Dammit.
Sometimes, I hate the back button.
I had a lot of fun writing this. It made me laugh. A lot.
I hope you like it too. :)
Promises Not Made are Promises Never Kept
Chapter Twenty-Seven – Refracted Truths
For a moment, Kakashi didn't know what to say as he stared at this creature before him that had stolen Sasuke's face, feeling very awkward and very vulnerable.
This was a mistake. This was the biggest, fattest fucking mistake I've ever made in my entire fucking useless life-
But this is your chance!
"Uh… yes," he replied, knowing that it wanted an answer as it gazed at him expressionlessly. He struggled to begin. "What… what are you?"
Those crystal eyes blinked at him blankly for a moment before he shrugged.
"Complicated," he stated simply, nodding as he raised his eyes to look back up at Kakashi. "Yourself?"
"That's not what I asked you," Kakashi huffed in irritation. Sasuke's face was not shaken.
"That is exactly what you asked me," he responded, blinking innocently. Kakashi rolled his eyes.
"You knew what I meant."
Sasuke shook his head as he replied, "not necessarily. You know what you meant. But how could I possibly know for sure?"
Fighting an exasperated sigh, Kakashi ran his hands through his hair.
It's okay, Kakashi. It's okay. You're talking to it. That's a start.
"Okay," he breathed as he thought. "Boy or girl?"
Sasuke cocked his head at Kakashi and blinked at him with a monotonous face.
"Neither."
Kakashi scowled.
"Male or fucking female?!" He spat angrily, steaming. The first semblance of expression passed over Sasuke's face as one eyebrow arched upwards just the littlest bit and the corner of his mouth quirked up.
Finally. He's getting it.
"Male," he stated, nodding as he crossed his arms. Kakashi felt himself encouraged the littlest bit.
"Are you a demon?"
"No," Sasuke just almost snapped, giving Kakashi a barely-there scowl. "I am above such things."
"So what are you called?" We're getting somewhere. It's okay Kakashi. We're getting somewhere. "Are you the thing that came out of the book?"
Sasuke shrugged. The power that radiated off him was unfathomable, and Kakashi wondered as to how he could be so brave (or stupid) as to get mad at this creature that might as well be a deity. His movements were small, but they were fluid and smooth. There were no sharp jerks or sudden shifts in posture. Everything was perfectly controlled and perfectly logical. No movement was wasted or without purpose. Power rolled within those shoulders.
"I am one of the things that came out of the book," Sasuke replied as he gazed at the other man with those striking eyes. "So yes. And I am called many things."
"You know what I mean!" Kakashi huffed again. This is fucking ridiculous! Sasuke rolled his eyes languidly, and even that motion seemed without any feeling whatsoever. Like he was simply going through the motions because they were things he knew Kakashi was familiar with and would find comfort in.
"It's your fault I'm answering this way," he explained patiently. "Vague questions will always receive vague answers. You must be precise."
Like he is. Kakashi realized, remembering what Naruto had said. You have to think like him.
But he didn't know the first thing about the creature he was talking to. How could he possibly know how it thought?
"Are you some sort of beast?" He asked. Sasuke raised a single eyebrow at him.
"Do I look like a beast?" He asked. Kakashi almost howled.
"This is why you agreed to talk to me, isn't it?" He demanded with a seething glare. "This is why you said yes. Because you knew you wouldn't tell me anything I wanted to hear!"
Sasuke merely looked at him without an ounce of expression on his face.
"I can't tell if you're actually asking me a question or not," he responded blankly after a moment, seeming to be paying more attention to Kakashi's tone than what he was actually saying. Kakashi slapped a hand to his face and fought to control himself.
"Why are you in the kid's body, anyway?" Pakkun finally chimed in, making Sasuke look down at him. "And better yet, how is he still alive? So much power would tear a normal person apart."
"I am in this body because I was placed here," Sasuke replied. "Sasuke is still alive because I am not at full strength. And yes, I suppose he isn't exactly what you would define as 'normal', is he?"
"So you're not a Tailed Beast?" Kakashi reiterated. "You're not one of the nine great spirits that inhabit these lands?"
Sasuke gazed at him for a long moment before replying.
"No, I am not one of the nine," he stated, making Kakashi sigh in relief. "I am the tenth."
Just before Kakashi could do something horrifically violent and absolutely out of character in his rage, Sasuke looked over his shoulder towards the sun.
"Kakashi Hatake, it is getting dark," he commented before looking back to the man. "We should head back to the village. Would you care to keep talking while we do so?"
Without waiting for an answer, he moved past Kakashi and Pakkun and started into the trees. Kakashi, grumbling, went after him.
"How on earth does Sasuke put up with the way you communicate?" Kakashi grumbled as they headed back to the village. Sasuke's eyes flickered up to him before he looked back to the front.
"He learned," the creature replied simply without looking over his shoulder, making Kakashi grumble. Then after a moment, "he doesn't. I don't speak to him in this fashion." This made the Jounin scowl at him. Without returning the look, Sasuke continued. "I suppose I should ask for your forgiveness. I don't interact with others. Ever. And the boy and I have been together for a while. He is quite adaptable, and I am out of practice."
"How long?" Kakashi asked, a little intrigued. Maybe now they were getting somewhere.
"Is my penis? Incredibly," was the nonchalant reply. Kakashi blinked at him dumbly, and Sasuke looked over at him before shrugging. There was no amusement. No enjoyment. Only nothing. "A little too out of character? I figured. Just reiterating the need to clarify." Before Kakashi should snap something completely obscene in irritation, Sasuke continued. "Over two years. We came together when he was twelve."
"That must've been interesting," Kakashi murmured, mostly to himself as he found his brain uncontrollably wandering back to the penis comment.
"I don't believe I understand that comment," Sasuke observed, glancing upwards at Kakashi before looking forward again. "Well, I understand what it means. I simply don't understand why you said it."
"You seem very… calm," Kakashi observed in return, looking down at him. "That seems to be your thing. Do you just have that much control over your emotions?"
"What emotions?"
There they paused, and Sasuke simply looked up at Kakashi with emotionless, monochromatic eyes. Such beautiful eyes held such mystery… and yet such emptiness.
"What do you mean, 'what emotions'?" Kakashi asked disbelievingly. "You do know what those are, right?"
"Of course I do. I'm not an idiot," Sasuke replied with a single raised eyebrow. "But I am not burdened by them."
"You mean your emotions don't bother you?"
"No. I mean I don't have any."
Wow. THAT EXPLAINS A LOT.
"What do you mean you don't have any?" Kakashi insisted. "How could you not have any? Everybody has them! Dogs have them. Birds. INSECTS- well, maybe not insects, but…" Quietly, he mused over this as Sasuke looked down to the ground.
"I was… made," he admitted quietly, making Kakashi look at him. Those eyes made Kakashi want to call bluff on the creature's claim, but even then there was something so… artificial about the expression that made Kakashi itch to hit him. "...from the fractured pieces of a dead god that the priests of the Lands of Waves had kept hidden from the world for hundreds of years. Finally, they managed a way to piece them together and breathe life back into them, but…" Lifting a hand, he gazed at his palm. "I am… a machine. A creation. Trying to give me emotions would be like trying to give them to your toaster. A very powerful toaster, but still. A toaster. It was beyond their power, and thus I awoke with nothing."
"I've seen some," Kakashi argued, refusing to believe that something so lifeless could be standing in front of him in a body that pulsed with existence. "They're small, but they're there."
"They're also borrowed," the creature replied, with an eye roll that seemed a little bit more genuine but not completely. "When you exist alongside someone as saturated with life as the boy, you tend to learn a few things. But it's only mimicry. It's not actual feeling."
"Do you wish you had feelings?" Kakashi asked, almost earnestly. Sasuke gazed at him for a moment and shook his head.
"No," he stated honestly – it had to be honestly. Why reason did he have to lie? "I've seen what emotion does. How it twists good people and makes decent human beings do terrible things. Without them, you are completely neutral. Totally unbiased. Everything you see is crystal clear. You don't see anything that's not actually there, and you aren't blind to anything that is. You know everything. You are whole."
"How whole could you actually be though?" Kakashi pressed. "I mean, you'll always be alone. You'll never be close to anybody or anything. You'll never experience the joys of the world…" Sasuke lifted his eyes and raised an eyebrow at the man.
"If you're asking me if I'm sad that I have no emotions, that seems like quite the oxymoronic statement," he commented dryly, making Kakashi acknowledge his accuracy with a shrug.
"So what are you doing in Sasuke's body?" The gray-headed man asked as they kept walking. "And if you're not the thing we saw at the Chunin exams, then what are you?"
"I was Sasuke's way out," the creature replied simply, sliding his hands into his pockets and hooking his thumb on the outside of the fabric – a motion Kakashi recognized as something Sasuke used to do before he was taken. "Or more rather his way in. That was the arrangement. He takes me unto his body, and he and the other two are forgiven for their crimes and accepted into the Land of Waves."
"Haku and Zabuza? Traitors for years? Murderers of countless ninjas? Forgiven? Just like that?" Kakashi asked disbelievingly. "No way."
"Mostly way," Sasuke breathed quietly with a nonchalant shrug. "I was not an easy creature to find a vessel for. I was too powerful for all of the people they had tried previously. A lot of exploding chests and bursting heads. They had just recently found a solution when Sasuke came along. He was their genie pig. And if it worked they were going to have the ultimate weapon at their disposal. It wasn't exactly a bad deal, I suppose."
"And what was the solution?" Kakashi asked. They were nearing the village now, and Kakashi just knew his window was rapidly shrinking.
"They split up my power," Sasuke replied. "What exists inside the boy is only a fraction of the potential I actually have. Nothing compared to the true god of legend, but…" he shrugged. "There's no real way of competing with something like that, I suppose."
"I'm sure you're as close as one could get, if you're telling the truth," Kakashi commented. Sasuke glanced at him – one could say almost sharply.
"You think I am lying?" He asked. "Or merely over exaggerating?"
Kakashi gazed at him for a long moment before sighing.
"I don't know what I think right now," he admitted, searching the trees that surrounded them. Looking back over at the other, he gave him a sharp look. "But where do you stand? Are you on Sasuke's side?"
"I am on no side except my own," Sasuke replied simply. It was then Kakashi realized the true danger of the creature he spoke to. No emotions meant no conscience. No emotions meant the beast never had a reason to hold back. "If that means being on the boy's side for the time being, then so be it. I must protect my host. But…" Lifting his eyes, he gave Kakashi a very even stare. Those eyes, though they held nothing, were sharp in their lack thereof. There was no natural human softness to his gaze, no sign of empathy or concern. Only logic, only knowledge. "If you're meaning the monster that emerged before your eyes, I'll have you know this…" That stare seemed to harden in its intensity. "If I had not stepped in, that beast would've killed that brat, you, and every single other person in that room. And then it would've moved on to level the village and rain down sulfur and blood upon the populace. You are very, very lucky that I exist."
"So you and the monster aren't the same thing," Kakashi stated firmly, finally subtly asking the question that had been running through his head since they had started talking. The creature gave him a very level stare before shaking his head.
"No," he answered simply before turning away. "Sasuke and I are not the same thing."
With that, he vanished in a whirl of wind, leaving Kakashi staring solemnly at the place he had once been.
Sadly, the interaction had only raised more questions than answers.
End Chapter Twenty-Seven – Refracted Truths
Woohoo! So we finally get to meet the big mystery fella...
But what's his name? Who is he? Where does he come from? Is his penis really that big? All these questions will be answered (eventually) in time in this super awesome story.
Did you like it? I would love it if you told me so. :3
Much love!
DDB
