Date: ????
Days since Teams 11 & 13 reached Mizumiyo Palace: ????
Time: ????
"Extraction ritual is complete, Yakushi-sensei." A voice said over a speaker system.
Kabuto Yakushi nodded as he turned to look at the man lying face down in the middle of a series of concentric rings created by mystical runes located squarely in the middle of the chamber. The medic-nin grabbed the man's wrist... There was no pulse... "Sho! Come on, buddy, give me a sign here." He said smacking the other's cheeks lightly.
As if in response to the man's words, a light throb of a heartbeat began to flow through the unconscious man's wrist, followed by another and another. After a few moments, Sho Inugami grunted once as he picked himself up off the floor.
"Aniki..?" The white haired medic-nin moaned as he sat up and looked at the other man. "What are you doing in the River Country?" His vision was blurry, but eventually the familiar image of Yakushi came into focus.
Inugami paused in surprise.
Kabuto Yakushi was in his late teens... The man in front of him was easily his Mother's age. At the same time, however, the facial features were unmistakably those of Sho's friend that he'd nicknamed Aniki. Inugami blinked a few times as he looked around. "Why are you so old? What's going on here?"
"Damn..." Kabuto said as he used a flashlight to check the other man's eyes, which reacted exactly as they should. "Memory loss; just as we feared... Sho, what's the last thing you remember?"
The medic grabbed the side of his head as he tried to focus. This had never happened before – his mind was cloudy and things were actually hard to remember! "Uh... We arrived in Kawa City to search for Princess Reiyuriko... I discovered that Lord Daimyo Mizuzaki had been getting influenced by a Curse jutsu... Motoko..." The medic flushed, coughing. "Then I went to bed and woke up here."
"Sho..." Kabuto said, placing a comforting hand on Sho's shoulder. "The mission you just described was eight years ago."
"Ei... Eight years?!" Inugami asked in disbelief. "Aniki, what are you talking about?" He looked around to examine his surroundings; he didn't recognize it. "Where are we, Kabuto? What is this place?"
"This is your brain child, Sho." Kabuto Yakushi said, gesturing to the glyphs and the cylindrical glass chamber at the far end of the room. "It's a sealing chamber you designed and created with my help to extract that demonic entity from your body."
Sho's eyes widened in surprise… Inugami and Yakushi had spoken of many things over their years of friendship, but the Boar Incident and his fears about himself were something he'd never shared with him. "I... I-I told you?"
Kabuto nodded. "Several years ago; back when we started working on this, Sho-kun. You'd been hoping that we would have gotten this done some time ago, but it took longer than expected to figure out all the mechanics of the extraction." Kabuto smiled. "But it WORKED!"
Sho looked at Kabuto feeling more than a little overwhelmed. "It... worked? You mean..?"
"You're free of it, Sho!" Kabuto said, pointing at the glass chamber. "See; he's over there."
Sho's head snapped around to look at the glass chamber. The chamber had an insanely complex series of mystical runes carved into the surface and filled with silver. Within the cylindrical object was a swirling maelstrom of black gas, like a self-contained formless tornado with a pair of stationary glowing red eyes with cat-like pupils.
The eyes glared balefully at Sho as a pair of fists coalesced out of the vapor and began to pound on the inside of the glass, causing a rattle to echo about the room. "That hurt, you bastard!" The dry voice that Sho was extremely familiar with bellowed, its howls echoing within the room, but one that Sho was hearing with his ears for a change. "You can't do this to me! I'm a part of you!"
"Apparently I can, given that you're in there and I'm out here." The formerly possessed medic said wryly to his ex-passenger, his heart filling with a joy unlike any he'd ever felt in his entire life. "And looking at the complexity of those seals, I'm disinclined to believe your empty winded threats."
"You'll pay for this!" The demon growled. "I promise you will suffer as I have... Just you wait!"
"Sure, sure..." Sho said unimpressed at the creature's raving as he turned to Kabuto. He raised an eyebrow. "Eight YEARS?!"
Kabuto nodded. "We're both Jonin now, Sho. But you said that you were willing to risk your memories to be able to move on and have a real a real life."
"That does sound like something I'd say." Sho agreed with a sigh. "So that... That means I'm twenty-three now..? If I knew that losing my memory was a possibility, I MUST have made some kind of contingency plans for such a loss."
"Just one." Kabuto reached into his lab coat and pulled out a box. "You told me that if we successfully extracted your passenger I was to give this back to you. You said everything that you needed to know was in here."
Inugami accepted the box. From the heft of it's slight weight, he strongly suspected… Sho flipped the top open. Contained within was a ring made of a surprisingly heavy feeling silver metal with a pair of dolphins circling a pair of gemstones: a diamond and a blue topaz. Pushed into place on the lid was a folded piece of paper, which Sho removed and opened.
Written on the paper was a single line in Sho's own handwriting. 'She's waited long enough, Bakayaro!'
The medic-nin smiled to himself as he balled up the note and put it in his pocket. "Yeah... I should have guessed it would be something like that..." He said, showing the contents of the box to his 'brother.' Kabuto smiled and nodded at the younger medic. "Any idea if I'll ever recover my memories, Aniki?"
"I'm afraid that's impossible to say Sho… That thing…" He pointed at the shadow that was pacing inside the glass container like an animal in a zoo. "Was rooted deeply in several areas of your mind and had to be dug out. The memory loss is like bruising in the parts of your brain we psychically operated on. In time, the bruising may fade and your memories may come back, but they could also be gone for good." Kabuto said, nodding towards the door. "She's out in the waiting area; along with your family."
Inugami's jaw dropped. "Hata-san's here?! I told her too?"
"Her, your team and your family, Sho-kun, but you only told them about a year ago... They'd been worried about the long hours we were putting in on this project. If you hadn't, even the old you that you had been before the extraction would have been hard pressed to explain to them why you're suddenly under the impression you're only 15 instead of 23!"
"How did she take it?" Sho said, his heart sinking. If they'd been close like that, how could he have done this to her?!
Kabuto smiled, rolling his eyes at his friend; giving him a light smack to the back of his head. "She loves you, Baka... How do you think she took it? She said - and I've got it on video if you want to see it for yourself - and I quote, 'Sho-sa, do whatever you need to in order to feel comfortable with who you are. And if you lose some of your memories, we'll just make new ones together.'"
Inugami blinked in confusion. That level of self-assurance seemed out of place for the young woman he remembered. "Hata-san said that?"
"She's a Jonin now, too, Sho-kun. She's still a sweet girl, but she's far stronger than either of you thought she was back when you were both fresh Genin; she was just too shy to express it was all..." Yakushi said. "Oh, and you haven't called her Hata-san in years; you started calling her Motoko-chan back when you became Chuunin and Motoko-sa about five years ago."
He clapped the younger medic-nin on the shoulder. "In any event, go to her, Sho... I'll finish up dealing with HIM." He thumbed over at the cylinder.
Sho nodded thankfully as he rose unsteadily to his feet. He would have completed his final growth spurt during the period of time he'd lost and though his body was used to the changes in his height and center of balance, the medic's mind no longer was. As he walked to the door of the sealing chamber, though, he had begun to adapt to the differences.
As he reached the metal door which had been polished to a mirror-like shine to reflect the energies unleashed to perform the extraction towards to the center of the chamber. He caught a glimpse of himself on the polished metal. His hair hung free, as it had during the trip to the River Country, but he'd grown a black circular beard - a mustache and goatee combination that had been trimmed to form a centimeter wide circle around his mouth. 'Nice to know the damage to my hair truly was limited to my eyebrow line and higher.'
Inugami twisted the handle of the modern-style door and pulled it open as he stepped through. On the other side, there was a medium-sized chamber with several people clustered in it; a medical waiting room. The one closest to him was turned away as if she'd been pacing, but spun to face to face the opening door. It was an emerald-eyed woman with flame red hair and a pure white ribbon woven into the silken tresses. She wore a dark green jumpsuit with white sleeves and a yellow bodice that showed faint traces of discoloration where a thin strap for an over-the-shoulder sword scabbard had protected part of the coloration from solar bleaching.
'I don't recognize her,' Sho Inugami thought to himself as his heart skipped a beat at the sight of the swordswoman, '…but I would know Motoko Hata anywhere!'
"Sho-sa..? Sho-sa!" The woman's orange-tinted lips cried excitedly, using an uncommon honorific that was reserved for lovers, spouses, or those that one felt some level of intimacy towards, as she ran towards him to throw herself into his arms. Although, like Aniki, she was older, but her face and voice were exactly as he remembered.
"Ha... Motoko-sa..." Inugami breathed, the words catching in his throat for a moment before pulling her closer to him. Her hair tickled at his nose and she smelled faintly of roses. The others in the room with her got up joined the two of them, expressing words of joy and concern. Inugami recognized each of them: his father, his mother, and his now grown sisters Karin and Lucia... He smiled at each of them in turn, feeling their love and concern; luxuriating in it and the feel of Motoko Hata, the woman he'd loved for as long as he could remember, in his arms.
There was a sixth person in the room as well, but one he couldn't quite place. It was a woman with tawny brown hair tied up in braids and then pinned up in a bun. She wore a loose fitting blue kimono with a pink sash tied just above her swollen belly - Sho's trained medical eye told him that she was approximately five months pregnant.
The woman caught him looking at her in confusion. She smiled warmly at him with the radiant glow that expectant mothers seemed to be issued the instant their status was confirmed. "Hey, there, Sho-kun... 'Hito was supposed to have been back from his mission with Miho-sensei by now, but I guess they'll just have to see you later."
Inugami's eyes widened as he finally placed the woman; thanks to her voice. "K... Kimiko?" The brown-eyed mother-to-be winked at her former teammate. "You and Haruno? When?!"
"When I followed my own advice; just as you predicted when you asked me all those years ago." She agreed, gently rubbing her belly. "We got married three years ago; this is our first..." Itou looked at him sadly. "But you were his best man and the doctor that confirmed I was going to be a mom... Your memory was affected, just like you feared it would be... Wasn't it?"
Motoko Hata pulled back, looking at him with a gentle concern in her eyes. "So how much did you lose, Sho-sa?"
"Everything since our first night in the Mizumiyo Palace security closet..." He answered gloomily with a sigh. The red-haired woman's face fell slightly, as if suddenly afraid that he would suddenly revert to his attitude towards her during that trip. "Hey... Why so sad?" The medic-nin asked, putting his hands comfortingly on her shoulders. "The reason for keeping you at arm's length back then is currently in there being sealed away forever by Aniki. And even though I've lost eight years, there is one dream that I had, even back then."
"Yume?" Motoko asked, confused. "What kind of a dream?"
Inugami frowned. "Well... Maybe dream isn't the right thing to call it... More like a wild fantasy…" He pulled the box Kabuto had been holding out of his pocket slowly enough that she would be hard-pressed to notice it. "I guess a better way is that there was something I wanted to ask you." He lifted up the box flipping it open as he dropped to a knee. "Motoko Hata, will you marry me?"
A gleam appeared in Hata's eyes as tears began to fill both hers and the eyes of the other women gathered in the waiting room. "My wedding kimono has been ready and waiting in my closet for the last three years, Sho-sa..." The kunoichi giggled as she lifted her left hand. "What do you think?"
Inugami chuckled as he slipped the ring bearing the twin dolphins circling his and Motoko's birthstones on the appropriate finger before kissing her with a passion he felt to his very core, though the medic-nin only partially remembered the full depths of it.
* * *
The next few days were a veritable blur as Sho's two sisters, his mother, and his fiancée - all of whom had apparently anticipated Sho popping the question following the extraction - unleashed a flurry of pre-prepared plans. The entire wedding ceremony, officiated by the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi himself, was planned, organized and executed flawlessly within a week of the couple's engagement.
The two endured the reception following the wedding, mainly for the sake of the family members who'd worked so hard to arrange it, but they slipped away to their hotel suite at their earliest opportunity. Sho carried his new bride over the threshold and the two breathed a sigh of relief as they fell into the love seat, staring into each other's eyes and giggling in amusement of their successful escape from the well-intended – and, surprising to the medic-nin, well-attended – wedding party. Sneaking away from a bunch of ninjas wasn't exactly the easiest thing in the world, after all, but they'd succeeded...
After spending a few minutes of savoring the slow release of fifteen years of accumulated passion, the newly minted Motoko Inugami broke off from her tender nibbling of her husband's ear. "And now, husband mine," She whispered kittenishly in Sho's ear, "How about I share the last of the secrets my body has to offer you?"
Sho Inugami chuckled as he kissed his wife tenderly on her moist, flavorful lips. "And out of curiosity, just how long have you been planning to ask me that question that way?"
"The same night you discovered most of them for yourself, of course." She answered, mussing up his hair. "Now are you going to carry me to the bedroom or shall I start right here?"
"Whatever happened to that shy young woman that almost seemed to be afraid of her own shadow at times?" Inugami asked in mock surprise.
"I was never afraid of my own shadow!" Motoko retorted in false outrage, blushing slightly. "I was merely infatuated with yours! And Miho-sensei helped me realized that being a proper lady didn't mean I had to completely bury these feelings; just know when displaying them was appropriate... Like now." She leaned in, kissing him deeply, their tongues twisting about each other in a give and take prelude of what was to come.
As the kiss broke, Sho pretended to gasp for air as the faintest trace of a blush at the new, seductive Motoko's forwardness colored his cheeks. "Remind me to send her an appropriate thank you card in the morning..."
"Morning?" The new Mrs. Inugami asked archly, raising a thin, shapely red eyebrow at him. "Sho Inugami... I've been PINING for you for nearly two decades. What makes you think I'm going to be done with you that soon, Sho-sa?"
Sho nearly choked on his own breath, the blush turning to more than just a trace. He frowned playfully at his wife. "Well, then, Mistress, just when SHOULD I send it?"
"Sometime next week... Maybe next month. Eh, we'll just play it by ear. Or maybe something else..." She whispered, playfully sliding her hand down his chest and into his pants. "Bed. Now."
"As my Queen commands." Sho said, gulping slightly in shock at Motoko's behavior, as he used an elementary trick to give his legs enough strength, allowing him to stand up without taking his hands off his new wife's hot body.
During the short journey to the bedroom, Motoko used her free hands - confident in her husband's strong arms to not feel any need to hold on - to unbutton his shirt and pants, which fell to the floor and allowed him to step out of them without so much as hitch in his step. She giggled as she ran her hands over Sho's muscular chest. "Just take a seat on the edge of the bed..." Motoko whispered seductively in his ear. "I've got a special show that I've been planning for you."
Sho took a seat as his wife had asked of him, allowing her to stand. His hand whipped out, giving her pert, firm rear a teasing slap as she did so.
"Eeek!" She cried in mock surprise as she hopped out of his reach, eliciting a chuckle from her husband as he doffed his shirt and coat. "What was that for?"
"I need a reason?" He asked, deadpan.
Her orange lips pursed in a moue. "No... Just give a girl some warning next time."
"But where's the fun in that?" The medic asked gravely. "After all, I find it cute when you squeak like that."
Motoko Inugami sighed, chuckling wryly as she shook her head. "Oh, whatever am I going to do with you, Sho-sa?"
"Oh, I dunno... Love me for the rest of your life, maybe? Just as I will for you."
"Well, yeah, that but..." She stopped, arching her eyebrow. "You're baiting me." He grinned merrily at her. "Well, save that for later, honey. We only get one wedding night and I want to make sure we do it right."
Sho arched his own eyebrow. "Can it be done WRONG? I mean it's natural, after all."
Motoko snorted, shaking her head slightly as she leaned in to kiss him passionately.
After a few seconds she pulled back and her husband blinked. "Not that I'm complaining, but what was that for?"
His wife smiled, repeating the kiss.
"Ah… You're going to keep doing that until I shut up, aren't you?" He asked with a grin.
This time she winked at him before kissing him a third time.
"And you're not going to go any further until I do. Right?"
The fourth kiss was accompanied with a grave nod.
Sho sighed. "Okay, you win, my Queen." This time the kiss was accompanied with a bit of tongue action. As she broke off, her husband smiled. "Remind me to let you win a bit more often."
Motoko kissed the tip of Inugami's nose as she stood up and turned away from him. She wove in place from side to side like a pendulum in a clock, the appropriate cheek of her heart-shaped butt tensing on the out edge of the swing to accentuate the movement. Then she raised her hands to her sides and let them slide slowly down and then back up either side of her slim, sexy frame.
Inugami was awestruck; the Motoko of his memories would have died of terminal blush four or five kisses back…
As her hands slid down her body a second time, they shifted to untie the white silk sash that held her wedding kimono closed. As the knot separated, Motoko Inugami turned to face her husband. She took the longer outer limb of the sash and began to tease his face with a five centimeter wide piece of fabric. Finally, she tucked the edge of the silk belt into his mouth, which had fallen open slightly.
"Hold this for me, would you, honey..?" She asked, pouting cutely at him.
Mr. Inugami compliantly closed his lips around the tip of the sash and capturing her nicely manicured finger. He then playfully used the tip of his tongue to lick her captured digit. Motoko Inugami gave off another giggling shriek as he did so.
"Hold onto that thought for a few more minutes, Sho-sa..." She said, pulling her finger out of his mouth with a wet pop. "I'm going to be giving you something far more ENTERTAINING for your tongue to play with in a moment."
Sho let off a plaintive, playful whimper, sounding like a dog longing for its missing bone.
A grin crossed the lips of Motoko Inugami as she spun away from her husband, like a dancer with an imaginary partner. The sash/belt unwound itself as she did so and gave the impression of a human yo-yo. As she reached the end of the sash, it fell away fluttering to the ground like a band of snow. The kunoichi's spin did not stop, however, and without the belt to keep it closed, the kimono billowed open like a boat's sail in a strong wind and gave Sho a tantalizing glimpse of the erotically intimate lingerie made out hand-woven white silk as pure as Motoko's soul.
Motoko's spin ceased and the robe fell closed once again. Mrs. Inugami eyed her husband, giving him a sultry wink of her glittering emerald green eyes. "So tell me, Doctor... Do you like what you see?" She asked with a sharp movement of her shoulders, causing the kimono to peel open and fall limply to the floor.
A smile crossed Sho's face. "Always have, my darling Motoko, always will." He answered, the sash falling into his lap as his dual colored eyes looked her up and down before settling on her face.
His words caused Motoko to blush faintly as she lifted her hand to her mouth and giggled fetchingly at her man. "Oh, my..." She breathed ecstatically. "Sho Inugami, you really know how to make a girl feel appreciated, you know that?"
Sho shifted uncomfortably in embarrassment as he remembered a time when he didn't. His head turned down and away in shame. "Yeah..."
"What's wrong, Sho-sa?"
He sighed, rubbing his face with both his hands in frustration with himself. "I'm sorry, Honey... From my perspective, I'm still who I was at the start of our trip to the Land of Rivers... I've wasted the last seven years of my life in an effort to protect you from that monster that was hiding in my body and the last few weeks trying to chase you off to find someone you'd be able to have a future with..." The medic-nin answered, bowing his head in shame at the memory. "I've read through my private journals, hoping to recover some of my lost memories and get back to being the man you remember me becoming, but it's useless. Hell, I don't even know if I ever apologized for hiding that from you or not..." A tear of genuine remorse fell from his bowed face onto his muscular leg.
"Hey, now..!" Motoko exclaimed in concern as she ran over to him, straddling his muscular legs. She reached up, pushing his strong jaw upwards to look her in the eye. His eyes were wet with remorse, but he remained as stoic as ever, refusing to cry any more than necessary, even in private.
She leaned in, kissing him with an almost superhuman passion, the kiss carrying everything she felt in her heart for him through the sensual conduit of their bodies. The feel of her passion-filled, moist lips on his instantly salved the guilt eating at the white-haired man's soul and he opened his own heart to her in the same way, clasping her trim waist as if holding on for dear life.
As the tender kiss broke she smiled lovingly at him. "Sho - I accepted your proposal to marry you, remember? Do you honestly think that I'd be willing to share my bed or my life with you if hadn't already forgiven you for your well-intended - if admittedly frustrating - efforts to spare me pain from what you feared could happen?"
"I suppose not." Sho sniffed with a rueful chuckle. "It's just that the remorse for those actions is fresher in my mind than the eight years of our relationship that came afterwards."
"But just so you know..." Motoko said with heartfelt honesty. "If you'd told me about that 'monster' in you when we were in the River Country, it wouldn't have changed a thing between us... I still would have loved you with all of my heart, my poor, sweet, WONDERFUL man..." Motoko Inugami cradled her husband's head, weaving her fingers into the long wiry hair on the back of Sho's head.
"Now, let me give you something a bit more firm and real for you to think about rather than those nagging and imaginary fears." She whispered into his ear as she pulled his face deep into the well-developed bosom that she'd dreamed of growing in her youth. "After all, I promised you something far more entertaining for your tongue, didn't I?" She asked the crown of his head.
Sho took a deep breath, catching a faint aroma of rose pedals and cherry blossoms as he began to give the twin peaks of Mt. Hata-Inugami and the light, florally perfumed valley between them a series of slow, tender kisses. Through her breasts on his cheeks, he could feel Motoko's heart start to beat with increasing speed in excitement.
"I seem..." The medic said with a chuckle between his tender ministrations, going back and forth between the mountains of flesh, as he pulled his wife closer to him and arching her back slightly. "To recall... you say... something... to that... effect... Princess." He said as he felt a stirring below his waist. "Is this... what you... had... in mind?"
Motoko felt a slight poke against the bottom of her right buttock and flushed slightly as she realized that Sho's hands were held fast against her hips. She worked her legs, which were now nearly in the Seiza sitting position, to scoot forwards a bit more and the pressure shifted in nature. She then chuckled, the joyful sound reverberating through Sho's face, as she reached behind her back to unfasten her bra.
"It's definitely a nice start, Sho-sa..." Motoko answered, slipping the left strap from her shoulder. The cup on that side fell a few centimeters to reveal the reddish-brown birthmark the size of a fifty ryou coin that Sho had first seen when she'd accidentally walked into the Sento while he'd been bathing. "Why don't you keep at it? We can work our way down from there."
Sho exhaled, his warm breath tickling the fine, nearly invisible hairs that gave her skin that silky feel that he was just coming to truly appreciate. "You are... without... a single... doubt..." He said as his kisses began a slow climb up the left hemispherical mountain. "The best... thing to... ever... come into... my life... Mrs. Inugami." His right hand rose to pull the loosened bra down and out of the way on that side of her perfect body as he turned his entire focus to the fleshy escarpment before him.
"Mmm..." Motoko Inugami began to moan in ecstatic pleasure as the peak of the mountain Sho's mouth was ascending began to stretch upwards towards the heavens of its own volition. "Ohh... Yes, Sho-sa..."
Sho's mouth began to tingle as he reached the peak of the mountain. He could feel the hair on his head begin to stand on end as Motoko, in her growing arousal, began to unconsciously and uncontrollably leak Raiken chakra through the tenketsu pores of her body. There was something about that that urged - no demanded! - that he continue despite the discomfort, so Inugami's hand rose to stroke the impossibly smooth flesh of her firm yet soft breast, which to his touch felt like soft, warm wax - firm yet malleable - covered by the finest silk, as he began to incorporate his tongue into the ministrations.
"Yes! Don't stop... Never stop..." She gasped as the voltage increased. "Onegai..!"
Finally the shocks became too much even for Sho's high tolerance for pain to handle and he was forced to pull his mouth away, but left his hand, through which he began a chakra current to neutralize the worst of the electrical shocks, to continue fondling Motoko's breast. Sho chuckled, more to himself than to her. "It's a shame I can't plant a flag to mark my conquest of this delightfully appealing mountain."
Motoko's face finally flushed in embarrassment. "Oh, you!" She exclaimed as she pushed him playfully away from her. Sho's hands lost their perch on her sensual flesh as he fell back to land flush with the bed. Mrs. Inugami reached down and began to tickle his ribs mercilessly. "And just WHO else, besides any kids we may someday have together, would you ever expect to see such a flag, hmm? And what point would it serve?"
"No one, Princess..." Sho answered between gales of laughter - he was ticklish, who knew? "And its purpose..." He grabbed both her legs just behind the knees, pulling her forward with a shout of surprise, so that she now sat on his washboard abs, unable to tickle him further. He briefly considered returning the tickling barrage, but chose against it. "The purpose is the same as it is for any other mountaineer: the pleasure of knowing it's there, of course."
"You silly goose..." Motoko Inugami said to her husband as she began to laugh.
Suddenly, her eyes widened in pain as her laugh turned into a cough. Her hand flew to her sternum as the coughing continued and turned rougher sounding.
"Motoko?" He asked worriedly at the wet-sounding cough; something about it causing the hackles on the back of his neck to rise in warning. "Motoko, what's wrong?"
The coughing stopped. "Uh..." She moaned, no pleasure in the sound this time. "I... I'm not sure, Sho-sa… My chest feels really tight all of a sudden."
A cough, sounding far worse than before, erupted from the new Mrs. Inugami.
It was accompanied with a small, bubbling torrent of blood that poured out over her perfect, china white teeth.
The blood flowed down her chest, over her hand and midsection, staining the exquisite lingerie a deep crimson, before pooling on Sho's chest and continuing up over his shoulders to dye a patch of his hair before being absorbed by the sheets and mattress of their wedding bed.
"Oh, Gods... MOTOKO!" Sho cried in worry as he tried to sit up, but found himself pinned in place by her weight on his midsection. He then tried to lift one of his hands, to try using the Mystical Palm technique to try healing whatever blood vessel in her perfectly healthy chest that had spontaneously ruptured, but both his hands were trapped between her muscular legs like walnuts in a nutcracker. He tried wriggling them free, but her legs had tensed and locked when the coughing had begun.
"Heh, heh, heh..." A familiar, dry voice croaked maliciously. "Hey there, buddy... Nice night, isn't it?"
Motoko's green eyes widened further, this time in horror, as she heard the cruel voice. "Sho-sa..? Is... Is that... HIM?!"
Inugami nodded to his wife, who in a momentary fit of embarrassment slipped the strand of her bra back over her shoulder to cover up. Sho looked around the room but saw nothing. "How did you get out, damn you!" He snarled at the invisible apparition.
"Fool... I was never trapped! I told you before; I'm a part of YOU." The smoky swirl answered as it appeared behind Motoko. "What you and that idiot 'brother' of yours saw was an ethereal projection enhanced with a bit of telekinesis. Your soul is mine and mine is yours; always has been, always will be... Your body is the same way, though I can only become completely 'real' by replacing your flesh with mine as I did when I dealt with that boar when you were eight. You could no more split me off from you than you could divide the double helix of our DNA and exist with only half."
Sho groaned, a sinking feeling deep in the pit of his stomach telling him the creature told the absolute truth. The "extraction chamber" had done nothing but strip his memories of the past eight years and give him some peace of mind. "What do you want?"
"I came to fulfill my promise to you... And your extraction chamber did more than just give you peace of mind... While you can't split me off, the effort to do so caused me - and only me - to suffer indescribably EXCRUCIATING agony... I'm here to return the FAVOR."
"Then get on with it!" Sho demanded.
The voice gave a cruel laugh. "Ah... But I already HAVE, my friend... As I said, your body is my body, so if I hurt YOU, I hurt MYSELF as well. I'm a monster, not a masochist."
Motoko cried in fresh pain as the swirling shadow with its disembodied bloody eyes appeared behind her on Sho's right side. "And though I can't physically manifest my body against your will, you'd be surprised what I CAN do with the power of my - OUR - mind." It leaned forward as a gaseous hand coalesced around Motoko's wrist, the one on her chest, covered in her own blood. "Come on, Honey, you're blocking the man's view."
The shadowy hand jerked downwards and pulled her hand free. Hidden underneath her hand, five small tents of flesh had appeared in a rough circle in her cleavage around her breastbone. "While what you see is merely an illusion, but when backed with telekinetic force, it might as well be the real thing. The shame is that I don't actually feel it when I do this..." The demon's gaseous shoulder shifted as the points on Motoko Inugami's chest rotated in a circle, causing her to wince and moan.
The invader gave a stuttering sigh of twisted pleasure. "In any event, this goes back to my original dilemma... How do I make YOU suffer without hurting myself in the process?" The red eyes glinted in the dim light as it flashed a grin at Sho, displaying uneven, pointed teeth that were dim and glossy; like shards of obsidian.
"No..." Sho moaned as he realized the creature's twisted plan. He looked up miserably at his new wife as an unbearable agony turned his heart to lead in his chest. "Not her..!"
"PRECISELY!" The demon gloated in sadistic pleasure. "That which you humans call 'Love' is a pathetic, mortal sensation that I do not experience... I do not burden myself with remorse or guilt the way you do. So I'm going to inflict a death on your little BITCH here, the one that made you so willing to injure ME, every bit as excruciating to her as your efforts to extract me were. While I do so, YOU will watch helplessly; unable to stop me and knowing that in the end your efforts to protect her all these years amounted to absolutely nothing!" It began to cackle insanely in manic glee.
"S... Sho-sa..!" Motoko Inugami cried her husband's name as she coughed up more blood. She tried struggling, but the monster's telekinetic grip was as strong as the power of thought itself: intangible, but infinitely powerful.
"And then... And then!" It ranted insanely between its horrific laughter. "I'm going to keep you from killing yourself, so that you suffer with the memory of her exquisitely horrific murder for the rest of your long, miserable life! Then, if you prove to be foolishly human and attempt to extract me again out of some misguided thought of revenge, I'll repeat this process with another woman you 'love.'" The voice chuckled. "Maybe I'll start with Kimiko Itou-Haruno... Or maybe I'll do the Hyuuga bitch instead, or your dear, sweet mother, or one of your sisters..."
The tents shifted again, contracting the circle they formed slightly. Motoko coughed up more blood and moaned in pain. "Bastard!" Sho snarled in helpless rage. "STOP IT, DAMN YOU!"
The demon laughed. "Been there, done that... Moving on! Enough of these preliminaries, amusing though they may be, and on with our main show... The death of Motoko Inugami!" The gaseous, yet solid monster leaned forward and whispered in her ear using Sho's voice. "Okay, now Princess, you need to get your lines right since you've got only ten seconds and there will be no second takes for this performance…"
"What are you doing?" Sho demanded.
The freak's blood-colored eyes turned to look at the captive audience for one. "You wanted her heart, remember?" The demon's body twisted as if reaching back.
"NO!!!" A horrified Sho shouted in realization.
The demon gave a malicious howl of laughter as the illusion of its arm, backed by the telekinetic shell that gave it the semblance of reality, shot forward. The beast's armored and clawed hand, cradling Motoko's still-beating heart, burst from her chest with a horrendous cracking of bone and the wet, papery sound of shredding flesh...
But worst of all was Motoko's soul-shattering wail of agony that echoed through the room, engraving itself in Sho's memory for all time.
"You're on, Bitch!" The monster chortled. "Don't fuck it up!"
Motoko Inugami's gorgeous green eyes looked down at Sho, locking onto her husband's face despite the impossible to survive agony that every nerve in her body had to be screaming to her brain.
"S... Sho-sa..." She croaked at him weakly, sadly, but with love in her eyes and voice nonetheless. She didn't blame him for this; even if he did. Her hands, becoming colder by the second, cupped his face lovingly. "D... Daisuki da yo... Daisuki no... Daisuki no hana eien ni..!"
And with that, the light in her emerald eyes faded away and she fell limp, held up by the imaginary limb that had impaled her.
"NO... NO, MOTOKO!" Her husband cried out in futility, unable to tear his eyes from hers, his mind screaming in soul-rent horror. "Oh, Gods..."
"How touching..." The demon laughed derisively as Motoko's heart changed from one hand to the other. "'I love you, I'll love you forever.'" The arm that had plunged through Motoko's chest ripped itself out with a fresh gout of blood, allowing the corpse to fall forward onto Sho's chest.
Sho's hands came up to brush the tears from his dead wife's cheeks. "Oh, Gods, no..." He sobbed, cradling his wife's body delicately as his mind began to shut down; unwilling to believe that this was happening. "Forgive me, Motoko-sa... Please..! Please come back to me... Don't leave me here without you!" He begged; his hopes and dreams fading in tandem with the decreasing warmth of his wife's body.
"That barely even scratched the surface..." The murderer of Sho's wife sighed, shaking his head in disappointment. It shrugged. "Oh, well, it's a start. And I even got lunch out of the deal."
Despite its efforts to shut down, Sho's mind registered the beast's words, recalling what it had done to the boar when he'd been a child, and the medic looked up in horror. The demon gave him a toothy grin as it licked its lips disgustingly.
It tossed Motoko Inugami's stilled heart into the air, its mouth distorting grotesquely in slavering anticipation of the falling tender morsel's taste.
"NO, DAMN YOU!" Sho Inugami howled, pushing Motoko's body aside and lunging to prevent the creature from defiling his wife any further. The demonic beast backhanded him with the force of a mountain falling atop an ant and Sho's entire world became naught but pain...
* * *
Day 13
Days since Teams 11 & 13 reached Mizumiyo: 5
Time: Early Morning
"Oh, Gods, Motoko..!" Sho Inugami, still age fifteen, cried as he shot out from under the covers of his futon, his bare chest damp with sweat. As he came up, his head clipped the side of the video monitoring console. "ARGH! Son of a bitch!" He shouted, grabbing his aching temple.
> Oww... Damn it, that hurt, man... < The dry voice said, conveying the impression that it has grabbed his own head. > Can't you be quiet in the morning for a change? < The voice - the voice of Motoko's assassin - demanded from within the confines of Inugami's own head.
"You sick bastard!" Sho shouted at the voice, looking around for the creature. "Where the fuck are you? I want my wife back you murderer!"
> WIFE?! Murderer? What are... < The voice asked genuinely confused. Then a sound of understanding came. > Oh not this shit again... You did that heavy studying trick of yours and forgot to use the Forced Sleep technique to try and dodge the nightmares... <
"My LIFE is a nightmare, thanks to you!" Inugami howled, still not yet grasping that everything he'd just experienced hadn't actually happened. "I swear I will find a way to pull you out by the roots and bury you..."
The voice gave a world-weary sigh. > How many times am I going to have to say this before you get that through that thick skull of ours? It was a DREAM, you idiot! I don't control them, hell, I'm not even conscious when you have them, so I can't see them unless you think about it when you're awake. But honestly, I'm sick of being portrayed as the villain in these nightmares of yours... <
The voice gave the mental impression of looking up while rubbing its head. > Now, would you PLEASE trim that damn corner back? I'm tired of being woken up by a blow to the head every morning because YOU didn't sleep well. <
"Mmm... Sho-kun..?" Motoko Hata, who'd been partially awakened by her own dreams of the night, moaned; reaching out to bring the lights in the room brighter. "Are you okay?"
"M-M-Motoko-sa..?!" The bleary-eyed medic gasped in surprise, his head snapping in the direction of her voice.
With almost agonizing slowness, Sho's eyes came into focus, allowing him to see the kunoichi on the futon across the way...
Motoko Hata - gorgeously beautiful and vitally ALIVE Motoko Hata - sat up, so tired that Inugami's rare use of her name - or the inferred sensuality of his chosen honorific - didn't even register. As she did so, the kunoichi pushed back the thick blanket of her own futon bed to reveal the sexy, shimmering blue-green nightgown with silver accents that she'd worn to bed.
Last night had been the first time she'd worn it since she'd bought it during the ride through River Country - the incident in the Sento had unnerved both of the Genin so they were cautiously avoiding anything that could lead to sexual tension between them.
"Was it another nightmare?" Hata asked the medic-nin with visible concern on her face and in her voice.
"Um, yeah... I think..." Inugami answered as he tried to make sense of his memories of the dual realities. "It's all really fuzzy at the moment, though..."
"That's the twelfth one in the last four nights, Sho-kun. Or at least the twelfth one that I'm aware of..." She pointed out worriedly. "Please tell me you're nearly done with all this rapid studying!"
'Oh, of course! My mind's working triple overtime at night so things get a bit bizarre, but that one definitely takes the cake...' Sho thought to himself.
> Finally the light dawns! Hallelujah! <
The fog over Sho Inugami's mind finally cleared as he remembered the true reality rather than the dream reality and dissected what he could recall. 'The parts about extracting my passenger and marrying Hata-san; standard wish fulfillment fantasy... Being older was because I know it can't happen now. The "memory loss" to keep me from questioning why I'm older yet have no memories and breaking out of the dream that way...'
He glanced at Motoko, feeling the same stirring he'd felt in the Sento. 'And the sexual aspects are a natural progression of the marriage fantasy, not to mention seeing her in that gorgeous shift of hers just before falling asleep...'
> Aww, DAMN it..! I not only missed out on YOU thinking about sex, but I missed a fantasy of having sex with Motoko-chan - as our wife, no less? < The voice griped. > That's a travesty of the highest order! <
'Yeah, well, you also missed out on the part where I had to lie there in bed and watch you rip her heart out of her chest in the middle of the wedding night foreplay, have her die in my arms and then watch you try to eat her heart.' Sho shot back pointedly. 'I assure you, I could have lived without that!'
The voice sounded hurt. > Me?! I would NEVER hurt, let alone kill, Motoko-chan; it's not in my nature to hurt a beauty like her. Besides that, how would you know what I look like..? Hell, *I* don't know what I look like... < The voice protested. It paused as it realized something. > Oh, of course, you did that again, too... < It sighed. > Okay, I'll repeat this one as well: I'm a part of your psyche that was shattered by the fear that boar caused, combined with your grief over losing Obaasan Saki. I'm not the entity that took over our body to save us from that boar when we were still one mind. HE'S stuck in neutral at the moment; couldn't come out now even if you were willing to let him out. <
Sho removed his hand from his forehead. The blow would leave a goose egg, but there wasn't any blood. "You'll forgive me if I don't take your word for it on that point." He muttered aloud, tiring of the conversation.
Motoko shook her head. "I'm sorry, Sho-kun, I didn't catch that."
"Oh..." He showed her the palm of his hand. "I said, 'No blood from hitting my head on this stupid piece of furniture.'" He fibbed to cover himself.
The kunoichi frowned slightly at his words. It was as if she could somehow sense the falsehood of his statement, much as she had when he'd lied about her sensing his father Kurando to cover for himself when he'd been using the Inugami family's secret art during the Hide and Seek mission.
Then her faith in the fact that Sho never lied kicked in and the frown vanished, though the worry for the medic-nin remained. "What was it about this time, Sho-kun? The other nightmares made you toss and turn, but this... You sounded so horrified..."
The image of the demon within him ripping her heart out flickered to mind. He swallowed roughly. "I lost someone - someone really important to me - in the nightmare... It was..." Inugami shuddered. "It was rather gruesome..."
> D~ude... < The voice said, sounding as if it had just lost its lunch. > That's not gruesome, that's utterly fucked up! <
"Oh..." Motoko said hesitantly, as if she wanted to ask who it was, but was afraid that the answer wouldn't be her. "Do you want to talk about it? Can I do anything?"
> You could come on over here, Motoko-chan, and make me feel alive... < The voice said inanely to get a rise out of Sho.
The kunoichi frowned slightly, as if she'd heard the dry voice at a distance. She blushed slightly as she considered the distance between their two futons. "I can move closer if you'd like..."
Both Sho and the voice froze in surprise. The medic's dominant personality recovered from the surprise first. "No, no... You're fine where you are, Hata-san... Just knowing you're nearby is enough to give me peace of mind."
Hata's blush turned into a flush of excitement at the medic's words. "O-okay Sho-san. Just try and get some sleep, okay? You still haven't completely recovered from healing the Lord Daimyo." She reached over and dimmed the lights. In the lower light, Inugami could see the blanket shift as she re-covered herself. "Good night… Sho-sa."
'Did she just say..?' He asked his passenger in shocked disbelief. 'I mean, she COULDN'T have…'
A mental nod of agreement. > That's what I heard, too… <
Sho sat in the dimness for a few minutes until the rhythm of the kunoichi's breathing indicated that she had fallen back into whatever dreams she had at night.
He mentally turned on his companion. 'What the hell was that?! How the hell did she hear you?' The medic-nin growled in stunned irritation.
> You're asking ME?! < The voice demanded hotly, sounding equally stunned by the situation. > I'm not omniscient, man… I only know the things YOU know and the things that you don't want to admit to yourself that you know. <
The voice was silent for a few moments as the two halves of Inugami's mind contemplated this new development.
> OH! Maybe it's that sensing ability of hers… Maybe it has the ability to sense mental energies – and let's face it, I'm nothing BUT mental energy – and THAT'S how she heard me! <
Inugami considered that thought for a timeless instant. He couldn't deny that the Hata twins were unique in medical history: the psychic conversion that allowed them to feel each other's pain, for example, had never been documented in any medical text Sho had ever read before. Motoko's chakra sensing ability also seemed to be different than most standard sensory types… The Hyuuga Byakugan could see chakra as a blue glow, but couldn't gauge the ninja's strength. The Uchiha Sharingan – before the clan had been wiped out – could see details of the chakra nature they detected, but not the tenketsu points. Those with animal-like sensory skills could sense strength, but not perceive the flow of chakra.
'Okay, I'll grant you that Hata-chan's sensory abilities appear to have traits from all the known "core" types without conforming to any one grouping… And they do seem to grant her an empathic ability, so it's POSSIBLE that she FELT what you were thinking without actually HEARING you.' Sho said with a mental frown. 'So…'
The voice gave the impression of raising its hands in surrender. > No need to say it; keep my virtual mouth shut when Motoko-chan is nearby. Look, I may not be able to stop myself from saying the first thing that comes to mind, but I don't want to scare her away... I love her, too, you know. I'll do my best to keep quiet. <
'See that you do…' Inugami retorted as he lay back on his own futon and closed his eyes, invoking the forced sleep technique to fall back into a dreamless sleep.