Hatake's mind by that creature. That was the second time he had failed infiltration into the boy's mind.
When Inoichi withdrew from Kazu's mind, he gasped like he had been drowning underwater. Something that was instantly noticed by the older Hatake as the older man slumped off to the side of his brother's unconscious body.
"Well? What did you find?" He asked impatiently. The Sandaime motioned the teen to calm down and the chūnin carefully unclenched his fists.
"Inoichi, did you find any clue of another identity, split personality, or memory seal?" Inoichi shook his head.
"Yes... and no, I found something else." He said breathlessly. "I found a messed up memory seal and a messed up containment seal." Everyone in the room held an expression of complete and utter shock, but Inoichi wasn't done.
"I was attacked by a foreign chakra immediately upon entering the psychological pathways and was barely able to push it away. After that I found the memory seal. It was incomplete and was sucking the boy's earlier memories in and sealing them away. I released it and it sucked me into a bare white room with a dark gate on the far side. There if found Kazu's psychic manifestation fall to the floor clutching his head and a man behind a weakened Four Sided Elemental Seal."
"An Uzumaki Seal?!" Shikaku exclaimed, speaking for the first time. The Hokage ignored the outburst and called out to his ANBU guards.
"Daiseki! Get the head medic to do a full DNA analysis and comparison between Uzumaki Kushina, Hatake Sakumo, and allegedly claimed Hatake Kazu immediately!" He ordered.
Daiseki appeared suddenly kneeling in front of the Hokage before vanishing again with a, "Yes, Lord Hokage."
"Minato," the Sandaime said as he turned to the man. "I want you to fix the seal and restrain him until-"
"That won't be necessary." A voice cut in. Everyone turned to see Kazu getting up from his position on the floor and standing. "I won't run." Kakashi narrowed his eyes at the change in his brother's voice.
"It's you. The Other one." He said vehemently. "The Shadow creature from the chakra dreams."
The being stared harshly at Inoichi through Kazu's blatantly bicolored eyes and entered a threatening stance.
"Never try to enter my mind again. It is not a place for any of you to be in. Kazu almost went insane when my chakra merely leaked into his system and Kakashi had nightmares for three days after just sensing it. And do not under any circumstances break the seal. Do I make myself clear?" The being hissed with Kazu's mouth. "I do not belong here. My chakra is just as unstable and destructive as a tailed beast. My mind is so dark that it could blot out all of your personalities put together. Do not attempt this again or I will crush the mind of the one who enters."
Silence echoed in the room as each of the jōnin tensed, visibly preparing for any attack from the possessed boy. The Hokage spoke first.
"I will agree to your terms as long as you answer any and all questions we have after the sealing."
Again the room filled with heavy air and the being considered its options. It flicked its eyes to every single member in the room; first Inoichi, then Shikaku, then the Sandaime, and finally Kakashi.
"Not a word of my existence leaves this room." The Hokage nodded.
"Done."
The being relaxed and dropped its guard allowing Minato to jump the boy and pin him to the floor. The being didn't struggle as the Namikaze bound his hands and tied him to a nearby chair. It just sat there passively, without a word.
When the jōnin were satisfied with its state of containment, they stood back and allowed the Sandaime to address the being, staring directly.
"What are you? What is your status?"
The being kept eye contact. "I am made of chakra and a mind. I am currently trapped under an experimental Reflective Four Symbol Seal placed by a woman with the name of Etsuko. She is my host's biological mother. I am currently holding my host's body conscious as his mind recovers from the release of the memory seal." It said. "I am not using any of my chakra. I am merely switching minds with my host."
"Why do you say that you are like the bijou yet not one?"
The being answered again. "It is... Complicated to explain. Before appearing here I had a great amount of contact with bijou chakra. Upon my arrival, something changed my chakra's properties to the dark energy it now is. Once here my chakra was sealed away while my consciousness took over for my host's fading mind. As I slowly returned to my prison in this body and my host's mind took over, my mind and my chakra began to meld back together. The occasional chakra leak caused my mind to influence my host's."
The Hokage considered this and then asked. "You said that you were somewhere before here. Where was that?"
For the first time the being showed an emotion so utterly unreserved that those in the room actually thought it was possible for the being to be human. It was grief.
"We were at war. The entire world of ninja was allied together against a foe with power of the nine tailed beasts. We were fighting to save the world. Every land, every ninja of respectable status, every single one of them was working to defeat this enemy."
The being suddenly broke eye contact. "We did it. We saved the world. But the price..."
It shuddered at the memory. "All of the villages were flattened. Mountains crumbled to dust. Trees and forests blown apart. Water and land both stained red with blood. People reduced to mere mush... Everyone, and everything around me was dead."
It looked up at the Hokage again. "That is what Kazu saw. The Great Wasteland."
An uncomfortable amount of anxiety gripped Kakashi as he took in what the being had said. It had literally witnessed the end of the world and had lived through it.
"Everyone was dead." "Everything was dead." Both statements so similar, so horrifyingly close to each other, Kakashi wanted to vomit.
He heard Inoichi vomit beside him.
But the Hokage had one more question to ask.
"Who were you before you came here?"
The being stiffened but then spoke in a hushed whisper. "I was the Copy Ninja. I was ex-ANBU Ookami. I was Rokudaime Hokage."
"What was your name?" Kakashi asked.
"My name was Hatake Kakashi."
AN: Now this is where it gets interesting.
