Disclaimer: The series Naruto and all of its characters do not belong to me. I am merely borrowing them for the duration of this story, and receive no profit from it.
Portrait
His hand moved.
The movement, a graceful arch, was cut with ruthless precision. A brush – it glides through, across the canvas and the arch, its ink a residue on the empty surface. It traces patterns, paths... breaths a half life into his deepest wishes, his darkest desires. But it is only a half life – devoid of color, it lacks presence; devoid of features, it lacks being. But it as real to him as he is to himself, and he is content with that.
He continues to trace – patterns merging into paths, morphing into form. The form becomes a silhouette, an echo stark against the void of the canvas. Seeing this, he turns his weapon to the side, to the edges. He gives it definition, new patterns and paths crawling to the center, seeming to say, "he is real, I am real... can't you see I breathe?" But where it would breathe, where it would laugh, where it would see... there is nothing. Definition eludes, makes mockery of the form.
But to Sai, it lives.