The Metamorphosis.

Tsuchi no Kuni, 17th October.
Year of the Ox.

When Sasuke was first confronted with his female body, he vomited. It wasn't a matter of the execution or because he considered a woman's figure unattractive. He certainly wasn't of the opinion that a kunoichi could be any less important or capable than a male ninja - quite the contrary, he respected his female superiors as much as he did anyone else (the gaggle of giggling girls that followed him around for most of his academy days, however, inspired less confidence). It was really the shock of having everything in order one day, then having a complete physical transformation the next. Sasuke had been on the receiving end of this shock treatment far too many times in his short life; he might have thought he should have been used to it. But that was the problem with shock, it rather lost its sting when it became anticipated.

The other reason for his reaction could easily have been the fact that he had spent the last four days in a drug-induced trance, rolling about on a thin padded examination table covered in runes and ritual stones, moaning and drooling as the ninja surrounding him painted jutsu on his skin in ink and blood and chanted in low, droning voices. Their hands were animated with countless combinations of seals and their bodies, cloaked in long, black robes, undulated with their movements like black ocean waves. Ceremonial incense was thick in the air and the room was filled with a coarse smoke that filtered the light into strange dappled patterns. Occasionally he felt pain, but it seemed so far away, a voice calling in the dream distance and it was easy to ignore. Sometimes he thought he saw flashes of orange and blond; teeth and fur, but he blinked and it was gone, chasing back into the dream it entered through.

He awoke much later to the sensation of a sheet over his body and the smell of fresh ink and blood in the air. The robed men, pulled him upright and pushed him to his feet, nudging him over to what appeared to be a large mirror so that he could see himself, their handiwork. Perhaps it was part of the ceremony, perhaps they were just being proper sadists, Sasuke didn't know. All he had to worry about at that moment was the ugly sensation of his stomach turning inside out and ejecting what little nourishment they'd managed to force inside of him to the scrupulously clean tiles beneath his feet. Seconds later found his entire body heading in the same direction. After that, it was dark and remained that way for almost two full days.

When he awoke the second time, there were fingers in his his short hair and his cellmate - a girl named Nuja as far as he remembered - was speaking to him softly. He'd told her his name on their first encounter (he had no idea why, it wasn't as though he expected to remain in her company for very long) and she had expressed great interest in his welfare - going as far as to tear her shift in order to tie a support around the insufficient bandage on his damaged leg. She'd begun to try to tell him things, and he pretended to listen, but he was injured severely and high on painkillers. Most things, at that point, simply became odd, soft-edged blurs in his periphery. Any noise became a hum of white sound that sat heavily in his ears. Nuja was merely a smudge of freckled skin, dark hair and luminous, solemn eyes and he paid little attention to her, concerned mostly with his drunken stagger-hopping around their cell, testing bars, digging at the dirt floor, swearing. Later, she would be the one to help him through the difficult early stages of his first carry, but for now, she was just the girl who held his head and mopped his brow, explaining, for the second time, the graveness of his predicament.

Or perhaps "her" new predicament? He wasn't sure how to refer to himself: he was female only in the parts that mattered, the rest had been left almost precisely as he remembered it. Still a boyish figure - all angles, no curves, still muscular, still taller than his prison mate when she finally managed to stand him up. Yet now he also sported small, high breasts that broke the flat planes of his chest and a lack of the familiar between his legs that left him feeling unbalanced and top-heavy. He was still himself, just with added extras and a complete change of plumbing. The software said boy, the hardware didn't know what was going on.

Miserably, Sasuke had patted at his groin in the hope that his other parts might have somehow been stowed away for a rainy day or for the possibility that they might wish to change him back (the latter being slightly more accurate), and found himself dry retching as his fingers came away bloodied. Nuja shook first her head, them him, once, twice sharply before explaining that the blood was normal, expected. It proved that their changes were successful and that he was ready for the next stage.

He would bleed. It would last a little less than a week, perhaps a little more. She could help him with that, show him how to stem it, keep himself clean, deal with the discomfort. They'd let him bleed once to test the machine before they would put him to use. It didn't always work quite that cleanly in the traditional sense of things, but their work was thorough. Unparalelled. They didn't like wasting time, and no matter how special he thought he was, he was running through the same procedures she'd witnessed several times, both for women and for the men they had altered to use. Blinking, head spinning, Sasuke had asked, with slow, syrupy comprehension what "use" meant in this context and she'd rested her fingers on his jaw and turned his face toward her, granting her his full attention.

Children. They wanted children from him. Specifically children with Kekkei Genkai, the rarer the better. Bloodline limits had become a lucrative black market trade, and these men, these "Kakkou" as they called themselves, they were at the pinnacle of the industry. Sasuke digested the information for mere moments before he laughed in her face. It was a sharp, cynical bark of disbelief as he considered the notion of these perverts turning men into breeding stock. It was ludicrous… why not just collect sperm? Set up a bank? Use surrogates? What the hell was with all the transformation crap, it was like something out of a horror movie!

Don't you get it? She hissed, slapping him. Don't you know anything? They're after bloodline limits: the mother's blood has the strongest link to those abilities, that's why they're only interested in women! And if your clan doesn't have any women, what do you think they're going to do? That's why they changed you into something they could use. There are more clans in your position than you think. Or clans that are so secretive they no longer send out female messengers or scouts for fear of their Kekkei Genkai being stolen. So what did Kakkou do? Found a way around it, that's what.

Bullshit.

Bullshit my ass. Why else would they go to all that trouble? Put you through a procedure that could've killed you - has killed others before, guys that were probably less strong than you. You're not the first and you won't be the last. But it means that you're rare. And that means they're not going to be wasting any time.

They'd begin trials almost immediately after the first bleed. If he had any wits still lingering about him, he had better rally them together now, because later on they'd be all he had. She was telling him to pay attention - the more he knew now, the better off he'd be later, but he couldn't focus. He lost her somewhere around "insemination" and "turkey basters" and had sunk slowly to the floor, his arm snaking around the deep, dull ache in his middle. He was no longer himself. The control he'd fought so hard to gain his entire life had vanished like the smoke from a jutsu well executed. He wasn't Uchiha Sasuke, he wasn't Itachi's brother, Mikoto's son, Naruto's spiritual opposite. Just like the boy who'd defected from his village, who'd become a student of vengeance and a master of confusion and hatred, he'd lost himself again. He was not himself anymore.

He was starting to wonder if he'd ever known what he was in the first place.