Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
As he traversed the night-darkened halls, made a fluctuating, eerie red by the flickering candles that sat in carved alcoves, Yashamaru had that feeling again. That horrible feeling that made his knees go weak and his head hurt. The feeling of helplessness.
His sister, his beloved older sister, was dying right before his eyes. He'd heard something about a new symptom in her declining health, so Yashamaru was determined to get into her now-fortified bedchamber.
--
Emi did not hum while she cleaned the room she was in; it was odd, considering that she usually hummed or even sang while she worked.
The other occupant of the room was a disturbing one.
Lady Karura lay flat on her back on top of the bed pressed up against the wall—a twin bed, Emi noticed, meant for only one occupant—not under any sheets, like she should have been in the chill of winter, staring up at the ceiling. When Emi had entered, the lady had given no sign that she even noticed.
Emi looked around the room. It was sparse and Spartan (that was how even the upper class lived in Suna), but not uncomfortable. The lady may have been practically a prisoner in her own home ever since she had whispered those secret words to her daughter (no one was sure just what Lady Karura had said to her daughter; the child wasn't telling and neither was her mother), but she was still the Kazekage's wife.
She remained, silent and immobile. If the lady was tired, than Emi, who had had three children, could sympathize. She's so small (for the lady probably capped at about sixty three inches) and the creature within has made her belly swell and distend.
Still, Emi remained silent. It was taboo to talk to this woman, or even make eye contact with her. She was the carrier of a jinchūriki, after all. There was a monster sitting beneath her heart, growing and coming nearer to being unleashed on an unfortunate, unsuspecting world.
So Emi did not talk, or hum, or sing. She dared not make a sound. She didn't even breathe too loudly.
Emi was cleaning more quickly than usual. She wanted to get out as soon as she possibly could. Emi wasn't a shinobi of any kind, but she could tell that the lady was in a dangerous mood. It was like all the warmth in the air was being sucked to her, and all that was left was freezing cold.
"Leave." Emi was only too happy to do so. She practically ran out of the room. Changing the bed sheets would have to wait for next week.
She tore out of the room, and came face to face, eye to eye with…
--
The jonin guarding her bedchamber really got in the way sometimes. "Listen to me, you have to let me in!" Yashamaru roared at one jonin while the other held his arms behind his back.
"Yashamaru-san, no one may be allowed to see your sister, Karura-sama," the jonin informed him sternly. "That is the order. Baki, keep holding him back."
"Sorry," the young one-eyed jonin behind Yashamaru hissed roughly. "But I have my orders. You can't speak to Karura-sama."
"Do you ever think about anything other than following orders?" Yashamaru snarled back. "You can't seriously be telling me that—"
Baki clearly knew what the med-nin was about to say. "My loyalty is to the office, not necessarily to the man who holds it. I know, it seems hard to swallow, I don't agree with it myself, but this must happen. There's no going back now."
"But surely—" All of Yashamaru's words were cut off when the maid appeared from his sister's bedchamber. Her brown eyes and tip-tilted nose were barely a centimeter from his.
This shock was enough to slacken Baki's grip on Yashamaru's arms. The med-nin broke free from the imprisoning embrace of the jonin who, while younger, was already much bigger.
"Hey!" Baki shouted.
"Forget it," the older jonin muttered.
Yashamaru broke through the threshold, and speedily bolted the door behind him. Someone, probably Baki, started pounding on the door, but Yashamaru pulled a chair and placed it under the lock so the door wouldn't give.
He looked around, and was amazed by how dark the room was. There were many candles, but only one was lit, casting the same disturbing bloody light all around.
But he could still find his sister. "Karura-neesan? Is that you?" Yashamaru whispered. She was so still on that bed. She isn't…Oh please don't tell me…
"Yashamaru?" Her voice was weak, oh so dreadfully weak, and it had lost all its fire, but it was alive. It struck Yashamaru to the core to see such a strong woman brought so low, to what it seemed was the brink of ignominious death, by the thing inside her and him…
Karura attempted to sit up in the bed, but fell off of the bed and collapsed on her side onto the stone ground, shaking spasmodically.
"Karura!" Yashamaru's anguished wail rang around the room. He dropped to his knees beside his sister, helping her to her feet.
"Yashamaru, I…please…"
Yashamaru wrinkled his nose in disgust. Don't tell me she's going to ask me to look after that thing again. I don't know how she can look at it like it's a baby. It's a monster! It's killing her!
But that was not what Karura wanted. Shaking as she struggled to her feet, Karura abruptly made a run for the bathroom attached to the bedchamber. Yashamaru could hear the sounds of someone being violently sick.
He rose to his feet, and somewhat tentatively followed her. Karura was indeed kneeling over the toilet, becoming rapidly re-acquainted with what had probably been her dinner.
Is it just morning sickness? Yashamaru knelt beside her and gingerly patted her back and holding back her hair so it wouldn't get caught. While not really wanting to, he peered over her shoulders into the toilet.
With a shudder, he saw blood and… Is that sand?! It is! What is going on here?... in the vomit. This must be the new symptom I heard referred to by the med-nins who treat her.
While Karura walked with wobbling legs to the sink to brush her teeth and thoroughly scrub her mouth with mouthwash, Yashamaru began to inspect the room.
Sand…there's sand everywhere. I thought the maid was supposed to clean this place, but still… There was sand in between the bed sheets; he'd noticed some in his neesan's hair as well. Where did it all come from? The window's closed.
A small sigh came from the bathroom. Yashamaru went to assist her. Oddly, Karura was wearing the long, loose-fitting finely woven robes of the high-class civilianry. It was odd because Karura was neither a civilian nor did she consider herself upper class; also, she didn't even like them. Karura preferred her battle garb or in a rough linen kimono, usually dark brown or dark green, if she wasn't fighting or planning too. Now, she was wearing a soft dark blue, almost black linen robe that was beginning to fall off one shoulder.
Yashamaru took one of her hands, and placed his free hand on her bare shoulder, feeling his skin tingle disturbingly to come into contact with his sister's cool, surprisingly soft skin.
"Come on, Karura, you need to sit down. Please," he pleaded with her quietly, "you'll hurt yourself, straining yourself like this."
"Please," Karura snorted. "I'll be alright, Yashamaru, don't you worry about me." A hint of the old fire that the kunoichi was legendary and infamous for had returned. But it was fleeting, and Yashamaru still worried. But I am worrying. That thing is hurting you, Karura, can't you see? It's hurting you…
She briefly pulled a thick dark brown robe over her under-robe, leaving it untied. Yashamaru understood; these clothes were the only ones that were comfortable for her anymore.
Karura's shoulders sank. "I have been trying…" she whispered, "to prepare for death."
Yashamaru felt himself stiffen as he put a hand to his sister's slight shoulder to try to comfort her. He wished he could say, "You won't die, neesan. Everything will be alright." But he couldn't. She was going to die. And nothing would ever be "alright" again.
Someone began to fiddle with the door.
She continued to stare down at her hands. "It's funny. I never thought to die this way. I always thought it would be in battle, that finally some enemy nin would get lucky with their aim."
No, instead you're going to be killed by your monster of an offspring. Something cold and slimy darkened Yashamaru's eyes; whenever he thought of the thing growing inside of his sister (Yashamaru refused to acknowledge it as a baby or even as a human), ire overwhelmed common sense.
The chair fell from the lock.
"Karura." Yashamaru's voice was tense with pained frustration and thwarted rage for her husband.
The door creaked open quietly. Yashamaru looked up, his eyes wide, mouth slightly open, his brows drawn up. When his slate gray eyes met the eyes of the visitor, he felt his face rearrange itself into a twisted semblance of inhuman rage.
Karura didn't look up; her shoulders were still hunched over. But evidently she knew who it was.
"For the past three months, I have dreamt, Takeo," she whispered, her voice soft with all the fire gone out of it. "I've dreamt of killing you." She stood on her feet, swaying slightly; as Karura did this, she draped her hands so that her skirt was tight over the swelling dome of her belly. To the great shock of Yashamaru and Takeo, Karura was smiling. The smile was slight, and somewhat wild, and that strange light reached her eyes, and her eyes were smiling as well. "I wonder why I haven't tried yet."
Takeo took a step back uncertainly, eyeing her doubtfully. "They told me your health is declining. Is it true?" he asked gruffly. He picked up the chair and put it back in place.
Yashamaru scowled. Idiot. Karura's on her last legs. All you have to do is look at her to know it's true.
Apart from her swollen midsection, Karura had become frighteningly thin; the bones in her arms and in her hands stuck out like delicate twigs. Her finely molded cheeks were sunken and waxy; the shadows under her hollowed eyes may as well have been kohl marks for their blackness. And she gave off the aura of someone who was on the ropes.
"You are many things, Takeo, but I never took you for a fool." The air was laced with her harsh mockery. Wind battered outside the window; the candle spluttered.
Karura lifted her eyes to him. They seemed to hold a strange power that held the man in his gaze. "Takeo, listen to me. Did you ever meet the second jinchūriki of the Shukaku?"
Silently, staring at her warily like she was a wild animal that might attack at any moment, he shook his head.
"Well I did. I first met her when she was an eleven-year-old girl. On the battlefield. She was an absolute monster.
"I was horrified that any child could fight the way she did. She barely seemed human. She was eating the corpses, Takeo! So I asked around.
"I had no luck finding out anything about this girl. Then I asked her her name." Karura's eyes grew large and round; she began to shake. "She couldn't tell me her name. You know what else. No one else could tell her name. No one knew what it was. This girl hadn't been called by her name ever; she didn't know what it was anymore. It's possible that she never had a name to begin with. The only things she was ever referred as was "Tanuki", "Ichibi", or just plain "You."
"But I did learn something about this girl. She had no one. The people she was created to protect had done nothing to earn that protection. They took the fact that all she would ever do was protect them for granted. They didn't care. They treated her like dirt. What's more, the Shukaku was poisoning her mind, subjecting her to unending turmoil. They wanted a monster, a soulless tool. They wanted it. They got it. She was like an animal. She was worse than an animal.
"Eventually, she became a liability to the Sand. She'd finally begun to turn on the people who had created her. She was thirteen when the Shukaku was extracted from her. She'd been fighting since she was old enough to hold a kunai.
"Of course she died. No one survives a demon extraction. No one." Her eyes began to tear up. Yashamaru began to feel extremely uncomfortable. "She was created, used, and ultimately thrown away like a piece of garbage or a toy that's been broken and is no longer wanted by anyone.
"I vowed that I would do everything within my power to make sure that no one would ever have to contain the Shukaku again. No one should ever have to go through that sort of torment. I became one of the leaders of a faction demanding that the seal used to bind Shukaku into his host be declare a forbidden jutsu. But we were overruled. By your faction, I believe.
"I fought so hard to try to make sure that something like this could never again happen in our village. That such an atrocity could never take place. And now I find that it will be my son, my child…" The tears became a torrent; Karura's hands tightened over her belly as though she thought she could protect her baby. "I find that it will be my baby who has to live a life that is no life at all, that he will be tormented, unwanted, unloved by everyone."
He stepped forward, his brow furrowing. Was it Yashamaru's imagination, or did Takeo look worried? "Karura…" he tried place a hand on her slight shoulder.
Karura pulled away roughly. "Get out, Takeo," she whispered.
"Karura." Takeo raised his voice somewhat.
"Get out!" she shouted. Takeo shot her one last almost-sad look, before leaving. He has a bloodthirsty bijū sealed to make her baby into a beast, yet when she demands to be left alone, he respects her wish?!
Yashamaru stood up, making sure his brother-in-law left, then turned to look with despair at his sister. How was he supposed to help her; how could he make it "better"?
She wasn't going to let him make it better.
"You too, Yashamaru." Karura's voice was full of menace.
"Karura, I want to help you. Please," he begged her, "I don't want to see you suffer like this. I just to be with you."
She stood up, then lifted her head. Yashamaru gasped. The look in her eyes was…evil incarnate. Before he could react, she had caught him in a headlock. "I said…leave. Now. I don't need your help, otouto, so go."
The kunoichi let go and roughly pushed her younger brother towards the door. Sadly, with his tail tucked between his legs, Yashamaru regretfully allowed himself to be ushered out. There was no guarantee, but deep within his heart he knew that this would be the last time he would ever see her, and he hadn't wanted them to part on such terms. Karura had never wanted anyone to help her; she always insisted on doing things herself.
Yashamaru sighed as he closed the door behind him, slumping against it. He couldn't accept that she would treat him this way. Yashamaru reached for a reason why his neesan would treat him in such a hostile fashion. Finally, he had it. The Shukaku, and the jinchūriki growing that she was going to give birth to.
"How is she?" a quiet voice sounded from his left. Baki's one eye was penetrating and somewhat worried. He was Karura's former student, after all.
"What did you expect?" Yashamaru snapped. "For her to be cheerful and happy. Of course she isn't alright, you fool."
He stalked off, fuming and brooding, but something drew his attention. Sand. It crunched beneath his feet. Yashamaru squared his shoulders, again feeling his eyes grow black with hate. His mouth grew dry as the desert; his clenched fists could have crushed iron.
That thing… That thing… It's killing her. I'm going to kill it. If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to kill that thing!
This is my first one in just Yashamaru's PoV. Since I don't really like him I honestly thought it was going to be hard, but it was actually pretty easy. I tried to capture the more disturbing aspects of his psyche (mainly, in my opinion, his bizarre fixation on his sister), with accuracy.
R&R in peace.