Open The Dissonant Descent

[Goro]

The residential district felt wrong. Sunagakure was breathing through its surface vents again as the village stationed itself above ground for the seasonal rotation and Goro hated every second of the transition. To him the open sky was a threat. It was a vast and empty weight that offered no ceiling and no comfort. He much preferred the deepest tunnels where the air was stagnant and the walls were close enough to touch. Down there he was just another shadow in the Tsuchigumo hive but up here the sunlight caught the odd angles of his poncho and made him feel like a freak on display for the world to see.

He walked with his shoulders hunched and his primary hands buried deep in his pockets. Under his tunic the bone bracer Shinda had given him sat heavy against his sternum. He had been training until his muscles spasmed because he was trying to find that shinobi feeling again but the peace of the tunnels eluded him today. The village was crawling with a strange and jagged energy. Surface rotations always brought out the weirdest travelers who were people who didn't mind the heat and the grit if it meant selling their oddities to bored genin.

Goro pushed through a cluster of gossiping merchants and stopped.

In the center of the plaza a woman had set up a stage draped in magenta silks that looked like they had been dragged through a dozen different countries. She wasn't a kunoichi or at least she didn't look like one but she had a crowd of tough guys and curious kids gathered around her. She was talking about the mind and the unseen weight everyone carried. She claimed she could peel back the layers of a person's soul if they were willing to let her in.

"I cannot force a warrior to see what they do not wish to see." she said while her voice carried a strange and melodic hum. "You must accept the descent. You must choose to let go of the handles."

Goro watched her and felt a weird magnetic pull in his gut. He was tired of the physical grind and he was tired of feeling like he was just a collection of extra arms and bruised knuckles. He wanted to know if there was anything else under all the labor and the silk. Before he could talk himself out of it he stepped forward. The crowd parted as they looked at his six arms and his red eyes. They whispered the usual things but Goro didn't care. He stepped up onto the wood of the stage while the boards creaked under his weight. He looked at the woman without offering a name or a greeting. He just gave her a short and sharp nod.

I'm ready, he thought. Show me what's actually in there.

The woman stepped into his personal space and she was close enough that he could smell something like burnt ozone and old paper. She tilted his head up and forced him to lock eyes with her.

"Don't fight it, little spider." she whispered.

For a split second her eyes did something impossible. The pupils didn't just dilate because they shifted and bled into a crimson pattern that spun like a slow motion hurricane. It was the last thing Goro saw before the plaza and the sand and the sun were snuffed out like a candle in a gale.

[MFT: 573]

 

[Goro]

Inside the Illusion

Goro was no longer twelve years old. He was tiny and his skin felt pale and slick while his extra limbs were nothing more than weak and twitching stubs on his sides. He was back in the hive but it was not the sanctuary he remembered from his youth. It had transformed into a cold and infinite labyrinth of jagged stone and wet darkness. He was crawling on his hands and knees while the sharp rocks cut into his palms but he did not feel pain from the wounds. All he felt was the massive and hollow vacuum in his chest that tore at him, pulling him apart from the inside.

"Mom?"

The word felt like ash in his mouth. He had never seen her and he had been raised by the collective as a nameless among thousands but here in the red tinted darkness of his own mind the... desie... the need for her was a chemical reaction.

He scrambled through the tunnels while his small voice echoed off the damp walls. He was looking for a hand to hold or a warmth that did not come from a shared heat lamp. He was a lonely and unfinished animal calling out for a ghost. He began to sob with a sound that was wet and desperate as he reached into the shadows for a woman who had never existed in his life. The darkness of the hive seemed to stretch on forever and it mocked him with every empty turn he took.

---

Reality

While Goro was lost in a decade of manufactured agony the residential district of Suna was watching an act, play out in the light of day.

Goro had walked off the stage without even looking at where he was going. He was wandering through the middle of the street with his eyes wide and vacant while he stared at things no one else could see. His six arms were splayed out in a grotesque fashion as they reached and grasped at the empty air. His fingers were twitching as if he were trying to find a grip on a cliff that was not there. He was bawling with a raw and ugly sob that broke his voice into a jagged curdle and made the hair on the back of the necks of the bystanders stand up.

"Mom! Where are you? Please!"

The scream was guttural and it ripped through the afternoon air. He stumbled into a vegetable stall and knocked over a crate of cactus fruit but he did not even flinch at the impact. He just kept walking while his tears left muddy tracks through the dust on his face.

He looked like a broken doll that had been wound up and left to run into a wall. People backed away with looks of pity or disgust as the six armed boy of the Tsuchigumo clan wandered like a ghost through the midday sun. He was screaming for a mother who had been dead or gone since the day he was hatched. He was a child again who had been stripped of every bit of shinobi pride and he was showing the whole village the hollow hole where his heart was supposed to be.

[MFT: 542]

 

[Sabaku Rika]

The day for Rika had been a busy one. She had a patrol, a few reports, and a nap or two. She was strolling through the district, her hands in her pockets as she glanced up at the sky. It was just another hot day. "I should take on another mission..." Rika spoke, mostly to herself. She was kind of bored. A mission usually scratched that itch. Though the last one she went on still made her feel off. It was some sort of hallucination or something that was haunting her. She wasnt sure. "Probably something not in the dunes..." she mumbled with a sigh as she rubbed the back of her head. The echoes she saw didn't feel like a hallucination. It was vivid. Real. She had avoided that area ever since.

Rika was wearing an off-white, cropped, long-sleeved shirt with a collar high enough to hide her mouth. She wore olive green cargo pants that partially covered her off-white boots. The fabric was thin, made for heat. Her hair was styled in a twin bun half-up do. Within her black hair, there were visible strands of white or platinum blonde.

While Rika was walking, she heard a cry. Someone crying for their mother? Rika tilted her head and looked towards the source, and saw a boy about her age, sobbing, while walking. She noticed the six arms and how people moved away from him. "Huh," she didn't really think about it, she was already moving towards him. As she got closer, she realized he was nearly a foot taller than her. He was a big kid... The arms didn't bother her. It was something she had never seen in person before.

Rika stopped in front of him. "Hey, you okay?" Rika asked as she tilted her head to one side. Trying to see if there were any visible wounds. Her sixth sense was buzzing; something was off. There was something off with his chakra. 'What did I walk into now..' She thought to herself, her brows knitting together.

[Topic entered]
[Using sixth sense and sensor]

 

[Goro]

Inside the Illusion
Goro scrambled through the webbed streets of the woven city with his six tiny arms reaching out to touch the sticky threads. The stone walls were no longer bare because there were millions of glowing seals covering every surface and stretching across the sky like a ceiling of burning paper. The sheer number of them made the air vibrate with a heavy thrum of energy that pulsed in time with his racing heart.

"Mom? Mom, where are you?" Goro wailed. His voice was high and thin, cracking under the weight of his terror. "Please, it’s too dark! I can't find the way out!"

He was crying with a sound that felt like it was being swallowed by the density of the silk around him. High above on the jagged rooftops giant spiders with pale and ghostly exoskeletons clung to the shadows. Their mandibles dripped with a translucent venom that hissed when it hit the webs and their many eyes remained fixed on the tan skinned boy as he paced aimlessly through the labyrinth.

"Hey, are you okay?"

The voice was sweet and it cut through the thrum of the seals. Goro stopped and looked up with a flare of hope in his chest. "Mom? Is that you? Help me, please help me!"

But the sight waiting for him was a horror. Standing before him was a warped visage of a woman whose form was obscured by a violent and constant static. It looked like a blank image of white lightning dancing over a human shape and it flickered with a sound like tearing paper. He could not see a face or a smile and the wrongness of it sent a jolt of terror through his small frame.

"No! Stay away from me! You’re not her!" Goro shrieked. He shoved the static woman away with all his strength before he turned and bolted into the webbed darkness. "Help! Somebody help me! They’re everywhere!"

He did not get far because the white spiders dropped from the ceiling with terrifying speed. One of them lashed out with a razor sharp leg and caught him across the cheek. The strike sent him spinning to the ground and he could feel the hot and metallic crawl of blood running across his face.

"Please stop! I’ll be good, I promise! Just let me go home!" Goro begged while he curled into a ball. He sobbed into the dirt as the glowing seals began to encroach around him like a closing trap. "Mom, please save me! Don't let them eat me!"

---

Reality
Goro reacted with a violent and panicked energy as soon as Rika's voice hit the air. He did not see a girl in an off-white shirt because he saw a monster made of lightning and static. He shoved Rika back with a desperate force that sent her reeling and he began to yell in a high and thin voice that was thick with fear.

"Get away! The spiders are coming! Don't let them touch me!"

Goro scrambled past her and ran aimlessly through the crowd with his arms flailing as he tried to bat away invisible webs. He was blinded by the illusion and he did not see the heavy-set man standing in his path. Goro collided with him with enough force to nearly knock the man over but the bystander was not interested in being a hero. The man sucked his teeth in a sharp sound of disgust and shoved Goro away very roughly.

"Watch where you're going, you freak!" the man spat.

The force of the shove sent Goro flying backward and he lost his footing on the sandy pavement. He collided hard with the jagged edge of a wooden merchant cart and a sharp crack echoed through the plaza as his head snapped back. The metal trim of the cart sliced deep into his skin and he fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

"Mom... please... it hurts..." Goro whimpered.

He lay there in the dust and he did not even try to get up because he was too busy sobbing. A large and ugly gash now ran across his face and blood began to pool in the dirt while he lay there begging for a mother and a savior who was not coming. He looked like a broken child who had finally reached his limit in front of the entire village.

[MFT]

 

[Sabaku Rika]

Rika was stunned for a moment as the boy shoved her. She took a few steps back and watched as he ran off. "Spiders?" She blinked. "What spiders?" she asked, mostly to herself because the boy had run off. She had a bad feeling about this. She knew it was not her issue, but she couldn't stop herself. The six arms and white hair, 'oh, he's one of the students I haven't met yet,' Rika had looked over the roster before she started her teaching career. There were 12 students, and she had only met a little more than half of the class. She had seen the pictures for the students.

She thought about it, the odd chakra disruption, and the odd behaviour. She doubted this was how he normally acted. Since she didn't remember seeing any behavioral notes under his photo.

It clicked that he must be under some sort of powerful genjutsu. Why would someone do that? She winced as she saw him run into the cart and as the bigger man shoved him. Rika was moving before she even thought about it. 'crap' Rika looked at the gash on his head. He was calling out to a mother again. She grimanced, whatever spell he was under was messed up. She felt heat start to boil over at the thought of someone picking on him just because he was a little different.

"What's wrong with you? Can't you see he's a kid?" Rika snapped at the man who shoved the boy. True, he was a tall boy, but the way he was acting. Rika shoved her thoughts to the side as she kneeled next to the boy. She gathered chakra into her hand. She only recently learned this technique, but she was pretty close to mastering it at least, mystical hand. 'Good thing I decided to read up on some medical jutsu...' Like most jutsu, she practiced it until her hands burned. She already had exceptional chakra control. So it came easily to her.

She placed her hand over the wound. "Hey, let me help you, you're stuck in a genjutsu," Rika spoke, trying not to frighten him more as she healed the cut on his head. "Stay with me, you're gonna be okay, alright?" She had never seen anyone trapped in a genjutsu before; she knew how to use the cancel seal. It was something she learned early on, but she rarely used it. Mostly because she sucked at realizing when she was in a genjutsu herself.

Rika would attempt to place a canceling seal on him anyway; she just hoped he wouldn't run off again. Not that she couldn't catch up with him, it would be just a pain to have to keep chasing him. She didn't want to bind him if she could help it. That would be a last-case scenario.

"Whoever did this to you has some sort of sick sense of humor," Rika muttered under her breath. This wasn't the first time she had stepped in. People had picked on Suisen; she couldn't help but intervene back then, too. She hated the people who thought this was okay. She was determined to help this boy, and she hoped he'd remember who did this to him. She wouldn't hesitate to rough them up before turning them over to the police force.

[Attempting Mystical Hand and Cancelling Seal [M]]

 

[Goro]

Inside the Illusion

Goro clawed at the air. The webbed streets were no longer just sticky, they were hot. The silk felt like burning copper wire searing into his palms. He looked down at his arms and saw tiny, weak stubs that couldn't even lift his own weight. The ground was covered in millions of glowing paper seals, all of them humming with a low vibration that made his teeth ache.

"Mom? Mom, where are you?" Goro wailed.

His voice was a thin and pathetic sound. High above him, the white spiders were moving. He could hear the sound of their many legs clicking against the stone walls as one dropped onto his back. It felt like a heavy bag of wet sand. He tried to scream, but his throat was full of dry silk. The static woman stood over him as a flickering blur of white noise. She had no face, just a hole where her mouth should be.

"No! Stop it! Get away from me!" Goro shrieked.

He kicked and thrashed without finding any grip. He was drowning in the dark while the seals closed in like a cage. He was a lonely, unfinished animal, and he was going to die in the dark without ever knowing who he was. The glowing paper seals did not just surround him anymore; they began to press against his skin with the weight of lead. Every time a strip of paper touched his flesh, it didn't just stick, it fused. Goro felt the first seal latch onto his upper right shoulder and the sensation was an immediate, white-hot agony. It felt like a branding iron being held against an open wound. He tried to pull away, but another seal slapped against his thigh, and then another against his ribs, until the light from the ink was the only thing he could see.

It was the pain of being burned alive from the inside out. It wasn't just his skin that was scorching, it was the very center of his chest where his breath was supposed to be. He felt his marrow boiling and his nerves snapping like dry twigs in a fire. The seals were not just sitting on him, they were eating him, and where the paper met his body, he began to simply cease to be.

His lower left arm was the first to go. A cluster of seals wrapped around the bicep and the limb didn't fall off, it just dissolved into a cloud of grey ash that was sucked into the glowing ink. Goro watched with wide, stinging eyes as his own body was erased bit by bit. The searing heat traveled up his neck, and it felt like his memories were being singed away too. He couldn't remember the smell of the tunnels or the weight of the bone bracer. Everything he was was being turned into smoke and discarded by the light of the hurricane above.

The heat reached his core and it felt like a hook made of sunfire was pulling his soul out through his throat. He tried to scream for his mother one last time, but his jaw felt like it was melting into the silk. He was being unmade. He was being scrubbed out of existence by a woman who did not even know his name, and as the last of the light consumed his vision, the only thing left of Goro was the sound of the seals humming in the void.

---

Reality

Goro was a mess on the ground. His six arms were splayed out while his fingers dug deep into the sand of the street. He wasn't just crying anymore, he was hyperventilating. His chest heaved and the bone bracer rattled against his ribs with every panicked breath.

"Mom! Where are you? Please!"

The scream was mum, low, as if the air had been stolen from him. He sounded like his vocal cords were tearing. He didn't feel Rika’s hand on his head or the healing chakra. To him, the touch was just another spider leg or a jagged seal. He bucked his hips and tried to crawl away on his stomach, leaving long and bloody tracks in the dirt with his nails.

Rika felt the kickback. It was a sharp, jagged spike of chakra that felt like it was trying to splinter her own coils. The boy’s energy was a chaotic knot being pulled toward the alleyways by a thin thread of malice. The signature was cold and heavy. It felt like something that should not be walking around in the sun.

Goro’s red eyes were wide and vacant. He was staring at the sky but seeing a nightmare. His heart was a frantic, irregular thud as he faded out right there in the middle of the plaza.

[MFT]