Untitled Chapter 3: The man in the mask
A/N: Hello, everyone! To make up for the lateness of the last chapter, I've decided to try to get this one out early. I'm not too sure about the pace of the story, because it seems to be going a little too quickly. But I have been told that I'm going at a good pace, and anyways, I want to get going with all the Akatsuki stuff. Okay, same as always. I love my reviewers and readers, and please review and give out more title suggestions. I don't really want to name the story until I've got more ideas, but if that takes too long I'll just go ahead. I've narrowed down the suggestions from Blacknayami, RayneXHatake and Obsidian Fire (who are amazingly awesome people) to a few names that I really like. More suggestions would be great though! Also, I've tried to make it clear that Madara really isn't in his right mind. Hope that was obvious. Anyway, I've talked enough!
This chapter is dedicated to everyone who is reading it at the moment. Luv ya all!!
"I have a dream."
Words can be powerful. Men have no need of swords, or death when they know how to wield words. Sticks and stones can break bones, but words can touch and hurt and murder in a way that weapons can never hope to achieve. Words cut straight to the soul.
The man in the mask is the embodiment of power. Picture a chess game. It usually takes countless moves to win, yes?
Uchiha Madara won the game in four moves.
For a moment, they are all silent. The gentle pounding of the rain is the only noise that breaks the silence. Those words cut straight to Sakumo's heart. He pictures Yahiko standing at the window of the small cabin, and wonders how long this man has been watching them.
"I have a dream," the man in the mask repeats softly, as if to himself. Then Konan leaps to her feet, anger tainting her beautiful young face.
"Where did you hear that?!" She demands. Before Sakumo can stop her, she has raced around the bed and attempted to hit the man. He catches her thin hand easily, and Sakumo stands up as well, watching warily in case the man should try to hurt the hysterical girl.
The masked man holds onto her wrist tightly, but not hard enough to hurt her. The blue-haired girl collapses in tears and he lets go carelessly, allowing her to fall to the ground at his feet.
He ignores her question, and continues talking after a brief moment of contemplation. "Dreams," he muses to himself, "should only be dreamed and believed in if the dreamer is strong enough to turn fantasy into reality."
He looks down suddenly, as if only just hearing Konan's sobs. He leans down and pulls her to her feet. "Yahiko wasn't strong enough," he tells her quietly over the sound of her broken sobs. "You, Nagato and Sakumo weren't strong enough to support his vision. But," here he leans in until she is face to face with the orange mask, and goes on telling his poisonous lies. "I can make you stronger. And I can save Nagato from the same fate that befell Yahiko."
Sakumo has had enough. He makes his way around the bed and pulls Konan away. She falls limply onto the end of Nagato's bed, watching worriedly as the two men stare each other down.
When Sakumo speaks, his voice is a harsh growl that is strangely similar to the masked man's usual tones. "Who are you?"
"Uchiha Madara," the other answers in an unreadable tone, reclining in the hard wooden chair.
Sakumo snorts at the obvious lie. "Alright then, Uchiha Madara, what are you here for?"
One hand tugs contemplatively at his long mane of hair as Madara ponders Sakumo's question. Suddenly, he stands and pushes dismissively past Sakumo as if the White Fang is barely there. He stands over the unconscious boy on the bed like the shadow of a monster from a child's twisted nightmare.
"There are several possible answers to that question," Madara states evenly. "First answer," he runs one hand absently over a metal pole that protrudes from Nagato's back, and both Sakumo and Konan flinch. Madara pretends not to notice, or maybe he really doesn't. "The boy. The Sage of Six Path's legacy." He turns away suddenly and looks straight at Konan. "Second answer; the girl." Turning away from the crying teenager, he faces Sakumo. "Third answer; the White Fang." He makes his way away from the broken trio and sits back down in his chair as comfortably as if it is a throne. "And fourth answer; God."
"God," Konan scoffs suddenly, "There is no God watching over this land. If there had been a god, Yahiko would be alive."
"I agree, Konan," Madara replies smoothly. "There is no God yet." His mask turns to look at Nagato's immobile form. "But when I am through with that boy, he will be God."
A bitter laugh forces it's way from Sakumo's throat and hangs scathingly in the air between them. "Sorry, but that's not going to happen."
"Oh?" Madara turns to Sakumo. "And who's going to stop it from happening?"
"I am."
Madara gets to his feet with a world-weary sigh. He makes his way slowly to the door, and stops suddenly. "There are several reasons why you will not. First, if I don't intervene, he will be dead by tomorrow night. Secondly, a confrontation between us will not end in your favor." He turns around suddenly, and a single Sharingan eye glints from the eyehole of his mask. "Thirdly, the boy has nothing to live for anyway. I should have thought that you of all people would understand what it means to live without purpose. And fourthly, if you try to stop me…" he seems to swell with the weight of the secret that he is about to impart. "I'll kill your son."
And then he is gone and Sakumo is left with only one possible choice of action.
The sun has scarcely started to rise when Madara returns.
Konan is still asleep on the end of Nagato's bed, as the Uchiha founder pushes his way through the flimsy door.
"Well, Hatake Sakumo," Madara says with his smirk visible even beneath his mask. "Have you decided to cooperate?"
"I don't have any choice." Sakumo answers in a voice made of ice. "What do you want to do with Nagato?"
"It cannot take place here," Madara replies easily. "We'll have to move him to a location that I've already prepared."
"So sure that I would cooperate, Madara?" Sakumo spits bitterly.
"I'm an old hand at manipulating Konoha shinobi," Madara returns mockingly, "They always break when their families are threatened."
Snarling under his breath, Sakumo shakes Konan awake and grabs their gear. Madara is already at the door, holding Nagato in his arms.
Without a word, Sakumo holds out his arms to take the teenager. Thankfully, Madara releases him without a fight.
They leap through the trees to some destination that Madara has planned out for them. Sakumo hopes that it isn't far. Nagato is too weak to travel a long journey.
Thankfully, they arrive within minutes.
It's a small building on a practically empty road. The gray buildings around sink down into the muddy ground with mournful demeanors. The building was perhaps once in use as a factory, or a store, but has long since been deserted.
Madara leads the way into the building. It smells of dust and rot, and worst of all, blood. Konan looks up in fright at the powerful stench, but Madara waves one hand reassuringly at her before lighting a few candles. The reason for the smell becomes clear instantly as the room is faintly lit. Six bodies lie on the ground in a heap, as if thrown carelessly by some angry child. They are tangled together and indistinguishable, but when Sakumo moves to remove them, Madara stops him with a single glance.
The floor is covered in seals. They spread outward, creeping along the floor from a circle in the middle. A circle that is just large enough to contain Nagato's limp body. Madara nods wordlessly at the circle as he passes Sakumo and the message is clear. With a growing sense of foreboding, the man gently lays the boy onto the floor in the centre of the bloody seals.
Konan sits on the outside of the seals. No one speaks. This is not the time for words. They are creating history. They are creating God.
Madara sets up the six bodies, each at different intervals on the floor, and draws more seals around them. These he draws in ink, and Sakumo is grateful. He does not want Madara's filthy blood to be used to save Nagato.
Then Madara moves the final body into position and Konan claps her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Sakumo turns to the Uchiha in shock and anger, but Madara ignores their pain. And Yahiko's corpse lies slumped on the ground, the front of his shirt dyed crimson with blood. Strange black pieces of metal pierce his young face and make him seem an eternity older.
Madara is the first to break the silence. He stands over Nagato and his hands move into a seal. "Ready?"
They both nod, although they aren't. No one could ever be ready for what happens next.
The Uchiha founder's hands flash through seals so quickly that Sakumo doubts that even a Sharingan user could read his seals.
Suddenly, Nagato's back bends into a painful arc and he screams. Sakumo has to throw his arms around Konan to hold her back, and both of their heads are bursting with the pain of watching this.
"Madara!" Sakumo calls after a moment, an eternity of watching the boy before them writhe in pain on the ground. Konan has gone limp in his arms and he holds her to his muscular chest as if she is a lifeline that he cannot afford to let go.
"Almost over," Madara answers, and with a pang of fury, Sakumo recognizes the faint amusement in his voice.
He is right. A second later, the boy has fallen lifelessly to the ground. Madara turns to the pair with a casual demeanor that makes Sakumo want to drive his tanto into the man's black heart.
"You can let her go now, Hatake," he says heartlessly. "It's over."
Sakumo slowly releases her from his iron grasp. Konan seems stunned into silence, however, and merely takes a slow step towards her fallen friend. "Nagato?" she breathes into the heavy silence.
Seconds later, he stirs. But he is not alone. Konan leaps back in shock as Yahiko rolls over on the ground. But it is not the Yahiko that they knew and loved. He turns his head to look at them with unaccustomed nervousness. His eyes, when he lifts his head, are not Yahiko's eyes. Sakumo finds himself staring into Nagato's Rinnegan eyes, set deep within the face of Yahiko.
"Konan?" he whispers, and his uncertain voice wavers in the darkness of the dimly lit room.
She moves to him as if in a dream, thin arms wrapping around him in an attempt to hold them both together. The other bodies have started to stir as well, and now seven pairs of Rinnegan eyes stare around the room. The boy in the middle moves limply, rolling slowly to his feet. The black poles stick from his back and he trembles on his emaciated legs.
Again, Madara breaks the silence. "How do you feel?" he asks, now leaning casually against a grimy wall.
One of the seven people being addressed looks over at him. It is a teenager with a strange face that seems to flow onto his shoulders without any neck. He too is studded with the same piercings that seem to be present all over the rest of the bodies. The boy is a total stranger to them all. But when he answers Madara's question, he speaks in Nagato's voice. "Strange," he answers, eyes darting around the small room. "I can see in seven different directions at the same time."
"Useful in a fight," Madara replies casually. "What do you remember?"
"Nothing since the fight with Hanzo," Nagato replies through the strange boy's mouth, "Except for darkness. It was swallowing me up for a little while. I thought I was dead," he says contemplatively, and Konan's arms tighten around Yahiko. "Then the pain came and I realized that I was still alive."
"Pain," Madara muses. He seems to make a decision after a moment, and continues talking. "Through the world's pain you were created, and so now you shall take this agony's form. And name." He adds the last part as if it only just occurred to him.
"Pain," Nagato murmurs, and all of sudden, he is gone. The lonely, worried teenager disappears in flash and in his place stands a broken, powerful man. But no longer a man. Now he is something more than mortal, something infinitely older and wiser than the boy he used to be.
"Pain," he repeats, and Sakumo realizes that this is the end of an era. Uchiha Madara nods, and from somewhere beneath the faceless mask, he is smiling.
Madara turns to lead the way from the small building, and Pain follows. First goes Yahiko's old body, one hand supporting Nagato's frail form carefully, but with a firmness that shows his true strength. Konan and Sakumo fall into step behind the line of pierced men leaving the old factory.
They follow God out of the suffocating room and into the sky's tears that no longer hold any meaning for them.
And yes, the end was coming. Not the end of our story, however. I'm sorry to say that that comes much later. I still have to tell you about Team Seven, Akatsuki, the siege, Uchiha Itachi's sacrifice, Akasuna no Sasori's revenge, the final fight, and the White Fang's last, desperate attempt to make it all up to us. I still have to tell you about the end that is coming as quickly as the rain that mourns the death of my brother Yahiko. The end of Hanzo. The end of an era of pain and death and the beginning of another, similar era.
Nagato once said that he never intended for our story to end like this. He didn't. But it was his own dreams that lead us to this moment. His intentions were honorable once, until Madara twisted them into his own warped fantasies. A wise man once said that a visionary is always thought mad until his vision becomes a reality. He was wrong. A visionary is only mad if he attempts to turn his vision into reality on his own.
Nagato should have known that he couldn't have done it alone. He didn't realize that whenever he pushed me away, he was only hurting me more then he was protecting me.
Sakumo should have realized that he wasn't the only one who cared about us. Hiruzen did, and Jiraiya, and Minato. Maybe if Sakumo hadn't been trying so hard to protect us on his own he would have actually succeeded.
Kakashi should have realized that the more you bottle up your grief, the more it would hurt when it finally overflows. Maybe if he'd left the past behind, he wouldn't have hated it quite so much when it finally came back to confront him.
And me? What were my mistakes? I ask them sometimes what my biggest mistake was. The answer is always the same. Nagato says that it was loving him. Kakashi replies that it was trying to hold us together without realizing that I was falling apart as well. Sakumo never knows, and his answer is always the most painful to hear.
But I can't talk anymore. Kakashi is calling for me to hurry. I tell him the same answer that I've replied to the past several summons. I say that I'll be out in a minute and I love them. He gives me that same surprised look every time and ducks back out the door.
But wait, Nagato is reading over my shoulder. He's just made a very sudden remark.
"Maybe you should tell them why we're telling this story."
So here is my answer. We are telling you this because you deserve the truth. By now, there has been too much pain and bloodshed, and too many untold stories. Too many broken hearts when they learn the truth. I hope with every inch of the twisted heart that is all of I have left that yours will not be one of the broken hearts.
And now I hand the telling of the story to Nagato. Kakashi and I have already told part of our story, and will take over again somewhere later on. But one last note.
I want to dedicate my part of this story to a man who did not deserve the deck that he was dealt. He was a loving man, who only made the wrong decisions. And had he been anyone else, he could have been one of us.
Akasuna no Sasori. This is for you.
A/N: Hey! Sorry for the utterly depressing ending to the story. I tend to get really emotional when writing about tragic characters, and no, I'm not emo! As mentioned above, Sasori will play an important part in this story. Not just because he's a member of Akatsuki, and I love him, however. Just in case you've forgotten, I'd like to make a point.
POINT THAT NEEDS TO BE MADE: HATAKE SAKUMO KILLED SASORI'S PARENTS DURING THE WAR. REMEMBER? THAT'S WHY CHIYO TRIED TO KICK KAKASHI'S ASS DURING SHIPPUUDEN!! (CUZ SHE THOUGHT HE WAS HIS DAD!)
Anyway, please review!