12 Curiosity killed the cat or did it?

'Hmm…. Where do I start with this?'

Having appeared in my memory palace, or what was the japanese style single room with a single laptop on a knee high desk, I was visualizing the vague memories I had of the Kyuubi incident, more specifically I was trying to look into the aspect of the incident that induced fear into my very being and brought out memories that I had repressed, more accurately gotten over, something that I felt I had left behind long before in my previous life.

After the brutal murder of my parents, to which I was a witness to. A kind enough police officer, Jakenouvaq Clementine, who was in charge of the case of the international cop hunter, a serial killer who killed cops who caught other serial killers, adopted me since I had gone through such a traumatic event.

I remember times when I barely left the house sitting on a single chair staring out the window for hours together with a solemn expression, contemplating why everything felt so wrong.

I remember the times when I screamed as soon as I saw the fire in the fireplace that Jake had lit when it was winter's first snow.

I remember trying to fill the emptiness with random thrill by joining fight clubs where I was beaten black and blue by someone professional whom I taunted by insulting his height.

It was only after lot of effort on Jake's part where he spent day after day playing pranks on me, cooking horrible food just to spite me for not talking to him so that I would at least make an expression of disgust, throwing me into a jungle with basic camping gear and pretended to be driving off after telling me to experience and try to enjoy the 'thrill' while he silently stalked me while camouflaged to keep watch over me so that nothing in the jungle happened to eat me, did I start talking to him.

Although the emptiness never completely left in the beginning, it was definitely slowly filled by Jake, my books and anime.

Jake was a ray of light to my otherwise rather dark life. The reason other cops couldn't show up in time when my parents were getting tortured in front of me was because I'd earlier lost control over myself and smashed my phone onto the floor after loosing while playing the game about a bird flying over pipes. I didn't have my phone with me when the serial killer broke in and took mum hostage and asked dad to bind himself and mum with handcuffs, after which he proceeded to tape me to a chair and force me to watch as he poured kerosene all over the place, and then set it on fire, starting from my parents.

I watched as my mum mouthed the last words about how none of this was my fault, but I couldn't hear anything. My brain had shut down. I watched as my dad looked me right in my eyes and smiled his last smile before the torture began.

A cacophony of screams and wails erupted and poured through my ears assaulting my brain with only one fact, that just because I'd lost composure I'd caused the death of two people very dear to me. It was because of my stupid mistake that they'd never be coming back to hold me or to even berate me for the mistake again.

Jake was the one who later put me through hell and heaven to make me express my feelings one again, but I still never lost my cool after that, never once, even when I hunted for other serial killers with Jake not even in the most distressing of times or the most gruesome of events. I felt every emotion, but I kept them under absolute control so that I wouldn't loose my focus and make a mistake that cost another life. 

And after I started working with Jake on the cases he very rarely brought home, the empty feeling slowly vanished as I watched him at work and the only thought that flooded my head was to help in any way so I could give back for the way he helped me.

It was why in spite of his innumerous attempts at trying to get me to quit the police force I just kept smuggling myself back in and finding a way to help him out during his investigations.

Jake's reason for me quitting was simple, he said, "I was too efficient and scaring everyone else." But I knew he was just scared that someone might make a target out of me and attack me in the future, I was the only other person in his life after all. Jake too had lost his family too in a shooting. Which is why he taught me how to defend myself with hot weapons and a few cold ones too.

Finally giving up of in our little game he asked me what it'd take me to stop, so I counter proposed to know what it would take for me to prove to him that I don't need to be stopped.

He said I could come back only after I get a phd in eight subjects, thinking he'd probably have retired by the time I even finished two.

Jokes on him I got PHD in eight closely related subjects in three fields that I had already studied in depth during my time home schooling myself while I was not allowed to go to high school due to mental health issues.

Since I figured I wanted to help him in his investigations when I was home schooling myself and there were things that the law couldn't do without a permit like break into someone's technological privacy I decided I would learn about tech along with forensic sciences and art since I found it was used for moving a lot of money around.

I got three PhDs in comp. science where I researched about AI, systems design and electrical component fabrication methods and three PhDs in Forensics where I researched about DNA analysis for markers related to behavioral patterns, criminal psychology and loopholes in the criminal justice system.

I got another two PhDs in Art history and non-invasive fraud detection methods.

Of course no sane college would give me all the PhDs at once so I had to use a little of what I learnt about systems design and a bit about the internet and changed my identification information in a few different universities to have my paper submitted and accepted in the academia. There was no proof about the changes, since as far as the system was concerned Chadi Barfin, Rosalyn Numienine and Crate Pronte definitely existed, so who knows if what I'm saying is true or not.

After handing over my PhDs to Jake, which for the record terrified him as he was a police officer and I was breaking too many laws while doing what I did, I was grounded by Jake with all my electronics confiscated for a month after which I started to help Jake in all of his investigations by dropping a file containing all the evidence about the criminal he was looking for in a mail from an anonymous email id that traced back to the gulf.

Eventually, Jake got fed up with me breaking the law to try to help him, 'It's wrong even if there is no evidence.' he said. And so he got me a job to work as the Coroner in the same department he was working so he could keep me away from breaking more rules.

After becoming a Coroner I had become quite immune to seeing dead people and had very much moved on from the death of my parents but the Kyuubi incident still reminded me about it deeply, it brought back old scars which I couldn't comprehend.

I did not think it was simply because of fear because the few times I had gone along with Jake on active cases where man power was needed I did come across situations where my own life was threatened or held and gunpoint but nothing so strange had happened then, I had once even by coincidence helped firefighters rescue a family from their burning home but nothing happened then, I could always remain focused on the goal, the task, which was to maximize my satisfaction with life, if I didn't like something around me change it to suit me if I could, if I couldn't well then I would just put up with it.

There were several possible explanations that occurred to me, like perhaps the body of a baby was affecting my mentality more than I could understand. But I had an instinctive feeling it was something more than that.

I started trying to induce the same state of being I had as when I was in the Kyuubi Incident and observe if I could find any changes that could point me in the right direction.

I remember the air filled with the intent of malice due to the Kyuubi, so I thought perhaps I could fill myself up with something and then I'd experience the same thing? So I started to generate and create chakra in the largest tenketsu point in the body which was above the nave.

Chakra slowly filled my body giving me a somewhat warm feeling as if I was in a swimming pool until I found something present inside the tenketsu point on the heart resonate within myself, something rather strong, something that was trying to escape and try it's best to make itself known.

Dialing my focus up to eleven I discarded all my external focus and rounded up the extra part inside myself which was thundering, I knew I needed something more to properly observe what was this new feeling but I did not know if I could make myself feel something so intense once again so I started to experiment with myself by first generating chakra and trying to bring it to the point in my body that I was feeling this extra sensation.

As soon as I started to circulate chakra through the various different closed loops inside my body I noticed that the strange feeling in my body followed one of the closest streams of chakra inside my body which was moving towards my head.

As soon as the chakra gathered around a tenketsu between and slightly above my eyebrows it was stopped by an immense amount of force that neither did I apply nor could I even if I wanted to.

Feeling the sudden stinging pain in the tenketsu point I pressed my finger harshly into it as I broke my concentration or rather was forcefully forced to focus on just this one single tenketsu point as if it was the whole world. The feeling vanished as soon as it came.

*SZAAAAAAHHHHAAAAAA*

Taking deep breaths I fell onto my back noticing that my body had produced enough sweat to drench my clothes and hair as if I'd run into a shower with all my clothes on.

'Everything feels clearer and happier?'

I relaxed a little and entered back into my memory palace just to see if anything had changed since something had happened to the tenketsu point inside my head.

'Huh!? I got taller?'

Just as I was about to leave a soft feeling tugged at the bottom of my jacket? Why am I wearing the clothes I was wearing right before I died?

I turned around slowly to see what my Jacket was caught on.

"WHAT THE F***!!!!!?????" I screamed in surprise for the first time in a long long time in both my lives.

"SHUT UP!!!!!!!" The lady in front of me shouted as I received a punch to my face which I dodged by a hair's breadth and jumped behind my table as if it provided any reassurance in the situation I was in.

'Wtf is Sakura of all people doing here?'

"Of course I'm here! This is my body! My question is what are you doing here!?"

'Oh! She can read my mind as well.'

'Of course I can read his mind, it's my body! Hmpf! Although he looks cool I will still beat him up and throw him out of my body!'

'Oh! I can read her mind too!'

'Oh! He can read my mind now too!'

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Take that you useless big head!" 'It feels weird to call my own body a big head.'

"You want to be beaten by me you brat!?"

"Brat who!? I'm just as old as you are you washboard!"

"Wa- washboard! HOW DARE YOU!"

And then I was facing another flury of punches that kept flying my way which I dodged and judo locked her by molding to her back and dropping to the ground with her.

"LET ME GO YOU FILTHY BRAT! GIVE ME MY BODY BACK! STOP STEALING EVERYTHING FROM ME! I WANT MY LIFE BACK!! I JUST WANT MY LIFE BACK!!! YOU'VE HAD IT FOR NEARLY TWO YEARS!!! GIVE IT BACK!!!"

"Ahh.."

I realized how harsh this situation was for her, some how she was stuck in a body which should be hers but was now occupied by someone else, I'd feel extremely horrified too if tomorrow someone had taken over my life pretending to be me while I was just forced to powerlessly watch.

Well at least unlike me she hasn't given up on her emotions just yet.

"Hey!" I said holding onto her tighter so that she doesn't hurt herself, which I don't know if was possible in this place but seeing how this was her only body right now it'd mean she could get damaged right now?

As she ended her tantrum slowly I pulled her closer from a judo lock into a warm hug that she seemed to be in need of if the quivering of her shoulders and the wetness I could feel on her cheeks was any indication.

"It's not fair you know." Sakura reasoned.

"I know. It is not."

"Then why are you doing this? Just leave and give me back my life."

"Believe me or not, I am not the one who did this, I didn't even really have a choice. And I don't think I can give you your body, at least not for now since I don't know how."

"How do you not have a choice?! Just do what ever you did to get here in the first place and then you can leave!! THIS IS MY LIFE!!! I was FORCED to watch as my parents called YOU their child while I'm stuck here. I've had to see how you try to use chakra all the time during the nights even though you such at it, I've seen how you know about the future and tried to warn the Hokage and his wife with that drawing, I've seen everything! HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW! DON'T LIE TO ME!! DO YOU ALSO THINK I AM USELESS!!!!" She shouted as she turned around sitting on top of me and started punching my chest with enough knock the air out of it.

"Aghh…" *Cough**Cough**Cough* "SZZZAAHHHHHHH" Taking a few deep breaths and trying to fill back air into my lungs I calmed down and looked back at Sakura who was still staring at me with furious eyes with tears staining her cheeks.

I took her hands into mine so that she wouldn't suddenly start pounding my chest again and started to speak.

"You see that on the table there?" I asked pointing with a nod of my chin.

"That metallic box that you were using to see the Kyuubi incident?"

"Well yeah, that metallic box is proof that I am not from your world. I was sent here when I died there. How you ask? I don't know. God? Maybe? That is why I'm telling you I don't know how to do anything you asked of me." I decided to tell her a few selective things, mostly because I couldn't think right due to the lack of oxygen but also because she felt to me just like me when I was broken. Also because she probably realizes that the thing on the table was not something that she'd ever seen and was something I could easily use so I mustn't be from the ninja villages at least. I at least didn't think I could hide it for long from her since we were in the same body so I also wanted to make the best impression of myself on her by laying out some of the truth and hoped that saying something shocking would help me in my situation and would calm her but her next words and actions stumped me.

"You said you came here when you died right?! Then!"

She freed herself from my hands with force that I couldn't muster and started to choke me.

Knowing I could do nothing to overpower a girl who could cause an earthquake, I just started back at her helpless as I found myself at the end of the life that I had recently gained.

As my consciousness slowly started to slip to black, I felt thick wet droplets fall onto my cheeks wetting them.

It made sense to me why someone who react in such a way when another person took over what should indisputably be theirs. And from the bits of conversation I had had with her until now, I could guess she had seen everything I had done from the time I had been brought into this world till now. Everything including her parents calling me their child while she could only watch. If this happened to a normal person they'd probably just look for a way to end their suffering because of how useless they'd feel trapped in their own bodies.

Well the only mystery that remains is why she's an adult instead of a year old child but I guess some questions always go unsolved, such is life.

I mustered the last bit of strength I found myself being choked and started to wipe the tears that were on her face and mouthed the words. "You're not useless." before I was knocked out.

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