A/N: This is a special treat, both for me and for all of you. See, after Reizo's aside mention in chapter 17 of the fact that he had to go to therapy to deal with his memories from his life as Lelouch, I had the idea to expand upon that in this story. But I'm certainly not a therapist and have thankfully never had to see one myself.
Most of you reading this have probably read a certain popular story in the ARC-V fandom, Donjusticia's "Signs of Renewal". If you have, then you would know that he has an OC in there that is a psychologist and for that reason, my muses were convinced that Daichi would be perfect for this role. I asked Donjusticia if he would, perhaps, be interested in assisting me with this idea.
He proceeded to write the entire thing in two days.
The only work I did on this chapter was edit some of the internal monologue to fit the backstory for "Rebirth" and fill in some details Donjusticia wouldn't know since he hasn't seen Code Geass.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Donjusticia.
Milk and Money
Akaba Himika nervously paced the room of what was formerly her husband's office, before he abandoned her and the rest of their family not even a year ago. Normally, in public, she maintained the image of a cool, calm, collected, and calculating corporate titan, capable of achieving victory in any capitalist conquest she put her mind to. However, during her private moments, when neither the press nor her employees were watching her, she couldn't stop thinking about the conversations she had begun having with her husband before he left her.
"You are not real."
He had said that to her face. Her face. His wife. The very person who had fallen in love with him, stayed by him, married him, bore his sons, supported him, and given everything to him. But all of that, all her love and sacrifice, all of that evaporated away once a strange man had shown up in the middle of the night, claiming that Leo owed him something more important than life itself. Leo had sent the man away immediately, not knowing at all what he was talking about. It had worried Himika, since her husband very well could have known the man—one of the first things she'd learned about him when they first met nearly nine years ago had been that he suffered from major amnesia—but a month passed and absolutely nothing had happened.
Then, he started having those… visions. They kept him up at night, as he clawed at the metal plating that held the left side of his skull together until his fingers bled. Naturally, after this happened three nights in a row, she'd driven him to the hospital, gotten him medicine to stop him from nearly killing himself in his sleep.
It only got worse. He raved almost endlessly about some strange original universe, his real wife, who was supposed to have died during childbirth, and his daughter! What daughter? Reiji and Reizo were his only children, both sons, not daughters. And she was very much alive after giving birth to them both!
Yes… that was what had started it. That was what had begun his descent into madness. That's what had driven him to break her heart and treat her as if she was nothing more than one of his Real Solid Vision holographic projections.
And now… now their youngest son, Reizo, was having those same visions.
What might have caused regular mothers to coo with delight upon learning that their precious little angels had such a creative imagination, stirred absolute horror in her. Reizo sounded just like Leo, going on and on about people she knew couldn't be real—C.C., Zero, Suzaku, Kallen—or he would call Reiji by a name that wasn't his and claim he didn't remember what he said, or he would cover his eyes like they were in pain and spout nonsense about some weird ge—gea—goose?—thing in an eerily similar fashion that her husband did. But what made it even worse was the fact that more often than not his delusions would take over and he would insist that all the strange people and events he talked about were real, and that he was from that other world.
The absolute worst of those times, he wouldn't recognize her or Reiji at all, demanding to know where someone named "Nunnally" was. His younger sister, he claimed.
She could not bear the thought of losing another member of her family to some strange delusion, but she had restrained herself from taking drastic action, telling herself that if she merely encouraged Reizo to be practical and not focus on his fantasies, then he would not end up like Leo. He was still just a little child and she could ignore it. But then, only a few months later, something happened that broke the camel's back.
She'd been sorting through emails and computer files in Leo's office—my office, she reminded herself, it's my office until Reiji is old enough to take over—when she'd stumbled upon a buried file named "Revival Zero", which contained images of two different children, a boy and a girl, labeled "Z-ARC_001 Yuri" and "RAY-A_001 Selena", respectively. That would be suspicious enough in and of itself—Ray was the name Leo had called his "daughter" by—but not enough to change her mind on Leo and Reizo only seeing delusions.
No. It was because, written in the top right corner of both images, were the words "-dimension- Fusion".
Dimension. That word, that wretched word that tore her family apart.
She should have just left it at that. But she didn't, she was vindicated to get to the bottom of her husband's delusions, and discovered fragments of a journal embedded in the system. The most important parts were unintelligible, having been deleted, but it included pictures, several of a strange castle on an island—Academia. Along with names of students and faculty… with Leo at the top of the staff. This was where Leo had gone, and yet… it was a place that didn't exist anywhere, its students and staffs' names didn't appear in any database, but there were pictures and hard evidence right here in front of her.
They were real. The other dimensions… they existed!
Himika had been struck with a new terror then. A terror that came from the thought that her husband, perhaps, had not been mad. What if she wasn't real? What if she really was just a shadow? A cheap illusion who only thought she existed?
But she could not accept that! It was not possible! She was real! She knew this! She thought, she felt, she was real! Reiji was real! Reizo was real! Their family was real!
And yes… even he… even Leo… especially Leo… the very person who had betrayed her and their family… he was very real, and every other person, place, and thing in every dimension was too. Even so, she would not—could not—let Reizo sink into the same destructive pattern of thinking that Leo had sunk into. Till she drew her very last breath, till every last ounce of her energy was exhausted, she would save him, she would cure him! She would do everything for him she had failed to do for her husband when he had left her to pursue his insane goals in the Fusion Dimension.
Perhaps it was ironic then, that the very person she now turned to in order to save Reizo from himself, hailed from the very same dimension Leo had run off to. But as Reizo's episodes only grew worse, no other psychiatrist or medications had been able to help. This man from Academia was her last hope.
There was a knock at the door.
Straightening her somewhat frazzled hair and composing herself as quickly as she could, Himika sat at her desk, assuming a business-like pose before commanding, "Enter."
Opening the door, one of her most trusted employees, Nakajima, entered her office, the light of the room reflecting off his thick sunglasses.
"Someone to see you, Miss Akaba," Nakajima stated, maintaining a composed and professional expression on his face as he addressed his employer. "A Dr. Ishikuma Daichi, if I'm not mistaken."
"Send him in," Himika replied, struggling to reign in her anxiety and maintain a professional tone of voice.
Bowing his head, Nakajima exited the room, opening the door to admit a new person.
Against the brightness of Himika's office, the man named Dr. Ishikuma Daichi looked like a shadowy blot of ink. Daichi was a fairly young man, who looked to be in his early twenties, with tanned Asian skin, a smooth face, short black hair, thick horned-rimmed glasses over a set of thin-squinted intelligent blue eyes, and a small smooth nose. His clothing consisted of a large dark-black trench coat with small white notepads winking out of the pockets, a professional black tie, shiny black gloves, black boots, and a smooth black bowler hat. Briskly strolling towards Himika with a bright smile on his face, Daichi bowed slightly to her before offering her his hand, which gave off a shiny glare from the sheen of his black gloves.
"Miss Akaba…" Daichi enthused, "…truly it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Himika nervously took Daichi's hand, noticing the shiny black shield-shaped Duel Disk resting on his left arm before looking into Daichi's blue eyes, which seemed to pierce right through his glasses and stare right into her soul with their gaze. Admittedly, she was disconcerted by the appearance of the man, but if what she had heard was true, he was just the person she needed to help Reizo with his… problem.
"You claim you have the ability to alter memories?" Himika asked, deciding to get right down to business.
Daichi smiled at this before bowing his head apologetically.
"Much of what you ask is largely theoretical," he explained. "The human mind is far more complex than your average computer. It is not as simple as deleting a few memory files and installing a new flash-drive into the computer's software."
"But it can be done, correct?" Himika interrogated, hoping Daichi was not going to end up being a waste of time.
Daichi nodded his head, keeping his intelligent eyes fixed unblinkingly on Himika. "My associates and I are at work as we speak on certain special devices capable of performing procedures analogous to the process I described earlier, based, in part, on the memory retrieval technology Professor Akaba introduced to my home dimension."
Himika winced at the mention of her husband, but did not let herself dwell on the painful thoughts that began flooding her mind.
"And?" she questioned, "Is the technology ready?"
"It is not," Daichi replied simply. "The interfacing system has yet to be perfected. However, there is an alternate method."
Himika eyed the scientist, disappointed that the technology she had heard about was not actually in existence at the time. "And what is this, 'alternate method,' you speak of?" she asked, "Can it work? Is it safe?"
"Entirely safe," Daichi replied, smiling with a gentle enigmatic smile. "Not one neuron of the subject's brain will be harmed, and while it will require several sessions, my personal hypothesis is that the final results of my procedure will produce longer lasting and far more stable changes in the subject's memories than the proposed crude methods of Academia's machines.
"You are certain?" Himika questioned.
"Entirely," Daichi replied with confidence.
Himika indicated a chair opposite her own, inviting Daichi to sit down while she took her own seat. Bowing his head politely, Daichi gently lowered himself into the chair, removing his hat as he did and gently placing it on his lap while keeping his intense gaze directed at Himika. Once they had both settled in their seats, Himika continued with her interview.
"You have not given me specific details regarding your… method," Himika began, looking through some notes on her desk. "Only that it involves elements of behavior modification and the use of a certain psychoactive drug of your own making. Please explain to me how this is going to work."
"The process will be entirely painless, harmless, and one-hundred percent effective in enacting the desired changes in the subject," Daichi explained. "To use layman's terms, essentially, what you need to understand is the fact that long-term memory is not as static and stable as most people think. Instead, in order for the mind to maintain the various memories stored in long-term memory, memories go through a process called reconsolidation, which acts to renew and strengthen the associations between one's memories and the feelings, thoughts, and impulses associated with said memories."
"And what does this have to do with Reizo?" Himika asked.
"This reconsolidation process works to strengthen and preserve memories, but it is also the point at which memories are at their most plastic state," Daichi calmly explained. "Essentially, my method exploits this reconsolidation process by stimulating a reconsolidation, blocking certain brain chemicals with my drug when the reconsolidation process is taking place, and then proceeding to bind revised memories to the various feelings, impulses, and thoughts associated with the previous memories. The subject's own brain then does the rest of the work, assimilating the new memories into long-term memory and gradually strengthening the new memories through the very same process which enabled the new memories to be introduced in the first place."
Himika eyed Daichi, not sure if she trusted what he had just said, and admittedly, not really understanding most of what he had explained to her. Still, Reizo needed this. If there was even a sliver of hope he could be cured, then she would take it. She would do whatever it took to keep her family intact.
"And you are certain…" she asked, "…you are certain this really works?"
Daichi nodded his head. "I have sent you my statistics. I have tested my method in over one-thousand human subjects of different backgrounds and ethnicities and tens of thousands of animal subjects. Without variation, all of them have successfully integrated and maintained the new memories. While this does not guarantee with one-hundred percent certainty that Reizo will be a successful case, the fact that he is so young, and therefore has such a malleable brain, means that the likelihood of success with absolutely no harm done to him is exceedingly high. Whether or not Reizo undergoes this method, however, is entirely up to you."
Himika took a moment to ponder Daichi's words, weighing her options and the risks associated with those options. Finally, closing her eyes and letting out a sigh, she nodded her head before asking, "What do you need to make this work, and how much will it cost?"
"As to the second question…" Daichi replied, keeping his gaze fixed on Himika, "…nothing."
Himika blinked at the unexpected response. "Nothing?" she asked.
"Nothing," he repeated, expression remaining unchanged.
"You can't be serious." Himika exclaimed, knowing that there had to be a catch somewhere.
Daichi blinked for what seemed to be the first time during the meeting before closing his eyes and slowly shaking his head with a sigh.
"I have no interest in material things," he explained, smiling enigmatically. "I only bother with money in so far as it enables me to continue my work, Miss Akaba. My desires are and always have been aimed at purely intellectual pursuits. I wish to perform this procedure purely for the intellectual knowledge I shall acquire from the operation and for no other reason. That is my price, Miss Akaba. That I obtain new knowledge from this exercise."
"But you need money to conduct research!" Himika protested, gawking at Daichi with utter incredulity. "Without any funding you'll—"
Daichi held up a hand, silencing Himika in her protestations. "The grants Academia provides supplies me with all the funding I need," he curtly replied. "Now as to your first question, the only things I need from you are your permission, which you have all but given to me, time alone with Reizo, and for you to answer this question: what is Reizo's favorite drink?"
Himika blinked at Daichi, growing more confused by the minute. "Favorite… drink?" she repeated, utterly flabbergasted.
"Precisely," Daichi replied, patiently gazing back at Himika.
Himika thought for a moment before shaking her head. "Milk?" she replied, the tone of her reply making it more of a question than an answer to Daichi's question.
"Chocolate, strawberry, or regular?" Daichi pressed.
"Regular, I think," Himika replied, wondering if it really mattered that much. Truth be told, it had never occurred to her to keep tabs on what flavors of milk Reizo particularly enjoyed, though she couldn't remember ever getting him strawberry.
Her answer, however, seemed to please Daichi, who rose up into his chair before taking her hand in his own.
"Arigato, Miss Akaba," Daichi said with a smile, "You have been most helpful to me. Now then…" he continued, leaning forward, "…when shall we schedule our first appointment?"
A/N: …And this is just part one! Part two'll come out on Saturday with the next chapter of "Rebirth"!
Make sure that you guys thank Donjusticia for this if you're thinking of dropping a review! And if you're Donjusticia reviewing this, give yourself a pat on the back for this amazing piece of writing!
Thanks for reading!
(I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, or Daichi Ishikuma.)
