'Tis more of a look at character interaction than anything else, though I would say this contains slight KabutoxSasuke. Nothing much. Happy Leap Year everyone, and make sure to say a happy birthday to Kabuto! What a special day this is.
I have one off-topic question to anyone who might be able to answer it: Is there any reliable website other than that I can order imported Naruto games? I was thinking of buying the Shippuden/Akatsuki installment of Ninja Council for DS, and would rather not use ROMs or whatever. Thanks, and enjoy the story.
ו so let's make it two •×
What is a spy with an identity?
A ragged wind blows over the grounds, holding strong before fading out. He can distill no answers from it.
Kabuto rests his elbows on his knees, mouth drawn into a pensive line. He stares, disinterested, at the little hollow pond before him. He can distinguish, through the grassy reeds that wave before its surface, little water-walking spiders and faded lilies drifting together on the water. They don't have answers for him, either.
A willow tree's trunk rises up from the ground and frames a pocket of the world in its curve, before lifting and splitting into thousands of millions of willow leaves. Kabuto can see the shadow of every one on the ground, swaying with their branches in the breeze.
The change is immediate and disturbing when he almost thoughtlessly removes his glasses, swinging them in two fingers. The world devolves into a liquid haze of color and motion. Things are at face value, with no more meaning than they present. It doesn't feel right at all.
He slips on the glasses again, and the little details settle back into the shapes. Being a spy has granted him with an appreciation for the subtleties.
Light footsteps patter audibly behind him. Sasuke's steps are usually silent, but Kabuto recognizes the boy's haggard panting.
Sasuke ignores him, walking past and sitting at the edge of the grass, where the land sinks down and merges with the pond. Kabuto watches him take off his sandals and place them to the side.
The boy rolls up his pant sleeves to mid-thigh, and then lowers his calves into the water. Barely a ripple is made; the pond accepts him calmly.
Kabuto exhales when he sees how the Uchiha plans to stay. The place isn't his anymore. Sasuke makes it colder.
But he won't leave. Kabuto steeples his fingers over his mouth, watching Sasuke. The younger boy's hands are propped behind him, assuming a careful, relaxed position. In the gentle wind, his skin is paper-white and unripped. It surprises Kabuto when he speaks.
"I'll be stronger than you soon."
The statement is punctured by a turn of the head. Sasuke's expression lacks that life all faces are supposed to have, though his tone implies cockiness.
Kabuto raises an eyebrow.
"I wouldn't be so quick to assume things, Sasuke-kun."
"Why not?"
Confidence passes over his eyes. His voice, though cold, is bursting at the edges with fire.
"Training with Orochimaru-sama went well?" Kabuto asks amiably.
"Hn."
Kabuto smiles to Sasuke's back, humorless and dry.
In the few months since Sasuke has joined them, it seems that only Kabuto can see how much more clouded the boy's eyes have become. Orochimaru doesn't see it, too preoccupied in sculpting Sasuke, freeing the angel from the marble, but Kabuto can recognize the look from anywhere. It's the reassurance of being swept up in a dream; racing for a goal; for once not walking or running but flying and warping time itself to achieve something. But only he can see the ruins behind the goal that Sasuke is killing himself to reach.
This is maybe because only Kabuto cares about looking past the dreams and into the immortal reality.
"Sasuke-kun, if I may ask…after you kill Itachi-san …what will you do?"
Sasuke turns to look at him again, unconcern on his features. "Revive my clan."
"And after that?"
He says flatly, "What does that matter?"
"I don't know." Kabuto pushes up his glasses, grinning harmlessly. "But you will have burned all of your bridges by then, Sasuke-kun, won't you? Where will you go? Which doors will be open to accept you then?"
The summery air stills. Very slowly, Sasuke withdraws his legs from the water. He turns around, propping his knees up in front of his chest. Water drips down his calves in smooth, mesmerizing motions.
Sasuke is only twelve, thirteen, fourteen, but he considers his answer with the morose expression of an adult, or a ghost. Still, though, he childishly crosses his arms over his knees and rests his chin on top of them, hunched over.
"Which doors? None, most likely. I'll probably end up having to knock some down myself."
He smirks quite suddenly, as if unable to wait.
"Quite the dreamer, aren't you, Sasuke-kun?"
"It's not a dream. It's an ambition."
Kabuto nods, accommodating. Sasuke may be a revolutionary, or maybe just a fool. There are different types of people, after all.
"But what will you look to after Itachi-san? He is your ambition. Without an anchor, how will you know what you are?"
Sasuke scoffs.
"Is that why you always hide behind Orochimaru? Too afraid of the consequences of victory?"
Kabuto brushes his comment off with a shrug. "Orochimaru-sama is my anchor. He will not be forever. But when my path is clear, I will probably not know what to do with myself."
He watches the water trickle off Sasuke's slick calves, smiling to himself.
He can feel the pressure from Sasuke's stone eyes on him, and can pick apart the mixture of anger (always there), scorn, slight confusion, and muted disbelief in his gaze.
Sasuke snorts. "Believe what you want." He straps on his sandals and stands. "Keep biding your time and rot away or whatever. I'm going to train some more."
He leaves the secluded place, marking his trail with drops of water. Kabuto stares at the thin veins of moisture on each blade of grass, glistening in the sun. As Sasuke is chiseled into the perfect vessel for his master, Kabuto suddenly seems to notice the bits and pieces of haphazard beauty left behind.
Reaching out, he touches the water. It's not like Sasuke will miss the debris, anyway, once he arrives past his revered dream and discovers the empty reality.
ווו
"Orochimaru."
"Sasuke-kun, save your breath. Your injuries are very severe and you shouldn't be talking."
"No…Orochimaru. He isn't truly immortal, is he?"
"Yes, Orochimaru-sama is immortal as long as he has vessels to transfer his soul into. Lie down, Sasuke-kun. No matter what Orochimaru-sama expects, you shouldn't push yourself so much to his training. If you keep overexerting yourself, you—"
"I know that...But there must be a—a weakness. At training…today…he said his body would reject him soon—what did he mean…?"
"You're delirious, Sasuke-kun, from the fever. And I don't know what you're talking about."
"Stop lying and answer me! What does it mean?"
"It means Orochimaru-sama may need a new vessel in a year or two. I'm giving you a painkiller now to kill the fever, Sasuke-kun."
"No…it means more than that…Tell me! What will happen if he doesn't get a new body?"
"There is some sedative in this pill. Try not to fight it."
"Answer me!"
"And why would you need to know, Sasuke-kun? Relax, you're going to get drowsy. Let me assure you, there's no need to worry yourself with Orochimaru-sama's issues. I do thank you for the concern, though."
"Idiot…if he's weak…if he's vulnerable…"
"Orochimaru-sama is perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Oh, and don't bother fighting the morphine."
"…I can surpass him…"
"Perhaps, Sasuke-kun."
"…"
"Rest well, Sasuke-kun. And thank you for the conversation."
ווו
Night in Orochimaru's hideout is painted by blue and purple shadows. Ever-constant, slipping and shifting in the cold light of stars and snow, any shinobi would be hard-pressed to read the blackness here. Kabuto got used to it long ago.
An hour to midnight finds him sitting up in bed, propped against a pillow and holding the covers to his chest. Across the room is Sasuke, lying awake but hiding it.
Kabuto would prefer to have a room of his own, but Sasuke is a very quiet sleeper. He fades into the sheets like a corpse, blends into any shade of darkness, and it's easy to forget he's there. The rustle of bedsheets is the only indicator of another presence in the room. Kabuto is not very social by nature, and Sasuke always insists on silence.
Now, tonight, Kabuto's alert ears pick up a sound against the roof of the hideout. It begins to rain, in a quiet drizzle that fills the silent room.
Sasuke is breathing in his bed, but the motion is barely visible. In one smooth motion, he grasps the blanket and lifts it up and off his body. The cold covers lie abandoned to the side. Kabuto blinks. It's perhaps the first time he's seen such an action from Sasuke. The movement is almost…angry.
But then, the boy does not stir after that, not even when the blue and purple-stained shadows alternate and flicker as rain mottles the moonlight that falls over his skin.
Kabuto watches. Then he speaks, because the boundaries of their silence and indifference have been broken already without a single word.
"Can't sleep?"
Sasuke ignores him.
"I wonder what you are thinking of, Sasuke-kun…" With a sigh, the medic glances at the curtained rise and fall of Sasuke's stomach. He briefly admires his own work at cleansing the very scars off the boy. Then he falls silent, not expecting the other to answer. But Sasuke does.
"It doesn't concern you, Kabuto." A hand slips from his side. Sasuke lays it across his stomach, his head tilted up towards the ceiling, where the rain collects somewhere above. "Be quiet."
"Don't be so rude, Sasuke-kun," Kabuto admonishes, with a wry twist of the lips. "Not that it matters around me."
"Hn."
Through the room's single window that looks out but not in, clouds obscure the clear night. The silver stars scatter. Kabuto leans back against his bedframe. Out of the corner of his eye, Sasuke shifts, a miniscule movement. Kabuto follows the pale line of his neck up to his eyes, which gaze unwaveringly forward towards the storm. He sees longing in them, a longing towards the rain, the blinding wetness and drowning sound.
But he knows that such a wish can never come true, because Sasuke is human (whatever he will or won't admit), and will never be able to disappear from himself under the falling water. He shifts his body to the side, so that he faces the boy.
"Missing Konoha, Sasuke-kun?" Sasuke looks boredly at him, hair falling into his eyes. "No, of course not. Not you," he answers himself. "You left your home of your own will."
"Konoha was not my home," says Sasuke, a faint deadness in his eyes affirming the statement.
"Oh? And neither is the Sound, I presume." Sasuke says nothing. "I guess you'd have no place to call your home, then, Sasuke-kun?"
Kabuto looks the boy straight in the face, his eyes alight with cold cheer.
"That makes two of us, then."
For a moment, it is as if Sasuke has fallen asleep with his eyes open, because Kabuto can't detect a single hint of emotion in his features.
Close to them, a sheet of thunder rumbles. Sasuke turns, and lies flat on his back.
Seconds after, a solid bolt of lightning flashes. The blinding white is bright enough to make Kabuto think he sees ghosts.
"No. You're wrong," Sasuke says flatly. "I'm not like you. You don't know what it feels like to want revenge.
"And a home? A home…is a constant. The only constant thing in my life is death."
Even as he speaks it, Kabuto knows that it's true. Sasuke's grave is only waiting for a body. His soul had wandered there long ago.
The thought makes Kabuto slightly bitter. Even Sasuke-kun has a home somewhere, welcoming him. Why is it that someone as pushed around as Sasuke, controlled by fate and anger and all manner of surroundings, still has somewhere to rest?
Sasuke has never once broken free from any of the illusions that rule his life.
Sasuke is a boy being played and destroyed from the inside out in order to achieve his goal; and Sasuke
doesn't
care.
To Kabuto, this is unfathomable.
Another clap of thunder shakes the two of them. Lightning is close behind. The storm, he calculates, is only a couple of miles from the hideout.
In the midst of another rumble of thunder, the ceiling begins to drip. Water steadily leaks from a place in the middle of the room, halfway between their beds, and pools in a tiny, black puddle on the floor. Kabuto straightens up, and the motion startles both of them. He can't remember how long it has been since they had lapsed into silence.
"We should move. The ceiling here isn't supposed to leak, but it might not hold if lightning strikes us." He swings his legs out from under the blankets, and walks to the door. Sasuke follows him.
He leads the way down a darkened corridor, hands feeling along the wall. The stone is cool and comforting, carved into large rectangle patterns that form the maze of Orochimaru's hideout, leading to dead ends and rooms masked with genjutsu and storage closets full of corpses.
When it feels like they've walked enough, Kabuto pauses at a length of wall. The echo of steps behind him do too. He forms a handsign and presses his hands into the wall. The slab of stone glows with a ring of chakra. and then crumbles away to dust, and then the dust crumbles to nothing. A small tunnel is left, leading to a stone shelter.
Kabuto climbs through first, and then Sasuke follows. Their scuffing noises seem louder in the lonely night, but neither of them comment as they tumble through the wall into the room.
It is very plain, and colder than their own room. There is no furniture save for two tatami mats on the floor, a single cushion on each. The walls are thick enough so that the racket of the storm outside is muted to a soft, distant rumbling.
Kabuto lies down on the right mat, hugging the cushion to his stomach as a blanket, and gets the feeling that they are buried alone underneath the earth.
He shakes it off, and Sasuke lies down near him, using the cushion as a pillow. The mats are lined together, so that their bodies nearly touch when they sleep. Sasuke is cold, cold in spite of his body's warmth, and very still. Look at you, Kabuto wants to say, you're practically a corpse, Sasuke-kun, that's what your hatred has done to you. It's not fair that this boy, greedy for power and disillusioned, has what he doesn't. A home, even if it is but a tomb. He worked so much harder to free himself from this…this…
What is it? What makes him feel this way?
Kabuto gets the feeling that he won't sleep so well tonight. His heart beats faster, the crazed edge of panic slowly ripping up his mind. Times like these, he needs something still and unmoving. Times like these, he needs something that won't (can't) desert him.
A constant. An anchor, to pin him to the reality and clear sight he treasures so much. Without thinking, he moves his hand a fraction of an inch, until the flesh of his thumb touches Sasuke's wrist. Kabuto glances over, and discovers that they are both staring at the ceiling. Almost unconsciously, he voices his thoughts out loud. This time, they are met with the silence of the dead.
"Will it ever stop raining?"
ווו
Little papery leaves rustle on the birch trees, some falling to the grass from his sharp movements. The last rays of evening sun illuminate the forest with a cold light.
Step. Touch. Step. Touch. Forward.
The leaves shake and sigh. Kabuto jumps from tree to tree, suppressing a shiver from within the depths of his heavy grey cloak. He counts trees; looks for landmarks. When the crowns of the birches get progressively lower and finally duck into a clearing, he jumps down and prepares his camp for one.
Nonchalantly, he takes off his glasses and rubs them with the tail of his cloak. His vision blurs, and one eye throbs with stinging, slitting pain. Forcing down the sensation, he stumbles towards the river. Peers down into the dirty waters.
And smiles at his reflection.
It feels like…it feels like he is setting out to create an entirely new life. With Orochimaru's blessings, of course.
Has life ever been so clear-cut, as brilliant as a diamond, faceted into choices for him? Awaiting him, a blazing path stretches itself out, all orange and dusty and less-traveled. Since discovering it, he has not bothered to gaze all the way to its end. He's beginning to think—does the journey ever matter? Do the things beyond the end affect him now?
No. They don't. So he doesn't care.
He walks back to the campsite, fingering a kunai. Strength and thrill flood his veins as he thinks from inside the insane pounding of his head.
The tiny, irregular footsteps of an animal startle him. In a flash, he has thrown the kunai towards the sound, and the rabbit falls over at his feet. It's too young and small to eat, and he merely watches as its red blood washes over the grass. Young. Watery red. The kunai pierces a vein at its neck. Kabuto stares at the rabbit for what seems like eternity, into its button eyes.
The first step towards that life awaiting him is to kill a certain boy the same way, now that Orochimaru is dead. Would his blood look so watery?
Kill a certain boy.
"…my goal…to kill a certain man…"
A smile lights up Kabuto's face, just as the sun slips over the edge of the horizon. He swallows a soldier pill and lies down on the cold grass, staring up unseeing at the darkening blue sky. Had it been so long since then, those first words that had marked the boy as so extraordinary?
Perhaps they had grown more alike that Sasuke-kun had dared to admit.
end. ♪