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Naruto : Chimera Ninja!
Naruto: Training is My Ninja Way
Donovan slumped powerlessly on the ground, his calloused hands buried deep in his greying hair, as if trying to uproot those painful memories from his mind.
The dilapidated shack was filled with the smell of burnt feathers and faint blood, making his hunched back look even more desolate.
After a long while, a sigh—heavy as if it came from the depths of his lungs—spilled through his fingers.
"It was Willow Hill Psychiatric Hospital..."
His voice was as raspy as if polished by sandpaper.
"Carl Bradbury, that stubborn old friend of mine... he discovered it accidentally while sorting through old archives."
Vic leaned against the armrest of the only intact, tattered sofa. Hearing this, he frowned slightly.
"Willow Hill? You mean that place on the outskirts... the one specialized in 'caring' for 'special individuals' like us?"
His tone held a trace of imperceptible sarcasm.
Who at Nevermore hadn't heard of that place's reputation?
Nominally a place for "treatment," but in reality, it was more like a high-security prison.
"That's right."
Donovan dropped his hands, revealing a face exhausted to the breaking point. He stared blankly at the messy crow corpses and scattered black feathers on the floor.
"Tyler's mom... she... when her condition was at its worst back then, she... she stayed there for a while too."
Mentioning his late wife, a tiny spark seemed to ignite in Donovan's cloudy eyes, bursting with a faint but real light.
But the light was fleeting, quickly drowned by deeper pain and guilt, finally extinguishing into dead silence.
"Until she died there..."
"Not long after she went in... the obituary came. 'Sudden accident during treatment, resuscitation failed'... just that one flimsy sentence."
He practically swallowed the last few words, spitting them out with another heavy gasp. They were light words, yet they hit the silent air with crushing weight.
Vic remained silent, not rushing him.
He could feel that the once-capable veteran detective before him was standing on the edge of a cliff of truth, and below might be darkness he couldn't withstand.
Donovan took a deep breath, as if trying to suppress the acid in his chest:
"Carl discovered that in the death obituaries released by Willow Hill, the mortality rate for those rare outcasts was ridiculously high—nearly eighty percent! That defies all logic!"
"And once an obituary is released, they cremate the bodies with astonishing speed. They deal with the ashes hurriedly before the families can even claim them..."
"It didn't feel like they were handling funeral arrangements. It felt like... they were in a rush to cover something up."
Donovan licked his cracked lips. His voice trembled slightly, seemingly terrified of the conjecture he was about to voice:
"So... I couldn't help but think... Tyler's mom... could she..."
"Not be dead?"
Vic finished the sentence he dared not fully speak. His tone was calm but piercing.
Donovan whipped his head up to look at Vic. His eyes were a weave of hope and immense unease as he nodded vigorously:
"Yes! That's what Carl suspected too! He thought Willow Hill was conducting some unspeakable business inside, possibly involving... live experiments or something else."
"Before he died... in the last call he made to me, his breathing was unstable, like he was injured. He only managed to stutter out a few words... 'Willow Hill'... 'Data'... and... 'LOIS'..."
He looked up, bloodshot eyes staring tight at Vic:
"'LOIS'! That was the last word he left me! I don't know what it represents! A name? A code? A place? Or an acronym for something?"
"Carl was definitely silenced because he found something! Those crows... were probably coming for me too. They knew Carl gave the lead to me!"
Vic was silent for a moment, his fingertips unconsciously tapping the rotten velvet of the sofa, making a soft pff-pff sound.
His gaze swept over the messy room, finally landing back on Donovan's anxious and expectant face.
"LOIS..." He repeated in a low voice, then looked at Donovan.
"Mr. Donovan, leave the rest of the investigation to me. I'll have the Shadow Khan protect you. You need to leave here temporarily. Go to Transylvania and lay low. There's a Hotel Transylvania there; it's very safe, and your son Tyler is there too."
"No... I can't!"
Donovan shook his head violently, his face written with worry and resistance.
"This is too dangerous for you! Principal Weems was right; these aren't things you kids should be mixed up in!"
Hearing this, Vic just glanced at him coolly. The playfulness was gone from his peach-blossom eyes, leaving only a near-cold calm:
"Dangerous? Then what can you do by staying? Be an extra snack for those crows outside that haven't fully dispersed yet?"
The words were blunt and stinging. Donovan's face went white. His lips moved, but he couldn't refute it.
He, a fallen former detective who could barely protect himself, would indeed only be a burden.
"But..."
He still tried to insist, unwilling to draw danger to these young people.
"No 'buts,' Mr. Donovan."
Vic interrupted him. His tone softened a bit, but carried a strange, irresistible force.
"You don't want that kid Tyler to lose his dad suddenly before he's done being lovey-dovey with his siren miss, do you?"
It sounded like concern, but after saying it, Vic couldn't help but smack his lips. Why did that sound a bit off coming from me?
Carrying a bit of a... Yakuza threat vibe?
Whatever, as long as it works.
Vic couldn't be bothered to waste more breath. Regardless of whether Donovan agreed, he simply moved his will.
In the shadows, two silent Shadow Khan emerged quietly. One on the left, one on the right, they "supported" Donovan, who still wanted to speak.
"Vic! Wait! You can't..."
Donovan's voice was swiftly and politely "escorted" out of the crumbling shack by the ninjas. His figure quickly disappeared into the night outside the door, presumably heading straight for the airport via the Shadow Channels.
The room finally fell completely silent, leaving only the mess of crow corpses, scattered black feathers, and the lingering smell of burnt blood.
Vic walked to the window but didn't leave immediately.
He lifted a corner of the tattered curtain, casting his gaze into the heavy night outside. In the distance, the Gothic spires of Nevermore Academy stood silently under the thin moonlight, like a dormant beast.
"Willow Hill Psychiatric Hospital... Outcasts... Experiments..."
He repeated these keywords in a low voice. His eyes were dark and deep, as if trying to pierce the darkness before him to see the truth hidden behind.
These words were like cold needles, once again pricking that area deep in his memory he didn't wish to touch.
They hooked up a blurry past—a childhood filled with the smell of disinfectant and the cold touch of metal, unbearable to look back on.
That feeling of being restrained, observed, as if he were no longer himself but some kind of "specimen"...
Even now, even though he had defeated "them" once, it still chilled him to the bone.
Could it be "Them"?