I really have no idea where this came from... or what it is. It just wouldn't leave so I decided to write it down - so to speak. There's a possibility for more, who knows.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto - obvi. But Jun, she's mine.
•
"You've done yourself, and your House, a great service Kyo-san." Brown eyes, shadowed under thick black brows, glinted in the candle light. Wide fingers overwhelmed the small white cup as it lifted to thin lips, steam rising and dotting the man's flat nose. He watched, with no small amount of satisfaction, as the emaciated and wrinkled man across from him squirmed.
Light shuffling, the dull short sound of flesh sliding barefoot on wood echoed through the small room as a young woman circled around the short table and it's two occupants.
She was beautiful - such was the way of innocence. Comparable to the morning of a fresh snowfall, delicate and otherworldly, breathtaking and pristine.
Head bowed, untouched porcelain skin flickered in and out of existence from behind long sleeves and a high collar as she reached to refill empty tea cups. Dark eyes trailed, once, twice, and again to the pale temptation that lingered so artfully on display in front of him.
Only to be drawn to the stark white cloth layered across her face where dead eyes sat.
A frown marred his features and he turned from what-could-have-been.
"A shame, Kyo-san," as if one were to remark about a cloudy day, "for such a blight to appear in your family." The older man flinched with understanding, turning his face opposite his daughter as she stood humbly at the end of the table, silent in her obedience.
"The House of Takahashi is honored that one such as you would grace us with redemption, Masato-sama." His voice wobbles, heavy with something he refused to name as he speaks to the man that controls more than he realized.
Too late.
This thought resonates, wraps its arms around his chest and squeezes. Breathing is hard again, lips dry as draws the tea to his mouth.
A cough. Sudden, wet.
The younger man, Masato-sama, seems surprised.
And unwell.
His tan skin is lighter, tighter and slicked with sweat that was not apparent a moment ago. Dark holes surround bright eyes as his wide shouldered body lurches forward suddenly, the loud chime of ceramic pieces bursting as they make contact with the floor shatter the lull of confusion and inactivity.
Shouts erupt beyond the sliding door and the sickly man careens to the side, reaching, grasping for his servants' attention as they stand stationed in the hallway.
Shocked exclamations turned to pained grunts and clipped yells, the ugly and unmistakable sound of flesh opening, the squelch of unmentionables and the unimaginable hitting the ground with a splash caused his eyes to widen to an alarming degree as crimson saturated the shoji door.
The man on the floor attempted to fight what his body already recognized as the inevitable, but he turns anyway. Rolling, struggling, eyes burning as his betrayed gaze settles on the old man he was once sitting across from, whom he deemed lesser.
Only to find him frozen in place, skin glistening with rivulets of red winding down his chin, gaping at the woman who was no better than broken china. The dying man opened his mouth, to rant, to rage, to curse because did they not know who he was? - but the black was creeping in too quickly, his last moments a blur of strained consciousness and hatred.
•
Kyo-san did not move, his eyes did not stray as he stared and listened to the last gurgles of life the man on the floor would take. Even now he knew his own time was limited, as one knows the sun rises with the dawn and sets as darkness beckons, a permanent cycle of unchangeable actualities.
Why?
As if she heard his mental question, the young woman finally turned.
Smooth were her hands as they rose up, slowly, settling on the back of her head where he knew the knot to the bandages resided. He looked away - anywhere but her - as the soft whisper of the sliding door opened.
"About done in here?"
No!
A choked cry escaped him with the force of his muscles locking. The urge to run, to flee, surged through his body with a shock when inhuman yellow eyes found his.
Akatsuki.
The man with monster skin grinned.
A shark's smile.
"Aki?" A soft voice inquires.
Jun. His first born.
He was always the first to say how alike she was to his late wife, their mother. Not only in the small spattering of freckles that bridged her nose and fell across her cheeks, but her voice, gentle and melodic. So compelling in her demure vulnerability.
A mask, he knew now.
There was no answer, the monster's smile now gone but something darker - sharper - in its place.
Hazel met clouded milky white when the bandages dropped away and he could not stop the fear that crawled under his skin.
He did not have to know Death to understand it was here now.
His mouth opened, lungs rattling and more red dribbled over stained teeth. Dripping, dropping, down onto his lap.
Her footsteps were silent now as she glided across the empty space to the area behind him.
Crooked fingers grasp one another as the shaking begins.
"Takahashi Kyo."
He is speechless. Helpless in the hopelessness.
Prey in the presence of a predator.
The tremors advance up his arms with startling speed.
"Father."
He nearly bites through his tongue as the seizure reaches his head, teeth chattering loudly before he clamped them down, a wordless scream in his throat.
"Your end will not be quick."
The quiet hiss of a blade.
"Your end will not be painless."
Tight, her grip upon his hair.
"Your end will not bring me joy."
The sharp zing as the blade sliced through the air.
"For there is no joy in me."
A tug.
"No love."
Weightlessness.
"No compassion."
A thump.
"Do you know why, Father?"
His hair, once a top knot proudly displayed, lay flat on the table in front of him.
Disgrace.
"Because they ceased to exist the moment you murdered my sister."
No!
"For you sealed her fate as you sold her to save yourself."
His entire body was quaking, seizing uncontrollably and he fell back, a prone heap at her feet.
"No, your end will not be quick."
Movement was an impossibility now and he wept, sickening inhales of breath through the clamp of his jaw, only to exhale blood in a clotted mess.
"There will be no life for you in death."