Disclaimer: As much as I want to, I don't own any of the Naruto characters. They are Masashi Kishimoto's bitches.
Also, this story takes place in a slight AU. Since I don't know the ending to Naruto, I can only make educated guesses on how the Naruto world will be in the future. Any inaccuracies will be fixed as more of the manga is published and translated
Altered Carbon-chapter two
The argument with Temari had left the sand shinobi dizzy with resentment. He was wired with anger, but couldn't tell whether it was directed to his kunoichi sister or himself. Trudging down the dirt roads of the village, Kankuro violently kicked a stone in his way and watched as it shot far into the distance.
It did little to calm his strung nerves.
Fuck you, Temari…you don't know what its like. You have it easy, you stupid stuck-up little… once again turning his feelings of anger to his older sister, the puppeteer shinobi tossed his third cigarette of the night into a nearby trash receptacle.
He had long got over the terrible smell of ash and smoke that offended the flaxen-haired kunoichi, but there was nothing he could do about the feeling of need that his addiction came with. There were never enough cigarettes in the box, as he always felt the craving for another one, especially after any fight with Temari.
As several paper lanterns began to glow along the well-beaten road, Kankuro considered heading over to the nearest drinking establishment. If nicotine couldn't calm his nerves, perhaps a couple rounds of sake would. It wouldn't have been the first time he had doused out his exasperation with alcohol, not by a long shot.
Mumbling a slew of derogatory words, half-formed and barely making their way past his clenched jaws, Kankuro knew that his other teammates wouldn't forgive him if he arrived at tomorrow's mission with a hangover. It was supposedly a rather important job, one that promised danger, battle, excitement and all that other useless bullshit.
Who gives a fuck anymore…they're all the same in the end. I kill someone, we get paid, big deal, Kankuro groaned, pulling the bundled form of Karasu higher up on his back.
A strong breeze hit him square in the back, causing him to stumble over a few scattered bottles lying on the ground. Biting his lower lip, sharp canines cutting into the soft flesh, Kankuro angrily picked up one of the bottles and threw it at a nearby wall. It seemed to shatter before it even hit, exploding into a million shards of murky green glass, garnering the attention of several citizens. Instantly a murmur of interest and caution began to stir in the rowdy nighttime street.
"What? What do you want?!" Kankuro lashed out viciously, well aware that his voice was buried in a low-toned growl. Spit frothing at his mouth, the puppet master leered at a particularly large group of people who were all looking at him with apprehensive eyes filled with something he believed to be disgust.
Why the hell are they staring like that?! Don't they know who I am? he thought, feral eyes nearly shut with annoyance. He flashed his teeth menacingly at the crowd before continuing down the road, now in more of a hurry, half-glad that he had given the street dwellers a taste of his vehemence.
He really hadn't changed much, it seemed. Whereas his own brother was now a highly respected leader and his sister was well on her way to becoming an esteemed ANBU shinobi, Kankuro was still often reduced into a bully when he was angry, picking on those smaller and weaker than him. It had always been a hobby of his, spanning back to that fateful Chuunin selection exam. The look on the Hokage's grandson had been hilarious, and it had felt good to see the little boy recoil in fear.
But now those gaping faces of fear were slowly being replaced with grimaces of hate and distrust.
Rushing past everything and everyone, feet moving as if by their own accord, Kankuro whipped around the street corners, past the restaurants and bars and laughing throngs of people, so happy and giddy and drunk off their own pleasurable company. There would be no one waiting for him back home, but he preferred it like that.
No one could tell him how to live his own life. If he wanted to wallow in his own ashtray and beer bottle, than so be it.
Damn right! he told himself, trying to sound sure of himself, but a little piece of his mind faltered when he thought of his sister once more.
She really did care for him as well as Gaara. They didn't have any parents or caretakers, unless you included Baki, and as such she had personally taken the role upon herself. At times he had been glad for it. After a mission, she would always cook a meal for all three of them at her place, and Kankuro was not one to pass up a free dinner, even if was sometimes burnt. He would never confess that to his sister's face though; he valued his manhood too much.
But at times like this, when he was already stressed out enough, he just wished his older sister would piss off and leave him be.
The sole of his sandal struck something solid, and Kankuro looked up to see the front patio of his apartment building. He had arrived sooner than he thought he would, and didn't even have his key ready. Rummaging around his pockets, he pulled out a dull-looking piece of metal, parts of it rusted. Some of the teeth were so horribly bent out of shape that when he tried to remove it from the building's keyhole it became sufficiently lodged in the lock. Rattling the doorknob, trying to wrench the key free through brute force, Kankuro finally ripped it loose.
The building that Kankuro called his home was a run-of-the-mill complex, with two apartments per structure, separated by a staircase. He had no idea who lived above him, nor did he care. Whoever it was, they were quiet and Kankuro genuinely appreciated that. The last thing he needed were the feet of small children pattering above him or the crash and boom of another resident's music reverberating through the thin ceiling.
Trudging past the stairs lackadaisically, Kankuro felt his breathes becoming heavier as exhaustion began to seep into his bones. It had been a boring, pedestrian day at his post with nothing but the stupendous scenery to marvel at. He thought about his bed, unmade but still comfy, and realized how cathartic the idea seemed.
He quickly crossed the short hallway that led to his apartment, and with a much easier click and twist, he opened the front door. A draft of warm air awaited Kankuro on the inside; he had forgotten to leave the air conditioning on. Rolling his eyes lazily, the black-clad shinobi latched the door behind him and pulled off his hood, tossing it onto the ground near his feet, exposing his shaggy, unkempt brown hair. He pulled his fingers through the tousled strands, thick and sodden with sweat, and then pawed the dark area to the right of him, searching for the AC switch. Eyes quickly adjusting to the low light of the room, Kankuro soon found his target, and with a satisfying flick, the fans above him started to churn out decidedly cooler air.
That finished, the young shinobi clumsily moved towards the back of the apartment, dumping Karasu in the middle of the hallway, ignoring the clattering thud it make on the floor. It had been a long time since he had last cleaned the battle puppet, and its wooden limbs were so caked with blood that they no longer moved as smoothly and lithely as they should. Temari chastised him about this on a daily basis, scolding him for being so negligent about his favorite weapon, but it didn't matter. He just didn't care anymore.
Already pulling his black shirt over his head, Kankuro staggered into his bedroom, throwing the garment into a nearly full laundry basket. He quickly let his sandals and gloves clunk onto the ground afterwards so that he was now only dressed in his pants. Kankuro felt his knees tap into the edge of his bed. Having memorized the layout of the room, he moved around it in a clockwise fashion, past the bedside table cluttered with half-empty bottles of who-knows-what, past a large pile of dirty clothes, and into the connected bathroom.
His bare toes scrunched when they hit cold, linoleum tiles, but it was a welcome sensation after having his feet trapped inside his hot, sweaty shoes all day. Kankuro slapped a tired hand onto the solitary light switch, causing a wash of garish light to crash down on him, causing his eyes, which by this point had become acclimated to the darkness, to squint and tremble. Sheepishly opening one eyelid at a time, the broken and weary shinobi bent over the sink, which was unsurprisingly messy.
Gazing into a cracked mirror that was barely attached to the bathroom wall, Kankuro solemnly noticed that the person he saw on the other side of the looking glass was someone he barely even recognized.
Instead of a young shinobi of only 19 years, he found a fatigued, battered nonentity staring back at him with drab, listless eyes. His skin was pale and sickly, hardly what you would expect of someone who spent every waking day in the remorseless desert sun. Paint that should have been applied with painstaking care was instead brushed onto his face haphazardly, barely symmetrical and jagged in several areas.
Breaking his gaze with the nobody in the mirror, Kankuro twisted the faucet, a jet of cold water splashing into the basin below it. Cupping his hands beneath the icy stream, he splashed his washed-out face, shuddering slightly as little bit of the chilly water spilled onto his exposed chest.
He wasn't proud of how he looked, but the arrogant shinobi would sooner have his tongue ripped from his mouth than admit to it out loud. Kankuro moved his hands over his chest and stomach, feeling the somewhat flabby surfaces that had once been hard and strapping. While far from being considered "fat", the puppet-wielder was no longer the solid wall of muscle that he had been in the past. Kankuro was still tall, taller than any of the other shinobi his age, but the loss of his chiseled physique had done much to diminish his impressive stature.
His smoking habit was mostly to blame. Behind his sister's back, Kankuro had actually tried to quit, on several occasions actually. But every time he did so, he would only turn to other addictions to sate his dependency for nicotine, indulging in food and alcohol, causing him to fatten up. This in turn only served to depress him, which lead him back to his cigarettes, all and all tying him up in a tragic circle of addiction from which there seemed no escape.
Tracing his fingers along his body, Kankuro sighed, restless and tired at the same time, worn out, yet not enough to simply concede to sleep. The paint on his face was now running from the water, dripping down his cheeks and off of his chin like fat, purple tears. He squeezed a bit of soap into his hands and worked it into a thick lather, scrubbing whatever paint was left to rinse away. A bit of the foam slipped into his eyes and abruptly true tears of irritation moistened his lashes, promising to tumble if he blinked.
"Shit…" Kankuro cursed lowly, gathering a generous amount of water in his joined hands, flushing out his eyes. He grabbed a towel off of the wall-mounted rack and quickly dabbed his face dry, using his other hand to turn off the faucet. There was still a little bit of purple left on his cheeks, but it wasn't enough to merit his attention, not when the disgusting face in the mirror had his attention once more.
Without his "clown makeup", as some people mistakenly called it, Kankuro found himself even more repulsed by his own appearance. He frowned, looking at the darkened circles beneath his eyes, and his lips, which only held the appearance of being plump when marked with paint, now looked so thin and frail. All in all, Kankuro felt like a tragic shadow of his former self, devoid of his past liveliness and shrewd cleverness.
He had once been so cunning, one could have even called him ruggedly handsome. Now he just looked pathetic and washed-up.
It took him a few solemn moments, but Kankuro finally managed to steal himself away from the bathroom, almost forgetting to switch off the light before plopping onto his bed, the old springs creaking beneath his weight.
He sighed, looking up at his barren ceiling, at the subtle crack that extended from one end to the other. It seemed to closely resemble his own life, a single scar that began at one point and monotonously ended at another, with nothing changing, nothing splitting it off into a tangent.
Just a line going in the same direction forever until it died.
Kankuro shifted his body to one side awkwardly, avoiding the ceiling that suddenly seemed to close. He didn't want to be reminded of where he was headed, didn't want to see his destiny coming straight for him.
It was all too heavy. Moving his legs so that his the tops of his thighs nearly touched his bare chest, Kankuro closed his eyes slowly, waiting for sleep to finally claim him.
There was still time; he could get dressed and go to the bar just outside, order two dozen rounds and drink to his life's great success.
But even that probably wouldn't help matters, wouldn't rid him of this terrible emptiness that he only felt when all was dark and lonely and there wasn't another soul to berate him.
He twisted over to his other side and felt that familiar cardboard box jabbing into his hip. For a moment, the tongue inside his mouth went dry as his creeping addiction started to crawl into his blood. Pulling out the carton of cigarettes, Kankuro glared at it as if it were an enemy shinobi armed with a thousand kunai before hurling it onto the floor.
It didn't matter; in the morning he would pick it back up as always and put it back in his pocket, like always.
Like every single day.
((A/N: I'm sorry for all of the angst, you guys! Don't worry, hopefully things will get a little happier -and maybe funnier- in a couple of chapters! Please review if you can!))