Pain in sync with Takao’s heartbeat stirred him from an otherwise peaceful sleep. A low groan rumbled in his throat as tired eyes slowly opened, and were greeted with the sight of Fuyuko’s ceiling bathed in pale moonlight. At first, the confusion of having just woken up left in dazed and unsure of why his eyes had opened. But as another throb of pain pounded against his head, the realization dawned on him. He could hear their distant call, more like a whisper than somebody standing far away, but it rapidly built in volume.

”Was just a matter of time.” He mentally mused in monotone. Having spent the past week in bliss without their interruption in her presence had almost made him forget that the voices in his head existed.

Takao pulled himself from the warmth of the bed and collected a nearby shirt that had been lazily tossed over the back of a chair. He quietly exited the bedroom and pulled the fabric over his head on the way down the hall.


His eyes twitched as the voices became clear enough to understand, and had immediately taken to their usual tactic of speaking ill of him and his worth. The Jōnin was wise to their predictable ways by now, having dealt with such antics for most of his life.

“Creative.” He mumbled to himself in quiet protest of his own psyche while passing the perch in which his falcon rested. With a simple outstretched arm, his avian companion leaped forward and was taken along with Takao as he moved toward the door.

“Guess we’ll see if a walk will clear my head.” He knew better than to assume whatever plagued his subconscious would be assuaged with a walk through a damp Kirigakure morning. If nothing else, it would give Asuka the opportunity to stretch his wings.

Furtively, Takao slipped from his girlfriend’s home without a sound to disturb her. After taking a few steps out into the street, his arm rose, and Asuka was granted the opportunity to take flight to the sky obscured by thick morning mist. Takao watched the bird disappear into the haze without worry, knowing well that his trained companion would be just fine on his morning flight.

As Takao took to the streets of Kirigakure, he lifted a cigarette from the carton in his pocket and held it in the corner of his mouth. A dab of chakra was added to the end of his thumb as he snapped, setting it alight with a tiny flame that was used to light the end of the paper and tobacco. The flame was shaken out and a long drag filled his lungs with familiar smoke, gracing his body with the comfort that it had been starved of for quite some time.

He started down the street, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth for the convenience of a light puff here and there as his dull, onyx-hued orbs glazed over the various buildings constructed of wood and cobble. Each step taken was accompanied by the voices that spoke loudly in his head, so real to him that they might as well have been people walking beside him.

It was a nuisance, and the headache didn’t make it much better, but for now it was manageable. Takao sauntered along the streets of Kirigakure, enjoying the dull silence. If there was one ounce of credit that he would pay to the village hidden in the mists, it was how well the mist insulated distance sounds. Of course, the silence only made his internal voices louder by comparison, but during the brief stints of true quiet it was something to savour.

Moments passed, and the matter of how vocal they were becoming had yet to lessen. Worrisome to a degree, but not quite something that he would fret over just yet. Takao’s mindless walk through the village had lead him to the northern gates, and out along the dirt paths that lead to further settlements on the Land of Water’s main island. The lights of the village were a beacon in the night, so finding his way back would be of little issue, compared to a week prior when a mere mission out into the wilderness had left him hopelessly lost. The forest was even more quiet than the village, and it provided him with a true sense of serenity...


A low grunt escaped his throat. He hadn’t expected them to be as long as they had become. The headache had yet to be eased at all despite his unhealthy habit and quiet stroll, which made their increase of volume that much more unpleasant.

“Yeah, I never do.” Takao growled in response aloud as his walk resumed. They offered rebuttal, he contested, and the raven-haired shinobi engaged in his typical mental arguments with the voices in his head, occasionally musing sarcastically that it was an attractive trait.

Pulses of pain throbbed within his head as his migraine worsened, the loud whir of multiple voices robbing him of any hope at internal silence. Seldom had it ever reached unbearable levels of pain, yet this instance was quickly fulfilling such a description. Even the subtle rattle of his body landing on one foot after the other as he walked was becoming too much.




Takao fell to his knees, slumping forward as his hands rose to his head. The throbs of pain left him in agony, every attempt at suppressing the intrusive thoughts only made them louder and angrier. He pulled one hand from his head and cocked his arm back, thrusting the tightly clenched fist into the ground. It cracked and split under the force of his fist, yet the jarring motion did little to ease the ache that throbbed in every crevice of his head.






His jaw clenched tight enough that it felt like the muscles in his cheeks would tear from the pressure, and that the joints of his mandible felt like they would give at any moment. Even his teeth felt like they might shatter under the sheer force. It was through sheer force of will that he hadn’t succumbed to the pain that had practically left him crippled on the ground. None of his own thoughts could penetrate the wall of sound.

“...Fine... Fine! I’ll listen! Just fuсking stop! Just...” Each guttural word was hissed through clenched teeth until the energy and will to do so had faded. He slumped forward when the spent muscles in his body would no longer support his weight. With closed eyes, he felt the sensation of something cool and wet on his face, that almost felt like it was easing the pain in his head.

“...Stop…” He finally mumbled out. Defeated and broken by the superior consistency of the intrusive command hallucinations, Takao’s eyes strained to open, and adjusted to the sight of the mud that he had slumped into.




“Fine. I’m listening.” He sibilated through firmly grit teeth. Takao cared precious little for what the voices would say, and this was no different. He would defy them and push them back, as he always did. He already knew the orders they would, the intrusive thoughts they would try to plant in his head.


“Bullshit.”

The simple act of defiance was enough to send the voices back into a roar. His hands rose to his head as a breathless wheeze of pain left his lungs, applying pressure in a futile attempt to ease the unbearable twinge of agony.


Despite the pain, Takao’s mouth managed to curl into a weak smile at the demand.

“That’s all it ever is with you. Burn this. Burn that. Burn it all. Acting like fire is this perfect bastion of sa-..nghh...” His musings were interrupted and paused by a throb of pain. “...safety… As if I can’t be hurt by it at all. ...Fine. You want fire? I’ll give you fuсking fire.”

Struggling to his feet, Takao was granted a moment of mental reprieve when silence overtook his thoughts. The Kimura blood that ran through his veins was already building chakra in his lungs. Smoke billowed from within his mouth as he turned his gaze earthward. When he exhaled, it was hardly majestic. A great fireball sized projectile was vomited from his lungs. It hit the ground and exploded into plumes of fire around him. Had he been without the Kimura shroud that protected them from their own flames, he would have been burned, just as the mud was burned from his skin. It dried and cracked, eventually falling from his flesh. The grass around him burned away, and sodden soil had its moisture evaporated.


Their orders rang clear in his ears, and he obliged. He sucked in another breath, even taking in the flames he had just exhaled, and repeated the process. This time there was more chakra, more oxygen, and more fire. When he exhaled, a larger plume of fire spewed forth from his mouth. Glowing saliva dripped from his tongue, searing hot from the flames but not evaporated because of his Kimura heritage. The fire around him was bolstered and grew in size, singing more grass, evaporating more moisture from the ground and air around him, and threatening to catch the forest around him on fire.




Takao was already panting. The burn of the flames stung in his mouth, and the sensation of ash lining his throat and lungs from breathing in the flames was more than unpleasant.




“I get it, alright? Stop fuсking repeating yourself.” He hissed in protest, his voice distorted by the loud crackle of flames that surrounded him.

More fire. Was that their thoughts, or his own? He couldn’t tell the difference anymore, but it didn’t matter. Takao’s stomach sucked in another hefty lungful of air, distending his chest ever so slightly as the organs reached capacity and then some. Chakra pooled within his body and lit the air alight within him. He wretched and spewed another torrent of flames from within, this plume much larger than before.



The pain was incessant. Their voices were unending. He needed relief, however he could get it. He knew how to shut them up, to satiate them-- if only temporary. His breathing stuttered and faltered, growing weak and uneasy from the migraine. He wouldn’t give in to their nonsense so easily.

“...Come on,” Takao exhaled breathlessly. “One more…”




He willed the last of his strength into a final breath. He faltered at first, and lost the breath in favour of panting, but forced another down. His eyes closed and he focused entirely on flooding as much chakra into the oxygen distending his lungs and chest. He kept building, pouring more chakra from his tenketsu into the conglomerate of flames that dwelled within his body. As his mouth opened, prepared to release the flames, he gagged and wretched. The flames poured from within him as a powerful jet, vomited from his lungs. The plume grew into a massive torrent of flames. They spread ten meters in an instant, then twenty, thirty, and out to nearly fifty meters in total. The flames consumed foliage and flora alike, reducing everything that the swathes of fire touched to ash faster than the blink of an eye. The flames kept pouring from his maw as an endless wave of fire spewing from his chest.




The torrent of flames slowly died down, and left the portion of forest alight. Takao struggled to his feet-- he wouldn’t be caught at the scene having wrought such destruction upon the forests of Kirigakure. Chakra charged his muscles, and in an instant he disappeared without a trace, sans the flames that continued to burn.