Chapter 10: Illusion and Reality

Sato was absorbed in one matter, and one matter only: what to have for lunch.

He gazed down the street, eyes alighting briefly on each sign, some better lit than others.

Kyu looked up at him, expectantly.

It took him only a moment to locate what he was looking for. A small, low-key sushi place that took tradition very seriously. It was also an oasis of calm in a bustling city. He wasn't sure which of these things made him like it more.

Perhaps it was neither. Perhaps it was that it let you take your order to go, and eat it in the park, or that it was usually empty, which meant service was fast. It wasn't popular, but to his taste, it had every angle covered, and it was just what his stomach needed right now. The fact they made surprisingly good sushi, for the cost, just clinched it for him. It was his favorite place, and he was hungry. That made the decision easy.

"Oh, look where we are. I guess we'll just have to pop in." he said with a smile, tugging on Kyu's leash as they walked together down the street, towards the door of Sato's favorite eatery.

Part of him wondered if he looked as ridiculous as he felt on these excursions. Anyone who saw them would assume the pet fox was his, he was sure. To be fair, it certainly beat the sense of awkwardness, self-consciousness and general ridiculousness he'd felt on other occasions. He remembered one time, standing at the altar for a marrying couple for over thirty minutes whilst they got their act together. At that particular rich, and rather argument-prone, couple's wedding, all he could do was smile and assure the odd guest who cast him curious glances that he was sure the loving couple would be along any moment. Any moment now.

Ah, the duties of the priesthood. At times, it left you feeling ridiculous, but still, higher callings were like that. The Kami worked in mysterious ways. Not everyone would understand.

Still, self-conscious as he might be about taking Kyu out, he preferred not to leave the fox in the shrine unattended, especially during the day, when visitors might arrive. Taking Kyu with him on an errand or two, while initially something he dreaded, had proved to be surprisingly easy. Kyu had not even moved when Sato had clipped the leash on, and had not, in fact, gone nuts at any point during their brief walk towards a convenient lunch venue.

He'd always been skeptical that a fox would make a good pet, but so far, he had to admit that he'd been no trouble. Part of him wondered if that was suspicious, but the larger part of him wondered if this was merely a blessing. It did not reduce the faint sense of ridiculousness though, which he always got when walking the fox through downtown Tokyo. He felt, on some level, like he shouldn't be able to get away with this as easily as he did.

They passed two old ladies, sitting outdoors at a plastic table in front of one of the shops. He always made it a point to smile when people made eye contact with him. By himself, he could not reverse the declining levels of faith among Japanese youth since the turn of the millennium. Nor could he convince everyone he met to try attending a shrine at least once, to pay their respects. Still, it did no harm to seem friendly and approachable. The priests who modeled austerity and formality appealed more to the elderly. Still, you can't have a long-term sustainable shrine if all your visitors are elderly. Time moves on, after all. So, it behooves you to be polite to everyone. You never know when you will meet the next person who decides to visit your shrine, and make a donation to help keep it funded.

He really should, he thought, walk through here at some point in his priestly robes. He never wore them when stepping out, partly to avoid getting them dirty, and partly because people tended to consider priests less approachable, and that made it harder to strike up conversation.

Neither of ladies gave him, or Kyu, a second glance. Apparently they were too busy with their conversation, and their drinks. This suited him fine. Though he always tried to smile, he could not help feeling a little ridiculous, and he was glad to avoid introductions this one time. "Come on Kyu! Almost there! I don't think they want you bothering them" he chided, as Kyu slowed down a little to look at them, and sniff in the direction of their drinks.

As the pair approached the door, the cashier looked up. He was surprisingly young. No more than twenty, and perhaps much younger. Sato had always been curious about that. Though take-out sushi was common in Japan, it was not always easy to prepare, and as such, the staff of successful sushi places tended to be older. This cashier looked like the son of the owner, or at least, one of the other employees, being given his first introduction to the world of work by manning the front desk at the family business. It would have been rude to ask – it would imply that he only got the job due to being family – but it was something that Sato had always suspected, since he first saw the young man behind the counter all those visits ago.

It took Sato only a moment to order. He'd long-since given up attempting to order anything for Kyu, since the fox ate nothing he was provided with, and was apparently very well fed hunting by himself at night. He pondered that for a moment, while the cashier, in a higher-pitched voice, relayed his order to the kitchens.

Were there that many mice, or rats, in Tokyo? Probably. Every major city had them. Kyu looked too clean, though, for that to be his diet? Perhaps someone else fed him? That was the logical conclusion. That, or he had chased down the cleanest bunch of rats in Tokyo.

Kyu smiled up at him, ears perked, tail fluffy, and whiskers sticking out as always, highlighted black against the white of his undercoat. That fox could be so darn cute at times. He wondered, briefly, if he'd have been so keen to half-adopt a lost pet if they'd been a rat, or a snake. Though... a snake could be useful in keeping young vandals out of the shrine grounds. He smiled to himself at the thought. He'd never actually do that, of course, snakes were dangerous, but part of him did wonder what their faces would be like when they went to vandalize the shrine again, and encountered a snake. Still, wishful thinking. He could never let a dangerous animal into the shrine.

A ringing bell snapped him out of his daydreaming. It had only been a minute or two, he was sure, but his order was ready. Already? They must have already made up some of the common dishes, preparing for the lunchtime rush. He wondered, briefly, if he should ask. No... that would seem like an insult, a complaint that his lunch was not freshly made. In any case, he had ordered to go, which had made it seem like he was in a hurry. They were, to the best of their ability, likely trying to please him by giving him his order as quickly as possible. It would not do to be ungrateful.

"Still full, little guy? Don't you want any of this?" he asked, holding the plastic bag full of wrapped sushi cartons a little lower so that Kyu could sniff it. It took only a few seconds for Kyu to turn up his nose and back off from the bag. "Well, I wouldn't want your food either!" joked the under-dressed priest, as he paid, and quietly left the establishment.

The cashier watched him go, a sad, pitying look in those youthful eyes.

They passed the old ladies again on their back, though like before, they barely glanced at the man or his companion. Even when Kyu seemed to glare at them for a moment, when they first entered view, neither reacted to the little creature with the audacity to stare at them while they consumed alcohol in public at lunchtime.

It was a sad reflection, Sato mused, of contemporary culture that a fox was the only one giving them odd looks for doing so. In this city that never slept, a fox was the sensible one.

Still, he had his lunch, and it was time to head to the park to eat it. The gradual erosion of society, the fall in standards, would always be there, awaiting his efforts to maintain the traditional ways. For the moment, the more important battle was victory over his complaining stomach, and he knew just the bench on which he could achieve that victory.

It was a cool day. Some would say cold, but he had his jacket. The park, normally bustling at this hour, was almost deserted. That in itself ought to have been suspicious, but Sato wasn't paying a great deal of attention to his surroundings at the time. His main concern was delicious sushi, and exactly which order he would eat his favorite dishes in.

He settled down at his favorite bench, with a view overlooking some gently sloping parkland, and some trees which, in better weather, would have provided excellent cover from the high noon sun.

Kyu curled up on the bench next to him, seeming content to just lay there, or perhaps simply trying to keep warm. Nature's creatures had many blessings, but warm jackets were not one of them. Though, they did have warm coats, of a sort. He chuckled to himself.

Sato smiled, as he looked out over the mostly empty park, the almost-solitude of his lunch, his little escape, going some way to getting him relaxed and happy. When he first started bringing Kyu here, he thought someone would make a fuss. He was sure some parent would question his keeping this theoretically wild animal. He half-expected to be questioned by police on the matter, and have to explain he was merely looking after a creature left at his shrine. It seemed, however, that fortune was smiling upon him, for in all the times he had been out with Kyu, none had questioned it. Indeed, nobody seemed to give Kyu a second glance. It was as if he merely had a dog.

Truly, he thought, he was blessed.

The cashier of the sushi shop stepped out of the door, and onto the street. He was thankful that the lunch hour rush had died down considerably.

The old ladies, however, were still there, sitting at their solitary table, chatting away and occasionally taking their sips of flavored alcohol. Judging by their jeers of mocking laughter, however, and occasionally exaggerated expressions, he had some idea who they were making fun of.

He tried not to meet their eyes, but it was too late. They had already seen him.

"You there! What do you think?" the one on the right asked.

"About what?" was his curt reply. He appreciated all customers that came their way, but these ladies were not customers of his. They were sometimes loud, obnoxious, and if anything, discouraged people from stopping at establishments in their vicinity. He wished that the owners of a certain beverage shop got rid of that outdoor table they seemed to make their semi-permanent abode.

"The geezer. You know, the nutty one?" It was the lady on the left this time, who answered. He knew who they meant, and he could hear the scorn in their voice, but there was nothing for it. His family might only run a small sushi vendor, but they had plenty of experience with hard times. He might not have had a fancy education, or any high aspirations, but if there was one thing he did know, it was that even in his lowly position, it did not do to look down upon the less fortunate. That, and these ladies were fools for being publicly drunk before one in the afternoon.

"I think it is sad." His head bowed slightly, shaking it as if willing the truth not to be so. "The man is clearly not well. He talks to the air like a child with an 'invisible friend'. Truly, he must be mad. How he has the money to order sushi at all, I do not know. Maybe... he doesn't. Anyway, it is a very sad thing, to see a man so broken in mind. You should not scorn him for it. You should not mock him for his... condition. It is like mocking the disabled."

They jeered again at his unwelcome rebuke, then turned their attention back to each other. In short order, they were again doing exaggerated impressions of the man talking to thin air, competing with each other to see which could more thoroughly mock him. They still found the whole affair hilarious, and repeatedly turned the heads of passers-by with their bouts of laughter.

The cashier shook his head sadly as he re-entered the sushi shop, closing the door behind him.

Some people had no respect.

It was the next morning before Skye decided to visit Dr. Garner.

Truthfully, she had always dreaded finding herself in the man's office. His stare had a certain intensity to it, as if he saw right through you, and judged you, silently. Still, she was a SHIELD agent. She had heard he was in town, in Tokyo, assisting with the operation. This was her opportunity to speak to someone about her... problem.

At first, she had been reluctant. The first day, she had written it off. Too much staring at screens, she told herself, and not enough sleep.

The second day, it had been harder to write off. She had chalked it up to unusual stress and, again, lack of sleep.

It was the third day that had broken it for her, and convinced her to seek out a specialist. Doctor Andrew Garner, PHD. One of SHIELD's resident psychologists. Or, rather, professor of psychology who did contract work for SHIELD. Sometimes. When May or Coulson talked him into it.

She knocked on the door.

"Come in! Oh. Skye, was it? No, I am not busy. Please, sit down. Go ahead, make yourself comfortable. There is one of those fidget spinner things if you want it. I know, they may seem silly, but some people do swear they help."

She wasn't really listening to him. In her mind, she was already rehearsing what she was going to say. She knew that Dr. Garner had reviewed her before she was allowed to go into the field. She also knew that, this time, the session was voluntary. That made it slightly less intimidating. Slightly.

"Doctor, I think I have a problem. I have... a recurring nightmare."

She'd expected shock. Surprise. Something. Instead, all she got was the doctor's kind attention.

"Skye, this may surprise you, but, for all the training that SHIELD agents get, for all the preparation and the evaluation and the reporting. For all that... you're still only human. Humans sometimes need time to process what happens in the field. Sometimes, your brain does that when you're sleeping. You'd be shocked if I told you how many SHIELD agents have nightmares about something. Or how high a percentage of SHIELD agents have some form of chronic stress reaction."

She nodded. "I know. I know. I just felt... well, I felt like I needed to talk to someone about this. I can't really talk to my team. It is mostly men. Men aren't good at showing weakness – no offense intended. I also feel it would seem... weak to bring up nightmares in an official agent capacity. It seems like... a very pathetic excuse for perhaps... sleeping in a little, and being late to a briefing."

Doctor Garner leaned back in his chair. He was slowly mulling over what she had said, and, in the process, picking up a pen and paper pad that he kept on the side of his desk.

"Do you mind if I take notes?"

"I guess. I mean, it can't hurt, right?"

"No, it cannot."

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Shall I just uh, explain?" she asked.

"Only if you feel comfortable", he replied. The thing was, she did feel comfortable. This was a lot less confrontational. A lot less like an interrogation, than it had been when he had been reviewing her for field duty. Perhaps it was only natural that the exchange would be more relaxed now, now that, she assumed, she was already fit for field duty in his eyes. Or at least, her superiors thought so.

"It starts in a forest", she began slowly. "The first night, I had this dream. Only, it did not feel like a dream. It felt incredibly real. I felt things I've never felt before in a dream. I felt the cool breeze on my face. I felt it in my hair. I could see everything clearly. I could think clearly. It felt so real. Anyway, the dream was that I just... found myself in this clearing in the forest. I thought it was the forest outside Tokyo, where we found those bodies."

She paused for a moment, then she continued, more slowly.

"We never found out what killed them. But, in my dream, I am in this forest, walking around. It is night, like, 2 AM or something. The moon is high in the sky. Huge in the sky, really, like a giant silver disc. I kept thinking the forest in my dream is the forest outside of Tokyo, but it cannot be because there are no lights on the horizon, no sounds of the city. It is dead. It is perfectly still, so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I can hear my own breathing, but nothing else."

Doctor Garner interrupted. "Just how long would you say you were in that forest, helping your team deal with the dead SHIELD agents?"

She paused. "The best part of a day."

He took a breath, and wrote something on his pad, but it was tilted slightly towards him, so she could not read what it was. "Did you see their bodies personally?"

"I saw them in the morgue, after their heads were cut open", she stated, tersely.

"Very well", he replied, seeming like he was being careful not to touch a nerve. "Why don't you continue?"

She looked around, as if the titles of the books on his wall would help her out in this situation. It bought her a few seconds, but pretty soon, it was time to face the music.

"I have had this dream the last three nights. Every night, it starts the same. I find myself in this dead forest. This dead, silent forest under the moon at night. It is cold. At first, nothing happens. The first night I had the dream, I just walked around, gun at my side, trying to figure out where I was. Or, how I could get back. At a certain point..."

She seemed to shudder a little. Doctor Garner frowned, and jotted something else on his pad.

"At a certain point, I saw a fox cross my path. It walked out, right in front of me. I almost shot it! I mean, I was jumpy. Anyway, I saw it come out of the forest on my right, walk right in front of me, and disappear into the forest on my left. Right in the middle, it stopped for a moment, and looked right at me. As soon as I realized what it was, I put my gun down, y'know, I don't want to be shooting up little forest creatures. Anyway, it looked at me for a moment, then it turned, kept walking into the forest, and it was gone."

She looked around the room again. Doctor Garner was jotting things more quickly now, and not looking up from his pad. "Please, continue" he said.

She sighed. She felt so silly doing this. He she was, a trained SHIELD agent, trusted with a gun and the latest hacking equipment, in the field, complaining about nightmares. Still, perhaps the constant reminders of "it is OK to talk to someone" had finally got to her. Perhaps they had remade her, as they said they would, into a part of the SHIELD family that trusted and worked as a team. Her younger self would not have believed it possible.

Yet, she also had no desire to end up like May, or Coulson. They were older, yes. More experienced, to be sure. Great leaders, certainly. But those people trusted nobody, and she did not want to live like that. You had to trust someone, sooner or later. Nobody at SHIELD talked about it, but she was fairly sure that the paranoia of May, Coulson, and the like was deeply unhealthy.

So, she continued telling her story.

"That was the first night. It took some minutes of walking for me to encounter the fox. I wrote it off as a really strange dream. It happened again the next night. Yesterday morning. This time, I found myself in the forest again. It was exactly the same as before, except this time, as I walked, it only took a couple of minutes, before I came to a clearing. The ground was bare, like nothing grew here. The forest was still dead silent, and so cold. In the middle of the clearing, as if it was waiting for me, was the fox I saw last time. It was orange, with a white underbelly.

So, I thought this was super weird, but hey, its only a fox, I thought, so I walked up to it, since it was the only living thing I'd seen so far. Anyway, when I got really close to it... it smiled at me. It smiled at me like a human. Slow, and deliberate, like it had been waiting for me to do this. I was getting freaked out, so... I pointed my gun at it. And it vanished. Like, disappeared into thin air."

She was clasping her hands together now, more visibly anxious. Garner was still scribbling on his pad. He was, however, now glancing up every few seconds, probably noting her body language as well.

He did not have to prompt her this time.

"The last dream... was just this morning", she said after a moment. "This time, I did not start where I started before. As soon as I found myself there, I was in the clearing with the fox. Probably twenty feet away. Instantly, I drew my gun. I know it was just a dream, but, well, having my weapon made me feel, a bit more in control. Anyway, this is the part that freaked me out. I pointed my gun at the fox again. And like last time, it smiled. But... it kept smiling. It kept smiling until its smile reached almost to its ears... then it opened its mouth. It had a mouth that was impossibly wide, with more teeth than I'd ever seen. Like, more than a shark, rows and rows of vicious, meat-slicing teeth. Like some sort of industrial shredder or something. Within a second, before I could even move, it had crossed the distance, twenty feet in a second, from a standing start, and it was right in front of me. It looked directly into my eyes... and it said..."

She took several breaths before she finished.

"It said... 'That, little human... is the wrong answer'. Then there was a blur, and I woke up. Y'know those dreams where you die? And when something happens that kills you, you wake up instantly? It was like that. It was like... drawing the gun on it got me killed... by something out of a horror movie. It seems so dumb... but after waking up, I looked at the clock. It was 2 AM. When I had woken up before from these nightmares, it was also 2 AM. I'm having some variant of the same nightmare, every night, at the same time, and I have no idea what to do about it. I... don't want to complain, but I also... don't want to keep having these nightmares. Waking up every night at 2AM... really sucks."

Garner kept jotting things for a good twenty seconds after she stopped talking.

In the end, she had to clear her throat, not the most subtle move, to get him to put the pen down, and say something.

"Well, it sounds like you're having some anxiety about your field work. About encountering something in the field that killed a SHIELD team. You don't know what you're up against, but you know it has killed SHIELD agents, and so you're worried. I would be, too. Your subconscious is just processing that. It is showing you, visually, the thing that is bothering you. The fear for your own mortality in the event you have to fight the thing that killed those agents. This is actually fairly common. You see fallen agents, you worry it could happen to you. I've seen agents totally paralyzed by this fear. Everyone signs up thinking it will never happen to them, but one day, it hits them, that they're mortal too. That they can die, too. Every agent has to come to terms with that, to find their peace with it, in their own time. I suspect, Skye, that it is just your turn."

Skye squirmed, conflicted. It was true. She never envisioned herself dying in service to SHIELD. But, if whatever was out there could take out entire teams of agents, it WAS a possibility. One she had not been considering up to this point.

She could see how Garner could come to this conclusion. She did not have an easy way to refute it, either.

All she could do, was say what she felt.

"I've had nightmares before. This felt... far more real. It felt like I was actually there. Not just seeing images, but like I was there, thinking and acting just like it was real. I could feel the cold wind in my hair. I could hear the silence, if that makes any sense, and the snaps of the twigs as the fox stepped on them as it crossed my path. I felt... like I was actually there."

She said it, but it rang hollow. Dreams often felt real. She knew how weak it sounded.

Doctor Garner, however, put it more kindly.

"Skye, you're under a lot of stress. You're coming to terms with your mortality as an agent. You're doing it while inside a major operation, in a foreign country, working very long days, based out of an aircraft. You've left your home far behind. Some degree of stress response in this sort of situation is absolutely NORMAL. Don't be hard on yourself. If you have nightmares like this, remember, they're not real, they can't hurt you, and they're ultimately just your subconscious coming to terms with things. Don't beat yourself up over it. Don't worry about it. Try not to think about it at all if you can. It is just an automatic reaction, a part of the brain we don't really understand yet, like... hiccuping. Think of it like that, a mental hiccup. Not something to worry about or dwell on."

She took a long breath after that. Her lip curled in annoyance. What had she been thinking? Of course this was an over-reaction. Of course SHIELD agents were going to have nightmares based on the work they had to deal with every day.

Of course.

It all made so much sense.

She thanked him, and asked that he not mention this to anyone. He promptly assured her that he would not. He did have a duty of confidentiality, after all. She was stressed, but, thus far, it had not been affecting her work during the day. He did ask her to come back and see him again in a few days if the nightmares continued. That, however, she was skeptical that she'd actually do. Now she knew what to do, the solution was obvious. She left the office, and returned to her work.

That night, she had the dream again. She did not draw her gun this time. This time, she did not even move. The fox was across from her, normal-looking this time. No smile.

She tilted her head back. This was a gamble, but it was one she'd wanted to take. This was her way of asserting control over the situation. Over her own subconscious.

"This isn't real! I am LEAVING!", she shouted, with forceful defiance.

At first, nothing happened.

After a few seconds, the fox tilted its head to the side, as if it had just encountered a rubber mouse for the first time, and was struggling to understand this strange beast that was in front of it.

"As you wish", it stated simply.

Before she could reply, she was awake again. In her bed. On the bus. Far from the dark forest of her nightmares.

She smiled to herself. She had confronted her nightmare, and she had won.

The next night, she would not see it again.

Soon, she would consider herself cured of her embarrassing, but temporary, condition.

Where once there had been two in the forest, now, there was only one.

The small fox stood alone, tail flicking idly, in obvious annoyance.

For a second, the entire mindscape seemed to blur, then two enormous red eyes, each bigger than a human, appeared in the forest on the edge of the clearing. They burned as if they were on fire, and their gaze soon focused upon the small fox. Behind them, there was only blackness.

"That... did not go well", rumbled the low voice of Kurama.

"No, it did not", replied the slightly bitter, annoyed voice of Kyu, as his tail swiped through the air.