A/N: Well this is the start of my newest fanfic. Once again, constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.
Japan uses the metric system, and the original Naruto probably does, too, I used it in this fanfic.
37ºC -- normal body temperature (about 98.6ºF)
2 kg -- 4.4 lbs
41.1ºC -- almost 106ºF
1 meter -- roughly 3 feet
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters in this fanfic (except Kenji).
Kabuto's head snapped up when he heard rattling from his lab. Every one of his nerves sparked, and his muscles drew themselves into tight knots. His eyes frantically sought the portal, and found it, a dark patch haloed in sick white light. He heard coughing from the realm beyond, and screams within his own mind.
His body began to quiet itself, and the coughing stopped. The screams faded away as well, and he was left with roaring silence, carried on waves of adrenaline. Even so, he listened for the sounds of the other realm, and watched the portal for movement.
When nothing happened, he smiled and went back to his reading.
---
The illness had come out of nowhere. It began with nothing more than fatigue and a decrease in appetite. Both Orochimaru and Kabuto had snidely dismissed it as one of Sasuke's moods. He had enough of them, after all, and he had recently failed to master a new technique that Orochimaru had been reluctant to teach him in the first place. That alone was enough to dull the heat in his blood.
The next day, Sasuke had not come out to train. Orochimaru had not been truly concerned, but he sent Kabuto in to check on him anyway. Sasuke had been lying in bed, semi-conscious and barely breathing. There was a puddle of thin vomit on the floor and the dinner he had insisted on taking to his room the night before sat gray and untouched on his nightstand.
That was two days ago.
Sasuke's fever had spiked the previous night, and he was now running a slightly high temperature. He was dehydrating rapidly, and had lost almost two kilograms in less than 30 hours. He'd been unable to keep even water down, and Kabuto had been forced to move him to his lab, where he could be hooked up to an IV unit.
Orochimaru had protested vehemently, screaming at and berating Kabuto as the medic had been transporting Sasuke to the sterile autopsy room (he had no inpatient facilities, and that room was the cleanest, anyway). Kabuto had been forced to give his master alprazolam to calm him down. At the time, frustration and bitterness had pushed aside concerns of side effects. Lately, though, Kabuto found himself spending time he didn't have preparing antidotes.
Earlier, Kabuto had gone in to examine Sasuke. He'd been disappointed with the uselessness of the antibiotics. On top of his fever, Sasuke had developed a troubling rash around the curse. The seal itself had spread a bit, covering most of his back and chest. The unusual method of expansion worried Kabuto more than anything. The curse had been designed to attack the head first, to burn away certain areas of the brain.
For the time being, it had bypassed Sasuke's head and face entirely, opting to travel down instead of up. In a way, this was actually a good thing. If Sasuke had developed a rash around his eyes, the precious Sharingan could have been damaged. In a way, the curse's failure had been his salvation. Had it spread normally, it was a distinct possibility that Sasuke could have gone blind.
But as it was, this was not the case. The curse had continued its trek down the boy's body. In another few hours, it would have reached his stomach. Kabuto had been worried about a gastrointestinal infection stemming from the superficial one. That could take less than a day to occur, and could lead to serious complications.
In all likelihood, though, Sasuke would recover before then. His fever spike had brought him to an almost life-threatening 41.1º C, but his temperature was steadily dropping now, and would soon return to normal.
Kabuto had been on his way to tell Orochimaru that Sasuke's condition had stabilized when Sasuke began to cough wetly. For a time, Kabuto stood in the doorway, watching his future master with glazed eyes. He had a lot of fluid in his lungs. If nothing was done, he might drown.
The thought of leaving the boy to die didn't so much cross his mind as consume it.
A sigh of disgust, and he went back to his lab to get supplies. As he was trying to intubate him, Sasuke awoke, and clutched Kabuto's wrists. He forced himself into a sitting position and pulled the dripping tube out of his mouth.
"What are you-?"
"Saving your life. Shut up and lay down."
Kabuto put a hand on Sasuke's chest and forced him onto the table. The pressure produced another bout of coughing. When it didn't stop, he put the tube aside and went back to his lab. He mixed up a saline solution, put it into a nebulizer, and returned to his patient. In one swift motion, he pulled Sasuke up and crushed the mask to his face. Kabuto's fingers groped for the nebulizer's switch, and he turned it on.
As Sasuke gasped and inhaled the saline, his coughing worsened momentarily. It stopped when he brought up a glob of blood-streaked yellow mucous. Some saline trickled down his chin as he collapsed back on the table, and lay wheezing. Kabuto turned away again, and began preparing a needle.
"If you try to put that thing on my mouth again, I'll kill you."
Kabuto didn't respond, and merely administered a slightly high dose of morphine, though the boy really wasn't in any pain.
He intubated Sasuke, turned on the ventilator, and left to find his master.
Uneasiness struck him, and he ended up sitting down at one of his tables only seconds after he had decided to leave. Perhaps it was the morphine dose. But he certainly hadn't given Sasuke enough of the drug to…kill him, had he? Of course not. He wasn't that careless.
No, it wasn't the morphine. It was…a memory, cold and aching. A memory that seeped into the present in a terrifying way.
Kimimaro, nude, on the same autopsy table that Sasuke's fevered body now warmed. Fine lines of the cursed seal snaking around his torso, and slithering toward his hips. The swollen, festering patch of skin on his chest. Kabuto, dabbing antiseptic on it. Bloody pus oozing out and tricking down below Kimimaro's ribs. Kimimaro crying, screaming, hating his own diseased flesh, which would eventually fail at its only purpose. Sickness. Death. Failure. Kimimaro. Kimimaro. Kimimaro.
The curse had been spreading downward.
Kabuto glanced back into the autopsy room and saw a white-haired Mist child under a shroud. A white-haired Mist child who was at one time destined to be Orochimaru's next body. A white-haired Mist child who he had been unable to save. Chills ran through him like molten ice.
What if Kimimaro's disease was contagious?
What if some trace of it had lingered somewhere?
What if Sasuke…had caught it?
As talented a medic as he was, Kabuto had never been able to identify exactly what disease Kimimaro had been afflicted with. Orochimaru had done his best to forget Kimimaro, a gesture that Kabuto found oddly tender. Therefore, no questions had been asked, and all traces of the boy had been eradicated. At that point, Kabuto thought that it would be pointless to pursue his death any longer, and allowed his master's loyal servant to rest in peace.
Still, now it appeared that his failure to diagnose would come back to haunt him. Under normal circumstances, Orochimaru finding out his little secret would be bad, but not disastrous. He would be forgiven soon enough.
But now…to lose Sasuke to the same disease…
Although a name had never been put to it, Kabuto had strongly suspected that whatever Kimimaro had was congenital. It made sense, as Kekkei Genkai had been known to be self-destructive at times.
Antibiotics had done nothing; it could have been a virus. It also could have been highly resistant bacteria. Or lead in his water, or toxins in his food, or mold in his walls…the possibilities were virtually endless.
Let's face it. You have no idea what Kimimaro had.
Perhaps it wasn't too late to find out. Kimimaro's records, of course, were still on file. It was even possible that he had some old blood or urine samples stored away somewhere. Whether or not they were still good was another matter entirely, but still, it was worth some effort. He could conduct an entire investigation—
Start with the files.
He went back to his storeroom, where he kept the records of the deceased, only to find that the door was locked and his key misplaced. Cursing, he stormed back to his lab and ripped through the designated "junk" drawer. Under stained papers, broken glass, and countless pens, he found a ring containing a small gold key and a smaller silver one. He honestly didn't know if it would unlock the storage closet, even as he pushed it into the doorknob.
It was the right key, and the door swung open.
Kabuto didn't bother bringing a candle in, as all of the florescent lights in his lab were on, and would be sufficient lighting for his task. The key ring dangled idly from his index finger as he stepped into the storeroom.
Dry, stale heat gushed from the open door. Kabuto coughed, and his eyes watered from the dust. The room's climate had to be controlled carefully, as not to damage the records within. Orochimaru's base was usually cold and damp, and such conditions were not good for paper and ink.
Five filing cabinets lined the back wall like sentries. Kabuto looked around and sighed; he desperately needed a sixth, and possibly even a seventh. A number of piles of folders, bound together with wire, lay scattered among the cabinets. Worst of all were the shredded remains of paper in a dark corner. It appeared that the base had a mouse problem. In a way, that was all right. Kabuto had always wanted a cat.
He found the correct filing cabinet right in the middle of the others.
"K"
"Ka"
"Kaguya, Kimimaro"
He ran his finger along the key, not sure if he was imagining or actually hearing Sasuke's gritty coughs coming from his autopsy room. Either way, he knew that he might have underestimated the sickness.
Kabuto put the key into the slot, and saw the opening in the wall.
In and of itself, it was nothing grand, but its mere presence was startling. It was a clean slit in the stone, perhaps a half a meter wide and a bit over a meter high, residing behind the cabinet just to the left of the one he was currently opening.
The keys clattered against the dulled metal of the filing cabinet as Kabuto bent down to examine the opening. As a medic, he valued his fingers greatly, and was hesitant to stick his hand into a stone wall in a rodent-infested basement. He brushed the edge of the opening, marveling at its glossiness.
This room was not an abandoned one. Kabuto made it a point to visit the files of his former patients whenever he had the time. It wasn't something that he enjoyed: seeing all of his failures spread out before him, but history not remembered was often recreated. Kabuto wasn't eager to make the same mistakes twice.
So how was it that he had never noticed the gaping hole in the wall before?
Kabuto shook his head and stepped backwards. A few seconds later, he saw that something was off. The row of filing cabinets…didn't look right at all. His head began to ache, and he wondered if the past few minutes had been comprised of mere phantasms. Any minute, some unspeakable monster would crawl out of the hole, gnashing its fangs and brandishing its claws. Perhaps he had botched his daily diazepam dose as badly as he had botched Sasuke's morphine dose…
Or perhaps not.
Another few steps and a slight turn confirmed his suspicions. There was something wrong with the row of cabinets. He was sure of it, now that he stood parallel to his filing cabinets. The cabinet behind which the hole resided had been pulled out a few centimeters. The floor behind was a clean, vivid stripe, in contrast to the dirty stone on either side of it, and its front poked out beyond all of the others.
Someone had moved that filing cabinet.
Someone else had been in here.
In spite of the dry, prickly heat, Kabuto felt a chill caress his back. Nobody else had any reason to be in here. He had no assistant, and any other servants were forbidden to enter even the lab, much less his personal records room. Orochimaru stayed out, for nothing in the lab interested him, and the same was true with Sasuke. Kabuto's lab was exclusively his.
Besides, he had the only key.
Kabuto wondered briefly if he should just leave now, and not bother with Kimimaro's records. It might not be worth it. If Orochimaru was responsible…what could he do about it, anyway? It wasn't as if he could forbid his master from entering the lab. His master very well might have business in the records room.
But what if it was Sasuke…?
Yes. What if? What if that little brat had been rooting around in his files? Kabuto felt his ears and cheeks begin to burn. He would kill him. Orochimaru aside, if Sasuke had been poking around in Kabuto's files…he would die painfully. Strychnine? Arsenic? Cyanide?
As he lifted his hand from the ground, blood dripped from his knuckles. He had been pressing his fist against the stone floor so hard that his skin had been ground clean off. He healed himself, and paced about the room like a bull. Sasuke's imminent survival or death weighed heavy on his mind.
Rip that tube right out of his throat and strangle him.
Yes, and tell Orochimaru what? That he had drowned in his own fluids while left unattended?
After a few moments, Kabuto realized that his energies had been frightfully misdirected.
So someone had been in his records room? Even if it was Sasuke, so what? That didn't tell him what was in that cavern.
Kabuto shoved the relocated filing cabinet farther toward the center of the room. It screeched back, teetered dangerously on its edge for a few seconds, and then settled. He now had ample room to stand in front of the opening. Kneeling down, he rubbed at the edge of the hole again. It was obvious that no decay was responsible for its presence. It was cut smoothly, although the stone had been rounded with age. He hesitantly reached into the hole, and his fingers brushed against something cold and vaguely slimy.
With a grunt, he withdrew his hand and clutched it to his chest. He examined it the best he could in the dim light. There didn't appear to be any damage, just a bit of wet grime. Kabuto removed a kunai from his pouch and poked it into the wall. He tapped it against the object he had touched, and a hollow ringing resulted.
It was the other filing cabinet, the back of which seemed to be covered in mildew. Kabuto tossed the kunai down in disgust. He had panicked over a filing cabinet that sat benign right in front of his eyes.
He moved that one, too.
What he was left with was a deep opening approximately a meter in width and a bit more than a meter in height. Even the florescent lights from his lab were swallowed by the darkness. Cool, damp air slithered out from behind the opening, carrying with it the scent of mildew and decay.
All he could do was stare into the abyss.
To be continued…