A light flickered in the distance, soft, light and hypnotizing.
That light was the light of his existence - it was the surety of six years.
Classifications; Fire. A source of light. Weapon. Warmth. A source of light, the only available in the dreary dungeon that was his home, for now, the metals and shackles binding him to his cage- rattling as he strained for that light, flickering in the distance.
His glove covered hand grasped for it - pale fingers curling around its shadows - and closing it in a fist. Shunning it from view. And so he repeated it, again and again. Until he thought he could see it dying, could see the candle wax overflowing. Relieved of the Will of Fire - free from its mockery.
Until he opened his eye and it was there, stalwart and unmoving - seething with malice. It followed him even as he turned his back on it, gazed at a damp, grey wall. It hissed at the back of his eyelids.
From the crevices in the building - here where he was buried deep and discarded until further use, his ears twitched at the faint sound of bell gongs. Felt the faint tremors of earth- jutsu - the wind catching on the mild fragrance of caustic flesh. The blood-hungry beast they had turned him into relished in it - legs and fingers twitching. Salivated at the scent of blood and -
- snake?
Freezing in place for a second - a sudden ballooning of air in the middle of his chest. His chains rattled as he squeezed toward the bars. Squinted into the faintly illuminated darkness - singular eye wide and excited.
The weak dredges of chakra available to him (hidden away in painful, condensed pockets across his body- saved for a rainy day) struggled to cooperate as he carefully attempted to unravel them. The draining seals plastered on his body - wrapped around every crevice, spiraling over his hands in the shape of his Hatake tattoos, curling around his face - clenching around an eye gifted to him a lifetime ago - choked the essence out of him.
In the stone walls, seals spattered across nocks and crannies - placed and blessed by Jiraiya the gallant. The darkness not illuminated by the flame - children playing at ninja 'guarded' his cell.
Poor little-caged wolf - they would sneer at him: whenever he'd tease them out of their ANBU-issued silence. High-horsed and virtuous.
He could smell them approaching closer -
As a gigantic snake rammed into the walls of the building, shattering stone and revealing the forest beyond. Thick and luscious greenery a balm to his soul. Almost vibrating out of his skin at the thought of running again.
Though, imbecilic as his guards were, they were not incompetent shinobi. Konohagakure did not allow incompetent shinobi. So swords and katana, fingers twisting into formation - six ANBU flooded into standard diamond at the front of his cell - defensive and still silent.
Kakashi smiled - languid and crescent-eyed; and waved to a familiar face.
He shuffled away from the edge of his cell, back turned to the explosion of violence. A dear friend with a bird-shaped mask silently attached a seal to his cage in the chaos; and slipped away.
A pile of his old clothes were tucked into the corner of the cell - damp and somewhat crusted with blood. But sufficient. His bare feet pattered on the stone floor - a silent backdrop to the music of dying playing in the background.
A mask tucked to his face. Pure navy garment attached smoothly to his skin. The roiling in his chest soothed slightly at the sound of mocking hisses - words wrapped in slithering syllables.
Based on all available logistics - the caged wolf was about to go free. The singular issue with that, was the safety of a certain wayward cub. Well, he amended, sliding on dusty sandals - two wayward cubs.
Dissolving more of the pockets of chakra was a sudden influx of corrosive matter - a faint sting accompanying the return to some meager mounds of chakra in his system. Some of the torture of its absence eased slightly.
His hands shifted smoothly - "I - Inu - Tori - Saru - Hitsuji - Kuchiyose no jutsu"
And summoned his soul partner - scratching the back of his head apologetically as the huge Wolf chuffed at the lack of space. Gigantic snout dragging across Kakashi's face in affection. "I know, Taiyou, it's been too long. I got a bit lost on the road of life, you see." He patted the sun-eyed beast on his head, gently, running fingers through the fur. His coarse silver-white coat dazzling in the darkness.
"We're leaving, now. But we have two cubs on the loose, little Sun, mind making sure they're safe?".
Those blazing eyes looked into his own in stoic concern - a hyper-intelligent animal's way of thought in images and impressions flickering into view - a golden-haired baby with the sky in his eyes, a baby cub with the same ones reflecting back. Two small cubs running around in disillusioned darkness, a towering fire hissing, danger in every shadow.
"That's right, so we need to check on them." Those piercing eyes blinked easily in response, chuffing softly into his stomach. Kakashi curled a hand behind his ears, scratching fondly. "You'll have to catch up, so hurry."
Cramped as the cage was, Taiyou ducked his sizeable head and slipped through the opened cage door, deactivated seals barring him no exit. A streak of white as he strutted past the group of dead and living shinobi positioned around the cell, the former somewhat nervous at the sight of his fangs showing slightly - snarling in a warning not too difficult to decipher.
Kakashi rubbed at his now fur-clothed arms as he meandered toward the bed; seated comfortably with an arm rested on his knee, smiling face perched in one hand. Lazy eye running over the carnage - blood and extremities scattered around.
In that heinous flickering flame, a shadowed pale face stared back at him, slitted eyes warm and ever- smug. The shinobi he'd brought with him scattered at the rise of his hand, bloodied fabric sliding across the ground - surely off to wreak havoc elsewhere.
"I am here, Kakashi," he whispered, raspy voice sliding over the syllables, one finger curled around his long hair. "It seems to be time to leave."
Kakashi nodded from where he was seated, smiling crescent-eyed. "It's good to see you, Oro."
Blood smelled like metal, burned almost hot but tasted like acrid almost metal. Sasuke relished in things he could predict, it was a trait of his Clan. He had had blood on his tongue many a time - taijutsu practice against Naruto, ninjutsu against Aniki where he flailed and dodged mostly, Uchiha practice every Wednesday, the Academy almost every day.
Sasuke was intimately familiar with the taste of his own blood, and it tasted like metal. Like the copper pennies, he would suck on as a baby. In retrospect, was that for a reason? Acclimatizing his stomach to the smelltastetexture so he wouldn't vomit up every inch of his stomach when someone died on top of him? Squeezing him to the ground with literal dead-weight? Sasuke was strong, a dead body was nothing. It was nothing. But he was meandering into chakra exhaustion in the view of a day that never ended. He was too slow, too weak.
These Sand-nin had blood that smelled like metal - had that same acrid tint, but textured - grainy.
Sasuke had never experienced an active attack on the Village. A Village like theirs was hard to penetrate, hard to find. They were the most powerful, the most plentiful. The most protected. The strongest.
Even when penetrated, they were strong.
As a child of the Uchiha, the second son of the Clan Leader, he was intimately familiar with the immediate procedural chain of events in case of a large-scale attack. In-village security procedures had been drilled into him as promptly as he was born.
Priority number one was always; always the security of shinobi-to be. Students of the academies were prioritized. Before crumbling buildings, before despairing civilians.
So when some idiotic, suicidal sand-shinobi had barged in the walls of the academy, presumably with the help of someone who knew how to overload the seal protections quickly - he wasn't overly surprised by how every shinobi child was somehow picked up and removed immediately by people he hadn't even realized were present.
That had not been surprising. No matter how Naruto yelped and Sakura flinched so hard her teeth clacked.
The only thing that was surprising was how when the chunin-sensei that had removed them and scattered in different directions, bringing his class to the outermost forest of the Academy - Naruto's pet monster had shown up. Blue-eyed and growing larger by the day.
But not unaccompanied.
Sasuke had thought Oden was a large beast. A fatal one. No matter how docile he was in Naruto's presence, the air prickled as he traipsed past, too large. Growling threateningly, short-tempered and dangerous.
Oden - made him nervous.
But he was nothing compared to the monster that had accompanied him. Where in the actual Hell that thing had come from too energy-consuming to even contemplate.
Naruto's overjoyed screech dulled out in shock my how, huge, the thing was. Blazing yellow-orange eyes and fangs as long as his arm. White electricity literally blazing around it.
His fellow Main Academy students breaking out in sweat-induced terror at the sight of them both - Sakura grasping his arm so hard he could feel it bruising. Chunin-sensei freaking out as they searched the clearing for whoever they were expecting to be there.
All this while Naruto grinned and yelled "Oden, where have you been! Did you make a friend?" as he skipped toward the two standing several meters ahead. Oden's considerable head lolling its tongue out in puppy-ish excitement - fangs gleaming sharply.
The yellow-eyed beast just - stared silently, not stirring at all. How something so massive could stand so still unnerved him. Sasuke could feel the class collectively shiver at the sight.
But it was as Naruto started skipping toward the two, chunin-sensei making rapid moves to try and stop him immediately - that they were ambushed once more. And Sasuke tried dodging, but that yellow-eyed beast had moved so quickly when one of the Sand-nin had moved toward airhead Naruto. Literally just biting the man's head off and flinging him away.
Toward Sasuke, where a headless corpse hurtling toward him had been too startling - so he'd stood stock still as it slammed into him. Body tensed to avoid too much damage - arms around his head to minimize head impact.
Which brought him back to sprawling prone on the ground, a headless corpse gushing blood onto his face - his eyes rapidly blinking blood out of them.
Trembling fingers grasping on to the damp earth; anarchy prevailing as shinobi battled around him - so caught up in the taste, smell and touch of the corpse lying on him that having it pulled off of him jolted barely jolted him into reality.
"Sasuke! Are you okay?" Naruto yelled. "I don't think Oden's friend meant to throw him at you!" he insisted. Disposing of the body several meters away from them both- slightly sheepish as he tried to help Sasuke's bloodied body up, hands slippery with gore.
Sasuke was just about to answer with a scathing comment about the company Naruto kept (excluding himself) when his friend's ever cheerful face grew serious, and he pulled Sasuke closer to him, hand still grasped around his own. "Ne, Sasuke," he whispered- or as close as Naruto ever got to whispering. "Oden wants to take me somewhere, and it seems like it's really important. Will you cover for me?"
Sasuke could feel his face contort in confusion and aggrieved suffering. Naruto wanting to run off with two dangerous animals because 'it seemed important' was such a Naruto thing to do it made him want to scream. But a quick - somewhat blurry squint revealed two white-haired creatures gazing back at him, impatient and piercing. Chaos and yelling and shuriken hurtling about as shinobi fought around them - but an almost impenetrable barrier formed around the Academy students, Konohagakure shinobi not letting a single senbon or fizzling jutsu break through them. It would be hard to slip away - thankfully Naruto's ANBU guard seemed to be gone, or Naruto wouldn't even have tried.
Naruto and Sasuke had been on agreeable terms for scant months. They had been rivals - because Sasuke beat Naruto within every single shinobi class - except any and all taijutsu - the only thing Naruto wasn't miserable at. And that inferiority within one of the Three fundamental shinobi fields drove him into anger and petty jealousy, until Naruto approached him with a too wide smile, eyes scrunching shut and declared them friends.
Sasuke sighed, squeezing Naruto's hand once as he grunted an affirmative Uchiha "hn." Naruto giving away a cheery "thank you!" before slowly moving toward the two beasts once more. Sasuke muttered "you'd better come back alive, moron," Knowing the imbecile had scarily good hearing, and received a thumbs up from behind his back in response.
Blood-soaked. Drained from the events of a day that never seemed to end. Somewhat concerned about just where Sakura had gone. How his Clan was holding up, his Aniki and Mother. Sasuke took a few weak steps, growing into stronger ones - and threw himself into the groups of foreign shinobi striving to either kidnap or kill them all.
And received the protective, furious attention of almost every Konoha shinobi gathered in the clearing - Naruto's bright blonde head fading away unnoticed in the turmoil.