Reticent

Aphonic

....breathe....

Breathe.

Breathe!

Inumaki Toge's eyes flew open, and he flipped up towards what he hoped was the sun, up and out of the river. Why he was in a river he didn't quite know. But he also didn't know much else. Where was he? Who is he? Inumaki Toge, that's who he is. But who is Inumaki Toge? Toge gasped in sweet, sweet air for a minute, roughly coughing up an alarming amount of water and blood, the cloth up in front of his face soaking most of it up and leaving a terrible iron smell behind. A stabbing pain in his side caused him to wince, and his throat felt like it had collapsed in on itself. No, it had, he told himself. He spoke too much.

But why? Why did speaking hurt him? What did it do?

Toge looked around himself, pursing his lips. He made eye contact with a bear that was steadily watching him, warily. It was across the river he was in, seemingly hunting for some fish or something. A bear. A panda is a type of bear. A panda. Panda.

Toge couldn't figure out where his mind was trying to take him. What do panda's have to do with anything? A panda is a panda, this is a bear. Not a panda.

Stop thinking of panda's!

Without even thinking, Toge opened his mouth, and his hand came up to move the part of his clothing that was covering it. He paused. That motion was fluid, natural. As if he has done it many times, and he probably had.

Time to conduct an experiment, he supposed. Opening his mouth once more, he wondered what he was doing. But at his sudden movement, the bear was spooked. Usually moving a little wouldn't spook a bear like so, perhaps this bear was traumatized. Can bears be traumatized? This one certainly was, as this very minimum movement of his sent the bear into panic, and it had started barreling towards him.

"Stop." Toge surprised himself with his voice. Was it supposed to sound like that? To his utter surprise, the bear did indeed stop. In fact, it seemed to stop against its will... Toge inhaled sharply. Surely not. He hesitated for a second before opening his mouth once more, consciously stopping himself from moving his arm, "Sleep."

The bear collapsed. Toge stared at it. It did not move, aside from the rise and fall of it's flank to indicate breathing.

Toge stared at his reflection in the water, noticing the seals on either side of his mouth. Opening his mouth he could see another seal on his tongue. Snake and fangs. With speed he didn't know he had(of course he didn't know, he doesn't know anything right now, other than this was definitely not natural but at the same time irrefutably it was)he snatched a fish out of the water, opening his mouth. If this meant what he thought it did, he needed to find out the trigger words as fast as he possibly could. The fish thrashed in his grip, but he didn't let up. "Explode."

The fish convulsed and violently exploded, scattering it's innards and flesh. The soft plops of the meat into the water brought him out of whatever inner battle with himself he was having. Toge absolutely did not want to continue, and not just because it was kind of gross(actually he wasn't quite as queasy as he though he would be, so he must be used to this. He didn't know if that was good or bad). His throat was already messed up, this test wasn't helping at all. The concluded he used this... ability? What does he call this? Magic? Sorcery?

Sorcery sounded about right.

This sorcery(on second thought it didn't sound right at all) was probably the cause of his throat being messed up in the first place. But he had to. He probably wouldn't be able to talk at all, but he had to try to look for something that he could say. Not because he wanted to talk, but because if he accidentally said something and it was a trigger, who knows what would happen?