Denial and shock were a wonderful thing, and now that the adrenaline was wearing off, Itsuki became more and more aware of just how
wrong everything felt. His thoughts continued to race back to that feeling of drowning, the desperation in his body to fight for his life, the
heaviness he felt as the water pressed against his skin, holding him in place while he glanced up at what he thought would be his last glimpse of light. His thoughts raced forward- to the Ogres cannibalizing eachother, to the overwhelming presence that came from the two that hunted them, and now that he finally had a moment to breathe, he was realizing that it was much more difficult than he first thought. He did his best to hold back a pained grunt, finding that his breaths were a little strained after all, and to make matters worse, the pain was setting in.
This was fine.
He convinced himself everything would be okay. Sure, he could see the chakra in the air, he could
feel the pressure on his skin- as if he was still drowning.
This was fine.
A hint of a smile cracked on the corners of his lips, his eyes just a bit wider than before as if he was still a young buck caught in the headlights. He took a small gulp, doing his best not to focus on the chakra that surrounded them. It almost hurt to use his eyes.
Everything was perfectly fine. Just had to find something else to focus on. He was alive. He was breathing. He had to press on, no? He had to live for the sake of those who died before him.
His smile wavered ever so slightly, the skin underneath his eyes creasing just enough to give him a somewhat crazed look. He just had to focus on the other things around him, ground himself in the facts. Find something intriguing to distract him. He was running these thoughts through his head over and over, desperately trying to hold on to his sanity rather than give into an already fragile state of mind.
The young shinobi took a slow, controlled breath, and somehow managed to keep hold of his sanity. These two strangers- one had pink hair and the other had silver. While he wasn't that familiar with the clans within Konoha, he had caught glimpses of those hair colors before. Still, he assumed those colors were probably in every nation. The voice of the little Fox seemed to knock Itsuki out of his dazed state, and upon hearing something about earth release, he felt some sort of kinship to the silver haired stranger. He could see what he was doing, though he didn't entirely understand what the purpose of such a wide use of chakra was, that is, until he began parting ways with them. He mulled over the use of the technique- was he communicating with someone, like the redhead did with his snakes? No, the Fox mentioned something about range finding. That was when he realized just how quickly he accepted the fact that there was a talking fox...
"My name's Itsuki, uh- Hyuga." He called out as the man walked off, almost as if he thought the man expected the two to follow.
"I know I might be younger than the two of you- but I'll keep an eye on our nearby surroundings for now, I'll let you guys know if anything... dangerous heads our way," he wanted to say if anything was weird, he'd give them a heads up, but to him, everything seemed weird right now. Given the fact neither of them answered his question, he hoped that they were both as lost as he was about their current situation, and simply pressed on, doing his best to accept the facts despite his steadily rising heart rate. He scouted ahead and behind them every now and again, though when his sight returned close to them, he found himself staring at the fox on the man's shoulder. He almost wondered if he should pull out his snakes, though they wouldn't be very useful right now. While he had trained his eyes to use his Byakugan for long periods of time, he found it was more difficult to maintain right now, and as long as they got close to the village without further issues, he planned to dispel his Byakugan in order to avoid further eye strain.
"Your technique back there- the way the lightning kind of bounced off your body. That was impressive. Haven't seen anything like that," the redhead went on, trying to break the silence in an attempt to calm his ever growing nerves.
"And you! Fancy meeting someone with chakra pills out here, huh? Guess we can count ourselves lucky." If his cracked smile wasn't a clue, his incessant need to talk was probably a dead giveaway as to how nervous he was, nevermind the way he occasionally bit at the skin on his lips. He could tell by the masked man's facial expressions and the tone in his voice that he probably wasn't much of one for conversation, but given the pink haired one reached out to him, maybe he'd be more willing to talk.
"You some kind of relief Shinobi or something?" If this boy had any grasp as to how much danger they were in, he would definitely be trying to maintain some silence, given he had no idea just what dangers lurked nearby.
