So here's a sequel. Sorry guys, no song this time.
Not quite as gnarly as the first. But I'm sure you'll enjoy it equally as much. Probably going to be the final thing with this subject.
One Shot
Dead Man Walking
The water was thick. Bloody and full of poisons and toxins and everything built to destroy everything living. The sky was stuffed full of angry, rolling storm clouds, raging at the splattered ground below as the waterfall roared downwards.
It took a while to get recovery ninja out there to survey the scene. The dead bodies of Kakashi Hatake and Naruto Uzumaki were dragged out of the water and scrubbed off the rocks nearby. No sign of Sasuke Uchiha, however, and when the mere smog that lingered in the area made one of the ninjas start getting blisters on his eyeballs, they made a hasty retreat, reporting that the Uchiha must be still at large.
None of them knew that his body remained, trapped at the bottom of the pool with his eyes gone and chest hollowed, still silently screaming in rage and hysteria. He was gone.
But the ghosts remained.
The rain that fell was acid, the once pristine area polluted and fouled in the aftermath of the Uchiha's rage and the ninjas' deaths. Travelers and ninja alike were forbidden to enter, for the very fog that continually sat there was enough to pull the soul right out of a creature, after a few agonizing moments of all the flesh melting off one's bones, of course. The crystal clear water that poured from the river above immediately turned black and issued poisoned mists the instant it fell through the dark storm clouds that hugged the cliff, forever turning the area into a wretched, blistered wasteland. The water was a lake of liquid tar, destroying everything unfortunate enough to stubble into it with an angry hiss.
And from this liquid tar, on a night of black, starless sky, a hand reached up from the dark abyss and slammed itself onto the rocks lining the water.
"It is time."
Like a machine, the body pulled itself up out of the water, the tar falling from it in heaps and globs as it rose up, stepping onto shore for the first time in months. A faint purple glow surrounded it, those eyeless sockets glowing indigo.
The body pulled itself onto its feet, stumbled uncertainly, and fell upon its knees again with an angry, frustrated growl.
"It is time."
It pushed itself up again, a little more assured this time, and continued bumbling forward, step by step. With each step it grew a little more assured, but even as the back straightened and the chin tilted up towards the sky, the arms stayed limp at its sides and the mouth uncontrollably pulled open as it shambled onwards.
"I will take back what is mine."
Slowly, it started to live the place of death and decay.
"The promise will be fulfilled."
Those hands rose from dead sides and set themselves on the ledges and creases of stones, and they began to pull themselves upwards up the side of a steep cliff.
"It is time."
A few hours passed, and finally the body stepped onto land untouched by the sorrow, and those dead eyes looked up to see bright green leaves.
"And those puny creatures. What can they do?"
But as it walked, flowers withered at its passing, and the ground beneath its feet cracked and turned barren and gray, the life yanked out of it with enough force to shock the earth. As one, the birds leaped from their perches and fled, a huge ominous shadow against the bright afternoon sky.
"But burn?"
"Lord Orochimaru, it's the Uchiha! You have to run! You have to-"
The ninja fell, his eyes ripped out of their sockets as he landed hard, the flickering flames of the quickly spreading fire shining in the pool of blood that spread from beneath him.
Orochimaru didn't move as he gazed at the creature in the doorway, into those empty husks where those lovely, lovely eyes used to sit. His legs crossed, hands in his lap, his dinner still half-eaten in front of him, he gazed at the body before him, and smiled grimly.
"Ah, Sasuke," he breathed. "I suppose that demon within you got the better of you, huh?"
The body didn't answer, standing there with arms limp at its side and head pulled sideways, gazing at him with eyes that were no longer there as blood, blackened with poison, dribbled from those lips, the liquid smeared across its chin and hands and splattered on its clothes. The hole in its chest stood stark in the light of the flames. Orochimaru sighed tragically.
"The one time I overestimated you…" he breathed. "I thought you could handle it. The blackness. The power. I thought…" he shook his head. "This is my fault. The demon inside you was more powerful than I anticipated. And now I've doomed all of us. But still…" he smiled coldly. "I'm so happy to know that it was because of me. I showed you inside yourself and you found a friend that had the strength to give you everything you wanted. A friend so powerful that it could kill you and then raise you up onto your feet again to do its bidding, unhindered by whatever humanity may have remained. Interesting, so interesting. You killed yourself so you wouldn't fight yourself and then you brought you back. So… body of Sasuke Uchiha…" his smile widened. "Whatever are you going to do now?"
The creature didn't answer, if it could. Instead, it simply shuffled forwards until it was right next to Orochimaru, raising its hand to grasp the Sannin tightly around his throat.
"This thing is you, Sasuke," Orochimaru choked out at the grip tightened. "This monster, so powerful. It's you. It's who you really are." He grinned even as the thumb against his windpipe pressed down. "Good to see you're not fighting it anymore." His eyes began to bulge out of his head. "Kill everyone, Sasuke. Kill them all."
There was a quiet snapping sound, and Orochimaru's head rolled back aimlessly, attached to the body only by muscle and ligaments. The body released him, and the corpse fell with a sickening thud to the stone floor.
"Fool, or not a fool…"
The body turned, and stumbled out of the room, hands lifeless at its sides.
"At least he wasn't stupid enough to fight back."
As the flame spread, the heat intensified.
"I had to make sure to thank him, after all."
"Oh my God."
Sakura watched in shock from the battlements as the world changed color before her. At the very edge of the horizon, she could see trees turning brown and dead and withering, a wave of death stealing over the land as it neared closer and closer to the village.
Something horrible is coming.
She whirled, fleeing to the Hokage tower.
Death reached the gates of Konoha that evening, and half the land was alive while half was dead, the world dividing into two extremes. Those guarding the gate looked down as the trees near them broke beneath their own weight to crash to the ground to see only a single person there, shambling closer and closer to the doors.
"Halt!" One of them called, readying his weapon. "Don't take another step! Identify yourself!"
The man kept his head down, his clothes in tatters. The guards could tell he was wounded, had been through hell, and oh God was that a hole in his chest-?! but they couldn't open the doors. Not to anyone.
He didn't answer. Instead he kept shambling forwards, his face blackened and dirtied with soot and dirt. The guard swallowed.
"I'm only warning you one more time!" He called. "Halt! If you don't stop I am going to attack!"
No response. He only kept moving towards the doors, undaunted even by his wounds. The guard gritted his teeth, and aimed even as his instincts screamed at him to stop.
"I said stop!" He shouted, throwing the kunai even as the man raised a hand to touch the doors to Konoha.
The kunai struck him in the chest, right between the clavicle and his upper most rib. The man had done nothing to dodge it, and his hand paused right before it was about to touch the door as the blade sank down.
There was no screaming. No shrieking in pain. In shock, the guard watched the man turn his head, first to the side, and then upwards to look at where the shot had come from.
Any breath that the guard had been holding died in his lungs, and his eyes widened as he stared into the empty sockets of a dead man. That face…
"The… the Uchiha…" he breathed in utter horror as the body, still looking at him, set its hand fully on the doors to the village.
A massive crack like a gunshot roared through the village, and then there was the terrifying sound of crumpling wood as the solid doors split into a thousand different pieces, the guard towers with them. Any men in the towers immediately died as pieces of wood flew through the air like bullets, piercing them so suddenly they didn't even have time to react as they fell to the ground. The remains of the annihilated double doors blasted through the village as if battered by the fierce breath of the gods, destroying buildings and ending even more lives.
The body lowered his hand, and shambled into the village, the kunai still stuck in its chest.
Immediately, ninja surrounded him, and cries of who he was and the face he carried and the hole in his chest and oh the fucking hell his eyes-! swept through the ranks.
"What do you want with us?" One of them commanded, a woman with purple hair and fishnets. "What sort of idiot wanted ninja just waltzes back into the village that wants his head?"
Was it her imagination, or did the barest flicker of a smile pull at the lips of that bloodied mouth.
"Somebody who has more power than you puny creatures, pathetic beast."
She gasped as she heard that voice, deep and dark and like a nightmare in her brain, and realized there was something here that she and her men couldn't even begin to contend with.
We have to sound the retreat-
Before she could give the order, she found those sightless sockets right in front of her, and her eyes widened as she felt a hand plunge through her chest as another hand set itself on her face, fingers digging into her eyes. Screaming, she went down, and just as quickly the body was back up, eyes in one hand and her heart in the other. A twitch of a smile touched those lips again as the body unhinged its jaw and opened its mouth wide, swallowing the eyes whole and biting into the still faintly beating heart with intense relish, the fresh blood splattered on his clothing.
"All I wanted was to be woken up."
The second bite had the heart vanishing down the throat, and the body's arms dropped limply back down to its sides again, looking like a harmless nightmare as it stood there in front of the dead body, surrounded by ninja.
"All I wanted was to fulfill my calling. Follow my dream. All this time…"
Slowly, a hand reached up towards the mouth, and a black tongue flickered out, licking the blood.
"This accursed village was worried about the wrong fucking demon."
And then, as the ninja around it, the body reacted, guided by a vengeful soul, and the true slaughter began.
The body dropped to the blackened earth, belly bulging and clothes dripping with blood as it realized it couldn't handle any more brain. Sighing, it dropped the head of the dead child it had been feasting on and simply sat there, perfectly balanced.
The Village Hidden in the Leaves had been successfully leveled, fire still burning some of the more stubborn buildings, with entrails, the remains of dead bodies, and skeletons littering the place.
"The good guys don't always win."
The kunai was still stuck between those two bones.
"Now I understand why my father hated me. He was afraid of me. Afraid of my power. And it took that damned snake-charmer for me to wake up."
The smoke gathered in the sky, hanging like poisoned storm clouds.
"It took a while to figure out how to reanimate the body my other self had fled from. I suppose a snapped neck will do that to someone. But I did it. I did it, and I have more power than he ever had. What a stupid child. I can't believe he believed me."
Raising a hand, the body set it on the head next to him and rolled it in his palm absently as his own head rolled back and forth.
"Death will fall upon this world like an icy blanket. Why kill only one person when you can just kill everyone? The judgment is always death, and I will be the one to carry it out. After all…"
A barest hint of a smile as those sightless eyes surveyed the carnage.
"There's no one else around to do it. Everyone will suffer for trapping me in the cage of this mind for so many years. The good guys don't always win, after all."
The body leaned back, resting face up on the ground as the creature within gloated with glee.
"Because, after all, some bad guys are just that badass. This world is my kingdom now."
And as the dead body lay there, still glowing and seeing even though it was unable to see, the dark night sky only became darker and darker and darker…
End One Shot
Dead Man Walking
Didn't really know how to end this one. But let's just assume the story happens badly.
So we all understand what actually happened with Sasuke, right? Right? .
Hope you enjoyed. Review? :3
Much love!
DDB