The Great Exchange
Chapter Ten: Monsters of the Id
Everything was fine now. None of this, my switch or capture, none of it had really happened. I was still me, still in my own body, and awakening from the strangest dream I'd had in some time.
I stayed still under my covers, the will to leave my toasty nest of blankets all but nonexistent. Though I knew from habit my alarm would go off in a minute or so and I'd yawn, stretching, and reluctantly fling back my sheets before forcing myself up. Then I'd shower and get dressed and have breakfast and brush my teeth…Then head off to go find Naruto and Sai and Yamato-taichou and go do whatever the day's mission happened to be…
"…Wakey wakey…" a voice whispered as a set of fingers stroked my cheek. "Time to get up, Sasuke-kun…"
My eyes snapped open, and my sleepy illusion shattered. Her face loomed over me, giving me that hungry-looking grin as my vision darted back and forth, trying to figure out where I was.
It all came crashing back. I exhaled a shaky breath, my heart still pounding as I realized I was still unable to move, and helplessly under Karin's control. Only, they'd moved me from my cell after I'd stupidly allowed myself to be knocked out again. Wherever I was had a high, circular ceiling overhead, partially blocked from my view by that uneven mass of red hair.
"Feeling better, Sasuke-kun?" she asked sickeningly sweetly. "You should know better than to bang yourself up like that. You're lucky Orochimaru-sama had you fixed up."
As she spoke, she lifted one of my arms by the wrist so that I could see it clearly. No evidence remained of the damage I'd done to my hands, as the pale skin was perfectly smooth and unblemished once more.
"Now be a good boy and lie still," she told me, placing my hand back at my side. "We had to wait for you to wake up so you can be evicted, but I asked for this nice little bed for you…Do you like it?"
Her hands reached under and lifted my head so I could see, and I blinked in surprise to find myself covered with the soft, fluffy blankets I'd mistaken for my own. For this, at least, I was grateful, as I was still only wearing the pants I'd been washing my clothes in back at the river when she…
My train of thought trailed off as my eyes remained glued to my chest. Peeking out from under the edge of one of the sheets, I clearly saw the edge of a chakra-infused paper seal affixed to my sternum. So that was how I was being kept still. They didn't want me full of sedatives when I was…evicted.
That thought set my stomach churning as Karin's hands gently lowered my head back onto my pillow. Under the disgust and shock and everything else, I was panicking. I thought I'd have been able to escape, but that hadn't worked. None of the team had the faintest idea where I was, cutting off all hope of rescue. And Karin? No offer I could make her would outweigh Orochimaru's promise of my body as a plaything.
I closed my eyes, hoping she hadn't caught the beginning of tears forming in them. This time, I was really sunk. And Naruto was still waiting back home for me, keeping Sasuke-kun taken care of in my own body. He'd be waiting forever…Or at least until Orochimaru in Sasuke-kun's body invaded again. Due to my own incompetence of course, I thought while biting my bottom lip to hold back a despairing whimper.
"Do not fret, Sasuke-kun."
The new, chilling voice had my eyes open again, wide and unblinking as its source entered my field of vision. I shivered unconsciously at the sight of that cold, dead-looking white skin, looking like something that should have died and been left in its coffin rather than brought back to life. All traces of his host body were gone now, and I knew this was a hundred percent of him I was dealing with.
"Orochimaru-sama," Karin acknowledged with a bow, stepping back so he could stand over me in her place, gazing at me with those yellow eyes.
"You were lucky," he told me slowly. "Last time I was unprepared…I so would have liked you in a poetic way, and my chance has come. Karin," he said, and as if signaled, she drew back the sheets covering me until I lay exposed to the chilly chamber air. A plague of goosebumps immediately erupted on my bared skin, but this went unnoticed.
"It won't hurt," he murmured smugly, leaning down to my face and placing a clammy hand under my chin. "Now just relax…"
My body disobeyed my commands to struggle, fight, anything as those white fingers tilted my face upwards. My eyes were clamped shut, but a pinch to a sensitive spot on my throat had them open again as I gasped in pain. This allowed me to see Karin hand him a syringe, the oily liquid inside sloshing as it was readied…
The tip pressed itself into my neck, almost exactly where I knew Sasuke-kun's curse mark had been.
"If you're curious," that creepy voice purred, enjoying my nausea, "It's another compound…another version of my last gift to you. Only this time, it requires no release state to achieve maximum…perfection."
My gaze became trapped in those slitted, yellow eyes as his freakish tongue flicked out before he spoke again.
"I was planning on using it after I'd made use of you last time, but…you were pushy, Sasuke-kun. Now, I've found it helps sedate my possessions whilst I expel them…"
The fact that he referred to Sasuke-kun's body as "his possession" infuriated me, but I could only lie there, wincing as the needle tip pierced further into my clavicle muscles.
"Oh, and…" His tone was triumphant. "There is no cure. Enjoy your present, Sasuke-kun."
My eyes went wide as his thumb drove the syringe base down, and the oily stuff inside flooded the needle. I clenched my eyes shut, bracing against the pain I knew would come from having watched Sasuke-kun battle his own mark's agonizing side-effects…
But all I felt was a deep, natural-feeling drowsiness come over me, clouding my panicked thoughts and slowing my racing heart to a gentle, rhythmic thumping. My eyelids struggled to open themselves, and my vision filled with eyes. Yellow, reptilian, serpentine eyes. These held my gaze until I hazily felt myself falling…falling without hope of safety, surrounded by white faces and purple tongues…
My eyes rolled back in my head, and I was out.
"Teme!" Naruto panted, racing after his sprinting teammate, "Which way?"
The Uchiha nodded left, ignoring Suigetsu and Juugo's looks of confusion at the offensive nickname. All four of them ran, the multiple feet sending billowing clouds of dust flying behind them as they rounded another corner.
"You sure this Kabuto guy brought him back to life?" Suigetsu directed at Naruto, his oversized sword swishing from its place on his back. "Last I heard, the guy tried taking over, but Sasuke reversed it and got his powers. How'd all this happen?"
"Dunno, dattebayo!" the blond admitted, his breaths strained as the leading Uchiha had them dashing down another deserted hallway. "But we have to stop him!"
"There!" Sasuke indicated a single doorway at the end of a final hall. The group skidded to a stop behind him, panting and glancing about expectantly as he squinted at the walls.
"Traps," he muttered, turning to the rest of them. "They're all over."
"I'm on it, dattebayo!" Naruto announced, summoning a posse of clones with a few quick hand motions. These then charged blindly into the hall before them, and one by one vanished in smoke as weapons flew, trapdoors opened, and the protective mechanisms did their duty.
Suigetsu and Juugo's gazes turned to Sasuke, whose eyes kept track of where each lethal object had sprung from. The two watched as he produced a handful of knives and flung them with deadly accuracy. The blades pierced the source of the machines, breaking some and jamming the paths of others as they tried to release their weapons and poison gas. Naruto did the same, only he threw marked wads of colored goop at the floor, marking which spots would trigger the trapdoors if stepped on.
The whole operation was over before the two could even think to gasp at the Leaf nins' efficiency.
"Whoa," Suigetsu breathed, still dazed at the twos' performance. "Nice…"
"Come on, dattebayo!" Naruto called, as he and Sasuke were already halfway to the door, striding right past the disabled death traps. The other two glanced at each other once, before hurrying after them.
I was scared. I knew I couldn't possibly be dreaming, but my surroundings proposed no other explanation. I stood alone, Sakura dressed as Sasuke once again, on a flat, featureless plane that stretched off into a horizon meeting with the blackened sky. The ground under my feet was eerily squishy, reminiscent of walking on a floor of solid, living flesh. I was lost, I was alone, and fighting to keep the frozen terror of a nightmare from overtaking me.
"What is this…?"
I flinched, and turned back and forth, trying to find the source of that serpentine whisper in the featureless void that surrounded me.
"What trick of yours could this be, Sasuke-kun? Taking another form will not save you…"
I bit back a terrified gasp as the floor in front of me rose up, forming a human-sized lump of breathing matter. The face of the snake-Sannin appeared from within it, those yellow eyes now examining me with interested confusion.
"…I see…" he said, and I gulped. "You are not Sasuke-kun at all, are you? How convenient. I expected difficulty, but there will be none now. Though I am curious as to how this all happened…"
"I…I…" I could barely speak as my feet took tentative steps backward. This only lasted so long, as my feet suddenly stuck fiercely and refused to be moved. I wish I hadn't looked down, as the sight of the fleshy floor engulfing my sandal-clad feet prompted a terrified shriek on my part as I attempted to free myself.
"No!" I cried, fighting the living tissue that crawled up my legs and waist. "Stop! Ahhh!"
"So weak…" I heard that voice mutter over my own screams. "Sasuke-kun could overcome it easily…"
I couldn't stop it. I knew this was my assimilation, my last chance of escaping gone. I felt hot tears pour from my eyes as I choked on another scream, losing my arms and shoulders to the cocoon of flesh that slowly encased me. But now I knew it was him, this whole place was his mind, and I only a helpless trespasser, doomed to be absorbed.
"No!" I almost pleaded, my field of vision shrinking as rubbery tendrils snaked over my head and face. "Sasuke-kun…I'm sor-!"
A glob of the wall around me clamped over my mouth, cutting off my last words. The case around my head continued to grow, until only a tiny chink of light remained for me to see out of.
Through that same gap, I saw those same dead, yellow eyes with crinkled edges, as if grinning in amusement.
"Thank you for this," his voice hissed smugly, and withdrew from my line of sight.
A final tendril of my cocoon snaked across the chink, and darkness enveloped me.
A blast from outside on behalf of the rescuers, and the door crumbled right off its feeble hinges. The circular room echoed noisily as the four entered, confident of the absence of more traps. All of them halted then, taking in the interrupted scene before them.
Sasuke stood, seething with silent anger as he glared at that Karin girl. He should've known better than to recruit her, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now he only wished her dead, seeing her gaping at them while kneeling beside a pedestal-shaped stone table, on which rested…
His mind did a double-take to see black hair and pale skin, before remembering this was himself they were rescuing, not pink-haired and green-eyed Sakura. Though, even if he wasn't used to looking at his own body as another person, even he could tell the shivering, sweating, and ashen tone of his body's skin wasn't normal.
"Sakura-chan!" Naruto impulsively cried out, starting to break into an immediate sprint before Sasuke's hand grabbed his arm.
"Naruto!" he cautioned, motioning to the floor beside the stone slab. Naruto's eyes followed his, and flinched as Suigetsu breathed, "Whoa…"
For the second time, Sasuke looked upon the motionless body of the Sannin. The first time, it had been by his own hand, and the severed pieces of a giant white snake had lain, bleeding on the floor. Now, there was no blood. Only the sinking realization that the girl in his place was experiencing the same nightmarish mind-games scenario he'd gone through all that time ago.
As if triggered by his thoughts, his rightful form stirred from its resting place on the stone table. Breaths were held as the group watched the body of Uchiha Sasuke twitch, then slowly sit up as the blanket covering it fell in a heap at its waist. As it was facing away from them, they could only watch from behind as it lifted its pale hands, seeming to examine them before a soft, hoarse voice mumbled, "…Karin…?"
"Y-yes?" the girl answered, her fidgeting giving away that she wasn't sure which name to use.
Sasuke froze, petrified as his own body turned to face him. Its blank expression was familiar, as he'd practiced it many times in the mirror as a child. But now, his gaze remained fixed to the eyes that once belonged to him. They weren't black…but they weren't the snakelike gold he'd dreaded either. His face's eyes stared vacantly ahead, seeming as if glazed over so that the onyx turned to slate-gray.
"No need to panic…" his own voice whispered calmly. "I'll take care of the…intruders."
"NO!" Naruto screamed impulsively as those paled eyes began to shift. "Sakura-chan!"
All they could see were gray eyes changing to blood-red, before the face of Uchiha Sasuke grinned eerily, and Sasuke heard as if only inches from his ear, "Thank you for my new vessel…Sasuke-kun."
Those eyes seemed to swallow everything, until Sasuke could only see red, streaked with black. From his own horrific experiences, he knew this place well as an endless nightmare landscape slowly came into focus around him. His own special illusion was being used against him.
This was the world of Tsukuyomi.
-
Oh deary dear. :D Notice the totally canon Sasu-kun's-body-remaining-shirtless-throughout-mind-fight-with-Oro. Don't tell me you bishy-lovers didn't enjoy that scene in the manga :3
Anyways! Sorry for the long wait between updates, as I had conventions to attend and other things besides...AND! I'm redoing Sea Story, so those of you who read the first one, go read the newie nao!
And if you reviewed it, that'd make me euphorically happy...