Author's Note: More Sasuke-centric angst, with a side of Kabuto.
Happiness
(Sasuke muses on what happiness can mean for shinobi, specifically the psychopaths he now lives with.)
Sasuke has begun to think that happiness is a terribly relative thing. The things people want destroy them; the things they need make them miserable; the things they think will bring them joy only bring them misery. Happiness isn't an easy thing to achieve.
And if that's true for an ordinary person, it's even truer for a shinobi. They're supposed to be tools, existing for war, existing to serve their leaders. Sasuke knows that, and he knows that no one cares whether a kunai is happy, so no one should care whether any other tool, shinobi included, is happy either.
Maybe that's why there are missing-nin, Sasuke reflects. Maybe shinobi betray their villages because they think it will make them happy. Sasuke knows better; he'd left Konoha because it would bring him closer to his goal, not because it would make him happy. Happiness was a vague, nebulous concept, and Sasuke saw no point in persuing it. Killing Itachi was enough for him. He didn't need happiness, as long as he had that goal.
And wasn't that all that anyone's 'happiness' really was, anyway? They all thought one thing or another would make them happy, but those things were just goals. Once achieved, they were gone, and so were no longer any feelings associated with them.
Naruto had thought being Hokage would make him happy, but Sasuke doubted that anything would really change even if that idiot managed something so spectacularly unlikely. People would still fear and mistrust him because of the demon inside him. Sakura had thought Sasuke's love would make her happy, but Sasuke knew that 'love' was just a lie. He had thought his brother loved him, after all. And Naruto and Sakura had thought that Sasuke cared about them, that they were friends, that they somehow mattered more than killing Itachi.
Sasuke had known all along that their happiness was not enough for him.
That was why he felt comfortable--not happy, but comfortable, and that was all he needed--at Sound. The whole lot of them were people who desired one thing or another. Power, mostly. Sasuke understood that, and he could respect it. They didn't expect happiness; power, pride, respect...those things were enough for the Sound shinobi. They might be criminals, but at least they weren't delusional.
With a single exception, and that annoyed Sasuke as much as it bewildered him.
At first, Sasuke had assumed it was an act; Kabuto was a spy, after all. That overly cheerful smile was a sign that someone was about to be in severe pain, at least in Sasuke's opinion.
Then Sasuke had seen it as an irritating personality quirk. Maybe it was some twisted sadism that made Kabuto so damn happy all the time; he did spend an awful lot of time causing others grievous bodily harm. That was something Sasuke had no respect for, but at least he could understand it. Sadism was probably more accepted among shinobi than in most professions.
But that didn't really work either, because Kabuto was happy even when he wasn't cutting people up, and Sasuke was pretty sure at this point that he wasn't just putting it on. It was starting to disturb him, because no one could be that happy about being at Sound. The shinobi of Sound stayed because they had to, not because they wanted to. They stayed because they had nowhere else to go, or because they were willing to do anything for power. They didn't stay because they liked it.
But when Sasuke had finally just asked Kabuto why he was at Sound, the only answer he had received was 'It's just what I want to do.' And that made no sense at all, because no one in their right mind would want to be at Sound, and no one in their right mind would want to work for Orochimaru.
Sasuke finally decided that Kabuto was obviously completely insane. Insanity was easily mistaken for happiness, Sasuke supposed, and it wasn't like the insane person in question could tell the difference. That answer made sense to Sasuke, although it made him nervous about getting medical treatment from Kabuto. There was no reason for him to keep thinking about it.
But every time Sasuke saw Kabuto being so damn happy, he couldn't help but hate the world a little. Because even if he killed Itachi, even if he restored the Uchiha clan, Sasuke didn't think he would ever be happy like that.