Author's Note: I feel as if people should do a recap of the past few chapters to refresh their memory. If not, then read at your own risk and don't blame me for being confused. ~KK
Warnings: Child Abuse, Language, Gore/Violence, Sexual/Adult Situations, Suicidal and other disturbing themes. (For this chapter, Itachi's tendency towards murdering little girls)
Rating: Mature
Pairings: Itachi/Kagome, Sasuke/Kagome, Naruto/Kagome, Shisui/Sakura, Shikamaru/Temari
Ages:
Kakashi: 30
Shisui: 23
Itachi: 20
Neji, Lee, TenTen: 17
Sasuke & Sakura: 16
Naruto: 15
Kagome: 12
~Chapter Twenty Nine~
Sound of Ice III: Purgatory's Quietude
How can you say that your truth is better than ours?
Shoulder to shoulder, now brother, we carry no arms
The blind man sleeps in the doorway, his home
If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won
—I Gave You All
She remained awake for a scarce three minutes.
After that, her eyes slipped closed and she was as white as snow.
"Kagome?" Sasuke choked out, his tongue like dry steel scraping against brittle glass.
On the ice, she was dying.
Sasuke slammed his fist into the glacier's surface, a cracked star spreading out from his knuckles; he stared as its fractured little arms reached out to caress Kagome's bone-white cheek.
She did not wake and her body temperature was not the only thing that was freezing. By the time Yamato and Raido had located them, the sun was near gone and Sasuke was screaming. Yamato had plucked the Uchiha off easily enough, he was just a battle-torn boy who had become irrational at the sight of a fallen comrade.
Raido scooped the ANBU girl up, she was small and oh so frail at the moment.
Sasuke had snapped Yamato's wrist at the sight and before Yamato could let out a violent stream of expletives, Raido was empty-handed and stupefied.
Sheathed in black, Sasuke walked achingly, step by step across the ice. "I carry her," he said quietly into the wind and clutched desperately to his chest was the limp, gangly child.
Raido and Yamato kept their distance thereafter.
Two days passed.
Snow fell, melted and then refroze into a congealed mud. Kagome did not wake. Sasuke never left her side.
"We can't get in touch with Konoha, Yamato," Genma muttered, candlelight tossing shadows across his face. "There's a storm up in the mountain pass. It'll be another couple of days at least." He set his cards down, quickly losing taste for games.
"Blood pills can only do so much," Raido said as he collected the deck, reshuffled and dealt. "We need a medic, Yamato. I think she's starting to get blood poisoning."
Yamato stiffened and cast a look over his shoulder. "Then don't say it," he ordered and swallowed thickly. "What about Hyuuga? You said you could save his hands."
"The right one will have to go if we don't get him to Konoha soon," Raido said. "The group's combined medical knowledge barely stretched beyond common sense (Scrape something, here's a band aid. Bee sting? Pull out the stinger.); only Raido subscribed to the stomach-turning, more medieval methods (Poisoned? Bleed it out. Gangrene? Cut it off.)They were still very readily utilized on the battlefield, so long as you did not mind being disfigured in the process. "I can cauterize the wound—"
Yamato let out a very audible groan. "We cannot amputate the Hyuuga patriarch's nephew." Did they all want to be demoted?
Raido shrugged. "It was only a suggestion."
"Then what do we do, Taichou?" Genma sneered. "We need some form of action."
"Wait out the storm," Yamato said as he rubbed his knitted brow. The howling winds outside had yet to subside. "Then take the girl and run her to Konoha. She's small enough to be carried—Hyuuga can run. It's only his hands that are fucked up." His voice was dead. Yamato was very, very tired.
"Uchiha won't even let us go into her room, let alone touch her. What makes you think he will let us carry her all the way to Konoha?"
"She'll die otherwise," Raido replied simply. "Neither Uchiha nor Hyuuga were fully recovered."
Yamato grimaced. "Can you both stop talking so loud? He'll hear you and I can't deal with another one of his… outbursts." Genma's hair was still singed in the back from when he flippantly joked about giving Kagome a sponge-bath, and Raido was already pitching a nasty shiner after a comment on her survival rate. Yamato looked down at his splinted wrist and shuddered. "He outranks the both of you and has authority over his Captain's treatment due to her incapacitation. Everything has to be cleared by him, so if he thinks you two are being reckless with her, he's going to snap for real and it won't be within my jurisdiction to stop him."
Genma shook his head. "No more morbid comments. Got it."
"You know what's amazing?" Raido asked amicably, leaning back in his chair around the card table.
"No," they both chimed.
"That she's still alive."
Down the hall, there was a thunderous crack before the cabin shuddered and the wood of their living room's wall split, letting in a bitter draft.
"Great."
"He heard you," Genma drawled.
"Guess that means another night without heat," Raido watched as the candle guttered out. "You don't think you could ask Sasuke-kun to relight that, could you?"
Yamato wanted to scream.
…
By some form of prayer, Yamato had acquired a miracle.
Anko arrived that next morning.
Which made his restless, near hypothermic night of sleep accompanied by a cold dinner (both courtesy of the only Fire user within a hundred miles having a hissy fit) worth it to some degree.
It was only slightly dampened by the fact that she had come at the exact moment he had stepped outside for his morning piss.
"Oi!" The kunoichi waved, the sun at her back and about a quarter mile away. "Tenzo!"
Yamato reeled, fumbled with his zipper and greeted her back, albeit more lax.
Anko flickered before him in the next breath. "I hope you're gonna wash your hands." A devious smile split across her lips.
"I don't pee on my hands," Yamato quipped and pocketed them anyway. "You're early."
"By a week," she breathed, a cloudlet hanging at her nostrils. "You seem stressed. What happened?"
"Our ANBU compliment was demolished."
"ANBU?" Anko was taken back as she squinted at their squat wooden cabin nestled among rimed tundra. "I've been requesting backup for this mission for weeks and the Hokage has been denying me outright. Who'd you kiss ass to?"
Yamato shook his head. "They came to escort me back, but the Hokage gave them clearance to help. They're amateurs, Anko. Just kids."
"That why they got demolished?" She spit her words back at him, rocked on her heels and unhooked her towering traveling pack.
Yamato watched as Anko rummaged, her violet head of hair bobbing at his knees. "Well—Tayuya's dead and Kimimaro is assumed to be."
Anko stilled for a brief moment. "You learned their names?"
"No, they did."
"They are tenderfoots then. Not supposed to converse with enemy, even Jounin know that," Anko stood, umber eyes darting across the tundra plane and the wan dawn-light. "So, what happened?"
"The Captain forced them into some sort of bottleneck with the glacier. She got Tayuya easily enough but she was, uh, poisoned…"
"Shit," Anko kicked a patch of lichen with her boots. "Anything from Orochimaru is bad. What was it? Flesh-eating? Blood cells pop like water balloons?"
"Not quite," Yamato paled. "It was an anticoagulant, made her lose a lot of blood. Too much, if Raido's medical intel is anything to account for."
"Too much?" Anko scoffed. "Even a little by Raido's gruesome standards is 'too much.'"
"Raido is a bit of a sociopath," Yamato confessed and scratched his neck anxiously. "Anyways, how did you get through the pass? Genma said there was a blizzard."
"There still is," Anko bit out. "I was just about to tell you how it set me back two days."
"Oh," Yamato shuffled on his feet awkwardly. Anko was always so aggressive. He was only commenting on the weather. "Did you happen to bring any medical supplies?"
"Lucky you," Anko chimed and a blessed little tin box materialized in her hands. "Complete with blood pills, morphine, antibiotics— theworks. Even those flowery band-aids you like so much."
Gingerly Yamato took the precious supplies. The jingle of delicate glass vials came from within and his eyes remained riveted to the symmetrical red cross on its front.
"Really, do you need to jerk off to it or something?" Anko raised a brow.
"N-No," Yamato stammered out of his stupor. "I am just heavily relieved." Now that the ANBU could live for another day, his hide could remain intact from his superiors.
Anko shook her head. "You never told me the rest."
"The rest?" Yamato blinked owlishly.
Anko tapped her boot expectantly on the frozen peat.
"Oh right, well—"
A bedraggled Genma happened to bumble out of the cabin door not a second later.
Anko's attention flicked from one to the other, and her gaze went from inquisitive to frighteningly voracious. She flickered out of sight—
"Oh no."
—only to appear in front of Genma, drape an arm across his neck and pull him close.
"Ah look at this, I caught myself a mouse," Anko purred.
Genma looked at her lazily and yawned. "Hello Anko," he said dryly.
Anko tittered. "Been awhile, Genma, wanna catch up?"
Genma slipped out of the noose that was Anko's grip. "No thanks. Bit early for that."
Unaffected, Anko waved him off. "You'll come by later, it's been what—three weeks since I've been here?"
"I thought you said you bedded Shisui?" Genma rolled his senbon over his tongue. "You were bragging about it."
"Pfft, he's got a girl now, didn't you hear?" Anko crossed her arms dejectedly. "Kakashi's student, Konoha's little cherry blossom, is all grown up," she sneered.
"S-Sakura?" Yamato reeled. "And Uchiha Shisui, as in Shunshin no Shisui?"
"Is there any other?" Anko shot Yamato a dry look. "Yeah, and if you think that's surprising wait until you hear the rumors about Itachi and his new little tryst."
Genma guffawed. "No way."
Anko was smug. "Oh, the rumors aren't nearly as bad as the truth. She's young."
"So is Itachi," Genma quipped.
"No, I mean young as in its some illegal sort of shit," Anko strolled back to her pack, at the base of Yamato's heels and fastened up the leather straps before hoisting up on her shoulder once more. "And get this, his little brother and Uzumaki are getting a little close to her too."
"And here I thought they were gay," Genma sighed. "Damn, I owe Shisui three thousand ryo now…"
"How do you know this?" Yamato quirked his head at the kunoichi.
Anko shrugged and the motion was strained from under her trench coat and bundles straps. "I've been training with them. You know Sasuke is in ANBU."
"Wait. You mean Uchiha is on the same team with her," Genma clarified and his tone soared a few octaves. "Yamato—!" Genma's voice crumbled in his throat. There was only one girl on Uchiha's team.
Yamato felt a new pang of anxiety wash through him. "Oh, crap."
"What?" Anko tossed glances between the two men. "You guys are scaring the shit out of me. What's this new revelation?"
Yamato ran a heavy hand over his grimacing features. "Our ANBU compliment…our demolished ANBU compliment is Uchiha Sasuke's team."
"And I'm pretty sure Uchiha Itachi's new fancy is our very, very sick ANBU Captain…" Genma groaned. "As if we weren't going to be yelled at enough when we got back!"
"What?" Anko uttered that single syllable with the force of a tidal wave crashing into the rocks. "Don't tell me… Oh, you guys are in some deep shit, and I mean deep, if she dies. Uzumaki is going haywire right now because of her."
"Naruto?" Yamato sputtered out like a floundering fish. "What's wrong with him?"
"Everything!" Anko yelled. "Why do you think… Oh fuck, it makes sense now. She was probably sent to get you back, Tenzo."
"And now we're going to send her back broken." Genma slapped a hand across his brow. "Great."
"You have to heal her, Anko," Yamato said seriously and it resounded like an order. "You know some medical ninjutsu."
"We'll see," Anko trounced over to the boreal shrubs, crowberries and all. "But I am not making any promises— and I can't believe you guys didn't know who she was…" With that she made her way up the porch steps and tossed a glance over her shoulder as she lingered in the doorframe. "Anyone else here I should know about?"
"Not yet." Yamato shook his head; it was only a matter of time before he had an entire platoon at his doorstep.
"Did you just bring medical supplies?" Genma crooned, a wicked gleam in his eyes.
An unmarked bottle appeared in Anko's hands, she swished the clear liquid about. "You know me, flowery band-aids for Tenzo, and gin for you."
Genma mustered a lopsided smile. This was going to cost him. "Good girl."
Anko smirked. "No, Genma, I'm not."
…
Anko unpacked, which Genma helped with (despite his early refusals of her) and exactly thirty-two minutes and a half bottle of gin later, they emerged sniggering from down the hall.
Yamato was pacing, thanking his foresight about building Genma the farthest room and even more so for giving Anko a bunker that was near soundproof.
Raido was meticulously adding his final tier to a rather impressive card tower when the two lovebirds stumbled in and, acting more drunk than they actually were, toppled his construction with their ruckus.
Yamato was sure Sasuke was going to go on a killing spree once he saw this.
"So then he ran to the mountains I guess and by the time we got there, poof—the mountain was gone!" Genma explained with theatrical hand motions.
"Uchiha did that?" Anko slurred and kept herself heavily leaning on Genma. Her trench coat was gone and now she was simply wearing fishnet coverings and combat pants. "That's hot."
"Uh, yeah, I guess," Genma sobered a little at the sight of his dismayed Captain and a near catatonic Raido. "You want to see her now?" he suggested offhandedly, knowing that was what his Captain had been waiting so desperately for. Really, Yamato could be so spineless when it came to certain people.
Anko shrugged. "Sure. She's dy—"
Genma clapped a palm over Anko's lips. "We don't say the D-word or anything of that manner." Genma promptly released her when she licked his palm. "At least not around Uchiha."
"He hears everything," Raido said eerily.
Anko sobered and disentangled herself from Genma. "Right, I've worked with them before. Kagome is pretty protective of the little brat too." She turned on her heel, towards the adjacent hallway that lead down to the ANBU's newly constructed quarters. "Oi, Tenzo—catch!"
Yamato fumbled to catch the careening bottle of spirits before Anko tucked away into the dark halls.
"Three thousand ryo says she gonna come back without a finger."
Yamato sent Genma a cold look. "I'm not helping you pay back your bet to Shisui."
"C'mon…"
…
Anko could smell it.
The cloying scent of infection permeated from the room farthest down in the dark hall. It was thick, warm and sweet.
Anko shook off what little buzz her and Genma had been able to salvage. She had a high tolerance, but almost nothing could dull her senses when she had to be in action. She pushed past the door hesitantly, three muted signatures hummed and only two reacted to her.
The room was warm, windowless and dimly lit by an oddly tame hearth. Anko's eyes adjusted quickly and narrowed at the three figures. One was utterly still and small and femininely slight, laid reverently before the fire.
Another sat against the wall with bound hands tentatively resting in his lap; the embers were tossing shadows across his face and his pale eyes were a rich ochre. The third was completely masked in the shadow and his eyes were scorched, unfaltering rubies.
Sasuke's red eyes flicked to her and they were unlike anything Anko had ever seen.
She closed the door and strode across the wooden floor with resounding footfalls. "How long has she been out?" She crouched by Kagome and gently placed a hand on her forehead. The dim light was eagerly taken in by her pale flesh, making it glow unnaturally. A thin sheet of sweat had formed recently and made her flame-lit cheeks glisten. "She has a fever."
"She was near hypothermic last night," Hyuuga spoke and his voice was strained. "Two—three days? I have lost count on how long she has been like this."
Anko swallowed and let her hands glow. "She's severely dehydrated and weak…" she commented absently as her chakra searched through her kidneys. She then placed a hand over the ANBU child's chest. "Heart rate is… fast. So is her breathing." She went further past the lungs, through the pulmonary veins and back to the heart. Anko froze when she felt her chakra expand throughout the circulatory system.
"What is it?" Uchiha growled, he reminded her of a once dozing jaguar, black in shadow and languid in a crouch and grumpy as hell.
Anko walked out of the room, her hands dull and no longer skittering with healing energies. Her pace was frantic and already she could feel the two ANBU at her back, streaming after her like a pair of wolves, driven on by the hot scent of prey. Only Anko was not prey.
She was Kagome's only chance at survival.
"Tenzo!" Anko roared and slammed back into the living room, knocking over Raido's latest card pyramid and garnering Genma's and Yamato's attention. "What the fuck—"
"She has blood poisoning," Raido assumed flatly from Anko's long list of expletives.
"Told you so," Genma whistled.
Yamato felt a headache swell under his crown. "Anko, Anko…" he tried to placate, but Anko was red in the face, near foaming at the mouth and still saying some very nasty things about his mother. Which was sort of ironic as Yamato never knew her.
"Shut up," Genma said rakishly and the fuming Anko ceased her tirade with a baleful glare. "You can bitch all you want but do it on your own time."
Anko chewed the inside of her cheek.
"What's the prognosis?" Raido asked amicably.
"She should be dead," Anko uttered every syllable with promise and tossed a hard look over to the Uchiha and Hyuuga slipping into the room. "You can glare at me, Uchiha, but it still doesn't change the fact."
"She heals fast," Sasuke gritted out, arms crossed and fists clenched white.
"Can she heal her own immune system?" Anko spat.
"A recovery rate from injuries is irrelevant when sepsis is concerned," Neji commented as he leaned wearily against the wall.
"I know what her healing is like, Uchiha. I've been in ANBU a lot longer than you and I sure as hell know a lot more about Kagome than you do, too," Anko continued with nostrils flaring in soft, heated breaths. She was like a bull about to charge.
Sasuke's eyes dipped to the floor, becoming slightly unfocused. Some quiet anxiety settled in his blood and he walked out of the room.
"He's just going to do nothing?" Genma said.
Neji sighed. "He feels powerless; if there is nothing any of you can do—then excuse me while I go be with my Captain." And he slipped out of the room like a pale vapor.
Anko's hard expression did not falter. "Tenzo, how did she get so bad? You can't even begin to imagine her blood right now… her immune system is glutted with white blood cells…"
"Why is that so bad?" Genma shrugged.
"The immunological response causes widespread activation of acute-phase proteins, which affect the complement system and the coagulation pathways, and then cause damage to the vasculature," Raido said as he began the tedious process of setting up his cards in their first, foundational tier. He shrugged. "What? I've read an anatomy book or two."
Anko garnered blank stares from Yamato and Genma on Raido's behalf and with a sigh, she explained in layman terms, "Her organs will shut down."
"Oh, that is bad," Genma coughed awkwardly.
Yamato pinched the bridge of his nose. "You said she should be dead. What's keeping her alive, then?"
Anko tossed a cautious glance behind her. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. There's a faint trace of… foreign chakra in her blood."
"In her blood?" Genma reiterated. "How is that even possible?"
"No, it is not," Raido said simply, tipping off his card tower. "Your circulatory system and chakra pathways are completely separate and are of different phases of matter."
Anko shook her head. "I don't know… all I know that treatment at this phase definitely requires more than my dinky little first aid kit—it gets better, guess whose chakra it is."
Yamato honestly did not want to know.
"Kyuubi."
…
The day passed, night fell and it was a starless one that tossed and turned most souls.
Supplies were gathered, packed up or left behind. The plan was simple: the blizzard on borderlands would break by morning or at least let up; once done, they would make a run for Konoha and be home, gods' willing, in two days.
Now they huddled around Uchiha's tame little fire, their only source of warmth, while Genma took watch. Raido was doing a run by the pass to monitor the blizzard. He would be back by morning and Genma's watch was up within the hour, but most of them were awake.
Anko was stubbornly pessimistic as she whittled down her fifth block of wood. Yamato kept her well supplied lest she start using his throat instead. Her eyes said Kagome was not going to make it.
Sasuke's eyes said if she uttered one word about, he would snip out her tongue. He left the dimly lit living room and wordlessly receded back into the dark halls to perform his fifth checkup on Kagome within the hour.
Neji slept. The medicine Anko had given him had been loaded in a syringe and stuck straight into his veins. Beautiful thing about opiates was that it kept one blissfully unaware, and it kept the battle worn under a nice, coma-laden sleep. Yamato was grateful for the Hyuuga's unconscious state, as he did not think he could handle another set of baleful eyes on him.
With Anko's treatment, Sasuke had made a staggering recovery. His chakra pathways had been fried, Anko said. Yamato had a sneaking suspicion that whatever Uchiha did to wipe that mountain with Orochimaru's vessel clean off the earth, he had not been ready for it and it had cost him, severely.
Yamato was fidgeting. Anko was mad at him for letting Kagome get this bad and Sasuke was outright about to murder someone if they spoke about it. Yamato tossed another plank of wood into the fire.
"It doesn't need it," Anko said flatly. "Uchiha's fire burns on its own."
"Habit," Yamato confessed. The silence, the darkness, the cold, it was starting to get to him. "You like Go Fish?"
"Kiss my ass."
Yamato sighed. "…me neither."
Sasuke reentered the room, a hand running over his scalp and his expression so hard, it looked as if it might crack. "She is getting worse."
"Of course she is," Anko quipped with flame lit eyes. "Why don't you just bring her in here?"
Sasuke did not respond, he simply slumped against the wall with eyes staring off. He was terrified to touch Kagome let alone move her.
Another hour passed, filled with the soft pops of firewood and the occasional breath.
Genma came running in a tad early for watch duty to be up. A wave of ice bitten air wafted over them and everyone in the room stiffened at a panting Genma strewn across the doorframe, the utter blackness pressed upon his back and his eyes frantic. "Someone's coming," he breathed out.
Yamato felt dread coil itself in a tight knot in his gut. "Did you recognize the signature?"
Genma nodded, his hair tossing in the wind. "I'm surprised all of you didn't notice."
"Are you sure it's not just Raido?" Anko said, eyes near feral and her kunai in hand sheering a woodblock like butter.
"Oh, I'm sure." A dopey grin split across Genma's lips.
…
"She's back here," Yamato ushered him through, his pace was frantic. "Sasuke and Anko are with her. I sent Genma to retrieve Raido."
"And Neji?" he asked.
"He's… indisposed. Opiates have a way of doing that."
A glint of confusion muddled his gaze. His eyes seemed duller to Yamato, mostly from fatigue but there was a persistent fog obscuring his familiar glow. Yamato told himself it was the lighting, or lack thereof. "How bad is she, Yamato-taichou?"
"Bad, Naruto." Yamato massaged the back of his neck, it was like flesh covered stone. "Whatever you did to her before has kept the infection in her blood from spreading."
Naruto paused, only for a moment. His eyes became riveted to the floor, and much like Sasuke's silent anxiety, Naruto's eyes were screaming.
Yamato placed a hand solidly on Naruto's shoulder. "If the Kyuubi does more than you allow him to, I'll be here."
"It's not that. I could care less on what happens to me…" Naruto swallowed hard, a bitter taste pooled on his tongue. "It's her I'm worried about. How do we know this won't hurt her? Last time I let my chakra into her, it… did something." Naruto remembered smelling blood but of a different scent, one that clawed at his senses and that could not shake the memory of. It was such an invigorating thing to smell her in heat and know he was the cause.
"Then don't do this. The Kyuubi feeds off of doubt and fear. He will gain control if your resolve wavers."
Naruto looked up to him, his eyes as deep as oceans. "If it saves her life, I have no doubts."
"I will have to tell Tsunade-sama about this," Yamato informed him.
Naruto nodded. "And I'll tell baa-chan you didn't stop me."
Yamato ran a hand over his weary features. He was going to be demoted for sure. "We have no idea of the long term effects… it's very shortsighted, reckless…" He was starting to doubt.
Naruto was already gone.
Anko was screaming from down the halls.
"Gods save me."
"I'm not letting you do this," Anko wedged herself stubbornly in the doorway. "You can't do something like this—so unprecedented, without heavy study and trial!"
"We don't have time for that," Naruto said, utterly calm. His eyes were closed, his face was drawn taut making the whisker marks on his cheeks seem jagged. His deep scarlet cloak was long, travel-worn and embroidered with black flames on the hem. His eyes opened— "Now move, Anko-san before I have to tear out your throat." They were red.
"Oh, you better watch it, kid," Anko slammed her elbow into the doorframe and a fisted hand bloomed with shuriken petals. "I'll gut you before you can blink."
Naruto did blink, actually, and was already behind her.
Yamato burled down the hallway, hand outstretched and with a frantic motion, Yamato summoned spindly roots to spring up and coil around Anko's waist. The kunoichi was dragged down the hallway before Naruto's claws swiped at her neck. Anko wriggled under the constraints, and screamed curses at the both of them. Yamato knelt beside her, feebly trying to placate her but when Anko tried to bite off his fingers, he had no choice. Yamato pinched her carotid artery and she fell limp.
Silence filled in the darkness, a flickering light came from the room that held Kagome and Sasuke. Yamato sprinted towards it and the foreboding quietude, only to reveal Naruto's dark silhouette and Sasuke's flame-lit form.
Sasuke was folded against the wall, every muscle taut and a casual arm draped over his propped knee. His fingers were wrapped around his sword curiously and his eyes were locked onto Naruto.
"We did not leave on the best of terms," Sasuke said lowly and flicked his thumb on the hilt of his chokuto.
Yamato could not tell if that was a threat or an apology.
Naruto shook his head. "I don't have time for this… Teme, leave now."
Sasuke remained still. "I do not care what you have to do. Just do it. I will not stop you." His eyes flicked up and they were lambently scarlet. "But I stay."
"Fine," Naruto conceded and tossed a glance over his shoulder.
Yamato froze at the pair of feral eyes, near unrecognizable and laced red.
"Yamato-taichou, keep a good distance, please." Naruto knelt down and felt his heart nearly break at the sight of her. He could feel Kyuubi's senses droning through his, and what little scent she had reeked of sickness. Naruto knew that she was at the precipice: she would either live or die tonight.
'She will not die,' the Kyuubi growled and there was such an urgency— such a panic in the fox's presence that if he startled the demon any further, the beast would lose it and in turn, so would he. 'She has survived far worse, but her own power is waning. She needs mine.'
"I am ready," Naruto whispered and let his hand cup Kagome's face. She glowed in the firelight, and her flesh was so soft beneath his nails. The tips of his claws coursed along her jaw line and plucked at her throat and like the thinnest of barriers, tore it open. A single bead of blood swelled at her pulse, but Naruto dragged his claw further… deeper…
"Naruto…" Sasuke's voice was venomous. His sword attested to that.
"I know what I'm doing," Naruto gritted out and felt his palm flush with the warm liquid. He kept his palm placed solidly on her and did not dare take it away. "Kyuubi…" he summoned the fox—
He was standing knee-deep in water, at the base of a cage and within the antechamber of his demon.
Before him, Kagome's small unconscious form floated within the murky waters. Her eyes were open, blank and staring into the yawning darkness. Her prostrated throat was bared and a dark cloud drifted into the water from the split at her jugular.
The Kyuubi's massive form twitched in anticipation behind the cage. His paws unfolded and his tails stilled as the beast gathered itself up and Naruto watched as the tailed-beast did the most movement in years.
"Save her," Naruto pleaded and immediately felt his knees give way. He sank to her, gathered Kagome to him and held her close. The fox's preternatural senses still thrummed through him and he could sense her very life essence coursing through her veins, waning with each passing second. "Kyuubi!" he screamed at the fox's inactivity.
Kyuubi was pacing, eyes feral and riveted to the small creature within his host's clutches. "So long, since I have seen with my own eyes… so long have I waited…"
"Fuck—stop messing around! Do something!"
"You brought me to her and now I will keep my end of the bargain, kit." A crescent of fangs split across black lips. "Now, this may hurt…"
A wave of red bloodcurdling chakra raced forth and washed over Naruto in an instant. He felt it bubble on his skin and invade every space of existence, pouring in and drowning out everything else.
Naruto screamed and the acrid chakra gushed down his throat. It filled his body with a terrible ache, as if his heart had been ripped out and replaced with a yawning void that burned and hungered…
He became a beast, a demon.
In that moment, Naruto had sold away his soul.
…
Kagome had been walking for an eternity.
Timid piddle paddles on water filled her ears. Her footsteps had long since lost their silence, for it was the silence that drove her mad.
The sun droned overhead. It beat down on her back, dripped into her flesh and down to muscle and sinew before settling into her bones—baking them dry. Kagome laid a palm across her forehead, forming a visor and shield for her eyes against the harsh sun.
She looked over the endless tides of her dreamscape. She had never been trapped in her own mind before, nor had she been within her own mindset for this long. Being a Genjutsu master always allowed her to come and peruse for a time and always by her own free will.
But not this time, no, this time every time she willed herself to leave, the waters simply outstretched and dragged her down.
Kagome blew at her still dripping bangs. Her skin was sticky with brine and the sun's heat was not helping matters.
Why did my subconscious have to make my mind so realistic?
Only a half of a day with Sakura and Inoichi had caused her to become restless. She did not like to be here. It reminded her of what she could never have again.
A past.
Now she had spent days at least in this space, this endless ocean that lay on top of her past and lost memories, and she was feeling wearier than ever.
She dipped down to the ocean's surface. Its still waters undulated underneath her touch and responded accordingly.
Memories, all recent, flooded to the surface. Faces danced across as clear as the sunlight's reflection. Naruto's smile, Shisui's kind grey eyes, Sakura's soft healing hands…
Words drifted past as well, snippets of conversations, whispered words…
'Tobi…'
The name drifted to the surface in a great sigh, over and over.
"The man with the mask, you're pursuing me…but why?" she asked the waters idly.
Doubts laced themselves with sunlight and bubbled up to the surface.
'If you want to live… run away and never go near Uchiha Itachi ever again.'
'You should get far away from the weasel, little one. Just as well, abandon his little brother.'
Kagome slapped a hand across the waters, shattering the voices. Feelings crawled over her skin. Itachi's hands on her ribs, tracing over and over… Naruto nuzzling into her neck with the deepest affection she had ever received… Sasuke strewn across her with apologies written in his eyes.
"I won't leave them," she promised.
A far off growl of thunder perked her ears and Kagome stood. A dark shadow of a storm loomed on the oceans' horizon. Storms always were there but she never dared to get caught within a maelstrom of her own mind. She had had her fill of metaphors.
Kagome turned on her heel and walked in the other direction, where sunbeams spilled past and towering columns of clouds formed nebulous cathedrals. The dark thunderheads crawled along the horizon behind her. . .
But it was not so, for in an instant a great wave surged from the storm and was upon her. The great wall of water stalled for a moment when Kagome cringed under its shadow and then it boiled—
Red frothing liquid took its place, as if someone had bled a thousand corpses dry and tossed them into the ocean. The smell was vile but Kagome could not place it.
Her knees turned into watery things that collapsed, and Kagome became ill at the very sensation of being swarmed by this noxious liquid.
The wave molded and soon bubbled to a head of the fox, with a wicked simper splitting across its black lips and feral eyes fixed on her crumpled form.
"Found you," snickered a baritone.
Kagome found it near impossible to breathe. "You're… You're going to kill me!" She felt her hands collide with the water's surface. Her dreamscape was trembling with the Bijuu's presence. "I'm not ready for this… get out—!" she began to scream in agony. The Kyuubi's chakra was excruciating.
Kyuubi's leer faltered. "So weak, you can barely stand in my presence… your power is so very hidden—you are nothing compared to what you once were."
Kagome felt her body seize up and the saltwater beneath her lurch, ready to drag her down…
"Keep strong, miko," the Kyuubi warned. "My power will awaken yours. I can break this seal—"
"No, I will not receive a demon's help!" Kagome felt her body sinking into the oceans.
"Do you feel that, pup?" the Kyuubi observed as the girl became wan and sickly looking. "Your physical body is catching up to your wandering spirit. You will die if you do not accept my aid. I have already set my chakra in your blood, miko, now I need your consent to completely implement my power to awaken yours."
"I do not understand—"
"Much like how birds learn to use their wings, pup," the Kyuubi's form grew to more than just a frothing mass but a translucent cloud of noxious chakra. "You must fall in order to learn how to fly!"
"So you flood my system with enough evil to hopefully find some good to oppose it?" Kagome scoffed. "And if you don't find my power source? If you do not break the seal or whatever the hell you call this ocean in the middle of my brain!"
"I cannot break the seal yet, your physical body is too weak to withstand the process… for now, all I can do is weaken it—let just enough of your sealed power through to save your pathetic mortal shell and let you live for another day."
"What about memories?" Kagome choked out, feeling cold water slosh down her back as she was dragged down further. "Will I remember something? If you weaken the seal something must slip through."
"It is… possible you may remember a … snippet of your past." A tail of chakra reached out of the Kyuubi's amorphous form and lifted her up to eye level. She no longer touched the waters, but the Kyuubi's essence made her skin ache. "I must have your consent, pup."
"I'll refrain from asking why…. Seeing as we don't have much time." So many questions, her head was buzzing and she could feel a fever creep over her. Her body was deathly sick; she did not have much time left. "I will, only if you swear to release as much memory as possible in the process, Kyuubi. I am not done with you in the least." This demon had too much information about the seal on her memories and foreign power.
"I expect this to be the first of many conversations, miko," the Kyuubi leaned forward, irises scorched vermillion. "For I know everything."
Kagome could barely let out a scream before the Kyuubi dove into the oceanic depths of her mind and dragged her deep down with the same mantra droning through her mindset.
Hold your breath, hold your breath…
Everything she had ever once known lay at the bottom—
Sunlight fled, dark waters spilled into her lungs, she was drowning within the claws of the demon.
Just when she felt her lungs were about to explode, a small light burst into her vision like a thousand suns. The pink light spilled through the water and brought sweet relief to her being. The Kyuubi's presence jolted and the demon shuddered around her in pain.
The Kyuubi pressed forth anyway and gripped her tighter. Into the light Kagome felt a beautiful sensation—
Power.
Her own power.
Blood red claws reached forth into the light and Kagome watched as they were burned by its contact.
Purity.
It was then, a single 'snippet' drifted past, the slightest of whispers escaped the seal—
Memory.
Kagome screamed into the waters with her last breath.
A name.
"Sesshoumaru!"
She remembered now, if only a little.
Author's Note: Three days from now, on Saturday, August 13th I will post Kagome's memory as well as announce the updating date for Chapter 30. I am doing this because the following memory of Sesshoumaru will reveal… a lot and only if one reads carefully. Hence I am doing it separately to avoid the casual skimmer and get a slew of unnecessary questions. Chapter 31 has yet to be finished but know that Kagome's past will be revealed, very, very soon. Since questions are inevitable I will post Q&A on my profile which will last no more than 72 hours as of August 13th. Thank you for reading. ~KK
Warning: If I receive SPAM whether positive or negative, then know I will promptly block the user/disable anonymous reviews. I know some of are very enthusiastic to appease the update schedule but know I've never counted them and I never will, so you're repeated reviews are meaningless.
…
Update Schedule
75+ = Wednesday, August 24(two weeks)
45+= Wednesday, September 7(One month)
30+= Wednesday, October 5(Two months)
20+= Wednesday, November 2(Three months)
10 or less= bye bye! (eternal)
