...
Adrift
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That old bastard was following him again.
Sasuke glanced back over his shoulder through the snapping veil of his ebony hair and frowned. He could just make out the tiny speck of dark behind him. Even through the dual-sovereignty of his penetrating gaze, the man's distant figure was nearly lost. There was an endless sea of white-statuesque and fluid snowdrifts below a spectral deluge of singing ice.
"You can't keep up." He said, "You're going to die in this storm."
Still, he was surprised. It was the closest the poor wretch had gotten in all these long months of chasing him. With the devastating accuracy of both the Sharingan and the Rinnegan; once it was in his sight he knew it-owned it.
He squinted his eyes, adjusting his goggles-sending a silent prayer of thankfulness to the multitude of deities he'd encountered through all of his nomadic travels-and studied the man tailing him.
He could make out the sunken, blackened clouds of exhaustion that ringed that man's eyes. The monotonous, weary swing of frost-bitten limbs through the shifting, treacherous land that was Frost Country. Something about it struck him as undeniably earnest, if not a little pathetic. Sasuke looked away.
None of it mattered anymore. Not for him, at least. Not for very much longer.
The young man wondered transiently. Would it hurt?
He decided it didn't matter.
Sasuke allowed his gaze to drift inwards, into that now-familiar place of detachment and solitude that'd filled the hollow parts of him, and allowed his awareness to stratify.
He would do whatever it took to fix this. He would risk everything if he had to.
Not that he really had much of anything now...
Allowing himself a fleeting rush of gratefulness for the rickety, boat-like snow-shoes the old farmer in Shimogakure had lent him, Sasuke refocused his thoughts and pressed on. Beneath a static whirlwind of shrieking mistral and clawing flecks of ice, he could just make out the lofty mountain up ahead. And, peeking it's steepled side out through the flurrying tempest and currents of overlapping fog, at the very pointed top: the skeletal cheek of a grey, weathered cathedral.
The Ruins of Shasiah.
Sasuke forced himself to hope. He'd spent most of his life chasing someone who hadn't deemed him enough of a threat to even run. Or so he'd thought at the time. Because his chances of success had been so infinitesimally thin. But, that hadn't stopped him then and it wouldn't stop him now. This... This was just another chase.
Another hunt.
And, he'd caught Itachi in the end-Or, perhaps, he had been the one recollected in that moment. Sasuke shivered at the razor-edged memory of that gentle tapping slide-Itachi's fingers tracing that solitary, bloody brushstroke from the center of his forehead down to his chin.
No. He knew nothing was simple.
By the time he'd finally achieved his goal of killing his older brother, it had no longer been the prize he needed. He'd been redirected. Shunted down and egged on another path by the domineering will of power-hungry men.
Wasn't that always the story?
Another tail; another lead to follow. There was always something to be done.
Why should a reclamation of the dead be any different?
Sasuke stared at the Ruins for a long moment. There seemed to be a lost voice screaming through the whipping flutter of snowflakes from all around him, but the young man knew it was just another brush of surfacing memory. Like the bloated rise of a corpse that'd been jostled from it's underwater hold. He listened to it fully, closing his eyes, as he'd learned to do with all things that unsettled him-diving in empty handed with single minded concentration. If only so that he could hurry up to the not thinking about it anymore part.
The Uchiha began his ascent.
...
...
Miles behind his former student, Kakashi narrowed all of his focus on funneling his chakra into his booted feet.
He crunched forward miserably against the crushing gale of the arctic storm. His breath huffed out a snapping trail behind him, only to be whisked away, dissolving in the sweeping billows of stinging ice-mist.
This had to be one of the worst situations he'd been in for a while; the Copy-Ninja admitted it to himself silently.
But, he had no choice-He had to stop him.
Sasuke...
The trembling in his body seemed to have deadened over the last half hour. Kakashi was fairly certain this was not a good sign. He marched stiffly now, silver hair blowing wildly in several directions over the straight line of his hitae-ate, stinging him in the eyes. The feeling in his legs ended somewhere along the mid-point of his thighs, and his hands had long since gone numb even through the double-layer of woolen gloves he wore. The soft grey lining of fleece that lined the inside of his polyester coat did little to protect him from the monstrous cold.
Everything was white, grey, or some indiscernible gradient between the two. Kakashi ducked his head against the lashing waves of crystallized water. He was so cold it hurt. Like a broken bone, his whole body ached.
Rarely was he ever so unprepared. So helpless.
Staring at nothing but snow for the better part of the last four days had slowly blinded him. Even the miraculous, regenerated eye that Naruto had given him-Stop. Don't think about that. Don't-wasn't enough to penetrate the howling mist.
Yet, even through the wavy afterglow that was his flagging vision, he could make out the sun; scorching like a hurtled streak of captured light across the barren flank of the horizon beside him. It was like some ethereal golden string stretched between himself and Sasuke. Having long lost the useful compass provided to him by the young Hokage (along with the rest of his travel pack) during the avalanche that'd struck-almost conspicuously-at the exact moment he'd left the sloping ridges of Frost Country's mountains behind him-he had only his guts to lead him.
But directing himself was hard when just thinking about the newly elected Nanadaime sent that all too familiar knife-like twist punching through his breast.
It should've been you... Naruto.
Kakashi's hushed conversations that he held with the cenotaph-that flat jet of speechless rock-had slowly fallen back into the inner sanctum of his mind.
He spoke with them all as if they were right there with him, nestled and predictably squabbling-always squabbling-within the safe, cushioned folds of his brain. In fact, during that blurry stretch of time before Shikamaru had finally summoned him to the Tower-weeks or months; he didn't know-he'd stopped visiting the memorial completely.
Strangely enough he'd discovered, after a frustrated explanation from the Hokage that'd consisted of an unamused, stony glare and an irritable shove of a box that'd been stuffed to the brim with scribbled sheets of paper, that he had been causing quite a disturbance. Or, to be more exact, Gai had. Because of Kakashi.
Perhaps quite predictably, the man who'd once been known as the Copy-Ninja across the land reasoned, teeth chattering.
He couldn't find it in him to keep up with the man's self-proclaimed challenges anymore.
He couldn't find it in him for a lot of things...
Apparently, after being turned away from the Nanadaime's office several times for "not having a summons" (which was really just another way, Kakashi knew-having been the Rokudaime himself-of avoiding unpleasant interactions); he'd decided on another means of bringing his urgent worries to the Hokage's attention.
He'd gone to Iruka-sensei who-ever since the man had stumbled upon him in the jonin-lounge staring blankly into space as he poured steaming water into his already overflowing tea-cup-had taken to stopping by his apartment sometimes in the evenings when he was "on his way home from the Academy". A bold-faced lie, as Kakashi's apartment was planted on the complete opposite side of the village. But, he had accepted the intrusion, not really having the energy to combat the other's boundless hectoring.
Truly, he pitied the students under Iruka's tutelage.
The man had been relentless.
The first order had been to wake up. Something that'd become increasingly difficult for Kakashi to maintain ever since he'd lost the title of the Copy-Ninja.
Kakashi allowed his flinching eye to close. A shallow relief. Yet, it was easier to walk this way; phantom feet sliding through the frigid tug of the capricious wind and the implacable slew of thick, clogging sleet. He'd finally followed Iruka's indignant orders to shower upon being compared to a ripe durian. The jonin tried to remember what it was to be warm. He imagined taking a shower now-that molten sensation of coursing heat blasting over his head, spraying over his broad shoulders and streaming down his hips and legs-But at best it was a thin apparition.
But, alarmed when the other man had started filing into the narrow bathroom behind him, Kakashi had, in a silent spasm of purely-automatic reflex, slammed the door. Right into the Academy teacher's nose. But, even though he had felt a little bad, it wasn't enough to keep him from closing and locking the door.
Never again. He'd never let another person know him. They took to much of you when they left.
Kakashi stumbled, his left boot slipping deeper into the snow than it should've. He kept walking, ducking his head against the tearing cold.
There wasn't much left of him to take.
Sasuke...
When he'd run into him on his last mission, so out of the blue, in a dingy little miner's colony on the outskirts of Mountain Country, it'd been like seeing a ghost.
The Uchiha had decided to resume his status as a missing-nin after the Fourth Great War. Kakashi hadn't been too surprised. It's not like he'd expected the younger man to feel at home in Konoha-to just come back and pick up the life he'd left as a child.
But, even knowing this; it hadn't been enough to stop the jonin from slipping on a henge and following the last remaining member of Team Seven out the bar... Or from tailing the black-haired young man through the crowded streets. Or spying on the outdoor Ramen Stand-For you, Naruto, it had to be-Sasuke slipped had into from the slippery shingles of the squat butcher's shop roof next door. Or possibly eavesdropping and gleaning distressingly obscure hints of an "ambition" of his old student's that'd been discussed in what could only be some sort of archaic code with a man who'd sat down beside Sasuke and had kept his face hidden behind the soggy folds of an outdated newspaper.
Already having a sizeable respect for the lethality of the solitary Uchiha's ambitions-What I have is not a dream, because I will make it a reality-When Kakashi saw the heavy alabaster scroll the shady man dropped into Sasuke's lap he'd recognized it at once: A suicide scroll.
I won't let you-Kakashi thought childishly, huffing into the burning frigidity-I won't let you do this, you stupid boy.
He struggled onwards, even as the smoldering rim of the sun descended into darkness behind the yawning expanse of Frost's horizon.
...
...
It took nearly all his strength to force the great, elaborately carved stone door open.
Rolling plumes of dust and grit sifted over him like the close of a grave-shroud. Sasuke stepped through into a dark stairwell netted with mist. The wind seemed to be keening; tiny fissures in the ancient cathedral admitted thin tendrils of icy air that nipped and teased the grainy rock-whistling. The hollow spine of the spiral staircase hummed with a barely audible resonance. Eerie and ominous in turn.
Hands damp inside his fur-lined mittens, the Uchiha took the first step upwards. He didn't notice the silent pillars of pale purple smoke that rose, bubbling up from the floor behind him like spectral creatures solidifying in the dark as he passed.
His mind was full of sky-washed blue eyes and candyfloss pink hair.
...
...
Faint whispers trailed him.
Sasuke stopped, and looked around uneasily.
There was nothing but the stagnant, idle drip of water clinging to the walls; the hollow rattle of the passage below and above him. Shaking it off as nerves, he dipped his head and kept walking.
He came to a narrow door, dusty runes carved into it's stone face. Sasuke rested the flat of his palm to it's core, aligning his fingertips with the spreading rays of archaic runes that branched off in a bizarre pattern of hieroglyphics. He sent a successive burst of chakra pulsing into the door. It swung open with a dry, grinding creak. The room inside was lost in seamless pitch.
Sasuke fished the heavy, bone-white scroll from his cross-shoulder satchel. Gripped it hard in his fist.
He stepped into the darkness alone.
...
...
Shit. They had company.
Kakashi forced another burst of chakra whizzing through his numb legs, pumping his arms, and pushed against the battering swells of the blizzard, straining to propel himself forwards.
It was like trying to run underwater.
Gaseous ice churned into steaming breath inside his lungs, melting his chest and throat with raw, jagged heat. With every lift of his booted feet, the fierce wind batted him back. Tiny shards of grainy ice stung the exposed skin around his eyes, slitted against the harsh cold of the storm. And it was all he could do not to stop moving, to finally just succumb-Give into the gnawing weight of absence that stippled him like a cancer, rotting him from the inside out like some hidden, decaying tooth.
How long had they been tailing them?
Kakashi stumbled and fell to one knee. He shoved himself back up, staggering, and wheeled pressingly forwards. Ducked his chin into his chest. Elbows swinging.
They must be after Sasuke. He realized with a stab, The Suicide-Jutsu!
... I'm chasing after a suicidal missing-nin-who publicly rejected me- his mind added nastily -and who may or may not have illegally appropriated a highly treasured religious artifact of what could only be the sacred halls of the living dead. I am insane...
And he shook himself and charged up the steep hill, racing the elements. Racing the somber unfurl of past mistakes, unhealed losses, and bitter regrets that stretched out like the snapping length of a pennant before-always just a step before-him.
This time he wouldn't fail. He wouldn't lose the last person alive who knew him.
Not again.
I'll stop you Sasuke, Kakashi heaved into the tearing wind, Even if it costs my life.
...
...
The strange, spiraled end of the scroll-heavy like ivory and twice as white-fit into the divot carved into the stone floor perfectly.
Like it was made for it.
Spreading outwards from the propped up scroll, ornate drawings rippled into being, stringing together in a half-faded pentagram. Sasuke twisted the scroll thirty degrees to the left. Vivid, electric green flames of latent chakra burst into life along the lines set into the floor.
Footsteps clipped a desperate staccato from the bottom of the staircase behind him.
Sasuke, fingers already meshed in the first of the Sacred Time-Jutsu hand-signs, paused. Glanced back over his shoulder sharply.
He can't have caught up to me already-was all he had time to think before a barrage of genjutsu was launched upon him from nine different locations simultaneously.
"Shit."
The attack wasn't ending. The realization struck Sasuke with a dull sort of horror.
His Sharingan sparked out hot pulses of his chakra for every illusion it broke; barreling through a monsoon of cerebral missiles that drilled into him with the force of tirelessly crashing waves. From nine directions. His brain kept snagging on that thought, swimming in disbelief. He hadn't faced an attack of this level of intensity or lethality since he'd killed Madara.
Every time his Rinnegan burgeoned the skeletal beginnings of his Susanoo, there was a flurry of deadly ninjutsu attacks that were so rapid, callous in their deliberation, he had to keep shifting the fabric of space and time to avoid them.
Stunned, he was led to the fragile realization: he was effectively immobilized.
Trapped.
"Sasuke!"
Out of the corner of his vision he saw Kakashi stumble into the arched threshold. The silver-haired man scudded against a wall, ribs flexing visibly even through his threadbare coat. Cloudy puffs of expelled breath curled over a sharp masked cheek illuminated by the greying light of the storm that'd managed to pry it's way through the tiny cracks and fissures of the grizzled castle walls, giving Kakashi a ghostly sheen. He looked ill and more than a little wobbly.
His sudden inability to catalogue the wild furor of emotions that stampeded through him at the sight of his old teacher brought with it the bizarre urge to cry.
He didn't want to even see Kakashi-He didn't-
"Ah!"
He missed blocking a genjutsu. Garish fireworks of splintering neon light tore through him suddenly with a feeling like molten lead spilling. He missed another. The floor beneath his feet was nothing more than sand-Except it wasn't sand; it was the itchy swarm of a pooling ants rising like a freaking tide over his knees.
"Hold on."
Kakashi's voice was harsh, tense. It shouldn't have filled Sasuke with anything but regret. But he found himself gritting his teeth in a terrible noise that was half sob, half growl.
For, at the sound of the older man's voice, it became clear to him. What he had to do...
It was the only way. This attack was unendurable. He had to activate the Time-Jutsu.
Now.
You shouldnt have come-You've ruined everything, he allowed himself a brief flash of despair, You should've just let me go, Kakashi...
Sasuke gulped air. His hand was still clutching the top of the scroll. He couldn't hold them off much longer. He felt his focus tilting. Serrating.
Shadowy figures that trailed mists of beading purple behind them-they hung and spun in the air like slowly spinning cyclones of dusky ink-danced about him in hellish tandem. There was the guttural hiss of chanting, loose spirals of demonic howling that echoed off the craggy walls of the Ruins. The glow of the pentagram was an emerald heat, ghastly and unnatural beneath him.
Sasuke ground the slotted scroll firmly to the left, twisting it in a full circle. He sent a jettison of chakra flaring down his forearm and into his palm, feeling it draw into the ancient scroll and siphon away into the floor.
"Stop!"
Kakashi yelled. He had a kunai in each hand, swinging like a dervish as he battled the strange, incorporeal attackers. The man was going to get himself killed trying to reach Sasuke.
This was the only chance: for both of them.
I was going to go back and save them, Sasuke sobbed silently, arm shaking, unable to close his eyes, I was going to make everything right...
He dragged his mismatched eyes-the cousin hues of broken promises and divine royalty shining brightly-to Kakashi's determined brunet gaze across the room. Saw the slow turn of recognition flicker dimly in the older man's eyes as Sasuke pinned him with his Rinnegan-seconds before the final activation of the sacred Time-Jutsu.
He hoped his old sensei could read his silent apology.
...
...
He had just enough time to piece together the weight of Sasuke's dueling stare, to wonder at the cutting edge of sacrifice he saw there-and then his world was coalesced to ribbons of refracting light.
Kakashi's stomach swooped, slamming into his collarbones with a juddering splash. And when his body melted-dropping into itself like the wavering departure of a minuscule droplet of rain leaping from it's temporary perch along the underbelly of some great and immeasurable bridge that spanned from one imperceptible, distant shore to another-he thought he might have screamed.
A flowing pattern of color flowed from him, from everything around him. And, and he didn't have words to describe this. It wasn't like the last time he'd died.
He'd seen it coming; that time.
Kakashi felt like some invisible force had hooked him somewhere along the vertebrae of his spine just above his hips, and it was dragging him backwards. His voice bubbled inside him, but it was a mere abstraction of a thought at best-because somehow, unfathomably, someway-he was suddenly, unalterably certain: he'd fallen outside the realm of time itself.
Faces bloomed and burst before his fluttering eyes, each one rolling by him like the fast-forward reel of a flower blooming and dying in an endless loop-fragile seed to withered bud-and the man who'd copied over a thousand jutsu forgot his own name.
When he fell back to the present, he fell through himself; when he landed he held onto nothing but the remembrance of a mortal agony: the piercing look a pair of red and purple eyes.
...
