Disclaimer: Naruto and its characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto.
Title: Gray-colored Happiness
Chapter: 37 of 42
Chapter 37
On the basis of nothing, I had expected to be led to the front entrance of the prison and then simply allowed to go free.
/I don't know why./
I'm never so lucky.
Instead, the moment I step from the darkness, the Hokage's not so ever-present guards accost me. They each roughly grab one of my arms and yank with a bit more force than I deem truly necessary.
/This is to be trouble./
Izumo leans down and whispers harshly into my ear, "The Hokage wishes to see you."
Fiercely, I tug my arm free from his hold. Slowly, I let a sly smile steal over my face. "If that was the case, all she had to was ask."
/Yes, good. Do not cower in front of such lowly men. You are better than they./
Izumo pulls up stoically, retakes my arm –apparently not believing me – and the two men drag me away.
I feel a little betrayed, truth be told. I don't know why, but I thought Kuma would have come to my defense. Or at least have given me some forewarning. Instead, he callously abandoned me to my fate.
And now I'm standing in another whitewashed room with not only the Hokage staring down at me, but the elders as well.
It seems I have been the topic of some much-heated conversation. The stress in the air goes many ways, weaving an intricate pattern that is not solely directed at me.
/Do not quail beneath their pitiful gazes./
And so I shall not.
Finally, The Hokage drops her hands to the long table in front of her and speaks. "It appears you've still been keeping secrets." Her gaze sharpens to a razor point. "I thought we had been through this before, Uchiha. You cannot gain the trust of Konoha if you don't give it."
It's an unfair judgment. "I haven't been keeping secrets."
/At least not lately./
"You told us just the other day that you have been able to read Yakushi Kabuto's mind," the old hag spews at me. "What is that but keeping secrets, pray tell?"
/That's rather a great jump in logic, isn't it?/
I snort. "I never said I could read his mind," I correct the woman. "And I told you as soon as I knew," I remind her haughtily. "I only realized it was a vision for the first time the night before."
Her frog face pulls in as if she has just sucked a lemon. "And you immediately tried to use it as blackmail."
/You would have done the same./
I restrain myself from shrugging.
As soon as she believes she has made her point, she adds, "You led us to believe it was a situation long in your notice."
/Hardly our fault that you yet again leap to unwarranted conclusions. Stupid old bat./
I keep my face blank. "I never said any such thing."
The old woman looks like she'd like to catapult herself over the table and throttle me. I'd just like to see her try; she'd probably break a hip. But before anything of the sort happens, Tsunade speaks up.
"So you're telling me this is a new occurrence?" I can feel the weight of her scrutiny as a physical thing. She'll know if I lie.
/Not lying, is it? We'll see how well that works out../
"No," I finally admit.
She raises a critical eyebrow and the old man has evidently woken up with a sudden snore and a jolt.
"I knew it," the old hag shrieks. "I knew it!"
/Sounds like a spoiled child./
Tsunade shoots a disagreeable sidelong glance, but says nothing against her. "How long have these visions gone on then?"
/Oh, do not tell her that. It is a trap. A very obvious one at that./
Yes, because I really ought to pay heed to the cause of all my troubles.
/That is unmerited./
"The visions have only just started," I amend. I'm still unsure the extent of the elders' knowledge of my present circumstances. I'm guessing they know nothing of Orochimaru or I wouldn't be standing here in relative safety with all my parts in tact. "But the connection," I stress that last word as I give the Hokage a meaningful look. "Has been active for some time."
Will she even understand such a subtle hint?
/Perhaps you give her too much credit./
She stares at m, trying to figure out my meaning. I blink once and she sits up straight.
"I see," she states brusquely.
So she is not so oblivious after all.
"See? See what?" The bag of bones has redirected her attention onto the Hokage, giving me a brief respite. "What on earth are you talking about?"
Tsunade lays her hands flat on the table and turns to the woman. "I will handle this."
The ancient lady sputters incoherently, making her look even more ugly than before, hard as that is to believe.
/Didn't know that was possible./
The man, on the other hand, stares intently at me with lazy eyes. He is quiet and seemingly unconcerned.
/He is the one to watch out for./
Or the one to turn to my side.
"There are tricks afoot," he says.
I look to him but say nothing.
"There is more to this little horse than meets the eye." His hands are folded neatly over his chest and he leans back in his chair.
"What is this now?" The old woman asks, her unfortunate attention once again in my direction. "Are there more secrets yet to be revealed?"
I keep my expression impassive, it's not as if I have any intention of telling her anything.
/Our secrets are our own./
"Perhaps we ought to skip ahead to the real interrogation," the hag motions to the invisible ANBU lingering in the dark corners of the room. "I'm certain Ibiki-san can be ready in a moment."
"Hmm," says the old man.
/Go ahead. See how far you get./
It's no wonder this country's such a mess, if these are the people leading it.
But the Hokage is quickly on her feet, drawing all attention back onto her with the abrupt movement.
"I will handle this," she repeats and I'm surprised she could fit any words through those clenched teeth.
"Tsunade . . " the older woman begins.
But the Hokage stops any further objections with an impressive pound of her hand on the table, sending a crack rocketing through its center. "I am the leader of this village."
"Only in . . ."
"And I'm the leader of its ninja. They follow me." Her sharp brown eyes turn on the elders with willful fire. "I have had enough of your interfering."
The other woman glares with her little toady eyes, but the man simply tilts back his head and stares at the ceiling.
"If Uchiha has information about an encroaching enemy, then it is my jurisdiction." The Hokage seems to stand a little taller. "I'll get the information we need from my ninja in whatever way I see fit." The blonde woman lifts her chin and stares down at the two ancient impediments as though her command is absolute. "You have interfered into areas of my affairs for far too long. You're overstepping your bounds."
The prehistoric bat gets to her feet and glares at the Hokage. "You would do well, girl, to remember your place. You may be the leader of the ninjas, but we are the council of the village. Our word is law."
I speculate abstractedly if the Hokage enjoyed being referred to as a "girl".
/Bet she did./
Tsunade's gaze narrows sharply and flicks from one corner to the next, taking note and perhaps sending covert messages to the shinobi stationed around the room.
"The ninjas are my charge. It's about time you let the future take care of itself." The formidable blonde woman circles the table to the front and approaches me. Her look is stern as she states, "You will hand the matter of Uchiha and Sound to me." She quirks up one side of her mouth. "I'll get the information I need."
The ancient councilwoman folds her hands into her sleeves in that would-be royal way of hers. She attempts to stand up straighter and waits a fill two minutes before responding. "Very well," she says, as if she is granting a request rather than being forced to bow to a demand.
"And," Tsunade muses almost whimsically. "You will release Uzumaki Naruto."
At this, the old woman bristles. The man drops his head once again.
"He's a danger to this village, an abomination," The elder woman attests. "We will do no such thing." I can practically feel her foul spit from where I stand halfway to the door.
My body goes rigid, my hands clenched tight and I feel the surge of chakra to my left hand striving to form a chidori, not entirely of my free will.
Tsunade puts up a quick, subtle hand, a gesture meant to calm me.
/What is the use of calming? A little rage can be good. A lot of rage even better./
"He is a valuable asset. He's protected the village many times, despite the way you, and it, have often treated him. You cannot simply throw such loyalty away." Though she addresses the elders, her eyes never leave mine. Her mouth lifts in a small, devious smile. "Besides, you know the opinion of the ninja community. Do you really think it wise to risk their loyalty?"
"If the fate of one little ninja is enough to sway their loyalty to an entire village, then we do not need them." The old woman sounds very certain of this.
/Pompous, more like./
"Oh, they would still protect the village," the Hokage concedes. "They are shinobi after all and they take an oath to do so. But the ties will be frayed. How can any of them expect fair treatment when you imprison a faithful ninja for doing precisely what he was sent out to do?"
"He practically destroyed an entire village!" The old woman insists.
"Villages can be rebuilt." Tsunade pulls her arm in tighter when she sees my foot move. "Nearly all the villagers were saved. The lord was defeated, the threat eliminated. Naruto did his job and yet you wish to punish him. All ninja look at this and see that it could be them in the same position."
Tsunade still has not faced the old pair, instead keeping careful watch over me. In return, I am keeping careful watch over the elders.
/Odd that this is no longer about us./
Clever.
The prehistoric hag holds her hands securely in her fat sleeves and throws her shoulders back in defiance.
/She has some serious delusions of grandeur./
Then the man creaks to his feet and leisurely exits the room. It takes quite some time for the old crone to notice the departure of her one ally, but when she does, the woman jerks her chin high in the air and strolls out after him. Tsunade, the ANBU, and I are now alone. I switch my eyes to Tsunade and she lifts one eyebrow interestedly.
"Did you win?" I ask blandly.
But she grabs my arm with enough of her supernatural force to cause the blood to stop flowing to my fingertips and swings me around.
"Come with me," she commands and with no other viable option, I do.
She closes the door so quickly after I enter her office that I almost lose my other arm.
"So," the Hokage begins as she passes me. "Tell me about how long your little guest has been speaking with Kabuto."
"I don't know," I answer tersely. "Are they going to release Naruto now?"
/And why exactly ought we to care?/
"Well, try to think back. How do you know that night wasn't the first time?" She sits behind her disorganized desk and gives me a smile more appropriate for dark alleys than offices. "They'll have to let him go soon. Even if she won't see it, he knows I'm right."
/On the other hand . . ./
"The Kyuubi is dangerous and Naruto will have to remember to learn more control. He had almost full control already when this . ." she waves her hand. "But that doesn't change the fact that most ninja are up-in-arms whether they like Naruto or not." She shakes her head. "The elders have put themselves in a very untenable position. It's hard for shinobi to do their job when any move could cause a backlash." She gives me a pointed look as if to make sure I understand. I do have a brain, thank you.
/Unlike some old women we could mention./
"They can't let it stand that way and they know it."
"How soon will he be let go?"
/Wretched little whelp. You are showing your weakness. You should never show your weakness./
Tsunade smirks at me. "Soon." The woman gestures to a small chair on my left. "I think these 'visions' of your take precedence. Sit."
So it did work. About time.
/Perhaps not so useless after all./
And I can wreak a little revenge against my uninvited guest.
/Wait a minute . . ./
And Naruto will see what I did for him.
/Predictable./
"Now tell me," the Hokage says. "How do you know they've been communicating?"
I lower my lids half-mast. "Kabuto basically said as much." I purse my mouth and take a breath, remembering the near pride he had in his insanity. "And Orochimaru clearly knew how to take control and maneuver to him."
She raises one thin eyebrow. "But you've never noticed this before?" I don't answer and she takes a different tack. "Do you normally recall your dreams?"
"I try not to." I push myself closer to the back of the chair and sit up straighter. "Usually they're nightmares."
Her hands fold into each other neatly on top of the desk. "I see." She considers her fingers for a long while. "And there's been no other incidents that you can recall?"
"No," I tell her.
But she eyes me skeptically. "Are you absolutely certain about that? Think again. Anything strange. Anything at all." She uses a voice one would use with a wild animal, slow, soft and encouraging.
/How very annoying./
It's getting on my nerves.
But I do as she says. Naturally there would be a lot of memories with Orochimaru or Kabuto. Nothing sticks out in my mind.
/An utter waste of time./
Except . .
/There is nothing to see because there is nothing to find./
The back of a forgotten memory tickles at the edges of my consciousness.
/This is useless. Stop it. There is no need. There ought to be better things to do./
There was that one time.
/No times. There is nothing./
There was that one time; so long ago that I put it from my mind. But . . .
/Because it means nothing./
I slowly open my eyes. "That day . . " The images are still hazy.
"What day?" The Hokage urges.
/No days./
"In the classroom . . "
"Yes?"
/Classroom? No, nothing happened there. You are remembering things that did not happen./
I look straight at the woman and into her penetrating eyes. "It was like two images overlapped." I pause, thinking about it. "But that was a memory; Orochimaru escaping after you refused to heal him."
/Ha! I should kill her for what she did to me!/
Tsunade sneers as she relives fond memories. "Describe it to me."
And so I do, to the best of my ability. That first jarring sensation, the kids and the cave, feeling out of breath and desperate. The Hokage absorbs every little bit of information like water into a sponge. Once I'm finished, she leans her head to the side and stares a long time. Orochimaru growls like a beast trapped in a cage.
Then, all of a sudden, the woman pushes back from the desk and rises. Clasping her hands demurely behind her back, she takes a few moments to gaze out the large picture window at the village and the trees and sky far beyond.
"I don't believe that was a memory," she informs me. "I believe that was first contact. The connection with Kabuto had likely just been made so that it was tenuous and unwieldy." She turns to me and levels me with her harsh honey brown eyes. "But I think that Orochimaru recognized its potential. From that moment on, he both used the connection and hid it from you."
My eyebrows pull together as the full weight of that settles onto my shoulders.
'I will kill you, you understand that, you slimy little snake?'
/Try it, my pet. You need me. Besides, you are still too weak, as you have always been. Such a disappointment./
If what she says is true, that means it's been, "Almost six months?"
That's six months of lying, six months of being manipulated. Six months of Sound regrouping.
All by using me.
My chakra begins to crackle at the seams, seeking out my seals so it can smash them to bits and grant me my freedom.
'Damn this "combining" shit. I'll just expel you out like the waste you are.'
/Ku-ku-ku-ku./
My chakra finds the curse seal first, the most receptive, the seal that lures it in, cajoling it to snap and break. The tri-comma mark begins its quick seduction, the tendrils of power reaching out its tiny feelers, caressing the underneath of my skin and whispering to me promises of power, strength, revenge and all I could ever want.
Tsunade's grip on my shoulder is barely in time, but it sends the strands zipping back, reforming their deconstructed circle and leaving them cowering in the darkness.
"Stop that."
Her voice is somehow firm and soothing at the same time. I blink several times, fighting to make the agonizing, absolutely seductive power-haze slip from my vision.
She finally releases me and that sudden absence of pain is like its own physical presence.
"Looks like you're going to have to do some serious training," the woman remarks almost lazily as she returns to her seat. "That display there shows me that. And if your new connection is to be of any use to us, you'll have to learn to manipulate it as well as Orochimaru."
/Never. You are too simpleminded. I've been trapped here in the banality of your brain long enough to know that./
"He'll fight me," I declare unequivocally.
"Yes," she muses. "I expect he will." She curves her lips up in that not reassuring way. "Now then. Shall we begin?"
o.o.o
I am sent to an empty, imposing interrogation room to wait.
And wait and wait.
I don't know how much later it is when someone finally comes to check on me, but it's far past what decency dictates. The door opens and Izumo is there with someone behind him, but the man's body blocks them, so I can't see who it is.
"Uchiha Sasuke," the man says levelly. "Your trainer has arrived." He turns and nods to the other person. "I leave him to you." He slips out between the bare space allotted by the doorframe and then I am alone and face to face with Yamanaka Ino.
She glowers at me from the doorway and remains perfectly still.
/What is the hell is she doing here?/
This promises to be an unpleasant, if not disastrous, experience.
I nod and greet the girl neutrally. "Yamanaka."
Her expression tightens briefly. Then she enters the room, closes the door behind her and silently walks up to me. She gives me a long searching look then sits in the chair opposite mine. Meticulously, Ino places her hands onto the table and interlocks her fingers like the teeth to a zipper.
"Look," she says, her eyes blank and her tone only briefly reflecting her desire to be anywhere else. "I'm not here for you. I'm only here because as I understand it, you're our best chance at avoiding further destruction to Konoha." She pauses, but it's not a silence that needs interruption. "We will be professionals about this and, hopefully, we'll be done quickly." As I would very much like the same result, I again make no comment.
"All right," she says. "I'm going to enter your mind but still allow you free access so that you can start to feel how this works. I want you to pay close attention to the details. Notice how your body, your mind and your chakra feel different. Because you're going to have to do this by feel and with secrecy." Her face remains static and stern as she explains as though to a first year academy student and I have to fight not to betray my irritation.
/And why? She is no friend of yours and of no use./
'You can just stay out of this.'
/The ultimate irony, my pet, is that without me, you wouldn't be doing this at all./
I wince with annoyance, which makes Ino lift an eyebrow.
"What is it?" She asks.
"How much do you know?"
"Obviously, I know everything," she informs me in that eerie monotone. "Otherwise I couldn't help you."
/Not so good at keeping secrets, are we?/
I swallow with a clench of my jaw. "Orochimaru is talking."
Ino's eyes seize in for an instant before she responds. "We'll just have to wait and see how that affects things." She's back into her self-appointed mask in a moment. "You'll ultimately need to replicate his chakra signature for this to work anyway, so it might be just as well. There are no jutsus for this sort of thing and none you could use anyhow. Only the," she pauses for a second and I see her throat tense up. "Yamanaka clan can perform that type of jutsu. When you do this for real," her face turns darkly serious, "You're on your own. It's do or die on your first try. If you fail, there won't be any second chances and we'll be blind. So we want to get this as close to perfect as possible." She breaks, either for dramatic effect or to ensure that I fully comprehend what's at stake.
"Are you ready?"
I have to be. "Yes."
Both of us are grim and composed, "professional" as she said, as we regard each other.
"Good." She quickly makes the necessarily hand seals and the next thing I know, the two of us are in the blank space of my mind, crowding into an already overcrowded space. Orochimaru's constant malevolent sludge undulates creepily in a corner.
"Pay attention," Ino's voice warbles oddly. "Do you feel how the links between body, mind, and chakra feel disjointed, almost fragmented?"
"Yes." It's both oddly familiar and unnerving, maybe because it's familiar.
"Memorize the connection between them first. It's the center of what makes a person who she is, so it's both the most important and the easiest to pinpoint."
I nod.
But I have no idea how to memorize an intangible sensation. Ino must realize this because she says, "You won't get it on your first attempt." She waits a few minutes more and I do my best, but this is new and different from anything I've done before.
/Wouldn't want you knowing how to do this, now would I?/
In my mind, Ino scowls and suddenly we are back into our proper bodies. My head jerks to the side with the violence of return. My vision becomes sort of tunnel-like for a second before it clears. Ino is biting the inside of her lip, deep in thought.
I clear my throat and ask as politely as I can manage, "What's the problem?"
Her eyes lazily lift to my face and she lets her swollen lip go. "I'm trying to decide whether it's harder or easier to have him interfering."
"He'll be there either way," I inform her.
"Yes. I realize that." Her pale blue eyes are expressionless. "Well, as long as you can ignore him while we're working," she pitches it like a question, so I nod. There really isn't any choice. "Then it ought to be all right." Her hands shift slightly, though still in proper seal position. "We'll keep doing this so you can fully memorize the pattern. Then I'll slowly ease off and while I'm doing that, you'll need to replicate what's left. I'll tell you whether or not you're doing it right."
"You can do that?"
"Of course," she says as if it's obvious. "It's essentially what I have to do when I perform the jutsu anyway." She shrugs minutely. "Then we'll repeat the process for body, mind, and chakra until you know them all."
"That'll take a while," I remark.
"Not if we work fast." She states firmly. "Ready to try again?"
I take a deep breath and rest my hands flat on the table. "Fine. Let's get this over with."
She nods once sharply with the barest sardonic upturn of her lips.
And we begin.