Chương 101: Madness.

Haruto nodded, what Unohana had said made sense, but that didn't make the task ahead any less daunting than it already was. One or two thousand years of memories all had to be absorbed relatively quickly or Haruto would be stuck studying Unohana's knowledge for the rest of his entire life.

'Thankfully I've got Grindelwald's Occlumency.' Haruto didn't delay it any further, he quietly closed his eyes and entered his mindscape which was a vast library. In it was a vast pile of unsorted memories just lying on the floor, each book was a memory from Unohana Retsu. Haruto picked up one such book and began to go through the memories that he'd gotten from Unohana Retsu while sitting under the tree in the Template Inventory Space like a buddha. Haruto started with Unohana's earliest memories.

A girl no older than Haruto was currently roaming a vast barren land with what appeared to be a well maintained katana at her waist. The katana wasn't the same one that Haruto had come to become close with over the past few weeks, but different in colour and more appropriately sized for an Unohana as young as him. Walking the land under the scorching sun, Unohana's eyes held no fatigue or exhaustion, instead they burned just as bright as the ball of fire in the sky. Unohana Retsu was looking forward to something.

But there was something curious about her that was even more attractive for Haruto's attention. Something wrapped in layers of bandages was being dragged by her with a rope tied to her waist. It was heavy, capsule shaped and had a distinct smell of herbs and medicine. Haruto couldn't recognise any of the herbs by smell but he could tell that none of them were particularly precious given Unohana's poor clothes that indicated she lived in poverty.

A distant hut showed on the horizon after a while and Unohana rescued herself and her package from the scorching heat by entering it. Inside it was as barren as the land outside and it was populated only by a single oddly red table. Wiping away any lingering sweat from her forehead, Unohana picked up the package and hauled it onto the oddly sturdy red table inside the worn down hut that looked to be on its last legs.

Unohana's eyes burned even more furiously as the package came to a rest on top of the red table and Haruto who was viewing all this with her was curious as to what had gotten the young Unohana's attention so much.

'What's in there? A bundle of herbs that can be used to make medicine that she'll sell for money?'

'I thought she started to learn Kaido from Tenjiro Kirinji and thought that the memories would start from there, near the foundation of Soul Society…'

'I guess not… but what is she doing anyway?' Haruto didn't have to wait long to figure out what was happening. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Unohana Retsu slowly undid the bandages on the neatly packed capsule and began to unwrap it. She started from the bottom and slowly moved to the top since the bandages were tied top to bottom. As soon as Unohana undid the bandages on the bottom, two thick feet popped out of the wraps. Haruto was shocked, and surprised.

'A body?' He controlled himself and watched as Unohana undid the bandages further. The body was of a broad faced middle aged man. He was naked but he was still alive.

'Is he drugged?' Haruto guessed since the man could still move his eyeballs. The only notable wound on his body that Haruto noticed was a slice to his chest. Unohana had probably ended the fight in a single strike while using a strong poison.

'.... what's she about to do with the body anyway?' Haruto was equal parts curious and equal parts horrified.

'She's not gonna eat him is she?' Haruto paused as he observed Unohana suddenly search around her hut for something before poking out of a low shelf with a sharp knife in her hand.

'Woah… is she seriously going to eat him alive?' Haruto knew that Unohana had a terrible reputation before she joined Yamamoto in establishing the Soul Society, she was a barbaric and blood thirsty criminal so doing such a thing was not a far fetched thing for her, or at least Haruto thought so when he saw Unohana with the knife.

'What does her eating flesh have anything to do with medicine?' Haruto wondered softly, he thought about skipping the memory to look at something different since he assumed it was a mistake on the system's part to extract this particular memory from Unohana but he decided to keep watching for a few seconds longer. Unohana slowly returned to the table with a wide crazed smile on her face.

Her hands looked delicate and weak but they were more steady than Hiruko's hands as she slowly brought the knife towards the man's face. Haruto looked through squinted eyes since he didn't like what was happening even though he'd dissected several bodies before. The simple context of cannibalism had made the memory unsettling to his mind, unable to properly mesh into it. It also gave Unohana a different view in his mind. Yet the question still remained.

'What does cannibalism have to do with medicine?'

'Is there a forbidden technique that Unohana knows like Hiruko to improve talent through consuming other people's bodies or something? Is this a memory of such a technique?'

'But I don't think Unohana used such petty tricks…' The knife in Unohana's hand softly broke the surface before she slid it underneath the thin human skin and began to skin the man alive. Thin strips of skin fell down onto the floor as blood seeped out from the muscles underneath and pooled onto the table giving it the same distinct red that it had already been painted in. The man began to scream in pain, of course he couldn't open his mouth so his screams remained muffled, but he looked to be in a lot of pain.

Unohana skinned most of the front of the man with a single cut, a true testament to her skill.

'Can anyone I know even do such a thing so efficiently?'

'Can Hiruko do such a thing?'

'Can Orochimaru do such a thing?' The skilled dissection made something cold and terror filled crawl up his spine, but Unohana Retsu didn't falter. She treated it with utmost devotion and worked tirelessly to undress the man of his natural coverings. Blood covered the man and Unohana used a ragged dirty cloth to wipe it down. Soon, the man was laid bare. Haruto expected Unohana to start hacking away at the body at that point and begin eating it raw but Unohana did nothing for the next few minutes.

She stood still and stared at the bare body in all its glory.

'What is she doing?'

'Is she not going to eat it?' After a full five minutes, Unohana finally moved. She picked up her knife once again and began to pluck individual muscle fibers from the body. This time like before she was gentle but skilled and steady, applying just enough pressure on the muscle fibers to separate them from the rest before letting them rest back in the body again. She started with the biceps, then moved to the triceps, then to the core muscles and finally to the glutes in a single systematic order.

Haruto felt exactly how gentle she was since the pressure that Unohana was using was transmitted into his mind too. And he could tell she was being really careful, like she didn't want to damage a precious specimen.

'Is she… studying the strength of those muscles?'

'Is she working out how best to snap them?' The memory continued and Unohana continued her experiments. From slowly plucking muscles to rearranging them to hinder movement of the limbs to finally cutting them down to access the internals of the body, Unohana did it all and she did it fearlessly and skillfully while keeping the man completely alive. Haruto was stunned throughout.

'This… this is madness…'