My lovely, patient readers! Your response to the last chapter BLEW MY MIND. You're awesome.

Sadly, I myself are not nearly as awesome and I apologize profusely for the massive delay for this update but there actually were reasons - mainly that I've gotten really, really sick for almost a whole week, spending a lot of time in bed (Easter holidays were ... not so cool). So, writing was kind of close to last on my list.

Also, I'm apparently really shitty at estimating how much content will fit into one chapter. Because, I so did not manage to wrap this arc up in this chap. Which means that, yes, this arc still has another one to go. Sorry?

A great many thanks to my beta NightsBlackRose13 for listening to my rants and assuring me that the following was not complete garbage.

Chapter 10: Fallout Child

"Uchiha officer, dead. The entire left side of his body looks like it was blasted off, probably due to direct contact with the same strange kind of explosives that we found over at the Police Force buildings. Major physical trauma on the rest of his body, too."

There's another person, crouching on the other side of Otou-san. I don't know how long they´ve been here, if they've been here the whole time, if they're enemy or ally, but none of that matters. All I can see is the razor-sharp picture of Otou-san, every single detail of his torn, burnt and gory body branded into my memory with the merciless iron of devastation.

By now I have understood what this and the lack of a flame means. But it's a sterile kind of understanding, abstract and too far away to fully grasp. It leaves me hanging in nothingness, held up by transparent threads of uncertainty and condemns me to stay, unable to move neither forth nor back.

"There's a child beside him, conscious, but clearly in shock. I tried talking to her, but she doesn't respond."

I press Obito, who has exhausted himself with crying and has now proceeded to soft whimpers, closer into my chest, grasping for the reassurance his presence usually provides me with. It doesn't work.

"Seems uninjured, although there's a lot of blood on her clothes and skin, maybe from the officer. I'm going to – shit, is that a real baby?"

Even when I close my eyes I can still see Otou-san clearly at the back of my lids, although the general sharpness in my vision has fizzled out some time ago. I know with certainty already that this picture will haunt me until I die.

"Correction – two children at the corpse's side, one an infant, the other a toddler. I'm going to take them to the hospital. Send the clean-up team over for the corpse. Over."

A big, pale hand appears over Otou-san's eyes and gently pushes them shut. It disturbs the sense of eternal standstill that has descended upon me and I abruptly look up. The first thing that my brain registers are serious grey eyes – not unkind, though – quickly followed by the shock of distinct silver hair on top of the head.

Gravity-defying, I think. An afterthought appears along with this description, thought so often and already harmonized so well that it comes as naturally as breathing.

Kakashi.

And without his mask, too. Somehow, though, I can't muster the energy to get excited over this.

He's looking straight back at me.

"Hey" he says cautiously. "Can you hear me?"

I want to affirm, but my throat is having difficulties letting any sounds past it and after opening and closing my mouth twice without getting a word out, I resort to a mute nod.

His expression softens considerably at that. He lifts a hand and runs his fingers through his hair and I can make out specks of blood on his fingerless gloves. I want to prevent him from touching his hair, tell him that he'll get the blood in there, but just as before, my tongue doesn't move.

"I'm sorry I have to ask you this" he murmurs. "But do you know who this person is?" He points at otou-san.

I nod again. And this time when I try to give a verbal answer it actually works.

"Otou-san" I whisper.

The way his face falls is almost funny. The expression flickers over only briefly, but it's more than enough for me since his quickly recomposed face isn't hiding it very well anyway. His voice sounds hoarse as he proceeds to talk.

"Did you see what happened to him?"

I shake my head and he exhales audibly.

"Is this your little sibling in your arms?"

"My brother Obito" I answer much faster than before. Speaking about Obito comes easy to me, and with that, my trust in my ability to express myself grows. I can feel myself getting the tiniest bit more confident as I consider the next step. Introducing myself. Which is easy, too. I can do that. "My name is Etsuko."

"Hello, Etsuko-chan. My name is Sakumo, Hatake Sakumo." He's smiling tentatively.

Oh.

Sakumo. Not Kakashi. But close enough.

Explains the missing mask. And now that I think of it, the wrong age, too. Kakashi was a few months younger than Obito in the manga. He should be a newborn right now, not a grown man.

"I'd like to bring you to the hospital now. Will you allow me to carry you?"

The hospital? But I'm not injured. And I have to find Okaa-chan. So I tell him that.

He thinks shortly. "I still think the doctors should have a look at you. I promise you that they'll look well after you and your little brother."

I hesitate.

I want to see her so badly.

Sakumo senses my reluctance. "How about this: You tell me your mother's name and I ask my friends to look for her while we go to the hospital. I'll come and inform you as soon as they find her. Does that sound good?"

"What if they don't?" I ask with a very small voice. What if a name isn't enough because she couldn't answer even if she was called?

"My friends are very good" he gently replies. "They're all jounin. Do you know what a jounin is?"

I nod.

Sakumo smiles warmly. "Then you know that you can trust them. Because we Konoha people stick together, right?"

He sounds sensible. Nice. Solid. It's something I can latch on to, something that's not threatening to float away at any given time. So I give in.

"Her name is Kiyomi. Uchiha Kiyomi."

"Okay" he says and moves his hand to a pouch at his hips. He retrieves a black, clunky device with a thick antenna and starts speaking into it.

"Hatake here. Please look out for one Uchiha Kiyomi. She's the mother of the two children I found. Over."

"Understood" comes a voice that's heavily distorted by static.

He puts that medieval bit of technology away and comes over to me from the other side of Otou-san. He crouches down again and extends a hand. "May I?"

I nod and let myself be lifted into the air.

My head is at his shoulder and one of my arms looped around his neck while the other holds Obito. It feels familiar, so much like being carried by Otou-san that, when I close my eyes, I can almost imagine it.

Sakumo smells different, though, like sweat, dogs and sandalwood. It's oddly comforting.

Together with the steady rhythm of his run it lulls my exhausted body into a deep sleep.

)()()(

Shrill screeches pierce the air, the sound waves amplifying themselves until they're more than pointed spearheads, developing into broad hammers that come down on and crush my eardrums. I can feel blood leaking out of my ears and the world is spinning in blurry shades of crimson and white.

DIE! DIE! DIE!

There's a kunai in my hand and without further thoughts, I stab everything in my immediate vicinity just to get the screeching to stop, but I can't pinpoint the source because it comes from everywhere. My arm gets heavy with the repeated motion, but I carry on, hitting something solid every single time, even if I can't see anything.

The wet thud of metal ripping through flesh accompanies the gradual appearance of a body, roughly outlined with strokes that emerge like it's painted by a thick brush. It crumbles to the ground under my assaults and I kneel down with it, renewing the vigor of my stabbing because the screeching still won't stop.

DIE! DIE! DIE!

The body rears up, convulsing in its effort to cling to life and the head is thrown right into the focus of my vision. I zero in on the face and rage sweeps through me because it's them, with their cold grey eyes and the black mask, their long dark hair falling into their face, and I hack at them like I'm possessed by a demon.

My throat is raw and burning by the time the body finally goes still, and when my lips stop moving long after the animalistic sounds have ceased to escape my lips, I realize that it has been me. All the screeching, the continuous mantra of diediedie, it's truly been me all along.

But now there's blessed silence and a bleeding body before me and my hand reaches out to take off the cloth on its lower face. I pull the fabric down, push the hair out of the way and get a good look.

Directly into Otou-san's deathly pale face.

Oh god.

No.

That's not right.

I didn't kill Otou-san. I killed them, because they were threatening Obito and me and this is not fair because Otou-san has opened his eyes now, so accusing and madly black, and his mouth, too, with blood running down his chin and a death rattle rushing out and I screamscreamscream –

I'm upright in a bed, chest heaving, ears still ringing from my screams and my chakra is buzzing through my body like the distressed inhabitants of a bee-hive. There's an insistent pounding behind my eyes, the pressure so strong that with every beat they feel close to bursting. I almost choke on some hastily gulped down air and have to force it past my throat which feels like it's made of sandpaper. Nausea makes me want to vomit and I struggle to get out of the bed, instinctively trying to avoid dirtying the sheets.

My surroundings have a strange kind of sharpness to them, making the focus of my vision as clear as if I was looking through a magnifying glass. A sink at the corner of the room catches my eye and I head for it on wobbly knees. I grip the edge of the basin as tight as possible when I arrive and I'm finally able to let loose.

For a while, the sound of retching fills the air.

I dry heave for a bit even after the contents of my stomach have left and my arms are shaking. I have to consciously bend back every single digit of my hands to release my death grip on the china and get some water running to rinse my mouth. When I finally manage to lift my head, I find myself staring into a mirror mounted on the wall.

I blink, startled.

There's a girl that I don't recognize.

She's sickly pale, her childish face much too haggard to fit her age and there're heavy bags underneath her eyes.

Which are crimson.

With one tomoe lazily spinning in each pupil.

Slowly, ever so slowly I bring my face closer to the glass and the girl in the mirror does exactly the same, until my breath starts fogging it up, covering her face with a layer of fine white film. She disappears almost completely, leaving only those sharp eyes and a budding realization that feels almost too big for me to grasp.

I have awakened my kekkei genkai. I have unlocked the ultimate weapon of my clan. I'm in possession of the most infamous and coveted doujutsu in the whole of the shinobi world.

I have Sharingan eyes.

But at what price?

The mist on the mirror has vanished again and I watch as the girl in the mirror lifts her left hand, covered in bandages that reach up to the short sleeves of her hospital gown, and brings her index and middle finger close to those precious eyes, the tips hovering just short of poking the organs.

Would it change anything if I gouged them out? Could I go back to how it was before if I denied that the results ever existed?

Because I don't want them. Not like this. Not ever, if these are the conditions.

My fingertips feel icy cold when I close my eyes and bring them down on my right lid. I try to recall if there're any pain receptors on eyeballs, try to calculate how deep my fingers will have to go to properly sever the optic nerve and I feel oddly calm thinking about these things. Even my chakra has quieted down now, and my eyes have stopped throbbing.

I'm pretty sure that it's going to hurt but not even that can faze me. I'm ready for the pain if it will make things go back to the way they were before. And right now, I'm holding on to this thought, wanting to believe it so desperately, that in my mind it becomes solid truth: I will get Otou-san back when I make the Sharingan disappear. Return the bought article and get the price you paid back. It's simple as that.

I tentatively increase the pressure on my eyelid and let a few heartbeats pass before I finally open my eyes and position my fingers over the hollow in which my eyeball rests. Dimly, I note that they have turned black again, but that changes nothing.

Or at least I'd like to believe that. My breathing is speeding up, though, and my hand is trembling.

Calm down. If Shisui can do it without a flinch you can do it, too, even if you end up screaming.

So I press down.

Down.

Down.

There's a startled shout and my hand is abruptly being ripped away from my eye. Hands grip my shoulder and spin me around and suddenly, I'm looking at Sakumo's face.

He looks upset.

"What are you doing?" he demands.

"Getting a purchase refund" I mumble.

"What?" he asks, confusion thick in his voice.

I look down to my feet and consider telling him what I was about to do, but something prevents me from actually doing so. It takes a moment for me to figure out why, until I realize that it's because I feel relieved.

I am relieved that he stopped me from gouging my eyes out.

Does that mean that I didn't really want to do it?

"Etsuko?"

Even if it held the possibility of returning Otou-san to me?

"Etsuko!"

How much pain does it need to eliminate selfishness?

"Sakumo-kun, let me talk to her."

Suddenly, there's a hand under my chin and I'm looking up again. But this time, I don't meet Sakumo's gaze. Instead, dark brown eyes in a tan face are looking at me and something within me tells me that I should know this person.

"Calm down" a deep, gravelly voice commands and the gravity in it instantly pulls me back from wherever my mind has wandered off to. My eyes focus and finally, there's a click somewhere in my head and recognition floods in.

"Hokage-sama" I say, my voice coming out shaky and breathless.

It's unmistakably him, even though he looks much younger than I'm used to. But what is the Sandaime doing here?

"Are you back with us?" he asks, firmly but not unkind.

I nod mutely.

"Good" he says simply. He points at the bed from which I have woken a few minutes – or was it hours? I don't know – before. "Please take a seat, Etsuko-chan."

I comply with a weary nod. The air seems kind of sedate now that I'm not on the verge of poking my eyes out. Sakumo is watching me with a worried expression. He's surprisingly open and easy to read and right now, it helps me getting back my sense of reality.

When I'm finally seated on the sheets of the bed, I notice for the first time that I'm in a hospital room. I vaguely remember Sakumo asking me to let him bring me here and myself only agreeing after he'd promised me he would look for Okaa-chan.

Okaa-chan.

He and his friends were going to look for her, but now he's back and she's not here, and instead there's the Hokage and ohmygod, where is Obito?

Suddenly my energy is back and my spine shoots up straight. My eyes are darting wildly through the room as I search for my baby brother but there's nothing but an empty second bed and I feel sick because I can't take the thought of losing him after what … what happened to Otou-san and oh god, what am I going to tell Okaa-chan? I promised her that I'd protect him and now he's missing and I –

"Obito" I press out between rapid breaths. "Where is Obito?" I'm about to jump out of the bed again but the Sandaime intercepts me and puts his hands on my shoulder. His gaze bores into mine, pinning me to place without a word,

"Sakumo, bring the boy" he says, his eyes never leaving me.

My eyes follow the silver haired man when he walks over to the second bed and takes a small white bundle with black hair that I somehow missed into his arms. He comes back and I impatiently stretch out my own, the need to hold Obito too strong to bear. He's gently handed over to me and I press him tightly to my chest, never ever wanting to let go of him again. I litter his cheeks and forehead with kisses until his eyes fly open and I'm not sorry because if he's able to do that it means he's alive and well and that's all that counts.

He lets out a small protesting whine, but I can't help but smile and press him even tighter against me.

"Etsuko-chan."

"Yes?" I answer, voice still hoarse with relief, as I look up into the face of the Sandaime. Upon seeing his expression, though, my smile freezes over.

He's looking at us with grief barely hidden in his eyes and I know that something is so very wrong.

No. Please not again.

"Etsuko-chan, I know Sakumo-kun promised you that he and his friends would look for your mother." He takes a breath. "And they found her."

"Where is she?" I immediately ask, denial already beginning to strengthen my voice and adding something shrill around its edges.

"Your mother was an admirable and brave woman. She saved a lot of people's lives last night"

Oh god.

"I'm so sorry, Etsuko-chan. She died as a protector of Konoha."

)()()(

Dead silence descends and with it – darkness.

This is not fair. This is not fair.

I had gone back to save them.

I was there, Otou-san was right with me and we were going to look for Okaa-chan who surely had been waiting for us already. We would've gone home together after we found her and they would've berated me for not following Chieko and I would've listened guiltily.

It should've been like that.

It should have, but it didn't.

Why did it not work? Why did my presence change nothing? Why didn't anything I'd done have any effect at all?

This is not fair.

Okaa-chan, Otou-san and I had been in the middle of sorting our problems out.

Just last afternoon, I had finally been about to tell them about my dreams. They had still been waiting for me to agree to enroll in the academy. I know they'd had other plans for me, too, even if they hadn't told me, yet.

And Obito. There must've been tons of Obito-related plans.

They didn't get a chance to finish the things that they wanted to do, were in the middle of doing.

This is not fair.

This is not fair.

And it hurts. So badly.

I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of shards, the cold glass cutting every inch of skin and working its way into my body, slashing me up from the inside. There're edges everywhere, razor-sharp and paper-thin, slicing down my throat, choking me, and proceeding further down, down, into my chest. Searing pain erupts in waves as they tear at my heart, digging into the flesh to make place for a sphere of swirling black agony that leaves me open and empty like a gutted fish.

It hurts so much.

It's a miracle that I can still feel it through all this pain when a warm hand is placed on the back of my head and my face is softly pressed into white fabric.

"It's okay for you to cry, Etsuko-chan" the Hokage tells me and I remember that I'm still here, in the hospital room, and that I still have Obito in my arms. The pain doesn't go away, but tightly clutching my little brother helps me purge my body from the shards in my throat and I draw in a shuddering breath. Again. And again.

I'm sobbing.

My whole body shakes violently with every sob. The Sandaime pats my hair and when the first tears soak into his robe, Obito starts wailing, too.

The Sandaime murmurs soft nothings as we both cry into the beginning of a new day.

)()()(

The sun is shining brightly into the hospital room by the time he leaves and I fall asleep, Obito still beside me, but the place I'm in right now is dark, dank and decidedly unfamiliar. There're long rows of steel-enforced vaults on either side of me, set into alcoves and connected by cold, black stone. It's eerily silent.

I'm acutely aware that I'm dreaming. But … it feels different somehow.

Before I can even decide to find out about this strange environment, I hear voices behind me, accompanied by erratically flashing lights that make my shadow waver and bend into surreality.

I turn around.

Slowly.

"It's all because of you" they spit out, and with every word, they come closer. "Because of you I was detected. Because you didn't want to die we had to fight. Because of you WE FAILED OUR MISSION!"

Oh no. Not again. Not this.

I watch as the enemy nin advances, his body flickering and buzzing like an unstable black-and-white holograph, coming nearer and nearer until he comes to a halt in front of a tiny figure.

"Because of you, my comrades died and I will have to kill myself because there's no chance to get out of here alive. But I will take you with me. I will end your miserable life here and now, just as I've ended the lives of your pathetic protector."

Again, they raise their bloody katana, and the figure before him makes a minuscule movement.

The scene bursts into colors and in that moment, I realize two things.

1. That tiny figure is me.

2. I'm watching myself kill a human being.

Nausea creeps up my throat, the amount of acid burning at the back of my mouth proportionate to the number of stabbing motions my alter ego is performing on the enemy. There's a lot of blood and when a particularly vicious blow rips their stomach open and things start to spill out, I can't take it anymore.

I bend over and vomit on the black stone floor.

I did this? I killed them?

No, not a simple kill – that was practically slaughter!

My body is violently shaking again and when I bring my hands into my field of vision they're stained with blood, the red liquid dripping from my fingertips and splashing with a deafening noise on the ground. I look down at my clothes and see that these, too, are drenched in blood.

No.

This isn't me. I don't kill people.

I'm a simple university student, living a simple university student life. I've just received my artist's diploma and am now looking forward to four semesters of business studies in a master program I had worked hard for to be accepted into.

I stumble a few steps back and look up, just in time to see the little black haired girl ruthlessly slash the throat of her victim. The sound of ripping skin and flesh reverberates loudly in the air and her hand falls limply back to her side, the kunai in her hand dripping with blood.

There is so much of it. Everywhere.

And then she turns around.

Burning crimson eyes pin me into place and there's no little girl anymore. All I can see is a monster.

And I scream.

I scream as I scramble to run away from her, running and running, breathing already labored because oh god I forgot how out of shape I am, through the space between the vaults and when I'm about to pass the first one, there's the metallic screeching of an opening door. I don't pay it any heed, though, and keep running until –

"Liz!"

I stop dead in my tracks.

I know that voice.

"Mom?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper.

I turn around.

A figure steps out from behind the now opened door of the first vault and I freeze.

Long dark hair bound in a ponytail – pale skin – onyx eyes – a metal plate glinting on her forehead –

Nonono, this is wrong, Mom didn't wear something like that –

A pale green flak jacket – weapon pouch at her thigh – red-white fan on her dark shirt –

"Liz?"

"NO!" I scream. I walk backwards, willing my legs to move faster, but they're so heavy, I wish I had exercised more –

"Liz, please don't run!"

I bolt.

My run is more of a mad stumble now, but as long as it takes me away from whatever it is that crawled out of that vault I'm going with it. But only a few feet further and I can hear the next vault door opening, long before I'm even near. And again, a figure comes out.

This is not funny. If this is a dream, I want to wake up. NOW.

The person's build is familiar and when they turn around enough that I can see the complete right side, relief floods through me. It revitalizes the muscles in my leg and I'm able to run again. I stretch out my arms as a sob escapes my lips and I fly through the air to close the distance as fast as possible and finally, when I reach him, I embrace him in a fierce hug.

"Thank god, Dad, you're here! I thought I was all alone with that monster that killed a person right before my eyes and then that thing that spoke with Mom's voice came and it all got even worse, but now we're together, we can get out of here and go home!"

Dad doesn't answer and it's only when I squeeze him tighter that I realize that something is wrong.

My arms shouldn't be long enough to wind around his body that easily.

Drip.

Something is soaking into the material of my sleeves. They make a wet squelching sound when I loosen my hold.

Drip.

Dad falls when I take my arms off him, crumpling into a heap on the ground. His legs are bent in a grotesque angle and his torso falls on its back with a loud thud.

A torso that's missing its complete left side.

Oh my god.

The sound that I want to make is stuck in my throat. My body won't obey my orders and when I try to take a step back, my weight shifts without my legs moving and I fall on my butt. I don't even notice the sting.

This is not real.

A shrill laugh echoes through the place and I gasp for air when the next bout is about to come out. Because I figured it out. I figured it out.

This is not real.

"This is not real" I pant between laughter. "This is not real."

I repeat it, each time louder than the last until I'm yelling and my vocal chords burn with the strain. I don't stop, because I'm sure it will all disappear when I scream it loudly and often enough, so I continue, with eyes clamped tightly shut and lungs near bursting.

Until the shock of a hand slapping my face silences me.

"Get a grip on yourself" a childish voice commands.

My eyes fly open at that sound and at the same moment, I see that my deepest fear has become true. It's the monster girl from before, standing directly in front of me and probably ready to kill me. Her crimson eyes have turned black now and bizarrely, she almost looks like a normal little girl, but I'm not fooled. I'm not going to fall for that.

I scramble to get up on my feet again, but I don't make it particularly far when she lifts her hand and slaps me. Again.

"I'm not going to kill you. Now calm down. We need to talk."

What.

My mouth is hanging wide open, my eyes as wide as saucers and they widen even further when she rolls her eyes at me and lets out an impatient huff.

That's … uncannily expressive for a monster.

"You're … not going to kill me?" I manage to wheeze.

She draws her eyebrows together in confusion. "Why would I?"

I stare blankly at her. "Umm … maybe because you just viciously murdered that person over there?" I suggest, gesturing weakly at some vague point behind me.

Now it's her turn to stare at me, albeit more incredulous than anything else. "Are you serious? Don't you know who you're talking to?"

I blink. "No?"

This is surreal. Did I manage to break out after all? Only to get somewhere even worse?

"She doesn't know" the girl mumbles, exasperated. "She's talking to herself and she doesn't even know."

Wait. What.

She waves a hand at me which, rather morbidly, is still stained with blood. "E-tsu-ko" she says, very slowly, as if she's talking to a retarded child. "Me is Etsuko. Me is you."

What. What. What.

"I – I'm not you!" I yell. "I'm Elizabeth!"

When the last words leave my mouth, something strange happens. There's a ripple in the air and suddenly, a weight settles down in my gut. I can't shake the feeling of foreboding that starts climbing up my spine.

It's not lessened at all when the girl's face becomes serious, too.

"So it came to that, huh?" she says quietly. "You couldn't deal with me – us – killing that enemy nin, so you retreated completely to your old you, didn't you?"

What – what is she even talking about?

"I guess that's not too surprising, considering we have a tendency to separate ourselves from the things that we don't want to deal with and prefer to shove them into dark, isolated places. Like, here, for example."

She sighs.

"But you know that we can't go on like this, don't you? In fact, we mustn't go farther than this. Having to talk to my separated self about my mental state defines 'disturbing' on a whole new level."

I make a strangled, squeaking noise.

She nods approvingly, like I've made some meaningful contribution to this whole bizarre exchange.

"I know, right? I've already thought about this situation and truth be told, I was afraid at first that we've gone multiple. You know, as in multiple personality disorder? But then I remembered that people who are multiple aren't supposed to be able to communicate with their different personalities, or at least not until they've undergone extensive therapy. And since we are talking with each other so early on, I simply took an educated guess that we're not."

Oh my god. This is worse than talking to that official from the Bureau for soul transfer affairs. If this is really me over there – and I'm still in vehement denial – I must come across as terribly insensitive. Like, a terrible jerk. No consideration for the feelings of my counterpart at all.

"Listen, I don't know how much time we have here, but I'd like to solve this before we have to go back and appear like a sane person to everyone else. It would be really helpful if you could open your mouth and talk, 'cause, even if you're technically me, we're still separated right now, so there obviously must be something that sets us apart. I figure that I got the more analytical and rational part of us, whereas you incorporate the … well, the rest. So, anything to add to that?"

Can it be true?

Despite everything, I find myself slowly opening up. There's a sense of familiarity in the way she talks, the way she gestures and grimaces that feels like looking into a mirror. A really, really weird mirror with a twisted sense of humor, but still. It gives me enough courage to play this strange game.

I try a simple question first. "How do you know all this?"

She immediately brightens up like a kid on Christmas day and I get the feeling that I won't get a simple answer.

"Glad you asked! First of all, you gotta know that I've mainly been the one to handle the reincarnation business up until now. You know, the whole planning and plotting stuff? Plays right into my field of expertise. That's why it's mainly me who's identifying as Etsuko now."

Suddenly, she leans closer to me and before I know what's happening, she's poking my forehead.

"You, on the other hand, have been pretty passive for quite a long time. Not entirely inactive, since we do seem to have a thing for regular bouts of self-loathing, but not really working your ass off, either. At least, that was until recently. I have no idea what made you go all gung-ho, but the dreams are definitely several touches of too much.

"So, how do I know all this? I didn't, until you dragged us down here and I saw that we were like this. And with this I mean that I look like Etsuko-us whereas you look like Elizabeth-us. Since that's two facets of the same soul, I assumed that we're not really two entities, either. Add to that that I don't feel much different than normal but you practically are a blubbering mess about things that we factually did out there, and you come to the conclusion that we're representing the 'analytical part' and the 'not-so-analytical-rest'.

"That's the farthest I've come until now with an explanation in the short time we've been here together, and it would be really nice if we could figure out the rest in cooperation since you obviously have a part in this."

I'm speechless.

Not because of the messy and frankly awful explanation that was given to me. Not because of the craziness of the things that I managed to understand, either.

I'm speechless because from deep inside me, something tells me that this is the truth.

And god help me if that doesn't already sound trashy as hell.

"OK, so I have a plan for how we're gonna do this. You tell me what you remember best from either life and what's most important to you and we can go on from there. Sound good?"

I stare at her. Really hard. "Is that gonna get us out of here?"

She stares back. "Probably."

This might be the best I'm going to get. I grimace at that thought, but really, what can I do? I'll just have to bite the bullet and see what comes after, I guess.

"OK, so … break a leg, maybe?"

Her answering grin is almost feral.

"You better bet on that."

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