127. Confrontation
<span style="font-weight:400">It took a while for Tomoka to realize what was going on, or at least have an idea of it. However, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure. If her hypothesis is right then the possibilities for the future would be endless. For now though, she needed to ask Nozomi for some information. Though she would do soter since Nozomi fell asleep.
<span style="font-weight:400">‘Hey Kurama, what do you think is going on with my body?’
<span style="font-weight:400">…
<span style="font-weight:400">‘Kurama?’
<span style="font-weight:400">…
<span style="font-weight:400">Feeling a mixture of worry and annoyance Tomoka closed her eyes so she could enter her mentalndscape. What she saw there was an absolute mess. Torn trees and boulders everywhere with puddles of ck foul smelling liquid in between. Her library looked like it had barely survived all kinds of natural disasters. Worse of all, she couldn’t see the fox anywhere.
<span style="font-weight:400">With a sigh Tomoka began fixing the ce while looking for the fox. After a while of walking Tomoka noticed something peculiar, her absolute control over her mindscape had degraded ever so slightly. She realized this by the simple fact that some flowers would appear around without her input. Moreover, she couldn’t remove them, at least permanently that is.
<span style="font-weight:400">“This must be a side effect of unlocking my emotions,” The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Her mindscape is a representation of herself and her state of mind. Since her state of mind was a construct made by herself, then her mindscape that represents it is also a construct. These flowers however, represent in a way her true state of mind.
<span style="font-weight:400">“At least they are pretty.” A soft smile sneaked its way onto her expression.
<span style="font-weight:400">[They are.] Suddenly hearing the fox’s voice Tomoka turned around to see a pair of red eyes looking at her from a dark cave.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Kurama? Is that you? Are you alright?” Tomoka sincerely felt worried for the fox. After All, she couldn’t even imagine what he had gone through while she lost control.
<span style="font-weight:400">[I’ve been better. However, I don’t care about my state right now, after all, I am effectively immortal . Tomoka, we need to talk.] As Kurama talked Tomoka could see the glowing red eyes moving closer. Then she saw his state to say he was hurt would be an understatement.
<span style="font-weight:400">Kurama looked, with all sincerity, half dead. A good two thirds of his head had been melted only leaving his white skull visible, in some spots not even that. His right front leg had its skin missing with the muscles visible. The left side of his ribs looked like some monster had taken a bite out of him. Meanwhile his tales were all in different states of disrepair.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I am sorry.”
<span style="font-weight:400">[No you are not. I don’t know the full story but what I learned through that whole ordeal is that you can’t feel… anything.] Kurama felt angry, betrayed, he felt like all that time he had spent with Tomoka was nothing but a lie. Yet, here he was, talking with the girl in hopes that perhaps it wasn’t.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I… I am sorry, but you are right, I can’t feel much of anything, I am a broken mess. I will be exining everything to Nozomi and Hinatater today. Could you please wait until then? It’s… a bit hard for me to tell the story.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Kurama stared at Tomoka for a while. He could see the regret, the fear in her eyes. However, he didn’t know if he could trust those feelings he was seeing. After all, she admitted it herself. Thinking for a while Kurama sighed, he would give her a chance.
<span style="font-weight:400">[Fine, but if I’m not satisfied with your exnation I will be leaving.] Kurama truly hoped that she could exin everything in a satisfactory way. He didn’t want to hate her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I understand.”