A
Different Perspective
by
Book of Changes
Rating:
M for Language
Main
Cast:
Kakashi, Iruka, Naruto
Summary:
(AU) Kakashi prepared himself for the worst when he was saddled with
the Kyuubi-no-gaki, a.k.a. Naruto. He did not, however, expect
this.
Disclaimer:
This story is based on situations and characters created and owned by
Masashi Kishimoto, and various publishers including but not limited
to TV Tokyo
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Non
Posse Non Peccare
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Irene did not immediately explain her enigmatic (at best—ridiculous at worst) remedy for the curse seal. It was not entirely her fault. Konoha's medical staff and two hysterical girls bombarded her with questions, all of which Irene was obliged to answer and answered obligingly. The problem was all the questions (which were asked with varying degrees of disrespect) had nothing to do with the remedy, but everything to do with Irene's medical credentials.
Woman, you are either reactive in nature or you're letting us ignore the real problem, was Kakashi's verdict.
But the bombardment of (disparaging) background questions wasn't entirely fruitless. Irene's medical credentials, as Kakashi expected, were impeccable: Three doctorates degrees, summa cum laude graduate from the most prestigious medical school of the Southern Continent, ten years of actual surgical experience, founder of two new surgical procedures, and three internationally acclaimed articles published in three different medical journals. Name it, she had it. As one cynical medic put it, Irene was definitely someone Orochimaru would want. But that re-raised the thorny question: was Irene working for Orochimaru? And if she wasn't before, was she now?
That question remained unanswered even after Sasuke was handed over to Irene's care. But perhaps because the consequences of inaction was so dire, or because a lot of people were overwhelmed at the sheer range and variety of Irene's distinctions, nary a peep nor protest came from Konoha's board of medical ninjas.
Irene didn't waste the opportunity.
"There are a few questions I want to ask and several things I want you to know," Irene said. "This is so you will better understand why I am doing what I am going to do."
Sasuke— and everyone else— leaned forward to listen.
"Those branded by the curse seal suffer the following symptoms during the first eight hours," Irene began. "Severe migraines, high body temperatures, intense periods of pain, selective amnesia, and abrupt increases in Chakra levels," Irene looked Sasuke in the eye. "Have you experienced any of these?"
"…All of them," Sasuke answered. Then he asked: "You know about Chakra?"
Irene sighed. "I suppose that is a legitimate question for you to ask. To answer the question itself: yes, I know. Even the scientific community in the Southern Continent knows and acknowledges Chakra's existence, though the members look like they'd rather strangle themselves with their own intestines than to admit that out loud."
There were a few scattered chuckles in the wake of Irene's diatribe.
"Now," said Irene. "Orochimaru must have told you the curse seal is a gift. I presume that you presumed based on Orochimaru's words, and the abrupt Chakra surge, the primary purpose of the curse seal is that of a power amplifier."
Sasuke blinked. Then slowly, he nodded.
"May I further presume that you have started harboring the thought that the curse seal may be the only means in which you can gain greater power in the shortest amount of time?" Irene asked.
Again, Sasuke blinked and then nodded.
Irene clasped her hands.
"Here I will correct your assumptions," she said. "The curse seal was not meant to be a power amplifier. It was made to be a seal of immortality. But even if we disregard its original purpose, the curse seal still fails to be an adequate power amplifier."
Quite a few people looked off-kilter at Irene's words. Others looked skeptical. Kakashi himself was quite interested to learn how Irene was going to justify her last assertion when she asked if Sasuke had felt a power surge.
"The failure of the curse seal comes in three levels," Irene said. "Most people assume that the curse seal is adding power on top of the power you generate normally. This is untrue. Neither Orochimaru nor the curse seal is giving you any additional power. Here you may ask: 'Then where did the power I felt come from?' I say that it comes from you."
"But even if I am the source, it still increases my power output," Sasuke pointed out sharply. "Doesn't that make the curse seal a power amplifier?"
Irene shook her head. "No. Suppose you are a house, and Chakra is the heat generated from a stove. The curse seal in this analogy is not feeding the stove extra fuel, nor is it improving the stove's energy output. It's actually tipping the stove and setting the house on fire."
Irene glanced at Sasuke, whose eyes went round momentarily in shock. It wasn't long before Sasuke hardened his eyes again. Apparently, he wasn't going to be moved by something as trivial as his body burning down.
Teenage Immortality Complex at its zenith, Kakashi thought waspishly.
Irene ploughed through.
"Do you see the first problem?" she asked.
Sasuke nodded curtly.
"And now that you know the curse seal is burning your house down, so to speak, you should be able to guess what the second problem is," Irene said.
Sasuke nodded again. "It's destroying my body in order to generate more Chakra."
"You are right in saying that the curse seal is destroying your body," Irene confirmed. "It can take as long as five years or only a few months, depending on your natural constitution and how frequently you use the curse seal. But make no mistake: as long as you have the curse seal and leave it alone as it is, your body will collapse before its time." A pause, "I wouldn't be surprised if someone, who was branded before you, is dying from cancer and failing internal organs as we speak."
Sasuke abruptly looked up at the mention of someone who might have the curse seal besides him, but didn't comment on it. Irene gave Sasuke a twisted smile.
"Never assume your affliction is entirely unique. Humans are only unique in his or her own being; everything else is old news happening to new people."
Sasuke lowered his head as if in reluctant agreement. But his eyes held quite a bit of belligerence, as it always did whenever someone implied that he was somehow not unique in his suffering.
"Now the third problem," Irene said. "In my opinion, this is the most dangerous of them all."
Another one of her bold assertions, Kakashi thought. But then again, she's been reliable so far…
"The curse seal alters what you want, and how you want it," Irene said. "More specifically, it alters your heart's desires to be aligned to Orochimaru's."
Sasuke frowned. Kakashi raised his eyebrow. What was this woman talking about?
"In order to understand the third problem, you need know what Free Will is," Irene said. "When I say Free Will, I am talking about the ability to differentiate what is our internal desire and what is not, and make a decision based on that knowledge. Please note that I am not including the ability to actually carry out the decision within the power of Free Will, and the point of reference is desire."
Sasuke nodded impatiently. Kakashi felt his internal alarm blaring inside his head, but he couldn't say exactly why.
"The curse seal won't take away your Free Will," Irene continued. "Orochimaru will insist he will never touch your Free Will, and he would be speaking the truth. But in your condition you might as well not have it, since Free Will can only function properly if your desires are without external bias and if you have the ability to carry out your decisions."
Kakashi's inner alarm was becoming very insistent now, but 'why' continued to elude him.
"The problem lies with your desires," Irene said. "Before the curse seal was branded on you, you had certain desires. Now there should be a bias, a shift if you will, to those desires. Has not your views changed since you have been branded? You may have had certain taboos you had no intention of breaking. Are you not viewing them now with lesser respect— contempt even? You may have had two co-existing goals. Has not one of them vanished in the wake of the sudden supremacy of the other? You should be able to tell, since the memory of your past desires shouldn't have been altered and your Free Will is intact."
Sasuke looked distinctly discomforted now. But rebellion was still in his eyes.
"This is what is happening to you, in the bluntest of terms," Irene said, in a manner of declaration. "The curse seal is corroding your psyche in such a way that Orochimaru's views are shaping your views, and his desires are structuring your desires. In short, you are becoming Orochimaru's slave."
"…Bullshit!" Sasuke exploded. "My goals are my own and they haven't changed! Stop talking like you can see everything when you don't even know me!"
"Of course I don't know you," Irene replied, "But consider this if you will: in the material realm, you are able to distinguish two different things because there is something that contrasts one against the other. Most of the time, we differentiate by sight. But even in total darkness, we can, to a limited degree, differentiate objects through touch, smell, taste and sound. But this kind of contrast can only be used in the realm of matter. What is there to contrast for things that are not matter, such as emotions and thoughts?"
Sasuke stopped.
"How can you tell whether or not your thoughts originated from you and not from some other source?" Irene asked. "Given enough time, we should be able to tell if Orochimaru is influencing your thoughts and desires by comparing your new psychological profile to your old profile—or better yet, Orochimaru's psychological profile. But that is it. We can only tell by observing your actions and decisions, which are the manifestation of your thoughts and desires. Neither me nor you can take an individual thought and tell with certainty if it is yours or Orochimaru's. Moreover, you are the only human being who knows your naked thoughts in all its nuances. Even if you described your thoughts to me, your explanation will be limited to your ability to use language. If this is the case, how can you tell where your thoughts originated from?"
Silence followed Irene's challenge. Sasuke slowly sagged into himself, no reply forthcoming.
Finally light dawned, and Sasuke turned sheet white.
Goddamn it. Kakashi felt the bile building up in his stomach. This is the most perversely brilliant thing ever. What better way to make a willing slave than make the person desire only the things you desire? That way you leave Free Will intact, but you make a mockery of it by fixing the options…
Irene reached out and touched Sasuke's face.
"You need not despair," she said, gently. "Right now, the influence of the curse seal is minimal. You have a fighting chance."
Sasuke didn't recoil from the touch. "The tattoos you were talking about…"
"The body tattoo will take care of the physical affects. The facial tattoo will care of the psychological ones," Irene confirmed.
"Can't you get rid of the curse seal?" Sasuke asked. He sounded like a petulant child.
Irene sadly shook her head.
Sasuke balled his fists. "So I'll never be completely free?"
Irene held him at this point. Kakashi couldn't imagine her leaving Sasuke without a word of hope.
What she said startled everyone.
"Oh child, you speak as if there was a time you were free. No one is born free. We are all slaves of desire. The only difference between you and me is that I am a slave of my desire and you are a slave of someone else's."
That was the not-hope Irene left for Sasuke to ponder over until the medics stepped in and put him under general anesthesia.
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"You are a hard woman."
Irene looked up from sanitizing her surgery kit, which turned out to be a machine that looked like a mutated nine-armed spider.
"Perhaps I am," Irene replied. "But if Sasuke was left in the dark, would it have made his lot better?"
Ibiki, who made the opening statement, stared at Irene in a way that would have made a lesser woman cower in fear.
Irene didn't budge or look away.
"…No," Ibiki admitted at length. "We want to prevent Orochimaru from taking Uchiha Sasuke. If the curse seal has the sort of enslavement capabilities you claimed it has—and I don't doubt this— then it is imperative that Uchiha Sasuke is as free from the curse seal's influence as possible. Making him abhor what the curse seal is doing to him can only help us."
Irene nodded.
"But if what you say about the human mind is true, then there is no way Uchiha Sasuke can recover his original psyche," Ibiki said.
"Yes," Irene confirmed. "If I am right, then Sasuke's previous psyche is lost and beyond recovery."
Ibiki opened his mouth slightly, and then closed it. Kakashi had never seen the Interrogator display such indecision.
"I'm inclined to think that you are correct," Ibiki started. "But that would mean the only way to directly counteract Orochimaru's influence is to—"
"—add another, stronger influence," Irene finished.
Ibiki crossed his arms. "So you were planning to put another curse seal on him."
"Oh, no, no, I was planning to do no such thing," Irene said with a smile. "I was, however, planning to put a Nasty Seal, which is my name for the mind-mucking component of the curse seal, on Sasuke. I just wasn't sure who'd be the second influence."
"Nasty Seal, eh?" Ibiki quirked his lip, which made him look scary enough to make a grown man cry. "I suppose the name is appropriate, and your solution is the better alternative. However, I must say you played a dangerous gamble when you told Uchiha Sasuke everything necessary to figure out what your solution is."
"How so?" asked Irene.
"Besides being absolutely loyal to Konoha, the additional influence must have a naturally inquisitive and philosophical mind that asks questions like 'Why do I think like this?' 'How does this work?' and 'What is the meaning of this?'" said Ibiki. "This will ensure Uchiha Sasuke will be mindful of his every thought. But if he starts asking these kind of questions, it is only a matter of time before he starts investigating your solution."
"And when he learns the true nature of my solution, would that bit of Orochimaru in him tolerate the fact he is, in effect, a slave of two people?" Irene said in relay.
Ibiki raised an eyebrow. "So you have thought that far."
Irene nodded.
"So what is your counter?" Ibiki asked. Then he blinked, like something just dawned on him. "You told him that we are all born slaves of desire. I suppose we can, at that point, make him wonder if there is any difference between being a slave of one person over two people when you are a slave one way or another."
Irene grinned. "Of course he may question whether humans are truly slaves of desire or not, but the arguments Gautama Buddha raised alone should provide you with enough ammunition."
"That doesn't help much on his desire to be free, though," Ibiki said. "It might make him consider the path of Buddha."
The lengthy and convoluted discussion that followed discussed the possibility of Sasuke taking path of Buddha in order to become free. That anyone would even talk about such things was mind boggling enough in itself, but that Ibiki was talking about such matters only added onto that state of boggle.
All this philosophical nattering is making me go bye, bye brains. Iruka, saaaaaave meeeee…!
Iruka sighed. "This is beyond my league."
I knew I could rely on you. "You're not the only one."
"But I think I found the most excellent candidate for the second influence," Iruka said with a smile.
Kakashi nodded, "Ibiki."
They watched the prospective second influence debate. From the sound of it (and Kakashi wasn't quite sure), Ibiki and Irene moved from talking about the path of Buddha in relation to Sasuke, to the nature of Buddhahood itself.
"Nirvana is supposed to be a state of complete lack of desire. Does this mean you will lack the desire to remain in the state of Nirvana? How then do you stay in Nirvana? Are you completely mindless and thoughtless? But Gautama Buddha talked, therefore thought, after he achieved enlightenment. So unless Gautama Buddha was deluded, Nirvana cannot involve mindlessness or thoughtlessness. But if Nirvana includes the desire to remain in a state of lack of desire, then the whole concept of Nirvana collapses since it's a contradiction in terms. You might as well search for a one-ended stick."
"But desire may not be a necessary condition in order to talk and think. Talking and acting may become natural responses to certain conditions."
"But that would mean achieving Nirvana is like turning into a highly sophisticated automation that produces the correct output in response to an input. Now, suppose I created a lifeless robot that, given sufficient input, can select the correct moral law to act upon. Would that robot be a Buddha? It has no desire, and it can make ethical decisions and act accordingly."
"…Any luck, Kakashi-san?" Iruka asked.
"I got lost somewhere between Nirvanas and robots and one ended sticks," Kakashi replied.
Iruka laughed quietly. "I don't think I can remain in this state of confusion much longer without my brains dribbling out of my ears. But then again, I can't think of a way to break this conversation without making myself look like an unsophisticated heathen."
Yeah, it's all Ibiki's fault. "Do you have anything against being known as an unsophisticated heathen to these two?"
"Hmm…" Iruka scratched his cheek. "…No."
I thought so. "Well then."
It was quickly decided a short and mild blast of the Influence was the best way to interrupt the philosophers in debate. Thus so determined, Kakashi and Iruka turned to the debating duo. At that point in time, they were talking about the problem of Evil. How they moved from talking about Nirvana to the problem of Evil was beyond Kakashi's comprehension.
"Perhaps the problem isn't the existence of desire, but the kind of desires we arbor. It is not wrong to desire the good and the beautiful, after all. But if the problem is our evil desires, then where does these evil desires come from? Do we accumulate these evil desires as we grow, or are we born with them?"
…This is as good time as any other! Kakashi signaled.
Iruka started to concentrate. But then Ibiki's words left him dead in his tracks.
"I used to think that if there really is a God interested in saving humanity, he would have saved us from ourselves."
Irene stared at Ibiki, opened mouthed.
"…You know, there is a God who wants to save us from ourselves," Irene said with deliberation and caution.
Ibiki raised both eyebrows, "Really?"
Irene nodded slowly. "It is said He offered His son as a sacrifice, and the Son willingly took the Karma of all humanity. It is also said this gift of atonement will be given to all those who believe in the Son. The gift does not end here. It promises those who believe a life of eternity beyond death, and a new heart that hates the evil and loves the good."
"Taking the Karma of all of humanity, only the God of Gods would be able to do something like that," Ibiki muttered. "That alone would have been a gift too good for humanity. But compared to the gift being offered, what humanity has to do is too small and paltry."
"It is not as simple as you think," Irene replied. "Even believing in the Son is a tall order."
"Why?"
"Suppose you are an atheist. How can you believe in the Son of God, when you can't even believe that the divine exists? What guarantee is there that this whole concept of God is not just a product of wishful human thinking? Even if you are convinced that the divine exists, how do you know that this particular god exists? Does this particular god really have the power to do what he promises? What about the whole issue of Karma? If you can eventually pay off your own Karma, why is the Son even necessary? What about the claims the Son made? He said that we cannot pay a single iota of our Karma, no matter how hard we try. He also said: 'I am the way. I am the truth. I am the bread of Life. Whoever believes in me shall not perish, but have eternal life.' How do we know he is speaking the truth? But above all, how do you know if the man who claimed be to the Son of the only living God is really who he claimed to be, and not just some lunatic who might as well have said something as credible as 'I am an Egg. I am a Tree. I am a poached egg and a scrambled egg at the same time'."
Ibiki actually laughed. It didn't matter how often Kakashi heard Ibiki laugh: it was still one of the most terrifying sounds to behold.
They're freaks of the same class and caliber. What a fine couple they shall make.
Despite Kakashi's unholy thoughts, the dialogue on holiness continued.
"You are a perpetual doubter, are you not? It makes me wonder how someone like you came to believe in something as fantastic as gods who have sons and sacrifices aforementioned sons for humanity, and sons of god who willingly take the karma of all humanity in exchange of humanity's trust."
"You make it sound like I'm a doubter who has gone insane. Anyway, you want to know how I came to believe in things that are too fantastic to be true. The first step was being convinced that the heart of all human beings is desperately wicked."
"All humans?" asked Ibiki.
"All humans," Irene confirmed. "That includes me and you. And Kakashi-san over here and Iruka-san over there, even though Iruka-san looks too nice to be associated with the word 'wicked'."
Ibiki was terribly amused. "Pray, convince me."
"Universal human depravity isn't all that hard to be convinced of," Irene said. "Evil is a reality that always finds a way to smack us in our faces, especially ninjas like you," A pause. "My wake up call was a bit too extreme, so I'll give you a milder example."
If anything, Ibiki was more amused. "You can show it to me right now?"
"Oh yes," Irene smile was starting to show too many teeth. "I have just the thing…"
Then, without warning, Irene bellowed: "YO-I-CHI!"
In three seconds, Hiruma was back in the infirmary.
"What?!"
Irene displayed the power of Mommy at its fullest and most forbidding.
"You may have thought you had eluded me, but you cannot elude my detection indefinitely," she began.
Hiruma looked like he didn't really comprehended what Irene was talking about, but instinctively knew he was in deep shit.
"You broke into my e-brain two years ago," Irene charged. "You have been clever enough to alter the access records in the Public Security's main computer. You even bypassed the security check points within my e-brain. However, you forgot to consider the router you unwittingly used in order to connect to my e-brain. I have been able to trace your access through that router. You're busted Yoichi!"
This doesn't sound like your typical bad-boy hacks mommy's computer, Kakashi thought, while Hiruma tried to look cool and supercilious with no success whatsoever.
"If you had just hacked my e-brain, I might have considered it a joke," Irene growled. "But after hacking into my e-brain, you downloaded a bunch of obviously suspicious programs. That was bad enough. But your most heinous crime is this: You installed those suspicious programs into Naruto's e-brain!"
"YOU gave Naruto the Curse of Orange Clothes?!" Iruka blurted out.
"…Curse of the Orange Clothes?" Ibiki repeated. He looked at Kakashi for an explanation.
Kakashi shook his head. "It'll take forever to explain." And even then, you wouldn't believe.
"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" Irene demanded.
Slowly, Hiruma bared his teeth into an insane grin. "…You're two years too late."
While Iruka exploded in a mire of the Influence, Irene turned to Ibiki.
"This has been going on since he was six," she said. "May I rest my case?"
Ibiki saluted.
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TBC
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