NOVEL WEB 32. To be Human
Tomoka opened her eyes again. Pain shot through her pupils as they contracted rapidly due to the light. The next thing to assault her over sensitive senses was the strong smell of disinfectant and the annoying beeping of a machine.
“Ugh, this sucks. Guess I am in a hospital” With a groan Tomoka moved her sore body. Everything hurt, from her bones to her muscles, hell, even her very nerves hurt somehow. It felt as if all of the cells in her body were popping only to be rebuilt and pop again.
After a while the hypersensitivity subsided, though the soreness remained. Looking around, Tomoka saw a mostly empty room. To her left was a heart rate monitor, the source of the annoying beeping. To her right a big window let the early morning sunrays into her room.
Sighing Tomoka decided to check on her body. Last she knew she should have been burnt to an ugly child shaped coal. After moving this way and that as well as checking below her medical gown she came to the conclusion that she was fine.
The only thing that did catch her attention were the very faint scars in the shape of Lichtenberg figures all over her body. They were so faint she almost missed them. Releasing a sigh, Tomoka was thankful her body didn’t just paint a bunch of black tattoo-like markings all over her body. Looking at her right arm that had those tattoo-like markings Tomoka couldn’t help but smile wryly.
Letting her body fall again on the soft bed she began thinking about her actions. Why did she need to act in the first place? In cannon, Hinata was saved by her father. Yeah that led to a bunch of problems due to political bullshit but it’s not her problem.
There is also the fact that she rushed things too much. She didn’t need to beat Kumo-nin, buying time for someone else to come would have been the smart move. Lastly but also very important is the fact that she didn’t use her air jutsus. Using wind bullets would have been very useful.
All in all, the adrenaline had blinded her. The fear of death had blinded her. In conclusion, she needed more training, but above that, she needed experience. She might be smart, inventive, and skilled. However, that did not remove the fact that this had been the very first time she had ever participated in a life and death battle.
That brought another point to Tomoka's mind. Raising her right hand to look at it she wondered about what she had done. She had taken a life and yet she felt calm. Her expectations and reality were worlds apart at the moment.
Tomoka wasn’t dumb, she knew that being a shinobi would involve killing, a lot of it in fact. She expected to feel remorse or some such after her first kill and yet she was calm. There was no remorse, there was no guilt. There was no satisfaction either so at least she knew she wasn’t a psycho.
The man might have had a family, ambitions and whatever else but she didn’t care. For her, that guy was the same as every other person out there in the streets she did not know. Another face lost in the sea of people. All of them could die for all she cared and she wouldn’t even look twice.
‘I wonder if I am still human. I wonder if it is normal for a human to think like this. For that matter, what does it even mean to be human?’ A philosophical question that had no real answer. Is a human defined by their genetic code? Or by their social interactions? Both? or perhaps something else.
[Who cares if you are. Humans are gross anyway. You are you and that is what matters, isn’t it?] Kurama felt irritated when he heard Tomoka's words. For him, it didn’t matter. So what if Tomoka is no longer a human? He isn’t a human either. He would rather have Tomoka go back to her slightly crazy self than this depressed version of her.
‘You know what? You are right, I am not even from this world so at this point, who cares? I will just do whatever the fuck I want as I have been doing for a while now. Though I still need to improve a lot to not end up dead. Thanks Kurama’ Having said that, Tomoka closed her eyes with a smile on her face.
[My pleasure, now could you come in here. There is a weird thingy floating here and I don’t know what it is]
‘A what now?’ The smile that had formed on Tomokas face cramped up instantly.