Disclaimer: I do not now nor have ever owned anything that is even remotely related to Naruto, except form my Gaara pillow, so all rights belong to Kishimoto-sensei. I do own my Oto no Youkai and her miserable existence.
Chapter 10
He bashed his head a few more times against the stone wall he rested against to chastise himself for his stupidity. Had he really thought that the Snake would just let him leave the Village once he was no longer being controlled? Idiot! More of a baka than Naruto ever was!
It no longer hurt quite so much to think of his once best friend. Oh, it still caused him discomfort, especially when he thought of how they had parted. He had tried to kill him, and for something as stupid as trying to save him! He had tried to kill the first person to ever see him as himself and not as something he was not.
Naruto hadn't seen the Uchiha name or eyes. Hadn't seen the foolish little brother, or the pathetic son. He had seen Sasuke. Only one other had ever seen Sasuke and not something else, but she had died, killed by a son that had been pushed too far too young. Killed by the maniac that the Uchihas had created.
He could admit it now to himself. His clan had been very foolish in how they treated their children; training them to always be the best, the top shinobi. Very few in his clan had ever lasted through life and remained mentally stable. The only one that he could recall being anywhere near a picture of mental health from his younger years would have been his second cousin. Uchiha Obito, who had died at the age of 13 on a mission near the Village Hidden in the Stone. The only comfort was in the fact that at least his clan hadn't separated the family into a main and branch house as cruelly as the Hyuugas; how could they live knowing that half of their blood relatives were regarded as slaves?
Didn't mean they were much better, just meant that they didn't separate the family as a result of when they or their parents were born in regards to firstborn or whatever. No, his clan separated them on a basis of whether they had activated the sharingan and then classified them even further on what skill level they were at. This wouldn't have been quite so bad, the system had actually been a lot more fair when it had first been enacted. It helped to assign each family member to what they could and couldn't handle in regards to protecting Konohagakure as a part of the Village's Military Police Force.
Things didn't stay that way though. As with all things over time, the system became corrupted and filled with those that only sought out power for their own means instead of for protecting those weaker than themselves. There were still those who didn't try to gain just for the sake of it, but even those individuals weren't mentally stable by any definition of the word either. Each child born was pressed into becoming the best the fastest they were able to. Not to say that each parent was doing so for harmful purposes. Many believed that it was the best thing for their child. To help them survive in the world that their clan had created for daily life.
Not to say that the clan would kill off the weak, but they could be very cruel. Most of the Clan Council had lost sight of just what it was they were supposed to be doing. His own father had been among them, though he hadn't been able to see it at the time. He was a child after all, and his mother had tried her hardest to shelter him as much as possible. It didn't stop him from seeing certain things happening in his family, but he had been young and hadn't fully understood just what he had seen at the time. That, and after the Massacre, he had suppressed all but the best of his memories deep into his own mind.
The cursed Heaven seal hadn't helped matters either, nor had the constant pressure to restore the honor of his clan's name. He hadn't been able to think clearly for most of his life, nobody had ever tried to counsel him after the deaths of his family, he wasn't ever sure just why. The Hokage would have done something, he was sure of that, but the man had been old and worn from life. He had tried, Sasuke remembered that much, but the old man had a whole Village to watch over, he hadn't had the time to take special care of one child.
Sasuke snorted to himself. The man should have never had to take upon himself the role of Hokage actively again, but things in life never went as we would have them go. It wasn't the old man's fault that his successor had died so young or that those who could have succeeded him were never in contact enough to take up the mantle anew. He hadn't known the reasons then and he wasn't so sure what the reasons for their seeming abandonment of Konoha was now. His mentor hadn't seen fit to inform him of just why his old teammates had left Konoha before he was born. Not that he had wanted to know before now.
His thoughts wandered further, moving away from Konoha's politics for a moment and onto a more painful route.
His brother.
He hadn't thought of his brother in such a long time. Well, he had thought of the murder that he had become, but he hadn't thought of the boy that his brother had been before the Massacre. His brother wasn't the killer that had destroyed their clan. No, his brother was one of the casualties. He died that night as much as their parents. He had been an innocent, an innocent that had died inside just as surely as any of the others of their clan that had gained their sharingan so early in life.
Too much power too young was a dangerous thing. It could kill everyone around the holder as much as the holder themselves.
He knew that as much as anyone else.
Look what had happened to him.
He had lost himself to the tainted power of the cursed seal that Orochimaru had placed upon him. He had tried to kill his best friend, the person that had become like the little brother he used to be.
He had become something to be detested.
Sasuke closed his eyes and wrapped his head sharply against the stone wall behind him several more times. Now was not the time to be feeling pity for himself. He glanced at the locked door of his room once more. Now was the time to be figuring out a way out of this snake-infested place.
He had tried to leave earlier, but that had only landed him locked in his room with chakra suppression seals firmly secured to his limbs. He had half expected them to throw him in a dungeon cell or something, but then he had remembered that he was to be the new body of the Snake, couldn't have him be injured. He was fed regularly and sedated and force-fed through an IV if he didn't feed himself properly. He didn't read to pass the time anymore. The books had been taken from him the first time he had tried to starve himself.
There were no windows. The only way in or out of the room was through the door in front of him. The door that only opened when Kabuto, and the Oto ANBU that always accompanied the medi-nin, would enter for Sasuke's weekly check-up. The food was slid under the door on a sheet of paper inscribed with a seal on it. The food would appear from the sealed paper and then become useless, only to burst into flame as soon as he had consumed the food.
Speaking of which, his dinner had just arrived.
Fantastic.
----------Scene Change----------
She glanced up momentarily towards the entrance of the compound before looking back down at the ground. The Snake was returning from that meeting that he had to go to earlier. He had taken the silver-haired medi-nin with him. They were to meet with one of his old Akatsuki brethren.
The puppet master.
She had met him briefly once, when she was younger. He had been fascinated by her healing abilities. He had asked Orochimaru if the snake had any others besides herself, and if he was willing to part with them. Orochimaru had apologized in his sneering way that contradicted any sincerity that might have been in his tone and told the red-haired puppet master that she was one of a kind. Afterwards, he had allowed his one time partner to practice a few of his techniques on her as way of making it up to him, and as a way to see just how durable she was.
She had been 5 years old at the time.
At the time, she still had a small connection to her emotions and had felt the loathing she had for the man that had been instrumental in her creation deepened to its most dark. That had been the last emotion that she had ever felt.
She had felt no anger towards the man causing the pain and anguish in her small form for she could see that he gained no pleasure from it. It was merely a study to see if she could survive. If there was any that she ever felt something akin to respect, it would have been the red-haired puppet, Sasori. He had trained most of what she was in the taijutsu department. He had been the one to teach her how to mend her clothing with her own hair. He had not cared in the slightest for her personally, but he had seen a puppet, albeit one that breathed, and had thought that she should at least be in the best condition.
As any work of art should, he had often told her. Art was eternal and should be treated with respect.
She had taken her queue from him from then on. She emulated what he was and grafted his personality into her own. Her clothing was made of the finest silk, and it covered every part of her skin as it possibly could. She was art, and she would behave as full of life as any silent work.
She wondered who had become the emotionally dead man's new partner when Orochimaru has left the organization. The thought did not stay active in her mind for long. It didn't matter, nothing really did. Life would roll onward no matter what had happened to the puppet. She had rarely seen him as a human even before he had destroyed most of his flesh in his pursuit of perfection; he had always seemed more like the puppets he controlled than anything else.
He had been the only one to ever cause her injury that had last more than a few short moments. The only one to ever defeat her in a battle.
She wondered if there was any way for her to get away from her current location as a guard for the compound the Uchiha resided within.
Her thoughts were brought back to into focus as she noted the pale youth following her 'master'. She sprung into action, appearing behind the dark-haired young man while pressing a kunai firmly to his throat at the pulse point. He froze and she could smell the ink coming from him. He was an artist…
Like Sasori-danna.
This information meant nothing to her. She merely catalogued it away in her mind.
The Snake smiled, if you could call it that, "Ah, I see you've met our new guest." He gestured towards the silent youth she held at blade-point, "This is Sai, he will be joining us."
His gaze flickered towards an Oto Shinobi a few meters away who was drilling a few of chunin. Said man jumped to attention and rattled off a few orders towards those in his command to take over her shift. Once that was done, the gold eyes returned towards looking into the deadened eyes of his creation. He smirked before indicating that she should release the Konoha-nin.
"Join us, would you, my pet?"
She slipped the kunai back into her holster and trailed behind the three men soundlessly. Every once and a while, the artist's eyes would flick in her direction so quickly that the only one to notice was the young woman under scrutiny.
She recognized him for what he was from the glitter in his eyes and the falsity of his smile.
He was like her, only his art was transferred off of himself and onto another medium.
He was slightly different though, his eyes reminded her of how the Uchiha' s had been before the cursed seal had dissolved, only more empty, more like hers.
Though not as dead.
A/N: Well here it is, the next update thingy...I was worried about how to write the part where my story meets up with canon again, but when I sat down it just kinda..flowed...then I couldn't go to bed until I finished it...which kinda sucked cause it was already really late...but it was worth it...