"It wasn't that it's getting worst. I mean, he's bringing something up everytime he remembered it. I can't tell when it had begun and what was the first thing he does his first move. But Yumi was always involved," I told all I can say regards Kyo and hope it could give all the answers and clues as I thought maybe a psychotherapist would help to figure out what was going on. And Shizune only nodded her head and jot down notes as I was telling my testimonies.
Kyo was in the other room and gets interviewed by Lady Tsunade.
It was supposed to be just another medical ninja who's a psychologist or psychiatrist or whatever psychic that can diagnose him, but maybe because it's him and his connection to Yumi that he had the privilege to be diagnosed by the only Lady Tsunade, herself.
I let out a deep sigh, thinking what else I could say about the "observations" I had with him that I claimed he's acting strange.
I had one in mind, but I don't think I should tell.
Like when I just went to call him personally for dinner, and I found him scared in his own handwriting, but claimed it was from Yumi.
I mean, they'll just conclude it that he was only doing pranks at me considering he had spend a lot of time with Yumi than me. And it was Yumi's nature to pull pranks from time to time.
I'm a bit scared of the result that I might get, that he's perfectly fine and mentally stable and I was only overthinking it.
Worst outcome, I'm the one who's insane. (╥_╥)
"I just want to know what was bothering him. He doesn't talk to me about it, like you know? I will try to understand if he thought I wouldn't understand if he did tried to explain himself. I'm worried and it's tiring me out thinking about it. I can't even ignore it," I said with a sigh.
"Well, it's perfectly normal as a parent to worry about their child, but," she tilts her head and gave me a funny look that I can't guess what was she mean by it.
"You're taking this too seriously, huh?"
Why do I feel like she's teasing me?
(⁄ ⁄ Ò ⁄ ﹏ ⁄ Ó⁄ ⁄ )
She sniffled a laugh before looking over her notes that I don't think there's something to get noted in the story I have said.
"If this is a serious case, Yumi should have said anything when she's with him while you're with your teammates for a mission, but she didn't mentioned any. I doubt, Yumi would have done something to traumatize him."
I got a glimpse of her reaction that had shown for a split second.
Why did she had a face like that though? (・・;)ゞ
"In any case, come and report again if these strange acts occurs."
"Sure, I will," I replied simply and she left me.
I waited for Kyo in one of the chairs in the Out-Patient department area and finally I saw him walking in the hall way with the hokage on his side.
"Like I had guessed, you're still here," she says as she approached. And Kyo was skipping in a way that jumping from tile to tiles on the floor, avoiding the lines carefully.
"He's fine, I had nothing to say about him to be not feeling well," she says that made me sigh. It's for disappointment of course.
"But I didn't say that I don't believe in your stories about him acting strangely," she says with a smile and like Shizune, she appeared to have shown that face too.
But unlike Shizune, she didn't showed it, but she did it under her smile like a mask.
I don't want to keep my hopes up, but her last words was reassuring.
"Dad, can we go eat some ice cream?" He speaks up that made me turn my eyes on him.
"With lots of chocolate toppings, stat! Pretty please? With cherry on top?"
He's acting normal now again, not the one who's traumatized.
I forced myself to put up a smile and said, "Ice cream with chocolate chips and cherry on top, coming right up!"
"You guys go ahead, I'll take care of clearing this up. I'll catch up." He volunteered.
"Okay," Kakashi responded, giving him a last look before leaving the office.
Their group went to the orphanage to give information that they had gathered upon interviewing people around town, thinking it would be important as back up.
With Sai observing from above and also watching them from possible trackable attack from above, they didn't expect he had to signal that was something was up.
Kakashi held up his hand to signal the others to stop on their tracks.
"What's wrong, Kakashi-sensei?" Asked Naruto, arching his eyebrow in confusion that his patience begin to tingle, hinting there's no need to wait for it, but held his urge to rush in alone for respect.
They waited for Sai to land with his inked ninja art.
"What did you find?" Asked Kakashi immediately just when the feet of the bird reached the land before Sai could even jumped down.
"It's," he paused that made Naruto puck his lips, growing impatient to this. "I can't exactly put it in that way, but it was like that the orphanage was around here, but also not," he explained that left everyone confused, except for Naruto that he's now in his limits of his patience and worries about Sakura and the others who are in the orphanage.
"Also, I noticed, I keep looking for all of you. You seemed to be walking in circles," he added as an information to take note of.
If the orphanage isn't around, then where did they go? He wanted to know sooner without suspense.
"Please take it a bit further on the detail. Even if it wasn't that clear, a little information was already helpful," says Keisuke who's growing a bit worried too behind the mask of his not-bothered-at-all pasted on his face.
"It's the mist from the river."
They lift their guards up from a sudden voice just jumped in their conversation.
"Oh, it's you," Naruto sighs, dropping his fighting stance.
But with Keisuke who isn't surprised by it the least, that Kakashi noticed this and didn't feel that he's concerned at least put him an alarm code.
"You've been sniffing the mist from the river all these time that caused you to walk around in circles," she turned sideways, "Since I'm here, I'll show the way," she said then went off.
"Hey, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto called that Kakashi replied by turning his visible eye on him. "Is she part of the genjutsu. I mean," he pointed where Yumi who was leaving them behind, but her silhouette was still in their sight. "Isn't she supposed to be in the orphanage doing a role play or something?"
Naruto has a point there that wavers his belief that the mist that Yumi claims was the cause that possible they are under a genjutsu.
"Let's just follow her since she's the only option we have," says Keisuke flatly and was the first one to leave.
He wanted to protest by the idea, but Naruto butts in immediately.
"If this was a trap, we can just rely on Kakashi-sensei's genius strategy, right?" He says while flashing a big and wide grin then followed Keisuke, leaving him with Sai that he glanced to give him a questioning look, trying to look for opinions by just looking at him.
"Maybe that means he trusts you," he says flatly that he started to rummage in his bag to look for his guide book about human feelings to review that part.
"More like relying too much," Kakashi muttered with a sigh. "Well, we don't have a choice. We better follow them to avoid separation to our team and that would be a big problem."
On their way, he also noticed the alluring sweet scent in the air that he thought that was what Yumi claims that it was the reason why no matter how far they goes, they seems to be running in circles. If that was the case, it could explain why Sai had said that the orphanage was there, but it feels like it wasn't there. And Sai didn't even protest to it if it contradicts to what he had observed on the area while he's in the air.
"The orphanage was just there," she talks, bringing them in the river.
Naruto squinted his eyes then blinked, "Looks to me that on the other side of that river, it's just a foot of the mountain."
Kakashi lifted his headband that covers his left eye, the sharinggan that could see through anything.
"The genjutsu from the mist was to avoid getting close to it, but when you reached to this point, it doesn't need for that special eyes to figure it out. The barrier was visible with just using the naked eye."
"Yumi," Keisuke called her name with a pint of authority that Yumi returned the glares back to her superior.
"Don't sweat it, Keisuke. I understand. It's my fault anyway for thinking it too much," he tried to interfere, but they're too serious that even after giving his assurance, their staring contest didn't broke off that he had thought of wanting to take it back and leave them alone.
"So, if it's just a protective barrier, then how will we unseal it." And for once in a blue moon, he had heard Naruto had analysed something that its out of his league. It was something he's proud of atleast, to witness the knucklehead ninja have grown so much from the past years with the legendary sannin, Jiraya.
"You can see it?" Asked the usually quiet, Sai.
Naruto turned to him with a smug look on his face, "Well, duhh! It's just right there, a transparent wall, rippling like a water!"
"Anyway, you should probably chase after her," she says and handling a piece of paper towards them.
It's a sketch image of a person.
"She left probably two hours ago or so. I was waiting for you to come here, good thing I decided to swim. And see Sai's jutsu at the sky while I was floating against the waters," she explained further to avoid suspicion that Kakashi already had his finger on it. Further reason to raise a question was Keisuke who's been quiet and emotionless.
Her alibi had kind of made sense, but who in the world would go to swim in the river late at night? That would be too cold.
But Yumi's hair was evidently drenched and water still drips off in the tips of her hair.
"If you planned to come back and fetch us, just follow the river," she says her blunt instruction, very flatly.
"How will we find which part of the river?" Naruto asked quickly, but Yumi didn't bothered to look back and was swallowed by the invisible wall.
It didn't take long and exhert a lot of effort for them to look around town again if their target had already left.
Kakashi asked if Sai could draw birds or mouse to be able to send everyone a message if they had seen the lady in the sketch and catch it if they can as they gave off a detail that she's a vicious ran away criminal in disguise, instead of Naruto's signature shadow clone jutsu.
It was a harsh manipulation by taking advantage of the citizen's fear of the impostors running around quite a while arounf their town that it was investigated that the hideout was hiding in their town.
But they can't waste time as they had already wasted a lot.
Before they could reach town, fire in one spot was too imminent that anyone can tell there was something going on that they immediately head into it.
And people had already tied her in a post with firewoods pilled on her feet to her knees. Most of the citizens had torches in their hands, really intended to burn the vicious criminal that they had branded, alive.
"Calm down everyone!" Naruto immediately came forward and went to the center to talk to everyone in the crowd. "She's still just a suspect! We can't be this reckless! What if she's one of us? What if she's innocent?" He says that left Kakashi, his sensei, surprised and a bit confused. This is not the Naruto that he knew.
"He's right," Sai went to Naruto's side that made Kakashi even more confused.
He isn't very familiar with Sai yet, but he didn't expect that the quiet and had a quite lacking understanding of a human emotions, Sai, was capable of standing up to defend others.
His one visible eye turned towards the one lady at the center. She looked defeated, but she had this smile on her face like telling that she was prepared for it, but quite not ready to have it this early.
His doubt that Yumi must have given a not very accurate information, was now very accurate.
He had this little thought in his head, that he was surprised and somehow proud that Yumi was too skilled on doing investigation, he can't say how efficient it was since he doesn't have the details yet on how she got it, but he still finds it amazing.
Maybe that is why he was called in by the Interrogation Corps. not because she's a suspect of one of the patients of this so called skin changer. Just a thought.
He roamed his eyes randomly to think, but instead he noticed that Keisuke was gone in their team.
"Damn that, Keisuke. Where the hell did he go? What is he up to?" He cussed under his breath and think of what to do next.
He turned to where Naruto and Sai is, he can't just leave them be with a dire situation like sacrificing a woman whom isn't innocent and isn't a criminal either.
He briefly closed his eyes to think, then again thought of just to escape.
"How'd you know, Kakashi-sensei was a genius!" Which he can't barely think that it was a compliment.
All Kakashi could say to his dear friend, the wind, "why do I had to do this alone?"
-----
A/N:
3 years passed after the pandemic and I decided to edit the chapters. The last update was February 2021.......But yeah, I'm back. (ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ ٥)ゞ
Check my other fanfiction of bleach. I also republished it today. (＾◡＾ ٥)
Thanks for all the support!
Sending virtual loves~~~💜
03.16.23