Shin Ikeda

By Kassien

Written: 10/28/22 - 7/30/23

Chapter 9: Orochimaru's Experiments

The fight was beyond anything I had experienced to date, standing toe to toe with a kage level Sannin for several minutes as long as we remained near the water was utterly incredible, but the moment we came inland, it was quickly apparent that I still wasn't yet at Orochimaru's level, though not for lack of trying. I dropped several waterfalls, had used more water whips than ever before, and was pushed past my breaking point several times in taijutsu against a true master of evasion. He was one slippery ass snake, and even the three times I thought I had completely destroyed him, he just regenerated from another fucking snake.

He was toying with me at the beginning, it's the only reason our fight lasted as long as it did, and left me many opportunities at the beginning to really land some big blows, but the snake simply shrugged the worst of it off, or regenerated with that creepy ass laugh. I was ashamed to admit that it was starting to affect me, and I was losing the confidence I started the fight with, knowing that if I couldn't pull this off soon, that it would all be over. My last gasp attacks had created a fissure in the earth that Orochimaru was slammed down into and then had a large waterfall dropped on him, while water whips held him down trying to suffocate and kill him, but snakes were already emerging from his cut littered body, and I knew he wouldn't die here either.

The only saving grace was that a team of Chunin from Konoha witnessed the end of the battle, and with some tricky clone switching, I was able to get them the signed treaty from Kirigakure, and told them to run back to Konoha after my last gasp attempt to stop the snake failed, and the creep was slowly regenerating nearby. It worked, as the team was able to get away, after I offered myself as an opponent again, killing off the nearby snakes he sent after them, and engaging him in close combat again. Our battle destroyed much of the coast and changed the very landscape around us, but ended soon after with the Tsunagi sword being pierced through my abdomen, as I ran out of chakra and tricks to stay alive.

As my limbs grew heavy and my eyes refused to focus and grew tired, I tried to block out the creepy "kukuku" laughter of Orochimaru as he spoke about how pleased he was with my progress, and that he was looking forward to see how compatible we were with a few experiments. My panic must have been visible, as he let out another sinister chuckle that had me wondering if this was going to be the end for me or if I had a different torturous hell to look forward to first. I was at least glad that the Konoha - Kiri treaty was being returned to the village, and that the Hokage would at least know about me being taken down by Orochimaru, though I wondered if that would even help as I was more than likely, fucking screwed.

I didn't really know just how correct I was, as the next few weeks and months blended together in a never ending blur of torture filled pain, and medical experiments that were just disguised torture in another form. I was constantly in pain and mostly unconscious, seldom coherent and unable to utilize my chakra properly the few times I was alert enough to try, due to seals covering my cell. I didn't know what they were doing to me, or why they were even keeping me alive, but I suspected it was for nothing good, and most likely because of Orochimaru's desires for a new body, but could never be sure …until I was.

"Wakey wakey, my little clone," came the whispered voice of Orochimaru, that was only heard because of the harsh stimulant he injected into me right beforehand, that had me gasping awake and feeling like I was having a heart attack. "Time for the next experiment, kukuku."

"Uggh," was all I could grunt at the moment, not that I had anything to say to that asshole after several rounds of experiments.

"Only two tests left down here mini-Nidaime," came the creepy voice of the Snake Sannin, as he hovered over me almost caressing my skin and looking at me in a way that truly made me uncomfortable, and surprisingly had a weird flashback to a creepy fanfiction story about the Pedo-Sannin that had never happened before, and his next words didn't reassure at all, "I'm ready to take this body for a ride."

The widening of my eyes and utter panic was obviously amusing to the chuckling Orochimaru, though I was grateful a moment later that he wasn't making a sexual advance as instead of undressing and traumatizing me that way, he went through a long series of hand seals that left me dizzy and unable to follow, but at least not molested. The growing chakra however, and then the intense pressure on my head, told the tale of another type of possession that had me frantically scrambling to keep him the fuck out of my head and body. I actually think I was helped by the uniqueness of my situation, as I had a very strong sense of self, that I utilized over the next several minutes or hours or days to fight off the possession of the creepiest mother fucker in the whole of the Elemental Nations.

I have no clue how long it went on for, or what really even happened, only that one minute I was seemingly fighting for my life, barely clinging to my sanity, and then whatever happened ended and only pain and utter exhaustion was in its wake, and a few blurred glimpses of a weakened Orochimaru being helped out of the lab by a familiar glasses wearing former Konoha Shinobi. I don't remember much beyond that, as I was primarily kept drugged if the small investigations I made during coherent moments meant anything, and it was at least several weeks later when I was again dragged out of my little cell and brought to a lab. This time they wished me a happy 19th birthday, before I was being given a special present in the form of a Fuinjutsu hickey from the Snake Sannin, in some misguided attempt to try and use me as an underling, before being left to my own devices for days on end to see if I survived.

"Fuck," I groaned out in utter pain and agony, my mouth and every other part of my body felt on fire and utterly abused beyond anything I had experienced previously, and I had experienced a lot by this point.

My mind was a completely different story, as my memories seemed all confused and out of sorts, things from my first life bleeding together with my current, and unfortunately even bits from Orochimaru that were somehow left behind. Dirty didn't even really begin to describe how my mind felt, and it was countless days of drifting in and out of consciousness and trying to piece together my memories into some semblance of order, almost unaware of the outside world. Though to be fair, my cell wasn't very exciting as a three meter square room with a water drip in one corner and a small hole in the other and …well, that was about it

Luckily, by the time my mind was mostly sorted out I still seemed to be alone in my little cell, and despite feeling like I had just died again, I was actually breathing and still alive …somehow. Everything in my body felt doubly painful, much like the chakra burns from the Kyuubi, my coils and chakra felt dirty and strung out, and it burned like acid as it went through my body. I instinctively knew that the throbbing pain originating from my shoulder and the burning feeling of my chakra was evidence of the Curse Seal of Orochimaru, and I groaned in agony at what that might mean for the Sannin's ability to successfully possess me after all, and the absolute disaster that was my chakra network.

I had to wait in a very slowly recovering agony of pain for another week at least after becoming conscious, until the Sannin again had me dragged from my cell and put into the same lab as before, and again suffered the unbelievable agony of him trying to possess and take over my body, and I can't even begin to describe how uncomfortable that is. Again it felt like hours or days of intense struggle to remain in control of my own body, even more difficult now with the help of his Curse Seal and poisonous chakra flowing through me, and despite holding and fighting him off again, I could feel my resilience fading and knew that eventually the slippery ass snake would find a way in, and it would all be over for "me". Luckily, it wasn't that day though, and after the failed attempt, as I lay broken on the lab floor I was able to catch another glimpse of Kabuto helping a week Orochimaru out of the lab, and prayed to whoever would listen to not have another round of that particular torture.

Somebody finally listened to me, as I didn't see the Snake Sannin or even Kabuto for days or even weeks afterwards, my sense of timing was horribly screwed after however many weeks and probably months I had been imprisoned here. I was actually starting to become afraid that I would die down here, as I didn't have access to my chakra and therefore couldn't even use my storage scrolls and it had been days since I ran out of the small amount of stale old ration bars they left me to eat. I began to wonder what happened, had Sasuke finally overtaken Orochimaru, or had something else happened, and I was going to be left here to die and forgotten about.

Well, I didn't fucking want to die or be forgotten!

Every time I tried to gather chakra, the room "my cell" would light up in seals and said chakra would be forcefully stripped from me in a rather violent way and fed into strengthening the seals that were crippling me little by little. But it was also the only way I was going to get a visual on this seal work, and the seal work was incredible, and reminded me of what I read in Kidomaru's Fuinjutsu journal, though it was hard to concentrate and remember everything in my current state of constant pain. For two days I studied every aspect of the seal until I could probably draw it myself, though I suffered for it greatly. Both physically and in the burning of my chakra pathways and my chakra itself was growing even worse, even if I was becoming used to the pain, I used the abundance of time to clear my mind and try to strengthen and prepare for the next round.

And then Kabuto was back with a single rancid old ration bar and then proceeded to clean me and my cell with a freezing water canon jutsu before giving me a pill that I was told was additional or at least my required nutrients, but was in fact an enzyme to unlock the next stage of the Curse Seal. It instantly had me collapse to the ground in agony as the pain I had grown accustomed to in the past few days was impossibly multiplied, and I truly thought my body was melting from the inside out. I remember Kabuto gloating a lot, though I couldn't tell about what, he was a vindictive ass that roughed me up a bit in between taunts and observations on my state or how long I had been down here, but I was in far too much internal pain to worry about what was happening outside of it, though I knew I was fucked in both cases.

At some point Kabuto left and I spent who knows how much time floating in and out of consciousness while my body went through hell for the upteenth time in the last who knows how many months, and I tried to retreat to a quieter part of my mind that carried less pain. Eventually, I realized that I was in fact going to survive, and that the fast beating of my heart and poisonous feeling of my chakra I was just going to half to get used to because it wasn't changing anytime soon. Without even being able to reach my chakra though, I only really knew that my control had gone to complete shit, and had no way to truly access the damage done to my chakra or coils but knew they felt poisoned and burned out beyond anything I had ever experienced.

And that didn't even take into effect, the damage done to my mind. It was a mess of unsorted memories of both my lives mixed with images that could only be Orochimaru, during experiments he's performed and little snipets of memories and scenes that had slipped through in his possession attempts. I had tried to rebuild my psyche in the brief moments of lucidity among the days of agony and pain that I was left to die in, but simply didn't have the resources any longer to continue fighting as my body and mind were both slowly giving up on me.

And then they were back, Orochimaru and Kabuto …and they were excited! SHIT! I was in big fucking trouble!

This time they didn't fuck around, and tortured me for hours, fed my body full of drugs that made my skin crawl and burn all over again, and left me panting in pain with my mind a scrambled mess of hallucinations. When Orochimaru finally did attempt to possess me, with the strongest attempt to date, I held on as absolutely long as I possibly could, but was systematical and simply worn down to my weakest point, and knew that I was about to lose everything. Despite the agonizing pain and knowing I was loosing the hold on everything, I brought up as much chakra as I could in that moment, delirious and fighting for my very survival, and pumped it all into a last ditch experimental Fuinjutsu formula that would set off the largest catastrophic failure I could manage, and just pray I took those fuckers out with me as I felt him take over my body, and knew no more.

I would never see the large mushroom cloud that would be seen for miles in every direction, or the seismic pressure that was felt through the ground throughout all of the Land of Rice and beyond into the neighboring countries and speculated on for weeks. I would never learn that I managed to injure Kabuto and Orochimaru in my final desperate act, and wound my old body beyond use by the fucking snake, who also barely survived …until he was confronted shortly after by his fed up student, Sasuke Uchiha. I would never know if I helped or even really contributed to the Naruto world in a meaningful way or what part I had to play still, wondering if my death would go on to spur Asuma Sarutobi to marry Kurenai earlier and start the life he wanted, or if my teammates would expand and continue the legacy of the Ikeda Clan in Konoha with everything that I left behind for them.

+-Shin Ikeda—-+

I woke with a gasp of pain, my throat burned and my head felt like it was splitting in two, and beeps and noises that I never thought I would ever hear again were everywhere. A distant television was playing a daytime soap opera, the many machines and wires connecting me to them, the starched white sheets and horrible fluorescent lighting could only mean one thing. I had woken back up in my original world and body, and boy did that feel as confusing as it sounds, as I was disoriented beyond belief waking up in a modern hospital room wondering where I was or how long I was unconscious and if everything was still the same and I hadn't just lived twenty years in another body. I had barely enough energy to turn my head and see a bedside table with a small withering bouquet of flowers, a TV remote, and two get well cards visible but well out of reach in my current state.

I tried to make a noise and call out for anyone nearby, but my throat was parched and burnt and completely raspy in my attempt, and the three afterwards until I had successfully exhausted myself of my limited energy and fell back into the pillows with a groan. My body ached in phantom pains, still feeling like I had just been tortured for months by Orochimaru but with none of the visible signs to my thin body, that definitely wasn't Shin's body. It had been twenty years, but I recognized the body I was in on some fundamental level, as my original one.

I was back in Alex Weltman's skinny and much less athletic body that I barely recognized, and it just felt wrong and weird after so many years with Shin's powerful body and chakra running through it to now be back to this. My chakra was gone! It was a horrifying realization after so many years of relying on it for so much, and getting so many benefits to having it, that I now felt naked and exposed in a way that was truly more scary than being under the captivity of Orochimaru. I didn't know what the fuck I was going to do, I couldn't pretend like the last twenty years I lived as Shin didn't happen, but who the fuck would ever believe me and looking at my useless weak hands and trying without success to form any kind of chakra imaginable before giving it up as impossible.

I didn't want to go back to being average Alex Weltman with no chakra or future, and my inability to really remember everything that happened so many years ago, and the fresh memories of Shin weren't helping matters. My pity party was thankfully interrupted only a couple of minutes later by a somewhat heavy-set and frazzled middle aged women in modern green colored scrubs, who came quickly into the room in what appeared to be a semi routine way as she went about the room looking at the monitors, before freezing when she saw me awake and looking back at her.

"Hello," I rasped out like a chain smoker, startling the poor woman in fright for several seconds as she just stared back at me, before gasping and then bustling around me like a whirlwind of activity, talking all the while about how extraordinary it was that I was awake during her shift.

Apparently, I had been in a coma for weeks (over seven weeks in this ward alone) with nobody understanding what was really wrong after my initial stay in the Emergency Room, and only my mother occasionally visited anymore. My girlfriend Danielle, probably an ex now, had arrived with the Ambulance and me, but had not stayed for long or returned since. The nurses and orderlies had been caring for me in the meantime, and running the occasional test to try and figure out what happened to me, but now it was all going to be about recovery and rehabilitation for me.

Gratefully, it didn't remind me too much of my time in captivity spent under Orochimaru, but it was even more confusing for me to wrap my mind around everything, and sort out my real life in the modern world after so long. It had been twenty years for me in the Elemental Nations, and it felt like twenty years. I hardly remembered my earth, and the few people I had in my life at the time. Not to mention, my most recent memories were of being tortured for months on end by Orochimaru and Kabuto, and the Curse Seal and possession attempts that finally proved successful for the snake. My mental state wasn't at its best right now, if you would permit me an understatement.

If I was back in my original body and world, was everything real or just a hallucination inside my coma mind? It felt too real to be anything but, and even if I couldn't prove it, I knew it happened …somehow. I was also hoping and wondering if my parting Fuinjutsu gift was successful in any way, hoping I at least weakened the snake or made my body unusable for possession but I didn't think there was going to be anything that Alex could do about it. Fuck, I want to be Shin again.

The last I remember from my time as Alex was annoying college classes I hated, a few superficial "friends" I barely tolerated, a selfish mother who was always in her own world, and an absent father I resented. It wasn't anything to be proud of or to look forward to, and I instantly longed to return to what I just had and remembered most. It made me again try to reach inside of myself and gather my chakra, as it had become almost second nature to me over the years as Shin Ikeda, and something I can't believe could be taken away from me twice …first by Orochimaru, and now by returning to my original world without chakra.

But …my body, this body had no chakra pathways, or a flowing sea of chakra or Tenketsu points in any part of it, though I could almost feel something on the edge of my consciousness, out of reach in my current state but worth considering later with meditation. I also considered that I may need to try and develop new chakra pathways and unlock my own chakra first, which may prove difficult in my already 20 year old body. I wasn't even convinced that Chakra was even real or capable of what the Naruto world believed, but that would hardly matter now.

Was it unusual, or circumstance that I lived as Shin for about the same amount of time that I had been alive as Alex, maybe even to the fucking day I was exorcized by Orochimaru and woke back up from my unexplained coma after walking into that batty old fortune teller's tent all those years/days ago. Fuck, this was confusing. I made another reminder to find that fortune teller as well, something about that place, or that lady needed to be explored further for my own piece of mind, though I didn't know what I was expecting.

Could I possibly go back? Were there special conditions the first time that somehow got met, or Orochimaru's timing of using 'that' jutsu, mixed with 'something' on this end that just synched perfectly? So many questions were bouncing around my head about what all this meant, and how I could explore and look into everything further, when I was interrupted by the hospital room door being thrown open in a rush.

My mom and her latest boyfriend …Frank, who I only met once in the six months they dated before my coma, were entering the room with large smiles on their faces, before my mom came forward to hug me. It was very awkward to see her after so many years had passed for me, and she seemed different somehow to the person I remembered, though still in her own world most if not all of the time.

"I am so happy you are awake Alex," she said with excitement, "Frank and I are getting married on Saturday and you can be there now."

"Um …c-cun-congratulations?" I replied confusedly and with a good deal of pain, remembering my mother's swearing off of the institution of marriage on several occasions over the years since my father walked out when I was two, and now her complete one-eighty turn. "I-Is that what …you want?"

"It sure is," she exclaimed excitedly, reaching back for Frank's hand and pulling herself back into his side and giving him a kiss that I did not need to see. "Then we are moving to Florida."

"W-what? Slow down mom …w-who's we?" I rasped out in shock and pain in my throat, having all this sprung on me so fast, I was spinning.

"Oh, sorry dear," she apologized, looking remorseful for all of a second, before launching into the long, too long explanation, "after your accident, I realized I haven't done a lot of living since I had you. I had put my life on hold somewhat, and decided to stop holding back. I proposed to Frank on Christmas Eve and quit my job. We are moving to Miami, Florida, Frank's brother can get us jobs together on a cruise ship, and we are going to spend at least a year aboard the Liberty of the Seas. Our contract starts on Monday, so we are treating it as our honeymoon, and are so glad you get to see me off …as long as they let you out of here for the ceremony. I did sell the house though, or am selling it, the closing is later today and I just didn't see the point in keeping it. Especially when they didn't know what to do with you, I knew money was going to be tight if you ended up staying here beyond the year, which was a possibility they were telling me to prepare for."

"Danielle I think her name was?" she asked in a quick transition, that had me nodding eventually still overwhelmed with everything I was learning, to do much else. "That girl …don't know what you saw in that one Alex? Apparently, she didn't even stick around long enough to give the hospital any details beyond your name before taking off. Haven't seen or heard a peep from her since. I also had to withdraw you from school. You are currently on medical leave for the semester and they are keeping your dorm room 'as is' until the end of the school year. They asked if I wanted to save anything or throw it out. I authorized them to donate anything salvageable, and am not too sure you should bother returning if you are just going to flounder away the last of your father's money pursuing a degree in …what was it now, marketing or philosophy?"

"Hnn," I grunted in an Uchiha-type response, mostly out of pain in my throat, but also because I didn't know what to say to any of my mother's questions wrapped in judgment and needing some time to process and think about everything she was spilling all over me.

"It's already the end of February and the Spring Semester is well underway," continued my mother, not one for silence. "If it looks like they will let you out of here, Frank and I can give you a little money to hold you over until the next semester starts. At least, once the house closes, and you know you could always stay with Uncle Mark. Oh, I put everything that was left in your room at home into Bonnie's Storage, but it wasn't much …your old weights and those few boxes of baseball cards you've been keeping forever, and a few bags of old clothes. Frank went and brought your car into the long term lot at the hospital, so it's here whenever they let you out."

"Thanks m-mom," I croaked out with difficulty, "and thanks …F-Frank."

"Oh Alex," my mom half sobbed half gasped at hearing the damage done to my throat as I finally got a few more words out and she had exhausted her own topics, and finally realized I was maybe a little overwhelmed with everything, "you just sound horrible, what happened to your voice, do you need some water?"

"Thanks," I nodded gratefully, as Frank offered to hunt down some ice water as my mom hovered awkwardly above my bed, looking sad and realizing that I maybe wasn't 100% already after just waking up.

"I am so sorry honey," my mom whispered, patting my head softly, "are you in a lot of pain? Do you need anything?"

"I'll be okay mom," I rasped out, "I am really happy for you."

"Oh Alex, it's just wonderful," she instantly took back off into her own life, "Frank makes me so happy, and I've dreamed of going on a cruise for years, this is really the best thing for me. I can finally put your father's awful memory behind me and move on with my life."

"Ice water to the rescue," returned Frank with a large styrofoam cup filled with ice water that they arranged on the small tray that hovered near my lap, which I was grateful for and eagerly took a long sip, after some motor function difficulties made it a real challenge.

"Oh, it's already after two," came my mom's voice, "sorry honey, but we need to meet the lawyers and close on the house. I'll stop back in tomorrow before I pick up my dress and flowers, then Friday we are going out to dinner with Frank's family for a dress rehearsal, and Saturday is the big day, wish us luck."

"Good luck," I croaked out, before I was getting kissed by my mom and a hand on my shoulder from Frank, both saying their goodbyes, and leaving in a whirlwind of activity that made the place deathly quiet in their absence, and me wondering what in the hell I was going to do.