Аннотация: Kanagawa asks Hiroshi about their life at Nekomata Castle.
Psychology professor Kanagawa Toru, after saying goodbye to another patient, looked impatiently at his watch. There are fifty minutes left before the appointment of the most interesting case in his practice.
Nakomori Hiroshi, who lives two lives at the same time, was supposed to come to him after school, at six in the evening. When the guy told him who the other boy was, with whom Hiroshi shared his memories or dreams, the professor simply could not believe his ears. Uchiha Shisui! The same Uchiha Shisui from the manga by his famous classmate Kishimoto Masashi! Professor Kanagawa was also interested in the occult and believed that Nakomori Hiroshi's case lay somewhere at the intersection of psychology and exotericism (religious, philosophical, pseudoscientific, and publicly available mystical currents and practices. Explicit knowledge (for example, that a person has a soul) or determining fate by the lines on his hand, and so on. It is the opposite of esotericism, a "secret teaching" accessible only to initiates.). He himself, even during his master's degree, read this manga, and then watched the weekly anime releases with interest, and here is such a strange gift from fate. Nakomori Hiroshi, or rather Uchiha Shisui, survived, saved several children and fled with them from Konoha's political machine.
A month after his first treatment, Kanagawa firmly believed in the reality of what was happening in Hiroshi's dreams, because his sixteen-year-old patient could explain some of the points that were mentioned in the manga casually. But which fit perfectly into the logic and psychology of that world. Hiroshi could list almost everyone from the Uchiha clan by name and made some pretty clear sketches. The guy turned out to be a good draughtsman, and the professor's folder had accumulated a dozen sketches that were indeed somewhat different from the manga, they had more details and details.
Various cross-surveys, tricky tests, and work with the unconscious showed that Nakomori Hiroshi, a first-grade high school student, really sees that world, and not just a bystander there, but lives the life of a Shinobi. With their mentality, rules, open and unspoken, special psychology and life experience gained from an early age.
It's almost like a split personality, but each person lives in their own world, intersecting and sharing their accumulated knowledge only in dreams. And, most notably, Uchiha Shisui, according to Hiroshi, did not fully believe in their existence, thinking that he was having strange dreams and, perhaps, that all this was the ability of his Mangekyo Sharingan!
The presence of the Shinobi world, somewhere beyond this reality, forced Kanagawa to once again verify the theory of parallel worlds, to which he was already an adherent. And after he managed to persuade Hiroshi to believe that he believes him and is very eager to help his "soulmate" in a difficult situation, he began to talk about the life, everyday life and daily routine of young Shinobi - Itachi and Shisui. Who, however, by the standards of that world were already practically veterans of many military conflicts and local skirmishes. The same Shisui, for example, was enrolled in ANBU when he was twelve, and became the captain of his team at fourteen. And when his Mangekyo Sharingan awakened, he rightfully became considered one of the most powerful fighters of the Uchiha clan.
All this was lovingly collected by Kanagawa in a folder with Nakomori Hiroshi's "case", and with each meeting this folder grew. It was interesting, and not only because it was one in a million, but I also couldn't wait to find out how things were going there, beyond their world, and whether his advice had helped Uchiha Shisui. However, Hiroshi said that Shinobi are brought up very specifically to make the psyche and moral principles more flexible.
For example, when Shisui was only six, at the beginning of World War III, his father took him on a mission, and the boy infiltrated one of the garrison villages of the Land of the Earth and poisoned the wells in it. An adult would have aroused suspicion, but a child entered and left unnoticed. After that incident, when Shisui saw what his task led to, his sharingan awakened. Judging by Hiroshi's story, Itachi was treated in much the same way when he was brought to a village near Otakuku, which was attacked by the Nukenins. It was already the end of the Third Shinobi World War. The sight of dead people being tortured before their deaths greatly impressed Shisui's cousin, who was also there. So, shortly before Sasuke was born, Itachi became the youngest sharingan holder in the clan.
Kanagawa wrote down all this necessary and not so much information, making psychological portraits of his virtual wards. Even when reading the manga, it seemed to him that there were too many blank spots in the Uchiha story, and towards the end, when this strange tangle of hatred began to unravel, he felt incredibly sorry for the talented young Shinobi who were simply deceived by wise old men who craved power.
There was a knock on the door, and Kanagawa roused himself, shaking off his thoughts about life in another world.
"Yes, yes! Come in!"
"Professor Kanagawa, may I?" Nakomori Hiroshi's shaggy head appeared in the doorway.
"Sure, come on in, Hiroshi-kun," he invited a patient from whom he did not charge for an appointment and spent about four hours a week. He once wondered if he could call the young man his patient, since, in fact, he did not treat him, but, by and large, indulged his "illness," as many of his colleagues might have reasoned.
But only by convincing the guy of his loyalty and interest, as well as that he was not going to "treat" him or "put him in a mental hospital," Kanagawa was able to gain Hiroshi's trust. He also secretly believed that if this was some kind of new form of schizophrenia, then so far its symptoms were very harmless. Especially after he managed to convince Hiroshi that "from here", having access to all possible benefits of man-made civilization, he would be able to "help" his "other self" more there. Hiroshi has everything at hand here - books, including manga, the Internet, drawings of structures, instructions and advice from experienced people. Having assigned the guy the role of Uchiha Shisui's "guardian angel" so that Hiroshi would not have any desires to "connect" with himself, Kanagawa sincerely enjoyed what was happening in that world and gave advice on raising young Shinobi along with his favorite characters.
Hiroshi took off his shoes and windbreaker and sat down on an easy chair in front of the table. The guy's movements were somewhat jerky, betraying frustration.
"Is something wrong, Hiroshi-kun?" Kanagawa asked softly. "You look a little untidy today."
"I... no, I don't have a problem," He smiled as if he could not help it. "When we have such dreams, all the problems that accompany us in our lives seem too small and not problems at all. I was just walking towards you and remembering... By the way, I drew Mina and Sen," Hiroshi handed over a couple of album sheets he had fished out of a folder.
"Is Mina the oldest girl?" Kanagawa asked, looking at the portrait drawing in colored pencil with interest. A serious girl with slightly curly hair, slightly out of place, and braided into a side ponytail, looked out from the drawing with dark eyes. A slightly elongated face with a pointed chin, stubbornly compressed lips, and a thin nose. The hairstyle was painted dark gray, the color of wet asphalt, with some kind of blue-purple tint, and a red rose was painted as a hairpin.
"Yes, the one who is ten years old and who knows almost nothing by Shinobi standards. For me, this girl can do much more than many of my classmates. She sews like a sewing machine! And she's only ten years old!"
"So did they get the fabrics or the clothes?" Kanagawa remembered that Hiroshi had told them the last time they met that the cats they were staying with had agreed to share old things for free. Yes, some of it turned out to be too big, and Mina sewed it, and nyako ninja don't wear pants, she made shorts and trousers out of some of the things for the guys. The most interesting thing is that Naruto, it turned out, is also good at handling threads and needles..."
"And this, I take it, is Sen." The following drawing depicted a boy with brown hair in a semi-profile. His forehead was open, the top of his head was cropped short, and his hair was longer on the back of his head, almost to the middle of his shoulder blades, and gathered in a ponytail. There are a lot of freckles on her fair skin. Golden-brown eyes, a mischievous smile, in which four front teeth were missing exactly in the middle - I remembered that the boy was about six years old and his baby teeth were about to change.
"Yeah, he's from the Eastern Uchiha. His family moved to Konoha later than the others, about twenty-five years ago, after the destruction of the Whirlpool, from a border village that no longer exists, where Uchiha also lived. There are many bloodlines mixed in it, including the Uzumaki, whose village was on the other side of the Ouzu Strait. He's probably about a quarter Uzumaki. His mother had hair like that too. By the way, he's more explosive by nature than the others. Shisui believes that Sen, with proper training and if he is placed in a special genjutsu, can manifest sharingan."
"That's interesting," Kanagawa chuckled. "What is this special genjutsu?"
"Well... actually, it's a secret technique of the Uchiha clan," Hiroshi drawled with a smile, but then he became serious. "But, in general, it's something like "Tsukiyomi". They show you the most terrible things, force you to fight your fears. Some of the kids were going crazy, so it's forbidden to show her in the clan. But many did it anyway, or were forced to watch deaths, tortures, and so on in person. In order to raise strong fighters, and as early as possible. Shisui is still thinking. He doesn't want to lose Sen, but he needs strong Shinobi. They are weak. They're also running out of food...."
"Food?" Kanagawa was surprised by the transition.
"Yes. Shisui expected that the food he took from Konoha, bought and sealed in scrolls would last for a month, but after training, the children are hungry, they spend a lot of energy. They only eat twice a day anyway. Now, it's only been a week, and the food is almost gone. Just enough for three more days. It turns out that he can't leave the castle to buy food, because Itachi is on a mission to earn money, and he can't send strong children, because they need to be guarded, and the little ones need to be looked after. They were quiet at first, they didn't really leave the rooms, but they've come to their senses a little over the last few days with training, and he still talks to everyone there, as you advised. We need to keep an eye on everyone right now. Sasuke, Naruto, and Sen have already searched the entire Nekomata Castle. And the others want to go with them too, sometimes they watch them and get lost. Anyway, Shisui talked to Rakurei, and he allowed them to hunt in the castle grounds. He wants to take Naruto and Sasuke as his assistants, because Sasuke had hunting experience with his brother. To get food."
"Yes, with such a crowd of children, especially Shinobi children, it won't be easy for them...." Oh, that's not all their problems at the moment, Professor.... Hiroshi chuckled.