I never learned how to swim before waking up in this reality. There were a number of reasons I’d give for not joining in on the fun, but all of them can be boiled down to one simple fact— I was just too self-aware.

And I was so self-aware of my intense awareness that my own anxiety served as its own fuel. It was never a pleasant thing to experience new and vulnerable situations, my mind would spiral dozens of possible likelihoods, few of which would realistically happen and many that never did. People always found a way to surprise me with their self-centredness and that, was a pleasant surprise.

The more it happened the more I realized people hadn’t the time or even interest to watch, study or appreciate my existence. A passing thought once in a while perhaps but nothing so valid that my overactive anxieties were justified. It didn’t take long before I began to be the same, less present, less interested and overall, less anxious.

The world wasn’t judging me and even if it was, what did it matter when I had one life to live? I was living it the best I could, the best anyone could and that’s all that mattered, right?

And then, one life led to another, the last thing I expected to happen. I was judged and set off to lead a new life in a world where, frankly, learning how to swim was the least of my problems.

The sun had set before I was through with my meetings, there were several issues left over to discuss in the coming days but I had placed many on hold so I could get a breather and think.

Besides my ascension day, the past hours have been the most stressed I’ve been under. The Yuki clan faced mass incarceration, Raiga reported that nearly everyone on the damning Yūki list was accounted for, the few that remained worked outside the village as medic-nin for villages on the islands and towns Kirigakure had control over. There were others of course but the next pressing matter regarding the Yuki was what to do about Hidaki.

All of my councillors agreed that the clan needed to be punished, whether or not the imprisoned Yūki were implicated in any crime or not, the atmosphere of rebellion couldn’t be tolerated. Yet, that’s exactly what he did.

I let my body bob and float across the spring water fed into the temple’s pond. Though Turtle Island was little more than a slice of earth edged next to Kirigakure’s main land, it was far enough from my problems that I felt I could breathe and think again. Moreover, it was where I felt closest to Yagura.

I shut my eyes and focused on the sensation of the water as I sank, stealing a deep breath before I was fully submerged. Water had a sound and weight. I understood these things practically as it was made up of matter but, there was some other kind of weighted music in these waters that lulled me towards unconsciousness.

Yagura built his body such that a minute or twenty under water didn’t mean death, as much as Jason’s mind wished to panic, there was nothing to fear. Besides Yagura’s judgment of course, but at this point, with how confused and startled I am, I figure its time I got a pennyworth of his thoughts.

I willed the energetic spiral of mystic power, chakra, through my Tailed-Beast seal, the Three Pillars I’ve become familiar with thanks to Harusame’s guidance and Yagura’s natural talent. My chakra spills and washes over the pillars, shaving off slivers of Isobu’s chakra and mixing it in the maelstrom.

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A scalding heat spread all over my body but quickly cooled as I sank further into the ponds depths. My maelstrom continued as I washed more and more of Isobu’s chakra into my own, I felt the water around me quickly boil but I kept Harusame’s teachings I mind as I held my chakra closer to my skin and let Isobu’s seep outward.

I continued to sink and after a moment, the weighted music of the water changed. I opened my eyes and as I expected, I was within the seal, within myself; Yagura.

He sat atop Isobu as he usually did but there was something different about his presence. He wore the same black up and down I did, and as he looked up to my descending form I noticed his features were paler, as pale as Isobu was.

“Why do you look…transparent?” I spoke, defying the ocean of water that sat atop us.

Yagura’s eyes steeled at me for a moment before letting up, “I know what you have come for. A cheat, an easy answer and escape.”

I bit my lip, speaking with Yagura was entirely different from channelling him. When I channelled his personality I activated what was already there, trained into his body, his mind and I set my own personality on the back burner. Speaking directly to him though was like…speaking to who I was going to become.

Still, I couldn’t deny, “Yes, that’s exactly why I’m here. I need you.”

He smiled up at me and for a moment he looked as cherry and harmless as I did when I acted out with his cute face in my mirror, “Jason…are you ready then? To accept me?”

I swam closer, nearly reaching Isobu before Yagura raised a stopping finger, “There might be a war soon, the Daimyo is doing his best to keep the country together but people are dying. Bloodline users, civilians. The Yuki…they almost, well, they want a better life in Kiri, they want true respect and value to their names but the other clans are…they’re discriminatory.

“And the Kaguya will be here soon, I think I did my best with them, I’ve saved them from going extinct in the Daimyo’s war and in ours. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing sealing their Bloodline away, I want to be sure of something. And…I think I’m making some progress with the Hidden Leaf, I want to get closer so I can stop disaster.

“If I can’t get close then I want to face Konan and possibly Pein. They’re the lynchpin to ending the Akatsuki before they start. This peace…it can continue if I just get stronger, if I just know what the right thing is. I’ll need Isobu to face them…not that I’m looking for a fight but just in case, yknow?”

Yagura, pale and nearly see through held up a sad smile, “I know, I know.”

“Then-!”

“Then are you ready to accept me? To become what you are, what you have always been?” He pulled himself up and reached out to me, I floated forward and grasped his waiting hand. It burned with Isobu’s chakra and flooded my pathway from his grip. The bubbling red enveloped my trapped hand, arm and shoulder, threatening to swallow my entire right side.

It was more than Harusame and I believed I was ready to mix so I instinctively pulled away, yet Yagura’s grip was stone. He stood unperturbed, as though my pull had no weight and his transparency were a lie.

He snatched my left hand, locking it as well as his pink eyes bore into my skull, “I know all you fear, Jason, I know it from start to finish as you do. I have become you long ago, yet you hesitate to become yourself.”

“Agh! What are you talking about, that doesn’t make any sense!” Isobu’s bounty of chakra seeped down my arm’s length, fusing at my shoulders, burning away the skin on my neck as it travelled up and down my being. “Just help me figure out what to do!”

“Accept me. Or lose it all. That is all that remains, Jason, that is all you need to do now.” He stepped closer, his body feeding mine more and more of Isobu’s chakra, more than I felt fighting the Swordsmen, more than my mind could handle. An ocean’s worth. “Your enemies will not wait and unfortunately, neither will I. Soon everything will be lost, take it now.”

Beneath us Isobu stirred, his single eye stared for a moment before blinking back to slumber. I gritted my teeth as a full chakra cloak enveloped me, I sensed the weighted music change and I feared I’d lose the original sound in the roar of condensed chakra.

Yagura on the other hand looked pleased, his grip lightened and I fell, weighted by the immense chakra he’d bestowed on me. He sat back and watched, his eyes conveyed a disappointment but the smile on his lips held hope for something, for me— us.

But I didn’t get an answer…