so i have a lot of feelings about taka and tbh the series handled them badly after a certain point. its been a while since i watched/read naruto so pls let me know how this went! thanks for checking it out
She's exhausted, not just because of the fight and the powerful red lie that spilled out of the moon, but also because the years of struggle have finally, finally caught up to her and it doesn't so much weigh her down as it does make her feel kind of weightless. Like gravity blinked out all of a sudden and she's drifting away.
So, she finds a little spot for herself under a tree somewhere and she drifts, not really asleep, but not really awake. Aware enough to feel the slight breeze on her face, but not aware enough to sense the presences coming closer until two bodies come settling down next to her. She makes room for them. They're solid. They're warm. They drift together.
When she wakes up, there's a sour taste in her mouth and the sky is a milky purple color, streaked with pale orange clouds. There's a little bit of hair tickling the corner of her mouth, but she doesn't bother moving and just sits there, staring at the sky, until it's streaked with rosy pinks and pastel blues and her eyes are burning.
The days after that pass by in a haze that blurs around the edges, but eventually regain their focus, their clarity. Her teammates are there the entire time, becoming more distinct with the passage of every foggy moment until –
"Juugo," she asks one day, words scratching at her dry throat until she's forced to cough. She takes a sip out of Suigetsu's bottle, which would normally lead into him throwing a bitch fit, and then an argument, but today only garners the slightest twitch. "What do you think will happen to us?"
Juugo's mouth thins into a pale line, like a strip of moonlight in his face. He releases the bird he's been holding in his hand (the first they've seen since before the war) and glances back, catching her eyes before turning forward to squint into the blinding blue sky. "I hear Sasuke is to be pardoned for his crimes."
She nods. She'd only heard snippets of the story from the times they'd shambled into an Alliance camp to get food, but it's evident that whatever happened, he'd been instrumental in it. There's the flash of a memory, pink hair surrounded by a halo of afternoon sun and the warm line of tears sliding down her cheeks and into her hairline. That girl must have pushed for it too. Her and whoever else that had made the mistake of loving someone with eyes that cold. The scar on her chest tingles and she scratches it absentmindedly, swallowing down the sudden weight in her throat until it sits, more comfortably, somewhere in between her ribs and her navel.
It's time to stop drifting, she decides. And she says so out loud, each word spilling quiet and heavy out of her lips, tumbling down into the grass and dirt until it disappears. Juugo doesn't say anything but he gets to his feet with the air of an old man, gray as a faded photograph. It's a long time before anyone else moves.
Her throat is dry again. She goes for the bottle to her right, but it's snatched away by Suigetsu, who looks like he wants nothing more than to close his eyes forever but stands up anyways. He tips the bottle back and squeezes, but it's empty. She smiles.
Finding their old leader isn't hard. She doesn't have the energy to look for him, but she doesn't have to, because the whispers lead them right to the circle of tents that he's supposed to be in, and then she still doesn't have to look for him, because his presence is so solid and heavy that she can march right up there without thinking about it. There's nobody standing guard outside.
Before she can think why, the opening flap swings out and someone steps outside. It's that girl again, and her eyes are still bright with tears, but also with something else. Something that is soft and warm and far more painful than any scar. But she steps to the side, holding the entrance open, and they – Taka, their little amalgamation of splintered teeth and metal – exchange a look. They walk in together.
They're not sure what they were expecting. They knew that Sasuke wasn't alone, there was another presence in there, just as strong, and they'd guessed who it was, but seeing those two laying side by side, each missing an arm… It's a lot. They almost leave, but Sasuke cracks an eye open and something in it has changed, because in it is a look that none of them recognize.
She walks over until she's standing by his head, in between him and the kid with yellow hair. They don't say anything for a long time, but when they do, it's her and the words seem to float right out of her. "Juugo says you're being pardoned," she says first, followed by, "What will happen to us?"
Sasuke closes his eyes and works his jaw for a little bit. "Can't make any promises, but I can push for you three to get a pardon too," he says, and she can't help but blank out for a beat too long because that's another thing that's changed, his words are quiet and they're filled with something that she can't place, but it gives her the same feeling that his eyes did and that's worse than anything she could have prepared herself for.
They say a couple things more after that, and some time in their mumbled, weightless conversation, he struggles to a sitting position, tiredly waving off Juugo's help until he's there in their silence, staring down at his single hand with those unrecognizable eyes.
She reaches out, hesitantly, to brush the bandaged stump where his arm used to be and offers, even more hesitantly, to see if there's anything she can do about it. To something that could be either relief or disappointment, he declines.
And then his eyes travel up her hand, to her arm to the junction between her shoulder and her chest, and then further still into the place where he knows there's a star shaped scar there, surrounded by spiderweb cracks and pink, sunrise-colored skin.
And all of a sudden, like gravity has come crashing back and the air has left her lungs, she knows that that look is. So she takes another breath and clears her throat and pulls her outstretched hand back until it's a fist, pressing into the cot at her waist level until it hurts. And she thinks about teeth and raspberry red eyes surrounded by lines that came too young glazed over and empty and snakes in a room that's humid and cold all at once.
She nods, and finds that her teeth are clenched together so tight that she's a little surprised they don't break, and there's so many things that she wants to say but chokes down so she can burst out of that tent and out of that camp and all the way back to the tree she slept and ate under for the past week until the air comes back and something that burns white hot like the flash of thunder bursts from her chest and into her throat and out until it sinks into the grass and dirt under her feet.
She stays like that for a long time, and by the time she looks up again, her head is pounding and her neck is sore, and the sky is milky purple again, but this time it deepens into a black that's infinite, illuminated with the silver of stars an eternity away and moonlight that's not quite full.
They're right behind her, sitting on the grass, staring up at the same sky, and there's a space right between them where she can settle in until they're pressed together so firmly it's almost like they're one being. And something in her chest lifts until it's floating, past the moon and all the stars. A little hawk floating into infinity.
Suigetsu wanted to find his village's swords more than anything. Juugo wanted peace and the assurance that he would never hurt anyone ever again.
She can find anything, she can give Suigetsu what he wants. She looks down at her hands, limp and pale in her lap and remembers fear and desperation and a hundred other things, and she remembers chains, and knows she can give Juugo what he wants too. She says so out loud.
They tell her that she doesn't have to, and she cracks a smile that stings her cracked lips. She's done letting people make her do things she doesn't have to, she decides.
She decides, "I'm doing this because I can."
She decides, "I'm doing because I want to."
thanks for reading! leave this little gremlin a sexy review