44 44. Dilemma of Emotions
"Huh!"
Yuji stares at his palms.
"What's this?"
There are two overlapping red and black diamond shape marks on his palm. The diamond marks are present on both of his palms.
He rubs his hands in an attempt to erase the marks.
"Strange, they are not going away!"
Yuji looks around and spots a vase with some water. He removes the flowers and pours some water on his hands to rub away the mark. But there is no change.
"Is it permanent?" His expression turns sour.
"It is quite suspicious and others will notice it at a glance. For now, I will hide it with some bandages."
He picks up a roll of bandages from his bedside and wraps them around his palm to hide the strange mark.
'This looks like some sort of seal or brand. It appeared only after I cleared that trial, so it might serve some purpose or it might even help me in using ninjutsu.' Yuji speculates.
'I will confirm my speculation later. First, I have to figure out the situation.' He looks around and doesn't spot anyone.
'The only person who was here also left. I think she went to fetch Tsunade-san. I will wait here!'
He closes his eyes and rests against the bed while inspecting his body.
'I think before I passed out, I awakened some sort of ability to perceive minute changes in the surroundings. It's not a sensory ability, but a form of heightened perception; a state where a person or being become hyper-aware of the surrounding situation. At extreme mastery, this heightened perception even slows down the very perception of time.
Even normal humans experience this false sense of slowed perception during some life-threatening experiences. However, that's nothing, but an illusion crafted by their subconscious mind. The brain simulates a set of memories and extrapolates them on top of the current scenario to present a false sense of slowed time.
However, that's not the case for me anymore since I now have access to my mindscape or subconscious mind, to be precise. So, by limiting my scope of perception to a certain area and reassigning the computation power of the mind to that limited area, I can consciously direct that excessive computation capacity to simulate every range of activity in that restricted area to limits. It's even possible to predict the future based on the surrounding variables. However, I am not sure if my spirit can handle those internal processes.'
Yuji attempts to recall that incredible sense of perception during his life-and-death crisis.
'I am not in any hurry to awaken that feeling. Since I used it once, I am sure I will be able to use it again. I just have to wait for the perfect opportunity. But I did manage to learn something new from this.'
With closed eyes, Yuji enters his mindscape.
"Alright, time for the next step."
He sits cross-legged on the floor and closes his eyes.
'I have to imagine the coordinates or the features of the area I want to inspect with my heightened sense. For now, I want to inspect my body. I will start from my heart as the origin.'
Yuji slowly discards unnecessary thoughts from his mind and meditates. An assassin should always maintain his composure, no matter the situation. To achieve that state of mind, he used to mediate during his practice hours.
So, it didn't take him long to enter a state of Present Moment Awareness.
Lub… dub…
Lub dub…
Yuji listens to his heartbeats. Slowly, the area around his heart appears in his mind. As he concentrates further, the blood vessels, organs, tissues, chakra circulation system, and nervous system everything appears clearly in his mind.
Once the entire map of the area around his heart becomes visible to him, he slowly traverses away from the origin, the heart of the body. The map of lungs, stomach, and intestines. Kidneys and all other organs slowly form in his mind. Slowly, slowly, he experiences the motion of his entire body; the activities happening in his every organ.
"YUJI! YUJI!"
Suddenly, a loud noise disrupts his meditation and pulls him out of his meditative state.
After a few seconds, Yuji opens his eyes and stares at his surroundings.
"Yuji, what's going on?"
Tsunade glares at him.
"What were you doing earlier? I have been calling your name for the past five minutes and what's going on with all this blood?"
She wipes some of the blood leaking out from his nose. Slowly, his five senses return to him and he smells a metallic scent in his nose.
He wipes his nose and spots the traces of blood. He wipes the blood from his hand and turns to Tsunade.
"How long has it been?" He asks her.
"It has been over a month and a half since you fell into a coma. Also, don't try to change the topic. Tell me, what was that earlier?" Tsunade glares at him.
'I can't reveal everything to her. I am not sure if I can even trust anyone here after everything that happened. However, I can't hide everything too. Since, in the end, she is the one who saved my life. So, I will only reveal what's necessary.'
"Umm… Tsunade-sama, I can't seem to recall everything but after that incident, I was pulled into my mindscape and underwent the trial for the inheritance. That trial was too long, so I lost the track of time. Just a few minutes ago, I exited the trial and my head hurt a lot. This blood might also be because of that."
Hmm…
Tsunade stares at him with skeptical eyes.
"Alright! Don't hesitate to tell me everything, if you feel slight discomfort. Since your condition relapsed, take a break for a couple of days. Your body has recovered, but your mind might not have. So, I will perform another inspection after a few days and will decide to discharge you depending on the result of the check-up." Tsunade nods at him.
"Thank you so much, Tsunade-san!" Yuji bows his head.
"Don't thank me. I was just doing my job. If you want to thank someone, then, thank your guardian, Miina. She was the one who brought you here as soon as possible. It was all thanks to her quick reaction that you made it in time or else you might not live to see another day or you might never wake up from your coma." Tsunade shrugs her shoulder.
"I will thank her later. But for now, please accept my gratitude."
"Ok! Ok! Let's leave it at that. Since you woke up, you can consume food to recover your body and energy." Tsunade turns to Keiko.
"Bring him some food!"
"Yes, Tsunade-sama!" Keiko hurriedly leaves the room.
Sigh…
Tsunade sighs and glares at him.
"Kid! I know there are lots of things that happened to you. And you might not be comfortable sharing them with others. But keep in mind, not everyone is your enemy. You have friends that care about you and worry about you. So, you should depend a bit more on them."
Tsunade pats his head and ruffles his hair.
"I will leave for now, since I have lots of things to do. But I will ask someone to inform your friends." Tsunade waves his hand and leaves the room.
Yuji glances at her back for a few seconds.
'Friends I can trust? Allies I can rely on? Does such things even exist?' He rubs his head to feel the lingering sense of warmth.
'The worry in her eyes was genuine. The care she had for me was genuine. But then…' He recalls the warming Mito gave to Tsunade.
'Does she really care for me?'
For the first time, a sense of dilemma regarding emotions appears in Yuji's mind. His heart rate increases slightly.
'What's this feeling? Why I am so conscious of my body all of a sudden? Is it the after-effect of that technique or…'
Yuji closes his eyes.
'My mind is in turmoil and my heart is not tranquil. Even though there are lots of things happening around me and I can't make sense of most of them. But I am sure of one thing, the current feeling that I have for Tsunade-san is of gratitude.'
His vision turns blurry and his eyes turn sleepy.
'Ah… Looks like I exhausted myself from using that technique.'
He closes his eyes and falls asleep on the bed.
A few minutes later, Keiko arrives in the room with a tray full of food. She notices the sleeping Yuji.
"What a poor kid?! He just woke up from the coma and fell asleep before eating anything."
She places the food on the table and shakes her head.
"I will leave it here in case he wakes up."
