"I am going with you." Ino stares me straight in my eyes. She readjusts the strap to her bag into a more comfortable position and narrows her eyes at me, daring me to tell her what she doesn't want to hear.
"No." I fold my arms and level my own glare at her as I immediately dismiss that idea, regardless of her intense stare. "Ino you wouldn't survive over there. You'd be eaten alive and I mean literally. There are some fucked up things in Otogakure. Things that make me look tame in comparison. I have seen the creatures Orochimaru creates, they are not pleasant. They are twisted and vile creatures, they have had their humanity stripped from them and embraced it. Thrived because of it."
"I'll have you to protect me." She pleads her case as she takes an aggressive step towards me. "Orochimaru listens to you. You can make sure he lets us work on the same team. Plus I am a kunoichi, I may not even need your protection. I'm deadly on my own."
"Ino I can't order him around, he orders me around!" I am almost yelling at this ridiculous idea. "You're a Yamanaka, you have the Mind Techniques. He'd love to dissect you to figure out how they work. At the minimum he would try to enhance your capabilities and that is always painful. Not like getting cut with a kunai painful, like the pain that you experienced when you first visited my head. That kind of painful."
"I don't care." She waves off my warning.
"DAMMIT WOMAN I AM NOT WORTH IT!" I roar at her with every drop of fury I can muster. "Go back to your friends! Go back to your home! Go back to your family! Go back to Konoha! Go back where it's safer!"
"WHY WON'T YOU?" She roars right back at me. "They're your friends too! It's your home too! It's your family too!"
"My family is dead." I don't hang my head in shame, instead I let shadows dance on my face. Obscuring it just enough to become menacing. I need to make a point, that Orochimaru is inhuman. "Killed on the orders of Orochimaru himself, carried out by one of his best shinobi. I have vowed to myself to see them both brutally murdered by my own hand. I'm not there for just Sasuke. I'm not there for just spying on Orochimaru and protecting Konoha. I'm there to get revenge. You want no part of that."
"That is not for you to decide!" Ino stomps her foot in anger. "I am going with you and that is final! It doesn't matter where you go, Oto or Konoha, I am going too!"
"No. I will not allow it to happen. I will not willingly take someone I care about back to that hellhole."
"You do not get a choice." She tightens her grip on the backpack. "I am going with you even if I have to follow you."
"I don't get tired. All I have to do is sprint at my top speed then you'll be far behind me with no hope of discovering my trail. You have no idea where you're going. It will be child's play to lose you." I turn away from her and start walking towards my bed. "Or I could just stay here until you have to leave then the Konoha shinobi would take you back with them. I don't have to leave tomorrow, I still have plenty of time until Orochimaru expects me back."
"I'll just have to find out where I am going on my own then." I hear her whisper to herself.
"Ino no!" It's too late. She's already on the last hand sign, one I've come to dread.
"Mind Body Transfer Jutsu!" She casts out her own mind and it slams into mine.
"You stupid girl!" Those are my last words as we're pulled into my mindscape.
Alvarcus's Mindscape
"Everytime I come here I'm always surprised." Ino says as she stares out into the endless void. "Not just at what your mind is like but also because it's always in your mindscape. Only those with a strong will even get the chance to fight for control of their bodies and this is the third time in a row that we're here. It is supposed to get easier to take over the more you've been in someone's head, that's what tou-san always said. Something about knowing how the mind is set up already. But you, you're so complex. Like a puzzle that I've been working on for years yet am no closer to understanding than when I started."
"Ino why did you do this?" I'm standing next to her, also staring out into the vast darkness. "You're never going to find where I am going."
~Back again?~
Sureddo sounds oddly pleased at that.
"Yes, I am." Ino confidently responds to Sureddo. "You do not scare me enough to stop me."
~Is that a challenge? I can show you so much more, not only Alvarcus' pain but also the pain he has caused others. The pain we have caused others.~
"How about no?" I cut in. "Can't you just kick her out?"
~I do not want to kick her out even if I could. It's so very rare that I get to meet someone else besides the Host.~
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" I accuse Sureddo.
~Yes, yes I am.~
"I want to make a deal with you." Ino calls out to the voice of Sureddo. "If you're willing."
~Depends on the deal.~
"I want you to show me where Alvarcus is going and in return I will fully experience a memory of your choice, no matter how... extreme." Ino bargains with Sureddo.
~No, the Host is right in choosing to not bring you back with us. You are too weak for it, you will break under Orochimaru's rule. You would not last a month, you'd barely last a week.~
"I am stronger than you both know." Ino raises herself up to her full height.
~Yet you are not strong enough.~
"Then I shall take what I came here for!" Ino shouts a threat into the void. "I am a Yamanaka, in the mind there is no equal! It will only be a matter of time until I find it!"
She starts to float off into the vast emptiness in search of the answers she desires.
"Ino Yamanaka." I say with an edge in my voice as I clamp a hand down onto her wrist, stopping her from exploring. "You are past the point of playing with fire. You have spilled oil all over yourself and are about to strike a match. You do not know half of the horrors I have hidden away in my mind."
~For every memory of the Host's that you view I will rip one out of your head. Then after viewing it I will make sure the next one of Alvarcus's you see will be more extreme in every sense of the word. You show us a painful experience, I show you torture. You show us a training session, I show you one of Orochimaru's training sessions. You show us a fond memory of your sensei, I show you one of Alvarcus' fond moments with his. Whatever emotion yours has, I will show you one of Alvarcus' that is more severe. Be it pain, pleasure or just simply uncaring, you will see it.~
"You can't do that." Ino scoffs out. "True this is a two way street but you lack the finesse to accomplish your threat. It takes years to master mindwalking."
"Big mistake Ino. Did you forget where we are?" I ask her.
~Yes, child, did you? For we are inside a mind that is not my own, yet I am still here. I have been 'mindwalking,' as you call it, ever since I joined Alvarcus. Ever since the Parasite and the Host unified. You think you have an advantage because you have visited his mind three times. I have been living in his mind. You have no power here.~
"We will just have to test that now won't we?" Ino boasts about her skills and I am sure they're very good. But they will not be enough to overcome the Jiongu, to best Sureddo who has lived with me for a long time. It just won't happen.
"You're both forgetting something very important." I cut in between their threat throwing. "This is my mind. Sureddo you will not interfere with what comes next."
~I will do as you ask unless she treads somewhere we don't want her to be. As you said before there are things in your mind that must never come to light.~
"Trust me, by the time I'm done she will never want to come back." I turn to Ino. "You want to go to Oto? You wish to follow me back to Orochimaru?"
"Yes." She promises me with a steely look of determination.
"Then allow me to give you a mere glimpse of what that life is like." I dramatically sweep my arm towards the endless void and it changes.
Colors spring into existence, shapes and object and even people fill the once empty void. It is not a bright and colorful field of flowers though, no that is not what I am showing her. This is a cold and dreary cave. One that has never known the grace of sunlight. It's a hole in the ground that is best left forgotten forever but it is also where Orochimaru tosses his failed experiments. It's the Pit.
I'm showing her the beginning of my descent into madness.
"But how?" Ino asks as she's staring wide eyed at the sudden change in scenery. "You shouldn't be able to do this!"
"And why not?" I rhetorically ask her. "This is my mind. I am God here. The only God, the one true God. I can do whatever I want whenever I want. The only thing limiting me is my own imagination. Calling up a memory is nothing."
"But only the most skilled Yamanaka have ever been able to call up a memory so smoothly and with such detail! I don't understand you don't have any training! It doesn't make sense!" She can't comprehend it.
"The difference is I am not invading a mind, I am simply using my own." I gesture around the cave. "Now tell me, what do you see?"
"You and Sasuke." Ino says, she's playing my game. She thinks that the longer she's in here the more time she has to find where I am going. Too bad that will be the furthest thing from her mind very soon. "You're both on high alert while in a cave. What's so special WHAT IS THAT!?"
"That, dear innocent Ino, is one of Orochimaru's failed experiments." I look at the snakeman, he's one person I will never regret killing. Well Sasuke killed him, I killed the rest of his posse. "Meet Apodora, a scumbag of the highest degree."
"WHAT IS THAT THING?" Ino shouts out in fear again.
"That is Gina." I look at my dead friend. My murdered friend. Brilliant red hair. A pair of bat like wings jutting out of her shoulders. A long leathery tail extending a ways out of the base of her spine. "And she's a she, not a thing. Nice girl, helped Sasuke and I out when we were in a bind."
"R-really?" Ino stutters out in shock. "That thing helped you?"
"Yes." I let a hint of anger seep into my voice. "Gina helped us."
With another wave the scene changes again.
"Gina is nervously offering her services to Sasuke and me. Mainly Sasuke, I didn't actually need treatment but you get the idea." I explain to Ino as we watch the conversation between Sasuke, me and Gina. "You see Gina had a rough life. She was a kunoichi before this, before Orochimaru got to her. He changed her, twisted her to become something most consider less than human. Orochimaru considers her a failure so he chucked her down here in the Pit. The Pit is a difficult place to survive in. The weak die while the strong fight for dominance. Gina was weak. So pitifully weak that she had to rely on others for protection. Down in the Pit there is only a few things that one can offer someone else. Your own skills or…"
"Your body." Ino's eyes widen in sudden realization. "She offered herself to survive didn't she?"
"No." I correct her. "I assume she offered her skills as a medic to Apodora the snake dude. He took her skills. Then he took her body. Repeatedly. Probably passed her around his little gang of scumbags too."
"She… she was raped?" Ino tears her eyes off of Gina healing Sasuke to look at me, to watch my face and see if I'm lying to her.
"She never explicitly said it and Sasuke and I had enough common sense to not ask her." I turn towards Gina. The shade of Gina. "When Sasuke and I arrived down in the Pit we demolished everyone down there. We beat them all into submission and Gina saw that as a chance to escape from her horrible fate. Ino she was broken, so very broken. She only referred to herself in the third person, she reverted back to a simple mind - almost childishly simple - to try and cope."
"Alvarcus why are you showing me this?" Ino asks me with a great deal of pity for Gina. "I get that what happened to her is terrible and I'm not disputing that. But what does this have to do with me going to Oto?"
I wave once more and the scene shifts again.
"Sasuke and I became kings when we were down here." Now we're looking at one of the more luxurious caves, one with blankets and other niceties that the others lacked. It's the cave that Sasuke, Gina and I took over. "Gina stood in our shadow, gaining our protection as long as she helped us. Quickly a friendship between the three of us formed. She was easy to get along with and made things more interesting when she was around. But being kings also means having enemies. The people down in the Pit knew that no one could stand up to us physically so instead they tried to outsmart us. They kidnapped Gina to try and force Sasuke and me into submission."
The memory Sasuke and I sprint out of the cave. We're desperately running towards Gina.
"Oh my God." Ino whispers out in fear.
Gina is tied to a stone column with fleshy rope. Surrounding her are ten beasts, all differing animals. They're enjoying this, laughing as she struggles in vain to escape and uproariously laughing as Sasuke and I halt before them.
"Do you think they… they…" Ino can't finish her sentence.
"I don't know if they used her again before we got there." I admit. "But every single one of them had the intention of using her later, I promise you that. Now do you remember our dear friend Apodora? He's the one who was behind all of this."
As if on command Apodora slithers out of his hole to beseech Sasuke and I with his asinine rules that we must abide by.
"What did you do? Did you save her?" Ino asks in fear.
"Watch." I order her.
We spend the next few minutes in silence watching the scene play out. My quick and efficient beheadings, Sasuke's Jiongu inspired genjutsu and Gina tackling us both with tears streaming down her face.
"So you did save her." Ino's tone has lighten up slightly.
"Yes. We did save her then." I wave my arm once more and the scene shifts again.
"That's Orochimaru." Ino can't help but stare at him in shock. "He's sitting down at a table in this place?"
"Yes, he's come to fetch Sasuke and me." I easily tell her. "We were never meant to remain down in that hole, it was a test that he put us through. Now watch."
"Oh you poor poor thing. You aren't coming with us." Orochimaru smiles sadistically at his failed experiment.
"Alvarcus what does he mean by that?" Ino asks me as she watches Sasuke barter with Orochimaru for Gina to come with us.
I don't respond. I'm not even look at the scene before me, I'm staring intently away from it at a wall.
"Alvarcus?" Ino asks again. "What's going on? What happens next?"
"Watch." I demand of her. "This is the life that you're asking to live. These are the kinds of things that Orochimaru forces people to do. This is -"
CRACK
"This is one of my worst memories." I weakly admit to Ino while doing everything I can to ignore the sound of a neck breaking. "It is when I truly started to fall into darkness."
"You… you killed her?" Ino asks in shock.
"Yes. I did." I force myself to stare Ino in the eyes.
I'm trying to make a point here, I will not allow my own squeamishness to get in the way of it. "She was my friend. We joked together. We laughed together. I helped save her and she constantly healed us. And when the time came to part ways I killed her."
"But you did it to spare her from more suffering." Ino makes the same excuse I did way back then. "Even with the brief instants you showed me I know that only torture and hell were left for her down there."
"True. But I still murdered a friend on the whims of a madman. The very same madman that you want to go to." I wave my arm once more, banishing the memory and returning us to the black void. "I showed you that to make two points to you. One, you could end up like me and have to murder someone you care about. That action, it's soul breaking. I have never been the same since it happened."
"The only person I care about in Oto is you." Ino cuts me off. "Orochimaru likes you too much to make me kill you."
"Correct, but will he like you enough to make me not kill you?" I ask her and she pales. "Because that is something that could easily happen. The second point I was going to make is this: What if you end up like Gina?"
"W-what?" Ino stutters out with wide terror filled eyes.
"Orochimaru may - will - experiment on you and once your trip through hell is over he might decide that you're a failure." I calmly force myself to explain to her. "He could toss you down in the Pit. Ino you're a support fighter, not a frontline fighter. You wouldn't last a week without help. Gina was a healer, a medic, she could offer that to other people down there. But you? Your skills are not in high demand. You would be the lowest of the low."
"But couldn't you-"
"No. I couldn't." I don't let her finish. "I do not control Orochimaru. I can sometimes sway him if I have a very, very good point or if it's him who asks me for my opinion. I can demand nothing, absolutely nothing, from that vile creature. No one can protect you from Orochimaru in Otogakure. No one."
"Okay." Ino softly says. "I get it. I won't-"
"No. I don't think you do." I cut her off once more. "We're not done yet."