The first thing I did when I got home was grab my van de Graaff generator.
And I mean that literally. I turned it on, grabbed the dome and just sat there holding it, hoping my little hunch, the only thing left over from my trip down DNA lane, wasn't just wishful thinking.
It wasn't.
As the tingle of static electricity began filling me, I could literally feel the cells in my right hand become more alive again, more aware with every second that passed. The plasma bodies were absorbing the energy.
Practically feeding on it. Though maybe 'feel' wasn't the right word, I just knew.
Knew more and more of what was going on at cellular level and further until I could actually distinguish between what I knew and what I was feeling again. I hadn't imagined it.
Not what happened, and not what happened in response to what happened.
My cells had gained their own souls.
And my chakra circulatory system proceeded to eat them.
Was still eating them.
Really slowly, though, thankfully. My chakra pathway system was apparently complete shit, even now that my chakra capacity was nearly half again as large as it used to be.
Since chakra did follow something resembling the law of conservation, this did not fill me with elation. Now that I had something to compare against my steady decline in biological self-awareness of the past few days, my lack of elation was rapidly shifting into worry.
Increasingly so as my subconscious biological processes became more and more known to my conscious mind again, the more the cells in my hand regained their subtler bodies. It was… a lot for a single train of thought to handle.
But my hand seemed to do a lot of the self-assessment thinking all by itself. My cells too, as if they suddenly had their own information processing capability.
Beyond just the automated metabolic processes anyway. It was strange.
I wonder if that's what having Naruto's brain would feel like. Naruto's mind probably worked by simultaneous multi-threaded problem-solving.
But since nobody got around to teaching himproblem-solving, all those thoughts were idle. And idle hands are the devil's playground, and al that.
His own mind was wearing him out. Like my own body almost wore me out.
First, take stock.
I'd been brought home at mid-day. All my neighbours had seen.
I had to be carted over again, so everyone knew I'd suffered some new sort of health problem. Mercifully, Kakashi had pulled his own 'I'm a civilian nobody' henge like Shisui had before him.
Not so mercifully, this still left a lot of leeway for wagging tongues.
"Hey, Hatake. "
"Hmm. "
"How do you feel about D-rank missions?"
"Hmm?" Kakashi asked from where he was slouched against my wall reading porn. "You said something?"
Who the hell do you think I am, Gai? "Either that or our difficulty in finding common ground might force me to throw Naruto at you. "
"Now now, no need to do anything rash. What did you need, oh honourable host?"
"I want to know how far you're willing to go to accomplish your mission. Are you here to satisfy the letter of your orders, or their spirit?"
Kakashi tucked his book away. "Well, it's as you said.
We live in a shinobi village. "
Don't complain about trading my freedom for my safety, is that it? That I had no say in this was what stung the most. "Am I your mark here or your client?"
"Well, it's an unusual situation. " Translation, that's not up to you.
"But by the spirit of the mission, you're the client. "
"Then we have terms to discuss. "
"I suppose so. "
It turned out that the Third gave me pretty much complete leeway on how I wanted this handled, in the same way as a high-profile client would have on mission terms. Of course, he also gave Kakashi full permission not to volunteer this information, or any information I didn't ask about, which was the kind of rules lawyering I'd come to expect from ninja.
Fortunately, the man didn't seem to consider my terms too egregious. He understood that I didn't have the sort of reputation or lifestyle that would justify him playing the role of random renter or visiting family (of which I had none).
Conversely, his priority was my continued and unspoiled survival, so he was against anything that jeopardised that, like having too many walls between us. That said, he didn't argue as hard as I feared when I pointed out that I was fairly well known in my neighbourhood for my disdain of freeloaders.
Something that would be doubly true now that I was under doctor orders to take it easy.
"I do see what you're saying," Kakashi said mildly. "Still, I won't be able to protect you properly if I'm distracted with menial tasks.
"
I looked at the medium. It was silent now, the Tesla coils and electrodes inactive, the dust long since settled.
But the sealant had held well and none of the argon had escaped, or been diluted with ingoing air. The lack of plasma life made me feel a pang of sadness, but I consoled myself with the knowledge that most of them had left the medium when they entered me, and no new ones would have been created afterward, even before the Anbu shut everything down out of consideration for my power bill.
I could still feel the plasma bodies, even individually if I focused, more and more as the plasma cell bodies replenished. I could even feel Yemo again now, though his presence was less a ball and more a long thread linking my brain to my palm, like the branch of a tree unable to produce its own sap.
He was completely fused to the nerve now, the semblance of autonomy he'd exhibited in the medium was gone. Maybe it was never there and I really was just projecting.
Or maybe it was just sleeping. I did fancy I could still find its potential there, somewhere.
Still, I'd come to reassess my assumptions about plasma cell autonomy and sentience in the past few days. That was why I wanted to keep away from the medium for my next experiment...
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