Visions devoid of candor swam in and out of view. A neverending parade of pink elephants pranced to and fro as Kaiji Kyudoka watched on. "I am... losing it, n-no, lost it, I have lost it..." Kaiji's eyes flickered from pale amber to a rich hue of otherworldly gold. One minute he was gazing out the window of his small abode at nothing in particular, and the next he was focusing intently on a falling leaf, an impossible distance away for those with normal sight. "Think I'm b-broken," the troubled teen said, attempting to stand and perhaps walk off the intense sense of vertigo. He only made a couple strides before tumbling head over heels into the countertop and falling flat on his back.

As Kaiji counted the errant dust mites swirling through the air, a foreign presence made itself known, though the pink-haired shinobi was in no condition to move, let alone defend himself. "Wh-whooo?" he slurred uneasily. "I-if you've come to pilfer my things, I-I must w-warn you, I've nothing of v-value here." His breathing was labored. "N-now if you're h-here for my life, th-then–"

"Oh, give it a rest, silly Kaiji," a feminine lilt spoke. She approached from seemingly no direction at all, but at once, she was upon him, straddling his waist, and making him VERY uncomfortable.

"WHA-WH-WHAT'RE YO-YOU D-D-D–!" His stammering speech was laid to rest as the intruder put a finger to Kaiji's lips and mouthed Shhhhhh. The teen ninja had faced dangerous situations in the past, gone on missions wherein he was in actual harm's way, but not a damn thing had prepared him for this. Kaiji Kyudoka was utterly terrified, a-and sweaty? Why was he so sweaty? His gut held a fecundity of lepidoptera, that is to say, that there were butterflies in his stomach.

"Kaiji, Kaiji, Kaiji... Sweet, idiot Kaiji," the enchantress mused, intonation caught between a lullaby and dirge.

"I-idiotmmphh!" Kaiji attempted to interject, just as the girl decided to shift her weight, and turn that single finger she'd used to shush him into her whole hand across his mouth, ensuring that he would interrupt no further.

"Now," she continued, so raw, so physical, so... sweet-smelling. "I've tried, and I've tried, and, you guessed it, I've tried again. And yet–you're just. Not. Getting. It." The girl sighed, a wet, raspy exhalation. Kaiji longed to feel her breath on his flesh.


"Kaiji, honey. Focus. Look into my eyes, come on, Kaiji. It's me, Sachiko. Your Sachi. You remember, don't you?" But Sachiko's deep green eyes, like uncut emeralds, were not the focus of Kaiji's attention. No, the bespectacled Genin's full attention was wholly devoted to the ragged wound smack-dab in the center of the otherwise normal girl's throat. From out the bloody maw something protruded, something familiar to Kaiji. It was... the head of an arrow.

"Yuh-y-yoou," words failing to form. Quickly, the boy scrambled backwards, crawling in reverse as if his life depended on it, until he crashed into the wall so hard it took his breath away. "S-Sachiko, oh, oh f-****!" Kaiji cried, the words accented by tumultuous dismay. "I don't know what's g-going on!" the boy wailed. "Sachi, whu-what h-happened. Wh-why's there an," he gulped, "A-an arrow in your neck!?" Before he could go on, the impossible girl was upon him once more, taking up residence in his lap.

"You aren't stupid, Kaiji," her voice losing the mellifluousness. "Put the pieces together, maybe study a little, just... just... figure it out already!" Blood, thick and ropy, wept from Sachiko's wound. The girl was crying real tears as well. She placed her arms around her one-man captive audience. "I don't wanna be here anymore, Kaiji... I'm begging you... I'm begging you..." In an instant, the weight of another human being was lifted and the girl known as Sachiko, Sachi to Kaiji, was gone. Kaiji was frozen on the spot. Before tonight, she had only appeared to him in visions, a wispy echo of the girl he knew as a child, but... just then, she seemed so real. Kaiji could touch her soft skin, smell her alluring scent, hear her honeyed voice. But that arrow wound. It was foul, gory, and above all, ultimately lethal. There was just no way that a person could survive that, or talk even with that thing through their windpipe. Kaiji, shivering and unsure of his entire world, stood up from the floor.

"There's just... I mean... I've never..." Thoughts, wild ideas, and mad theories buzzed around in Kaiji's head. "It isn't... logical, but she has to be a spirit of some kind." He steeled himself, jaw set and brow furrowed. "Then that means that... Sachi must've died. N-no, she was killed, and with an arrow." Kaiji nearly dropped to the ground again. "W-was it m-m-me!? D-did I kill Sachiko?" It was bedlam in Kaiji's mind right now. "I-I've got to... I mean, for her AND for me, I have to kn-know."


[EXIT]

TWC: 913

Training: