Izanagi's Predicament

As Shun dived inside the mindscape of the twins, Kaguya was brought along, whether it was intentional or not, she wasn't aware.

Outside, neither Hinami nor Ria knew what was happening, so although they could also dive in, they wouldn't know what to do from there.

As Shun was in transit, he divided his consciousness in two, one to each twin mindscape. That was another convenient use of [Parallel Thought], apart from handling two or more activities simultaneously, he could also split his consciousness if necessary.

Kaguya followed suit. For the past 12+ years, she had spent in Shun's spiritual sea and mindscape conversing with him and reading some manga and novels, she had learned a lot of abilities, parallel thought being one of them.

As the two were unconscious and had no prior knowledge of the workings of the mindscape, it was easy for them both to enter.

Inside Izanagi's mindscape, there was a storm of spiritual energy currently going on. It was at the stage where you'd think he was in a state of a breakthrough if this was a Chinese novel but if one looked closely, one would notice there were cracks in the ceiling of the mindscape.

This crack was caused due to the shock and force behind the release of the seal holding back the spiritual energy.

"This is worse than I imagined. I shouldn't have listened to that old man" Shun said.

"If what you said happened as you said it did, then I approve of Hagoromo's decision, but after my time spent learning a few things, I'd say it was a stupid decision in the long run" Kaguya pointed out.

"Yeah, I'm aware it was a necessity back then but I should have put a sort of filter to let out a continuous stream into their mindscape," Shun said regretfully.

"Well, there's no crying over spilled milk now. What can you salvage from this situation?" Kaguya asked.

"I'm afraid reading and experiencing are two different things. What I've read is of little to no use here." Shun said.

"Are you sure about that? Can't you simulate the spiritual energy and the essence in his body to mix up and form into chakra?" Kaguya asked. "Isn't that how chakra is created?"

Shun looked at Kaguya dumbfoundedly, "I can't believe I forgot that. I've been separating my spiritual energy from my chakra for some time now and I forgot. But Izanagi should have an idea of what to do. I wonder what he is doing. Wait, where is he in the first place?"

It was only now that they discovered that Izanagi was nowhere to be seen in his own mindscape.

"What the hell is going on?" Shun asked no one in particular.

"I think he's In there," Kaguya said solemnly while pointing at the storm of spiritual energy.

"What? How is that possible? Even if there is a storm in here, it could only mean he is not around. There is no way Nagi would forget the most basic thing I taught him about mindscapes" Shun immediately denied her.

"Well, he won't forget what you've taught him if it was under normal circumstances you know," Kaguya replied calmly while looking at Shun weirdly.

"You need to think calmly in this situation, Shun, they may be your children and may be in danger, but you are the only one that can help them. You need to get your head out of whatever hole it is in." Kaguya rebuked, this time her calm became even calmer.

This seemed to have brought Shun out of his panic. Shun may not have shown it but from the moment before he even released the seal, he was already nervous and although he had been masking it with a calm smile all along, the panic was beginning to set in.

Shun wanted to lash out once more but he knew what she said was true, he needed to get his head in order. This wasn't an anime or manga or novel.

This was real life and his children were in mortal danger. Should he fail here, they would die, Hinami would be devastated and he himself would be plagued with guilt because no matter how one looked at it, this was partially his fault.

Taking a deep breath, his eyes immediately sharped and he looked at the huge storm of spiritual energy crashing around in this limited space.

Normally, a mindscape would be as large as possible to contain the amount of spiritual energy you possess, then with every increase in the amount of energy, there would also be an increase in size.

Izanagi was facing the problem of limited space and a vast amount of energy and with the immediate release of all the energy, the mindscape cracked as it couldn't contain it all.

'I wonder how Izanami is doing if Izanagi's is this bad' Shun thought not knowing that the situation in Izanami's mindscape was even worse than this.

In the case of Izanagi, he only faced the issue of Spiritual energy storming his mindscape while Izanagii faced the issue of both spiritual energies cracking her mindscape and escaping into her chakra pathways where they collided with the essence energy of her physical body.

Perhaps because she was mentally weaker than Izanagi or she wasn't prepared for this outcome and reacted slowly, her situation was way more dire than Izanagi's.

Back in Izanagi's mindscape, Shun finally came up with a solution and said to Kaguya, "How about I use my spiritual energy to enlarge his mindscape myself? I could help him open his spirit sea, this way, the spiritual energies will have a space to go"

"That's good, but you know if you do that, his mind will forever have that scar right? That is similar to mind raping him even if it's this once, his mind(soul) will forever be weak compared to how it's supposed to be. He is your son so he has the potential to open up his spirit sea by himself. He will be more prone to manipulations and his 'will' will be weakened greatly' ' Kaguya said, pointing out the obvious disadvantages of following that route.

"I know. I know damnit, but what else can I do? This isn't some cultivation bullshit where the MC gets help from some unknown force, you know," Shun screamed angrily. This anger wasn't directed at Kaguya but at himself.

"Hmm, I'm aware. This is the real world, heh, that is even if it's even real. But right now isn't time for that, I thought we'd been over this. Now is the present, make use of it well. Alright?" Kaguya comforted.

Shun nodded his head and smiled a little at what she said. Truly, this world isn't even real, but the fact that he is here already makes it real, so there should be a way out of this predicament, after all, nothing happens with a reason, and for it to happen means that there is a cause and everything that has a cause surely has a solution.

"How about we first check on Izanagi, we will know how we will go from there, hmm?" Kaguya suggested with a soothing voice.

Shun calmed down and said "Yeah, let's do that first"

Shun then looked at the raging storm of spiritual energy and suddenly thought of something, 'Maybe Izanagi really is in there and trying to get this under control but is going about it the wrong way.'

With this thought, hope was suddenly ignited in his heart once more and he immediately dived into the storm of energy. As he dived, he felt a great deal of pressure acting on his consciousness. If not for his already normal body and soul, his consciousness would have been swallowed by this storm.

He looked to his side to see Kaguya diving with him with a calm look on her face and thought, 'As expected of Kaguya, this wouldn't give her any sort of pressure.'

As they dived deeper, they finally caught sight of a figure seated in the middle of the storm with his brows scrunched up, and eyes closed. It looked like he was in deep focus at the moment.

This was Izanagi's spiritual form and consciousness. He really was okay but merely submerged in his own sea or energy.

Shun immediately went forward to approach him but was held back by Kaguya. He looked at her and frowned, "What is it?"

"Can't you see he is in a deep state of focus now? Imagine the pain he is feeling with his mindscape cracking but still holding on. Should you disturb him now and this whole place shatters, can you bear to see that?" Kaguya asked as she analyzed the situation calmly.

Shun heard what she said and regained his calm once more and said, "Sorry. I've been on edge these last few minutes than I've been my entire life"

"So? What do you think I should do?" Shun asked.

"How would I know? This is a first for us both, we both have to thread wisely" She replied.

"Right..." Shun muttered as he analyzed the situation once more. 'Normally, when situations like this occur in cultivation, your willpower plays a pivotal role in surviving. Izanagi's will is already strong as he was able to hold on for this entire time, but after this, comes the issue of chakra.'

'He still has to harmonize this energy with his essence energy to produce chakra. I've locked it up for close to a decade now so I'm safe to assume that this thing occurring now would also occur when the two energies meet.'

'If only there was a way I could introduce natural energy into their body, maybe this will calm both energies down for easy processing then'

'The seal I made to transform energy from one form to another can't be applied to the human body yet, I haven't found a suitable human to test it on yet. There wasn't any human scum to be found anywhere so I kept procrastinating the experiment. Damn it, if only....'

As Shun was thinking about this in Izanagi's mindscape, the situation in Izanami's mindscape and body reached another peak.