Well, I'm back with a new fic this time. This AU is dedicated to charmedwicca on tumblr, who is my recipient for the 2014 NaruSaku Gift Exchange! Merry Christmas, and I hope you enjoy! I wish I could have given you the whole fic by Christmas instead of just chapter one, but family/time/inspiration just conspired against me. I will do everything in my power to post a chapter daily until the story is complete, and I don't expect to go past the 29th which is the official deadline. ...but we'll see. Knowing my brain, things will happen and what could have been 5-6 chapters will rapidly multiply like some freakish amoeba into 12 chapters.
Special thanks to my buds Joey, Turmanarmo, Igornerd, ahmadaziz, FaithfulWhispers, Marie, TemplarWarden, and foxkrystal for help with ideas, beta-reading, and/or morale boosting. Thanks buds! (CAN YOU GUYS TELL I WAS NERVOUS LOL)
The Boy Who Came Back to Life
"Swanhilde, a word please." Sonja was bowed over her young patient, her light brown hair pulled back into a bun which was wrapped in pink fabric and tied with a red ribbon. She nodded an acknowledgement to her impatient boss, a tall blonde woman. Standing in the doorway, the blonde gazed over the scene before her with an appraising look. Sonja returned her attention to the little girl she'd just bandaged.
"You'll be okay, but no more jumping around like a little monkey," she spoke with a mischievous smile, making the little girl giggle and blush. Standing, she straightened the skirt of her nurse's dress and exchanged thanks with the child's mother.
"Come, Swanhilde," the blonde doctor requested again before smiling at the little girl and turning on her heel to leave, Sonja just behind her. Their heels clacked through the hallway and then into an office.
"Yes, Frau Schwend?" She asked once the door had clicked shut.
"It's okay to call me Tatiana, Sonja." She said, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair off her student's forehead. Sonja wore a wry smile. Her mentor, teacher, and boss had loosened up quite a lot in the past few years—she was retired now... from the other job. Well, retired from the field, at least.
"So?" Sonja asked, placing a hand on her hip expectantly.
"We talked about the boy already. The estate belongs to an officer named Dänzer. He's a cruel man. You'll be a nun." Sonja gave a quiet sigh. "Don't be like that. You'll be fine."
"I know, I just don't care for the nun cover. Too..." She paused, trying to choose the right word. "Submissive." Tatiana laughed.
"Stick it out. It should be quick, but use your judgment, as always." Sonja nodded, already beginning to tick off what she needed for this job. The other job. She'd miss the hospital, for sure, but her people needed her for more than just scraped knees. The Great War had marked a time of extreme poverty and weakness for Germany, and while the country had recovered economically, its political structure had suffered beyond repair. Whispers of a second great war were seeping through cracks in the walls like smoke. Sonja had to be strong for her common, vulnerable people. Even if it meant losing herself a little more every time, she would protect them. "Oh, and Sonja," Tatiana added, her eyes suddenly hard and filled with passion, "Be careful."
—
Sonja snapped on a pair of medical gloves just as coldly as she snapped her other heart into place. Her heels dug into the carpet as she approached the room. The halls of Dänzer's manor were hauntingly quiet, sending sterile echoes of snapping rubber and jangling military decorations bouncing against the windowless dead end before her. She stopped before reaching it, hearing the slow, deliberate steps of the officer behind her come to a stop. Too close. She swallowed the discomforted feeling and tried to focus on the last door in this long hallway instead.
The corpse.
"Go in alone." The deep, commanding voice of Dänzer was not loud, but it tore into the air and pounded into every crevice with its echoing timbre. "I will wait." She turned, blinking her eyes rapidly, her expression confused and pleading.
She barely reached his chin in height, and his broad shoulders were squared off and covered in bright military decoration—tassels and badges and stripes and pins and that sickening emblem with the Hakenkreuz. The eye patch made his one visible eye even more beady and frightening than it would have been otherwise, and the X scarred into his chin left her wondering whether it was self-inflicted for an intimidating edge.
"Go in." He repeated it without feeling, and that cold, beady eye slid to meet hers. She swallowed, then nodded once.
"Yes, Herr Dänzer." She warbled in a nervous half-whisper.
The uncertainty was gone from her features the moment she turned away. Schwein, that's all he was. She'd read his file, clutching it with white knuckles and a clenched jaw. He was nothing more than a puppet and a filthy, murderous pig. He should be a corpse, too. But Sonja's corpses were meticulous, delicate things that offered no clues or hints of any sort.
It was with this methodical thinking that she swallowed her anger again and watched him reach forward toward the doorknob. The black leather glove reflected off the rounded bronze surface like a spider descending onto prey. He twisted it, and click-clack. With a press of his hand to the wood, the white door slowly creaked open until she could see what was sitting on the bed inside.
The corpse.
It was a young man. No older than her. His skin was tanned from exposure to the sun—admittedly something she hadn't expected. But he was just as expected otherwise. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. She studied him briefly but took in every detail she needed. The approximation of a corpse's height and weight came to her quite naturally, even at a glance. She had handled dozens of corpses even at just seventeen years old.
She stepped inside and brushed the door shut behind her, careful to not touch her gloved hands to the surface. With each step, her senses took in more information, and she locked it away with measured precision. Sonja could tell the time of his death and the method—ricin poisoning was the most likely candidate. Ricin was always a good fallback when one wanted to avoid detection. Her mission details had already told her about the corpse's infection—the reason he required medical treatment in the first place. The ricin, inserted directly into the wound, would mimic systemic toxicity. An untrained eye would never even suspect its use. Even a well-trained eye would easily miss foul play. Sonja, however, was no stranger to poisons.
"Hallo Fräulein," the corpse said.
"Hallo," she quipped back absently—without interrupting her thoughts or meeting his eyes. She had picked up and begun to read his medical chart, skimming over it as quickly as possible. It went without question that she could not take her attention away from the door behind her, nor the possibly-armed corpse before her.
"What's your name?" From where he was sitting up in bed, he tilted his head a little, then his mouth grew into a wide, friendly, convincing smile. Dangerous puppet. She hated him already. She hated all of them. The puppets. The pigs. The toys who were trained and groomed and dolled up just so they could stand in front of crowds and be just as loved, just as obeyed unquestioningly as the Führer and all the others that had come before. And all the others that would come after.
The corpse, like every other corpse Sonja handled, was a dictator in training. Perhaps a figurehead in training. Maybe royalty in training. Definitely a corrupted tool of propaganda. It didn't matter how they would use him. He would be—like all the others—a face, a body used to attain and maintain power.
A puppet.
Soon to be a corpse.
"My name is Sara." Sonja responded to him with a thin smile, finally meeting his eyes. "I will be tending to you for now, Herr Nicolaus." He made a sound that could have come from a barn, and his smile caved under the weight of an enormous frown. He snorted again, less loudly this time, before crossing his arms.
"Don't call me Nicolaus. It's Nico. Call me Nico!" Sonja felt her lips part slightly with surprise, and she quickly snapped them shut, curving the corners into another muted smile.
"Very well, Herr Nico." She stated.
"Just Nico." He demanded, brow furrowed. "I don't like that weird Herr stuff." In the few words he'd spoken, Sonja had made short work of analyzing. His accent scraped against dialects she knew well—there was some Berlin, some Hessian, and even some Bavarian—but he didn't quite fit any accent she'd heard before. The closest, she thought, had to be the filthy youths she'd fed in the alleys of Frankfurt during one of her less orthodox missions. They had also lilted between different accents, much like this corpse, but one common denominator was shared: they all sounded like street trash.
Puppets usually didn't sound like street trash.
But demanding to be addressed on a first name—no, on a byname basis... that was classic for pigs. It was classic control. Classic propaganda. Create the illusion of equality. That's all he was doing. He was playing her like he'd been carefully tutored to play every person he met. Create a friendly demeanor. Create rapport. Sonja realized, with a slight purse of her lips, that his low-class accent was likely a part of that act as well. They were getting more clever with their puppets now, weren't they?
Sonja turned away from him, intending to acquire her medical bag, but she paused when she came face to face with a nurse. The woman stared back at her from the full length mirror with hauntingly feeling eyes. Her nurse's dress was a dull gray, starched and stiff. Over it, a full white apron was tied. The straps wrapped thickly over her shoulders, constraining her. A small broach of a red cross sat on her collar. Sonja reached up and straightened her own broach, watching as the nurse did the same in perfect synchronization. Their fingers reached higher in unison then, up to the nurse's temple. They tucked a lock of light brown hair back into that joke of a nun's veil that completed Sonja's disguise.
"What's that pink thing for anyway?" The corpse asked her. Her eyes flicked to his—he was peeking over the nurse's right shoulder in the mirror.
"It's part of my habit." She turned back around to regard him with a raised eyebrow. He looked no less bemused—more so, actually. "I'm a member of the Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration of the Holy Spirit."
"Of the what?" He asked, shaking his head with intense confusion. "What kinda weird thing is that?" Sonja couldn't help herself from feeling a spike of anger. How could someone be this ignorant to the real world? The order was famous all over Europe, known for their medical training and prowess. Who hadn't seen the pink-veiled women bustling through the markets, homes, and hospitals of nearly every city and town of Germany? It was a point of pride that Sonja could fill any role required of her. Nun, equipment technician, chemist, surgeon, janitor, assistant, switchboard operator—she could do it all. She could mimic any accent. She could speak any dialect of German on top of her fluency in eighteen other languages—and this spoiled little puppet was so sheltered that it was all wasted on him. Sonja knew it was her job to not allow emotions any semblance of control over this part of her life. She also knew that that her duties were hardly anything to be proud of. But she was proud, and few others could boast the same level of skill she had worked so hard for.
That was just one of the things she hated about these slovenly, uncultured puppet-swine. They were spoiled and lauded and respected for no reason other than to create a sense of power where no power truly lay. They were weak, uncultured, inexperienced, unskilled fools who showed respect only to those like themselves—who obeyed the sickening group-think of their own kind unquestioningly.
Her anger began temper, however, at the thought that perhaps her newest corpse was not feigning his ignorance nor his low-class accent—it was quite possible that he was truly a street urchin dragged out of obscurity to be placed on a pedestal. Clearly, this one was chosen not for his brains or charisma—not like that black-haired, black-eyed swine commanding the people of Germany right now—but for his appearance. He looked like his father. That was the only reason why he was chosen to be a puppet. This Nico—this Nicolaus Unsausen, the lost-then-found son of the late Milan Unsausen may not have been raised a rich, spoiled brat from birth like the other puppets and swine, but he was still a threat. He still had to be a corpse. Even a low-class fool like this—especially a low-class fool like this—would unquestioningly obey his superiors in order to maintain the pampered, lovely life he'd just been handed.
It would be easy to see someone like him as an innocent, as a victim. And to some extent, he was both. But the problem with creating victims out of such people was that it necessarily had to ignore their role in it all. Nicolaus Unsausen may have been a victim of his own lineage and of the power-hungry regime that had commandeered his life. But he was still allowing it happen. He was not, couldn't be innocent if he complied with the Gleichschaltung.
The door creaked. The sound of leather gloves being pulled taught preceded Dänzer, and his heel squeaked on the threshold as he pivoted into the room. Sonja stiffened, her arms straightening at her sides.
"Herr Nicolaus. You have now met your attendant. Sister Sara will tend to your wound until you are well. You have been permitted a time of rest physically, but you are required to pursue your studies and maintain proper spoken German. You cannot be permitted to shame Deutsch any longer with your unrefined street tongue." His voice boomed with a natural sort of command that was inherited, not practiced. Sonja could see why a man like this was chosen to oversee the progress of Nicolaus Unsausen—to groom him into a future tool of the so-called "Great" Reich. It wasn't just that Dänzer had known Milan Unsausen closely for many years, as she'd read in his file. No, a man like this would be overbearing and inescapably clear in his expectations. A man like this would make her job hard.
"Leck mein arsch." Nico responded defiantly, his eyes locked with Dänzer's. Sonja nearly snorted with laughter, but she clapped a hand to her mouth and coughed instead to cover it.
Slowly, measuredly, Dänzer turned to face her, his jaw tight with anger. Sonja made an effort to place an innocent, scandalized look on her features. It seemed to satisfy him—or perhaps he was not looking for her disapproval at all—because he nodded his chin sharply at the door.
"Give us a moment, Sister. Danke." She did not hesitate; the starched fabric of her dress shifted stiffly as she made her way to the door. However, she did glance over to see Dänzer clasp his hands behind his back. He squared his shoulders, his attention back on Nico. With a click, she she respectfully pulled the door shut.
Sonja didn't mind the delay. She reached into her pocket and withdrew a personal grooming compact, unzipping it and glancing into the mirror at that nurse. She tapped the reflective glass with a fingernail, knowing her minuscule ricin supply lay behind it innocently, and the frown on the nurse's face sank just a tad deeper at the edges.
It didn't matter what reprimand he was now receiving behind a closed door that muted none of the hissing, guttural scoldings of the officer.
It didn't matter what groaning, frustrated, and positively vulgar responses he bit back, nor how much Sonja wanted dearly to admire him for them.
It didn't matter that the ricin would leave him suffering gruesome pain for hours if not days before the job was done.
It didn't matter.
He was just a corpse, after all.
Merry Christmas again everyone! LOL! I'll admit that this is not the most light hearted topic for a Christmas gift fanfiction, but I suppose we'll see how it all ends up. xD I gotta say once more that this story is lovingly dedicated to charmedwicca, who requested an assassins!au. I really wasn't sure where to go with that, and certainly my mind is a strange, frightening place (as anyone who's read my NaruSaku family fic surely knows already), so I sincerely hope that this is enjoyable and/or the kind of thing you were possibly-maybe looking for. I hope you enjoy your gift! :D
As a side note, I've been informed by a few people now that this is a different sort of an AU. I admit I have read very few AUs and not many (if any) in recent memory, so apparently I was unfamiliar with the "genre" at large. lmao oops!
Okay now onto some annotations to the story itself. At the bottom of each chapter I will include a glossary/pronunciation guide (you'll see it below these comments) so you can reference what the terms in German mean. If you're interested in looking up the references in my story, you may find some fun little pieces of information. While I tried to keep everything as historically accurate as possible, I could not find an order of nuns that wears pink veils—not sure if one exists at all. However, the Perpetual Adoration Sisters [of the Holy Spirit] is an order that does have pink in their habits, even if their veils are not pink. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1896, so the "pink habit" idea is not as unlikely for this time period in Europe as you might think. I based the name of Sonja's order on that real-life order so that, if people were to do a search, they'd probably find the real deal quite easily. :)
Glossary of some of the German terms/names
Please note that the dialect/accent of German I am mildly familiar with is reflected in the pronunciations below. If you know a pronunciation differently (for example schön being pronounced "shane" instead of my "shern"), feel free to ignore my pronunciation notes.
Sonja (ZON-ya with a long o as in "own")
Nicolaus (KNEE-ko-lauz with an au that rhymes with the ou in "house")
Dänzer (DEHN-tzuh with a tz sound like in the word "pizza")
Swanhilde (zvan-HILL-deh)
Danke/Dankeschön (DON-kuh/DON-kuh-shern): Thank you or Thank you kindly. The -schön on the end of things is considered an addition of kindness or respect
Deutsch (doych): German, the German language
Fräulein (like FROY-line): Miss or Young Lady
Führer (a little like FYOOR-rah, but that üh is a very specific sound): Leader or the leader that we all know about from the History Channel's relentlessly single-minded programming
Gleichschaltung (GLIKE-shall-toonk... roughly xD): A word meaning "coordinating" or "bringing together" or "aligning," basically a word used to describe the transformation of Germany into a unified school of political thought in order to control every facet of society more efficiently. For Nicolaus to be a part of this is for him to be a tool of Germany's current government—he'd be used to help gain public trust and thus gain even more control
Hakenkreuz (HOCK-en-kroytz): An infamous symbol often seen during this period in Germany, although at this point the general public did not realize the negativity it embodied, so it was still commonplace and well-respected. It would not be uncommon for anyone in the German military to wear this symbol—just as the officer overseeing Nicolaus wears it
Herr (very much like hair): Mister or Sir. Referring to Nicolaus as "Herr Nicolaus" is essentially showing respect: "Mr. Nicolaus"
Leck mein arsch (Leck Mine Ash with a slightly softened "a" sound): More or less the equivalent of "kiss my ass," although the literal meaning is a bit more vulgar.
Schwein/Schweinen (shvine/SHVINE-en): Pig/Pigs. Sonja has strong feelings about certain people.
Unsausen (un-ZOW-zen): Nico's last name. I actually made this up and don't know what the exact meaning would/could be. Sausen is a word that refers to speed, such as speeding in a car. I chose a reference to speed since I otherwise don't know if I will canonize Milan's (Minato's) infamous speediness in this continuity—just not enough time/space for it.