Mitsuki's Adventures

Chapter 13- My New Mission

"How's your mom, Mitsuki?" Sarada asked, "It's been a week, hasn't it?" She ventured as they walked into the fast-food restaurant after their mission to relax and unwind, Mitsuki was somber with his reply.

"My dad says that she's doing better but she hasn't woken up yet." His friends frowned at the news as they stood in line to wait for a register to open up so they could place their orders,

"That's so stupid." Boruto grumbled as he exchanged looks with Sarada before looking at Mitsuki, "Why would your old man tell you that she's better if she hasn't woken up?" Sarada looked at Boruto sharply,

"Sometimes it takes people a while, Boruto." She said curtly and looked back to Mitsuki, "My mom told me that when she looked over your mom she wasn't healthy at all… that her body was 'out of whack'." The team move forward with the line but kept talking,

"What do you mean?" The pale-haired boy asked as his mind began to race, "But my Dad-" "Is doing a lot." Mitsuki voiced that he didn't understand and Sarada tried to explain further,

"My mom says that sometimes, in certain situations like the big fights she would get in, people would go into comas. They're physically there but mentally they aren't so that the body can recover." Sarada explained as they moved forward again with the line, "My mom said at home that your mom shouldn't have been even breathing when she came to your house because of how badly she was hurt. She said that your moms' organs were kind of… well, they shouldn't have been working, so maybe it's taking a long time because she's slipped into a coma? How bad was the fight?"

Mitsuki remembered flashes of his mother fighting and tried to remember how many times she had gotten hurt. His brain answered with a montage of sharply pieced-together images of his mother being slammed into the walls and the floor, of her standing in front of him when she was hurt, of the halls and walls crashing in, and of the explosions on the moon that made his heart sink, and then of how his father found her on the ground. "Bad." Mitsuki answered solemnly and his friends looked at each other before looking at him, "What happens to people in comas?" He asked and Boruto answered,

"Well, a lot of times they don't come out and die-" Sarada hit the blonde in the arm and he hissed before adding, "They come out sometimes though!" Mitsuki felt nauseous. He couldn't take it anymore and excused himself to go home where his parents were- but when he got there, he saw a semi-familiar figure not too far away from the house. Another male with his hair and his face but a long scar on his right-hand cheek. He was smoking a cigarette and Mitsuki hesitated, remembering who they were and they saw him, turning to him,

"Hey, little brother." The man, Log, called, "I'm glad you showed up-" "You can't be here." Mitsuki interjected firmly,

"Dad said you can't come around anymore since your fight with Mom." Mitsuki voiced and Log, his absentee older brother, finished his cigarette with a guilty look on his face, "You need to go because Dad finds out."

"I just… I want to see Mom's all." Log answered back and Mitsuki frowned. Before his mother had gone missing, Log had been the type of older sibling that Mitsuki could have looked up to until his parents and Log got into an explosive fight while Mitsuki was away at school. His father had announced when Mitsuki got home, that his brother was no longer allowed to come to the house or speak with his mother from then on- "I heard from Suigetsu she got hurt really bad." Mitsuki said again,

"You can't be here." Mitsuki reiterated softly then slowly started walking around his older brother, "I… I gotta go." Then he hurried over to the house where his father was once more in his mother's room, sitting in the chair next to her bed. His father looked at him and before he could say anything Mitsuki spat out anxiously, "Is mom in a coma and dying?" Something flickered across his father's normally cool and level-headed visage as he rose to his feet,

"Mitsuki, no she's not-" "Why hasn't she woken up yet?" Mitsuki interjected and before he could give his father a second to answer he added, "Did you know that people in comas die in them?" His father narrowed his eyes and voiced,

"Who told you that?" His father demanded and Mitsuki hesitated. Boruto had told him that- "Was it Log?" Mitsuki didn't answer and his father let out a deep sigh and crossed the room to stand in front of Mitsuki, "Take a few deep breaths and let's just… start at the beginning of why you think all of this." Mitsuki nodded and took several long, deep breaths and exhales to calm down before advising him of his conversation with his friends. After explaining what Sarada's mom had second-handedly told her and Boruto's comment, Orochimaru patiently listened to his son before he began, "Your mother is much more stabilized now than she was and she's doing better but I am not without limits, Mitsuki… I have done as much as I can for now. Your friends' mothers have been… vital in alleviating your anxiety by visiting and doing what they can but though I am much more capable these things still take some time if I do not wish to be rash and rush things." His father explained, "I could force your mother to wake up now, but that could come with consequences that we may not be able to remedy. If I force her to wake up now, she might not be in the same mindset or mental frame she was before, it could trigger something that could make her body fail or it could even reverse all of the work that has been done to stabilize her. It is better if she wakes up on her own time."

"How did you know what mom was doing when we were leaving the castle?" Mitsuki asked and his father blinked, "You didn't question her rewinding time… why?"

His father didn't seem to have an answer for him. Not at first. Instead, he handed his mother's charts off to him and left to go do something about his older brother. Orochimaru left him in the room with his mother. Mitsuki moved to stand next to her bedside as the monitors and electronics in the room occasionally beeped but showed constant monitoring of her condition even if she didn't say a word. He gripped the clipboard with the chart as a wave of hopelessness and sadness crashed over him that caused him to stand there and feel completely useless. Maybe if he hadn't been born, this wouldn't have happened. If he hadn't been born, then his parents wouldn't have fought and she wouldn't have left. If he hadn't been born then they wouldn't have been kidnapped. If he hadn't been born, his mother wouldn't have needed to protect him and get him to safety. If Mitsuki hadn't been born, she wouldn't have been hurt so bad trying to save him. If it wasn't for Mitsuki existing he was positive that none of this would have happened and she would be awake and healthy. She wouldn't have been unconscious for a week. By the time that Orochimaru returned to the room, he was crying, "Mitsuki?" Orochimaru questioned and his son let out a sob in response as his father sighed and sat on the bed's edge near him, pulling his son over to him,

"I killed her." Mitsuki wailed and his father patiently listened, "If I hadn't been born, she wouldn't be dead! You let her get hurt because of me."

"The world and all of its indecencies are not yours to carry on your shoulders, my son." Orochimaru told him, "It's not your weight to bear." He pulled his son into a hug and Mitsuki set the clipboard aside and hugged him, "You did not kill your mother. I might have hurt her heart but I did not kill her either. I understand that... right now? You're in pain and these past few weeks have hurt you deeply, but you need to remember that these days and moments will pass. She'll get better and wake up and these pains will fade away. You will endure." Mitsuki pulled away from him and looked at him,

"How do you know?" Mitsuki asked unsurely and his father smiled softly at him,

"You are our son." His father said matter-of-factly, "If I can have the strength to be here for her and your mother can have the strength to make it home, then you? No doubt, you have the strength to carry on until she wakes up." Orochimaru sat back and picked up the clipboard and let his son wipe his eyes, "Now, take the time you need to collect yourself… your mother and I will still be here when you are ready. We'll be here tomorrow and the next day too." Mitsuki looked at his father as he waited. Patient. Calm. "Do you want to watch her tonight? Maybe she'll wake up for you." He nodded as his father ruffled his hair before he stood up. They had dinner but even as they ate and they continued on as if nothing had changed… Mitsuki was still struggling with how he felt. Even when his father set up a cot in the room for him to sleep on next to the bed where his mother laid, it still took a long time for him to even fall asleep. It seemed like his mind was running at a million miles an hour, his thoughts blurring together and rushing him as he tried to settle everything down… and when there was quiet? He never remembered falling asleep. He did remember a dream.

In the dream, he was standing in a field with a huge lake that held no rippled, still as silence. It's waters so clear and undisturbed it looked like a giant mirror that stretched as far as he could see. The sun was covered by light grey clouds lulling across the sky and a soft wind blew the knee-high grasses of the field around him… only… there was no sound here. No bird calls. No cicadas. No rustling of the grasses and wildflowers… and the wind didn't touch the water. It was so… unnatural. Mitsuki looked around and saw an indent in the grass where they moved different ways without the wind as if they had been pressed down in different directions. He walked over towards this strange space in the tall grasses in this land of silence and windy fields. As he drew closer he saw the edging of a picnic blanket of reds and greens, then drawing closer? He saw his mother laying on the blanket and two other men laying on either side of her. She was smiling… happy. "Mom?" He asked shakily and she opened her eyes and looked at him, the other two men looking at him as well and she sat up,

"Mikki!" She smiled and got to her feet, stepping over one of the dark-haired men to get to Mitsuki and he hugged her- tightly. Tighter than he had even hugged anyone. Tighter than he had held Sarada's hand. "Mikki, you're squeezing me too tight." He let go and stepped back to look at her and she looked… younger. "What are you doing here?" Mitsuki looked past her to the two men who had stood up. One had dark skin and looked like a handmade stitched up doll but he was tall and he had these… unnerving, pupil-less green eyes and his mouth was stitched together on the sides, through his cheeks. He was taller than the other one who had scarless, fair-skin and black eyes, lines under each of them to make him look older. They both had black hair, "Mikki?" Mitsuki grabbed her hand and she blinked,

"You need to come home," Mitsuki said and she stared at him as his eyes began to well up. He didn't have to think too hard of who these men were. She looked happy… one of them was probably her husband. Her husband was dead. Her dead husband. He could spin that fact a thousand ways but the other man was probably dead as well and she was too. Mitsuki tugged at her hand as he started to cry about the fact that she was probably dead. Maybe this wasn't a dream but some-type of connection he had to this strange, limbo so he could see her 'one last time' before she moved on to the After Life. His mind began to reel as he grew sick and nauseous with anxiety and worry and fear. "I need you and dad need you-" "Baby, slow down-" "You can't die yet! You can't die because of me!" The two men looked at one another before looking to his mother as she knelt before her sobbing son, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for you to die." Mitsuki sobbed, "You have to come home! Please, please come home!" One of the men moved forward and stood next to him and Mitsuki looked up at him, "Please let her come home." Mitsuki sobbed, hoping one of them was a decent man. Her two dead companions had probably crossed whatever plane this limbo-world was to guide her to the After Life, to make her go willingly- but Mitsuki hugged her tightly as he defiantly glared up at the shorter man, "I need her, I need my mom, you can't take her! I won't let you!"

"It's ok." The man said and put his hand on Mitsuki's shoulder. All of his emotions, all of his fears, all of his tears and thoughts- they all just… stopped. Tranquility washed over Mitsuki like a cleansing rain as he looked up into the light-skinned man's tired, black eyes that were forgiving and comforting… steady like the stilled waters of this strange lake. "Be at peace." Mitsuki had never been more at peace in his whole life as much as he had the second this strange man touched him, "Who taught you to be so patient?" The man asked and Mitsuki wiped his eyes,

"My dad." Mitsuki answered and the man pulled his hand back as the other one came over, "My mom taught me how to be strong." The taller man let out a seething hiss, the shorter man chuckled and his mother smiled.

"Damn, you better call an ambulance for poor, old Orochimaru when you get back, eh, Midori?" The taller man asked as he started to heartily laugh but he looked to Mitsuki as his laughter trickled down to a chuckle, "Kid's funny, I'll give him that." The shorter man smiled at Mitsuki patiently,

"A little longer." The shorter man advised then gestured to something behind Mitsuki, "It's time for you to go, Mitsuki." Mitsuki hesitated because he hadn't told them his name. His mother had only said 'Mikki'. His mother leaned forward and kissed his forehead holding his hand gently, "Go on, Kid." The taller man encouraged but he looked to his mother for guidance and he tightened his grip on her hand,

"I'm not leaving without you." Mitsuki told her as he looked at his mother who frowned, "Let's go together… please."

"Where do you think we are, Mikki?" Midori asked and Mitsuki shuffled, not answering for a few moments as he gathered himself and the two men moved to flank either side of the woman, "What has you so worked up, dear?"

"I… We're in Limbo… and these guys, well, one of them is Itachi and they're here to take your soul to the After Life… But I won't let them." Mitsuki said as he glared at the taller one who raised an eyebrow, "I'll fight them to the death."

"He might have Orochimaru's eyes, but he's got your fire, Midori." The light-skinned male said thoughtfully as the taller one scowled, "We're not here to take your mother from you." Those words washed relief over Mitsuki… but felt him with worry.

"Mitsuki, look at me." His mother bade and he obeyed and looked at her, "This place is… a dimension I created… It is a place between 'planes' if you want to call it that but it's also a part of me." She said as the two men stayed quiet but she took Mitsuki's hands in hers, "I'm a bit… stuck. I am aware of everything that is happening to me… your friends' moms were very helpful and your Dad has done everything in his power, but right now I am stuck." Mitsuki gripped her hands,

"How bad did you get hurt in the fight with Toneri? Did he do this?" Mitsuki whispered and she nodded,

"He had a part." She answered, "If anyone is to blame, however, it is my own fault… before you and your father got to me, I had been fighting Toneri for a long while and I was very badly wounded when I entered my… let's call it my 'Enlightened State'. Those wounds remained." She said and Mitsuki remembered noticing that, noticing that even if they had vanished she was still hurt, "I overspent myself- I was fighting Toneri off to keep him busy but I was too distracted… Toneri took advantage of that and with me sending you and your father away, he took that fraction of distraction and severed my connection to my body almost completely. I managed to get home but I have to mend the connection… I have been slowly repairing it but it is a long process. I'm using the abilities of these men here- their chakra, more specifically- to try and mend it."

"Is there anything I can do?" Mitsuki whispered, overwhelmed with hearing all this and she nodded,

"Do you remember how you make this connection? To this dimension?" She asked and he thought about it a long while. He remembered… falling asleep. He couldn't remember anything else just waking up here, "Listen to me, Mikki; You are my son. You had the ability to get here, which means you have the possibility to do more." She said and smiled, "Take your time… figure it out on your own, I'll be here waiting."

"What if I can't do it? What if I disappoint you?" He asked and she smiled, touching his face and stroking his cheek with a thumb,

"Mitsuki, I love you. It is ok if you stumble and fall or you get something right on the first try; you will never, ever disappoint me because I know you are doing your best. You doing that? That's all that matters to me." She told him and he used his free hand to wipe his eyes, "You are enough and you are worthy, Mikki, for anything you want to be. If someone tells you different they can answer to your father and me." She told him and kissed his forehead softly, "Don't be scared, Mitsuki, everything will be ok… but you need to leave." She told him as she stood up and gently turned him around. Behind him was a doorway cut out of silently crackling electricity, "I'm using my power to keep it open, but it's your strength that makes the bridge." She said and Mitsuki looked up at her, "What's the matter?"

"If I leave… won't that break the connection to you and your body?" He asked and she shook her head in a 'no', "How do you know? You're stuck in this dimension, right?" She looked up at the strange sky as she tried to think of a response,

"I can feel the connection but it's… a bit hard to explain." She answered, "It's sort of like… an out-of-body experience. I'm Anchored in place but I can still feel and hear what's going on around me and feel what's happening to me. When your father performs justsus on me or gives me a new bag of fluids, I can feel all that but it's… dark… Like how bats' use echolocation to "see", it's the closest I can explain it. I will be alright." She answered vaguely and he looked at the other men,

"...Which one is your ex-boyfriend?" Mitsuki asked and she looked back at the two men. The Light-skinned one smirked while the taller one frowned, "...Did they treat you better than dad did- er, does?" She looked back at her son,

"Yes, they did treat me better… but we can talk later about all that if you want?" She offered and he nodded, "To answer your earlier question, neither of them are my ex-boyfriend… they are, however, my ex-husbands." His mother answered bluntly and Mitsuki hesitated, "When I wake up? I'll tell you all about it." He let go of her hand and she smiled at him, ruffling his hair, "See you soon, Mikki." She said confidently and he caught her contagious smile,

"See you soon!" He called back as he went to the doorway and vanished through it, leaving him to wake up in his own body, laying his head on his folded arms on his mother's hospital bedside.

He had work to do.