January 8
-------------------------------------
Note: Again, dear reader, if you would like to intensify the reading of this particular chapter of "Even When he Smiles" with a nice playlist of songs, please head to the end of this chapter before beginning. If you don't care either way, go straight ahead and read to your heart's content!
----------------------------------------
"It is a time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death."
- Mark Twain
-------------------
Kyuubi was, for as much as a demon could be, worried. Demons, especially ancient ones, don't worry in quite the same way humans do. They didn't bite their fingernails, they didn't count tiles on the floors or ceilings, they didn't pace back and forth in an irritated huff. Though, if the fox didhave a habit for pacing the floor when concerned about something, he wouldn't have had the energy for it at the moment anyways.
Keeping that cloud, that indescribable amount of power, from touching Naruto's mind had taken more out of him then even Kyuubi himself could guess.
The fox looked through the spot in the floor that was, for the time being, acting as a porthole of sorts to show him what was going on farther beneath himself. He saw Konoha's population as a whole walking downward, ever so slowly, to the next part of Naruto's memories. They'd made it through the part of the boy's mind that called itself Happiness, though that act in itself wasn't much of a feat. Watching them try to mange their way through the next three beings...now that was what Kyuubi couldn't wait to see.
Despair, and then Rage, and then The Dark. He knew the boy had let himself fall even farther than those three, had been buried so deep inside of himself that even the most poignant of memories could not reach him. Whether Naruto had intended for such a thing to happen, Kyuubi wasn't sure if he would ever know.
-Kid...-Kyuubi let the word quietly drop through the boy's mindscape like a small stone, hoping vainly that it might reach him through the depths he was buried in.
When he didn't receive a response, Kyuubi's concern grew even more. He'd tried so many times already to reach his container's mind. Why wouldn't he answer?
Even when Naruto had sunk himself into that numb sea, he'd still answered every now and then, at times almost surfacing for a moment or two. But this, this silence, seemed so much thicker, so much more decidedly permanent then what Kyuubi had felt from the boy before. He laid down, the small effort of trying to reach Naruto in his own mind exhausting him further. Whatever happened now, it seemed, even if the villagers did make it through the remaining parts of Naruto's memories, they may not be able to leave.
If Kyuubi, who had been sealed into the youngster's very body and was connected to his very mind, could not reach where Naruto had buried himself, then who could?
---------------
Lots of things can make you sad
Trust me, I know
But have you ever felt so horrid
So depressed and disturbed
That all you want to do is tear yourself apart?
Well, have you?
-----------------------------------------------
Sasuke was rather nervous. On the outside, no normal person would be able to know this though. In fact, when compared to everyone else, Sasuke seemed down right apathetic. He wore an air of indifference that almost no one else in the village could even begin to imagine mustering. For all anyone could tell he seemed no more interested in the fact that they were, as crazy as it sounded, literally walking downward into someone's memories, then he would be about day old bread. That's what anyone who caught a glimpse of his face thought. The fact remained though, no matter how well he was managing to hide it, that Sasuke was nervous.
It was safe to say that the visit with the thing that had called itself Happiness had been...unnerving.
That thing had not been the most conventional definitions of what you would consider being happy. What made it all the worse was that for a time, a very brief moment, he had honestly thought that that was what it meant to be happy, that it was all he'd known. What was the worst, though, for Sasuke, you ask? It was that some part of him, some subconscious piece of his mind, knew that for that split second in time, he'd been near literally walking in Naruto's shoes.
Which, more or less, clearly told him that Naruto thought all those things normal. It made him nervous, to think that someone actually thought those sort of things were what it meant to be happy.
Now, Sasuke wasn't the happiest of kids, least not in recent years. But he did know what really being happy felt like. When his family had been alive, he'd known it very well. And what he had seen, what Naruto considered happiness, was definitely not what a run of the mill thirteen year old would consider 'happy'.
And so, the whole experience had put Sasuke on a very sharp edge. Was he going to let on that what he'd already seen bothered him? No.
Was he going to let on that the fact that they were about to witness something even worse made him scared? No.
Why, you ask, would he do such a thing?
Sasuke reasoned it was because he didn't really have the right to start panicking. Not yet anyways. He'd already seen the other villagers' faces, especially the civilians. He had seen that most of them were already down right terrified enough by what they'd seen. If they saw their elite force, the shinobi of their village, the ones that were supposed to be strong and brave and protect them, fall apart, what would that do to them?
He wasn't projecting an air of apathy because he prided himself in being some sort of stoic, unemotional prodigy. He knew he had an obligation, no matter how small, to those who weren't shinobi, to remain calm; to give them a sense that everything was under control. A false sense, true, but a sense none the less.
"I think we've reached the end!" A voice further up near the front of the mass line called.
As Sasuke passed under the large, cave like mouth that acted as the exit for the stairwell, he could instantly tell he did not like the place it led to. While the air that had been on Happiness' level had been a mixture of mostly pleasant smells, this was completely different.
It was an oxymoron. It was a smell that was both subtle and intense, like something that bugs you for a few good many minutes when you first walk into a room but quickly becomes almost unnoticeable. It was a fragrance unlike Sasuke could ever have envisioned without prompt. It was the smell of infection, meaty and disturbingly warm. It was the smell of something cold, frozen to the point of giving off a smell of the oddest decay. It was the smell of someone sitting still for so long that festering sores had begun growing on their body. It was any awful smell Sasuke could bring to mind, mixed into one horrible perfume.
Sasuke, just like everyone else, covered his nose instinctively. Hand on nose, he looked around their new environment. The floor was a sickly mix of musty, molded, decaying orange shag carpet and swamp like muck. The light of the room was dim, as if lit by a stormy day. Sasuke could not see where the room ended, no matter how hard he looked onward. The land just seemed to stretch onward forever in a never ending grayness.
"What's this emotion?" Sasuke wondered out loud.
"...Despair, Self-hatred...Pain...we have many names we can take..." Sasuke started at the slow response, others looking around wildly with him for it's source. The voice sounded so weak, so pitifully sad and damaged, Sasuke almost wished it would stop talking all together. It echoed all around them, making it impossible to pinpoint.
"...we're up here..." all at once, hundreds of nervous and scared faces looked upward. Most of the owners of these faces wished they hadn't.
On the room's barely there ceiling hung several large cages of sorts. The bars were a deep black, all touched with hints of rust and oxidation. It wasn't the cages themselves that frightened people, it was what was in them.
Four Narutos sat in those cages, all in some form of disembowelment, limb amputation, scalped heads, and all other sorts of awful mutilations. All bare butt naked, their graying and horribly scarred skin was drawn painfully over their bones. Hips protruded too far, ribs were seen too clearly, clavicles jutted out too sharply. Many looked away. Sasuke continued to stare. He could see, if he looked closely, that the bodies were not only missing a variety of limbs and appendages, most also had their eyes and lips sewn shut. Most.
One stood out from the others.
From what Sasuke could see, his body was mostly whole, only a finger or two missing as his hands clutched at the bars, and only one of his eyes sewn shut, the other he kept closed willingly. His skin was also the least of them all scarred, and his head still maintained some patches of dull, greasy yellow hair. The rest, it looked like from the scabs and scars, had been forcefully yanked out over time.
"...why are you all here...?" this particular Naruto asked in a slow drawl, reaching blindly through the bars of his cage to unlock its door with the key that was already there.
As the door unlocked, the pale figure fell, clumsily falling face forward to the floor. Sasuke made to catch him, but stopped as the boy somehow caught himself mid air a few feet from the ground. He touched down and stood awkwardly, wrapping his arms around his torso as he turned to face the crowd. Sasuke took a sharp intake of breath when he was faced full on with the other boy's appearance. He could have dealt with everything he'd already seen, the atrophy and other awful acts that scarred the bodies, easily, had this Naruto not been so obviously castrated. Not neatly. Not with surgical precision. But savagely. Violently.
Where there should have been an organ now only hung the tattered vestiges of tissue and skin. Still terribly red and raw. Sasuke looked away quickly, the mere thought of the pain that sort of thing would have caused sending a shiver down his spine.
"We need to find Naruto. The real one." Sasuke noted it was the Hokage who said this, her voice a steady force to be reckoned with. How she had managed that calm, cool tone despite the appalling image in front of her, Sasuke would never know.
"...oh. We are not he, we are the one called Despair..." Despair said, shuffling his feet solemnly.
The crowd waited a beat, some wondering if this emotion, this being, was somehow just slow in the head. He took so long to speak, and his voice was so quiet and subdued, some truly wondered if he wasn't missing a screw or two for his head.
"Could you show us which way we go to get to him?" Sasuke turned to the speaker in the crowd, recognizing the face and shaggy hair as belonging to the boy Naruto had made friends with in the rehab center. What was that other boy's name again? Aishii? No, that wasn't right. Sasuke didn't have time to try and further remember the boy's name when Despair began to speak again.
"...deep in these wastelands, you must find the way out. Follow the path, do not stray. We can not guarantee a somewhat safe passage if you stray..." Despair pointed to a semi-viewable path in the nastiness that was the excuse for a floor.
"Aren't you going to lead the way, like the last one did?" an older gentleman asked.
Despair ducked his head down into his chest, voice quieting further as he did so.
"...we are leading you. We are the path. Stick to it and you'll make it out..."
"How can you make an accurate path if you can't even see your own two feet?!" The man spoke again, the stress of the situation getting to him as he unintentionally let his irritation leak into his voice.
"...real eyes are no good against what we are made of. Real eyes can only see more pain. Close them up and you begin to forget what was hurting to begin with. Spill us out and we eventually start to disappear, bit by bit. The real one you spoke of, he has to do that. He has to spill us out, piece by piece. He has to bleed us out, damage us until we aren't anything anymore..." Despair shuffled his feet again, rubbing his hands together nervously.
Sasuke turned his attention away from Despair to look back up at the cages above him. While most of the people around him wore a somewhat befuddled expression, to Sasuke, the words weren't very cryptic.
Bleed out the pain, huh? Was that truly the only way his teammate had knew how to deal with things when they turned sour?
Quite suddenly, something very peculiar happened. Sasuke found that he was no longer looking at the ceiling, but, rather, was staring at his left arm, a dulled bald pressed painfully against it by his right hand. There was so much swimming in his mind, so much he didn't want to try and think about. Like how no one ever seemed to give him any notice, even when he was asking for help. About how when he'd tried to explain to the ANBU that was supposed to have been sent to help him (after he'd told the Hokage how people kept breaking into his home), what would happen she interrupted him; saying how he must have done something awful for people to want to do such a thing to him. How he told her he'd never done anything too horribly bad. That he didn't know why people did awful things to him sometimes. Like how she said if that must be true, then he was lying about the thieves to get attention. About how he never complained to the Hokage about the break ins again after that.
He didn't want to think about these things, they made his head ache and his heart hurt. He'd already tried everything he would normally do if he was having a bad day. He'd tried to draw a picture, only to angrily, almost hatefully, scratch out whatever he managed to draw after finishing it. He'd tried sitting on the top of the Hokage monument, hoping it would let him cool his jets. It only managed to make him angrier, watching all the people below live out happy, normal lives while he was feeling so awful.
He'd tried to fantasize about how people would react if he were to kill himself. Imaging people feel regret and self-hatred for not treating him better, for never getting to know him, would have normally made him feel the slightest bit better. But now it just made him feel horribly rotten because, deep down, he knew that in reality, there would be so few people who would even realize he had died.
The feelings had built up for days, festering and coiling themselves painfully inside of his chest, getting worse as nothing he did alleviated the pains in any way. By the third day, he was becoming desperate for anything, any way at all, to lessen his dark mood. He tore at his home, angry for reasons he himself could not say. He threw open his drawers, wrenched out his belongings, dashed them against walls and doors and any hard surface that may lay before him. He moved into the kitchen, pulling open the drawers there as well, throwing the grubby and sparse silverware hard enough that some of them stuck in the wall where he threw them. He flinched when, in his haste, he had grabbed a knife's blade rather then its handle and paused. For a moment there, for a second, his thoughts had sharpened. The dark fog of his thoughts had cleared the smallest bit, a small warm shiver had crawled down his neck. He looked down at his hand, somewhat stupefied by the insignificant droplets of blood that welled up along the almost invisible cut the knife had made.
That...that was what had helped? More pain?
He smiled without humor. How ironic. The only thing that had helped subdue the painful thoughts and emotions in his head was more pain itself. He, much more calm now that he had figured out some way to properly self-medicate himself, took the dulled blade and put it to his left forearm. His hand shook slightly and for short time, he experienced what one might describe as a dark holiness. He suddenly felt what he had not in for almost as long as he could remember; power. He was very aware of the fact that he called the shots right now. He could tear his flesh open as much or as little as he wanted. He could choose. He was suddenly a god of destruction, and he loved it.
Quickly, so as not to lose his nerve, he quickly pulled the knife across his lower forearm, hissing as liquid heat suddenly flooded down his spine. The knife clattered to the floor, forgotten. He stared at his arm, almost mesmerized. The cut was rather pathetic, actually, nothing more then a thin red line with tiny bubbles of ruby rising up from it. He'd seen his fair share of blood and cuts, honestly he had. It was the fact that he had done this, had made it happen with his own hands, that made it worth mentioning.
-...kid...- A gruff voice echoed in his mind.
"Let it heal own it's own, please. I'll be fine, if you just give me this."
The voice sunk away, a disapproving growl its only reply.
He found himself walking to the bathroom, steps heavy and lethargic. He felt so much better already though, as odd as it might have sounded. He dug underneath his sink, pulling out antiseptic and gauze, things he hardly ever had a use for. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and did a double take. Something wasn't...right. He stared harder at his reflection, trying with all his might to pinpoint what it was that just didn't sit right with him.
And as he continued to look, Sasuke slowly began to realize, to remember things. His eyes were black, not bright blue. His hair wasn't a glaring yellow color, it was as dark as onyx. He'd never had whisker marks on his cheeks, and he couldn't remember his skin ever being this tan, even during the summer time. Slowly, the somewhat horrifying realization hit Sasuke that the reflection in the mirror didn't belong to him because it wasn't his to begin with. It was Naruto's.
Sasuke found himself back in the awful smelling room, the hundreds of people around him reflecting his same emotions. Panic, fear, pain; but above all, confusion. He found that he had broken out in a cold sweat, his shirt now clinging to him in a most uncomfortable way.
"...already, you are beginning to see what we have to do in order to survive..."
Sasuke's attention turned back to Despair, sweat pooling on the back of his neck.
Not again. It had happened again, without him realizing it. He'd been emerged into Naruto's memories, had thought they were his own, yet again. He looked about the people around him, not surprised by some of the reactions he saw. Many of the children had started to cry, hugging themselves close to parents, loved ones, or anyone with a comforting embrace. Some of the women looked like they were about to be sick. Many of the men looked grave, cold sweat making their upper lips glisten in an unhealthy manner.
As quick as lightening, no one was confused anymore by the emaciated boy's words. Everyone knew what Despair had meant about Naruto having to destroy his pain by hand.
"...hurry along now. You'll never get out of here if you just stand still..." Despair said, pointing a too small finger feebly to the path.
There was a long pause before anyone began to move. When they did, most of their steps were wobbly and uncoordinated. When Sasuke made to move, he found his footing not quite as sturdy as he'd thought it was. He stumbled and would have fallen, had it not been for the hand that grabbed the back of his shirt and righted him. After managing to find his proper footing once more, Sasuke turned slightly, only to find Miyuki behind him. Her hand was still holding tightly onto his shirt.
"Are you OK?" She asked.
Sasuke wasn't sure he could trust his voice just yet, so his only response was to nod. Miyuki let go of his shirt, and came to stand beside him. All across the room, Sasuke played witness to other acts of kindness, not much unlike the one he himself had been given. Husbands and boyfriends held their significant others by the shoulders, tenderly leading the way. Teenagers and younger adult could be seen helping single mothers whose arms were already filled with sobbing children. The elderly gladly accepted the piggyback rides some of the shinobi were offering. Sasuke even managed to catch a glimpse of Shikamaru grasping not only his mother's hand tightly, but a close to tears Ino's as well. He turned his attention back to Miyuki, noticing for the first time that she, out of everyone else he'd seen, seemed to be the least affected by the horrifying memory. Her eyes were dry, her brow clean of sweat, her expression one of only mild discomfort. Truly, it confused him.
"What's wrong with you?" He asked her suddenly, voice almost cracking. It was only after he reflected on what he said, after Miyuki had given him a somewhat angry look, did he realize how rather rude his statement actual was.
"You seem to be one of the least disturbed people here. You saw the memory too, so how come you seem so calm?" He said, elaborating.
From the few times he'd met the girl, Sasuke wouldn't not have pegged her as someone with enough emotional control to be able to pretend that something hadn't bothered her. From what he'd seen, her emotions were not only worn on of her sleeves, but tended to jump off of them sometimes too.
In response, Miyuki pulled up a sleeve of her shirt, openly displaying her self-inflicted scars. Sasuke didn't need to be told how the scars had gotten there, but he failed to see their significance to his question.
"That memory", Miyuki began, " I don't think it affected me as badly as others, not because I don't care, but because I've felt things Naruto has too. That memory of his? I have one like it as well. Not exactly the same, but close enough that it isn't a complete shock to my system. I've cut myself for a while now, I had to have a first time doing it too."
She rolled her sleeve back down, her point made.
"Is that a fact? Are you sure someone here would be less effected by one of his memories if they'd already experienced one similar to it."
Miyuki shrugged.
"I'm not sure, it's just a theory of mine, truth be told."
Sasuke made an irritated noise in the back of his throat. Really, people shouldn't go around acting like they knew what was going on if it was all based on a hunch. He attempted walking once more, this time actually tripping on some of the orange carpet that caught on his sandal. Before he could even try and catch himself, Miyuki's hand was there again, this time grasping onto his arm.
"Are you sure you're OK to walk?" She asked again, hand only leaving Sasuke's arm once he'd jerked it away from her.
"Yeah." He answered.
Despite his reassurance, Miyuki stayed relatively close to him as they continued onward into the sad, gray world.
"If you don't mind me saying, to me you also didn't seem nearly as weirded out by that memory as most people were. " Miyuki said, raising an eyebrow at him.
"I do mind if you say something like that. So don't." He said, pointedly turning his attention completely away from her and from the thoughts of the very faint, not-quite-there-anymore scars that still littered his skin under his arm bands.
At one point, Sasuke glanced back to try and catch one last look at the being that had called itself Despair. When he looked, nothing and no one was there. No Despair, no cages, no other Narutos; the cave opening they'd entered through had gone as well. Sasuke didn't voice it, even to himself, but the nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach grew.
For sometime, everyone continued on like this. Comforting, drying tears, assisting each other. Sasuke stared at he feet as he walked, uncertain he wanted to engrave his surroundings too deeply into his own memories.
He saw the skin of his feet change colors, subtly, and he was quite taken by a new sensation that he had yet to feel during his time in Naruto's mind. He had become Naruto again, just like the previous two times, but something was different. He was Naruto, that much he was sure of. But at the same time, he was aware of the fact that he wasn't. Everything of the memory was just as real and sharp as if it were one of his own, but he knew that it wasn't. Comforted by the fact that he knew who he was, could remember himself inside of the memory, he only paused in his walking for a moment before continuing on.
He could see the porcelain white of the toilet bowel as he threw up into it. Behind him, he could hear the older woman that was supposed to act as his guardian banging on the door, yelling at him to tell her what he was doing in there and why was he throwing up so much? Her tone was more annoyed then concerned, as it had always been. He couldn't answer her. His stomach was cramping so badly, his heaving was so forceful, he didn't have the air in his lungs to answer her. If he did, he would have told her that he'd tried to drink as much bleach as his taste buds would allow over an hour ago. He would have told her he'd just wanted to die quickly and it was the only toxic thing he knew they kept in the house. If he could have told her, he hoped it would have frightened her, even the littlest of bits, that a four year old had tried to commit suicide in her home.
He could see what looked like the aftermath of a robbery, objects thrown and torn open in the small apartment. He ran quickly over to where his piggy bank had been earlier in the day, only to find it had been smashed open, all of the money gone. He found himself wondering how he would feed himself for the next two weeks. He was only allotted so much money per month, and now the rest of it was gone. His eyes teared up at the thought of having to try and find food in trash bins. Like he'd had to the last time this had happened.
He looked at himself in the mirror, nervous. The reflection that stared back at him was one he was very unaccustomed to, it being female and all. He'd heard whispers about places, street corners, where men would meet up with pretty girls and take them on dates and ask them for certain personal favors. This would be his second time doing this, so he was already fully aware of what the men expected him to do for them; as long as his disguise held, he would be fine. The first time he'd done it, he'd been so nervous, the jutsu that disguised him had almost failed. Especially when he found out that his first date was one of his teachers at the academy. Really though, it was much better to make money this way then to eat spoiled food out of a trash bin that he always threw up anyways.
He'd become so sad one night, that, at the suggestion of one of the old strung out junkies that hung out on street corners with the girls, he snorted his first line of speed. Despite nearly overdosing and having the worst hallucinations, it had made him feel alive in a way he hadn't known was possible.
The first thing he heard when he woke up was the sound of his front door's lock being forced open. He'd stayed home from the academy that day sick. Not because he was actually sick, but because he just wanted a possibly quiet day to catch up on some sleep. They'd come during twilight, just as the sun was almost gone from sight. The first one through the door, needless to say, didn't seem to surprised to find him there. They rushed him, punching and kicking his body without regard. They wore headbands around their necks and foreheads, telling him that they were ninjas of his village. Funny, he'd always thought they were supposed to help protect people of the village, not hurt them. His apartment is turned almost on its head by the time they're through. Most of the men leave after not being able to find where he'd stashed his money. Four remain. And suddenly, they're touching him in places he'd rather their hands not be, forcing him to give the same favors he gives as a girl for money. Pulling open his mouth, shoving sweat slick private parts down his throat, making his eyes water and gagging him until he almost passes out. Taking his hands and wrapping them around hardened, warm tissue; making him give his first non-consensual handjob. He tries to fight back. But they're bigger, stronger, and he can't do it. They were alwaysbigger, always stronger then him. They're rough and they're terrible to him, but he's at least thankful they don't go all the way and fully rape him. He'd heard about it from one of the girls who he'd worked a corner with one night and it sounded like something right out of the worst possible nightmare.
He'd put on his female disguise, walking stiffly away from a dilapidated house in a less than savory part of Konoha. He can't let anyone see him like this. Not like this. His whole body is aching terribly, despite the fox's best efforts to heal him quickly. His thoughts had started trying to wander to what had just happened to him, but he's quick to pull them back from such dangerous territory. He can't think on it, not yet, not when he is out in the open and just trying to stagger his way home. He'll wait to let it all wash over him then. Two men that he recognizes from working corner streets spot him and try to wave him down. He tries to walk faster, but the bones in his legs haven't quite healed yet. The men get closer and he becomes terrified. If they get too close, he knows there's no way he'll be able to hold back the dangerously dark thoughts that had been looming over him since he'd left the house. But, thankfully, the other men finally catch sight of his appearance and instantly turn around, backing away. He'd put on his female disguise, but he hadn't bothered to try to cover the bruises that now covered his face and body. Or his broken nose. Or his still nearly swollen shut eyes. Or his obviously twisted and broken leg. He didn't really blame the men for running away. He not only knew he looked like an awful mess, he felt like one too.
Sasuke's eyes cleared from the memories for a moment, allowing a proper sense of horror to wash over him as one question came to mind: why? Why had all these things happened to him, why had they been allowed to happen?
Sasuke's eye flickered over the equally horrified Konoha population. Many had begun trembling from head to toe, others hugged their children closer to them, as though the simple gesture could somehow take back the awful memories that were now dancing in their minds.
Some shook their heads in denial, their voices rising to substantiate their thoughts.
"No way! There's no way that happened!"
"This is some sort of trick, it has to be!"
"That demon from before is toying with us, it has to be!"
Sasuke was ashamed to note that most, if not all, of who spoke out like this were ninja. He wondered how they could possibly think that Kyuubi could even make up something like that? From what very little Sasuke knew about demons, from his own readings, it was hard for them to feel emotions the same way as humans did. Those people were stupid to actually believe that a demon could fabricate such emotion saturated memories on its own accord.
At this point, Sasuke noted that a rift had suddenly formed in the large group of people. Where but not long ago both shinobi and civilian alike mingled and assisted and supported each other, the civilians had begun to shy away. Worried glances were thrown, looking back and forth from children to ninja, adult and teenager alike. It quickly dawned on Sasuke what was concerning them.
Naruto's memories had proven to the civilians that some of the shinobi of the village were very capable of doing terrible things, even to a child. It hadn't been their child, but what was to say it wouldn't be the next time? Who was to say it was just those particular group of men that had a taste for partners that were just a bit too young? Who could say that the next time one of those shinobi, or any ninja in fact, wouldn't come after a child that was important to them?
Sasuke had no more time to think on it. The fog of the memories had come once again and he found himself as a Naruto fully aware of the memories, but at the same time conscious of the fact that he was someone else.
Then, something small changed, something moved and he was suddenly confused. By what, he could not immediately say. Then it dawned on him, slowly, that he couldn't quite remember his name. Or what he looked like. Or who his parents were. Or even if he had any. He tried very hard to for a moment to picture what his family looked like. One instant he could see the shadowy figures of a man and a woman and a boy older then himself, then the next he could see no one. One moment he was sure his name was Sasuke, the next he was certain he was actually called Naruto.
Next thing he knew, he was fighting. Who, at first, he didn't know. Then he saw a flash of brilliant orange and he knew once again where and who he was. He was in Naruto's memories, living them for the first time. He was now facing Naruto in the Valley of the End. His name was Sasuke Uchiha.
The orange flash came hurling at him with such force that he just barely dodged it. He spun and was met with the image of an enraged looking Naruto, eyes an otherworldly red and tearing up in frustration.
"Sasuke!" The boy screamed as he started for another attack.
This time, Sasuke was ready. He wouldn't be almost hit, not this time. His feet pressed down hard on the water's surface, ready to spring away at just the right second. But, surprisingly, the right moment never came; Sasuke never had a chance to jump. Instead, he found himself looking dazedly down at the orange, jumpsuit sleeved arm that had punctured right through his chest and out the other side. Sasuke could even feel Naruto's fingers gripping the back of his shirt.
Sasuke didn't feel the pain. Not right away, anyways. He grabbed at the arm and stared, dumbly noting that the battle had definitely not happened like this. It was Sasuke who had punched his way through a ribcage that day, not Naruto. At this point, the pain caught up with him, causing a choked scream to bellow from his mouth. His chest felt like it was on fire, the burning sensation spreading with every beat of his heart. Blood dribbled down his chin as blood found it's way up his throat, choking him in the most fearsome of ways.
"Sasuke." Naruto said again, still elbow deep in Sasuke's chest.
A strange thing happened right then. Through all the pain, Sasuke noticed that Naruto's face had begun to change, to peel away. The sun kissed skin gave way to a paler complexion, his dark pupils ate up the blue color of his eyes until they were black, his hair swiftly fell out and grew back in a very familiar style. Sasuke looked to his own hands for a moment, the one's that still clutched at the invading arm, astonished to find them going under a similar metamorphosis. Except, where there was once pale skin now sat tan, his black shirt suddenly becoming part of an orange jumpsuit.
"Naruto." the boy in front of him said. When Sasuke looked up, it was his own face staring back at him, a depraved, almost delighted light in his eyes.
A bucket of some of the coldest emotions he'd ever felt washed over him. Betrayal so deep it felt like someone had dropped his heart in acid. Determination so strong he was almost sure he could do absolutely anything if he wanted it badly enough. The deepest fear stabbing him in the gut at the thought of what might happen if he didn't succeed in winning this battle. The emotions marred him, scarred him for what he was sure would be for life. What little trust he had left in humanity slipped from his grasp, and was left with the most bitter of feelings.
Just as his anguished scream leaves his throat, someone has grabbed his arm and pulled him away from what seems to be the edge of the path they were told not to wander from.
"Sasuke, what do you think you're doing?" Kakashi asks his student, his one eye showing a multitude of concerned emotions.
Sasuke looks back to the spot he was just pulled from, hoping to see something of what he had just witnessed, even if it was just the smallest glimpse.
"Didn't you see-?" Sasuke starts, not bothering to finish when he sees the near blatant confusion in his teacher's mostly hidden face.
"...that was saved especially for you, Sasuke Uchiha..."
Sasuke covered his ears, thoughts too jumbled at the moment to want to try and listen as Despair's sad voice rang in his mind.
"Sasuke?" Kakashi asked, rather worried for his student.
"Did you hear that?" Sasuke asked, the rising panic sounding clearly in his voice.
"Hear what?" Kakashi asked, looking back towards where Sasuke had been wandering not but a moment before, wondering if he'd missed something important.
"N-nothing. It's nothing. Must have been my mind playing tricks on me." Sasuke said in a tense, controlled voice, pushing past his teacher and moving onward.
He didn't want to try and think too hard on what he'd just seen. All of them had been seeing rather strange things since they'd began walking along Naruto's mind. They had recalled memories that were not there own, knew things they'd hadn't known before. But he, he had just seen something, by the looks of it, no one else had seen. Had heard words no one's head had shot up at. In this place where everyone seemed to be seeing everything together, he saw what no one else had. What did that mean?
He hadn't thought very deeply back on his fight he'd had in that valley with Naruto. It had hurt his pride that he had been almost literally dragged back to the village by someone who almost hadn't made it as a ninja. The way he saw it, he'd been derailed from taking the path he'd chosen, had been humiliated by losing that decisive battle, and had been forced to be 'rehabilitated'. He hadn't really made time to dwell on the consequences that fight would bring back with him. But now, when faced with one of them, it was hard not to see it from another vantage point. He'd, more or less, betrayed Naruto when he'd run from the village. He'd known that, and had tried his best to forget about it and hope the blond would do the same.
He'd just never known, had never even guessed, that what he'd done to his would be best friend would crush him so severely. He'd always thought of it as more of something they would both eventually get over and move on. He'd never known he'd hurt his friend so badly. He should have known, but he hadn't.
To his surprise, the group had come to the end of the depressingly gray world, everyone filing quickly through a giant gate that acted as the exit, it's bars rising up far beyond what Sasuke's eyes could see. Glancing around, Sasuke was none to astonished to find that the small rift that had begun to form when many of the memories had began had become something of a great schism. On one side of the path walked civilians, on the other were shinobi.
Honestly, Sasuke didn't blame the civilians for feeling wary of the shinobi of the village right now. Most of people in the awful memories had been ninja. Most of the people who had done those terrible things to Naruto had been part of the force that was supposed to protect the village and it's citizens, not hurt them. No, Sasuke didn't blame any one of them for a second.
Finally passing through the gateway, Sasuke felt as if some unknown weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He couldn't say why he felt so, considering the memories he'd seen were still plain as day and weighed heavily on his mind, he still felt that something had been taken away as well.
As he walked, he heard snippets of conversation from civilians and shinobi alike; all either sitting down for the first time in what felt like forever, or standing alert and ready for anything.
"Daddy, I don't want to see any more scary things. Can we stay here, please?"
"How could they have done something so awful to a child? I never would have thought they were capable of that. When we get out of here, I'm personally seeing to it that all of them are put behind bars."
"That poor kid, I never knew he had it so rough."
"This has got to be some trick. I know it. That monster's just messing with our heads, I'll bet ya' a million bucks."
Finally finding a less crowded area, Sasuke sat with his back against the hard wall of the tunnel. He hadn't realized how tired he was until that moment, his body sagged slightly. He sighed deeply, propping his head in his hands and pinched the bridge of his nose, hard.
For the first time in a very long while, Sasuke found that he wanted nothing more than a safe place where he could sit and try as best as he could not to cry.
----------------------------
Playlist (again, just make up a QuickList on YouTube):
1) Twilight Realm- Zelda: Twilight Princess
2) In The House, In a Heartbeat- 28 Days Later Soundtrack
3) The Downward Spiral- Nine Inch Nails
4) Twilight Palace- Zelda: Twilight Princess
A.N.: First off, I'd like you all to give Meatzman2 a large round of applause, because without him, this chapter defiantly wouldn't have been as good as it is. Trust me.
Secondly, if you've noticed, I've changed the title of the last chapter. I don't normally like doing the whole pt1, pt2, etc. thing, so I decided it needed to change.
Thirdly, please, do tell me if you like the playlist I've been giving you guys. I'd like to know if I'm doing something you all appreciate or if I'm just wasting my time. Anyways, hope you enjoyed and I' hope to hear from you soon!