A/N: Hello everyone and happy New Year! I'm very sorry about the wait. I hope you all have a lovely 2020. I'm sorry the chapter is so long - I didn't want to have any cliffhangers of information.
Enjoy.
Uzumaki
Chapter 36
Where the fire cleansed Naruto of every fear and pestilence, Kimimaro was bleached by it.
Once the glow was gone from the clearing, Kimimaro's colour seemed to drain away with the heat. His hot hair turned white, his warm skin became grey, and his eyes became the colour of a sickly pond. All was gone, sheer skin over blue circuitry, and he stared at the embers long after they had smouldered into ash.
There was silence between them, and Naruto had nothing to say. His back was to the world, to all the faces in the bushes. Most had ran at the fireworks.
"Did you like the fireworks?" Naruto asked at last.
"So that's what those fucking things were called?" hissed a distant voice.
Shlrp. Naruto leaned forward, feeling pained. He summoned the surge, and his red chakra sealed the gaping wound. He could feel it: his lung was punctured, and his breath was scarce.
Even so. Naruto felt the skin string back together, and he took a lengthy breath. Shlk. Another knife came in. Shik-shik-shik-shik-shik. Five more came running through.
The surge summoned itself, the hot red searing his wounds and keeping his legs planted. It was fresh now, and though Naruto knew how to ward off that hotness normally, now it was coming unwarranted. He felt his chest with a fire-nailed hand.
Seven thin golden spikes had ran him through, avoiding his heart but puncturing all around it. He gasped. It was strange - he couldn't scream, because the air in his lungs just wouldn't pull in. He couldn't cough, or say anything: the air just softly flowed from those wounds he had. He looked at them for a moment before they were yanked back through, and his legs gave out beneath him. He hit the grass with a soft thump.
"Kimimaro." Kidomaru held a golden spike between his thumb and finger, running down the spike to wipe off the blood. "Where is Orochimaru-sama?"
"He's dead." Kimimaro's voice betrayed nothing.
Tayuya stepped forward, a scowl seared into her features as she slammed a foot onto Naruto's face, pressing down hard.
"How the hell do you know that?" snapped Tayuya, grinding her foot firmly into Naruto's cheekbone. "Was it you, Kimimaro? You were supposed to be his vessel."
Naruto's vision was blurring, the Nine Tails sluggish and begrudging as the fire filtered through.
The ridges on the bottom of her shoes left his cheek ridged and pink with pain, like an undercooked steak pushed into a hot barbecue.
"You accuse me of killing Orochimaru-sama?"
"Yeah, I do," spat Tayuya. "I bet you faked that illness to get out of being his vessel, and then when the time came, you killed-"
Shlick. The pressure on Naruto's face was gone at last, as Tayuya stumbled back, gasping. There was a soft, wet noise, like uncooked chicken splattering onto the floor, and all of a sudden, Tayuya's hand flopped onto the grass, fingers twitching, spurting blood like a broken faucet over Naruto's nose and cheeks.
"Ah- aaaah-!"
"Kimimaro!" roared Jirobo, pushing past Tayuya and slamming a wide, powerful fist towards Kimimaro. Kimimaro slipped to the side, and Jirobo stumbled: he whipped a sharp, long arm bone with a crack across his back. The bigger man collapsed, flat onto the grass.
Naruto reached to his face, looking at Tayuya's fingers twitching. The blood was quickly cooling on his face, no longer warm. He felt so dizzy. His breath still wasn't coming.
"You're truly a sickening sight," muttered Sakon. "A loyal subject, turned against his master, and for what?"
Kimimaro cracked his spine-whip once more, and faster than Naruto could catch the bones clasped around Sakon's neck. His other half detached, Ukon, pulling apart slowly when Kimimaro pulled a sharp bone blade from his left hand to Ukon's neck.
"Accuse me again, and I won't take just a limb, I will take your other half," snarled Kimimaro, cold and furious.
Ukon peered at Kimimaro with a singular glint in his eye, straining away from the sharp point at his jugular. "I'm surprised," Ukon said, smirking with a hint of fear. "You were never afraid of hurting people, were you? You really hid yourself from Orochimaru-sama until the end."
"Wrong," Kimimaro hissed, tightening his whip. "Orochimaru-sama knew who I was, and that's why I was his most prized student. I never hid myself from him. I was just never arrogant, like you."
Kidomaru wove another golden arrow from his lips, pulling back his bow. "Hey hey, now. Don't move, Kimimaro. I'll run you through."
"You think I have anything to lose?" Kimimaro seethed, eyes alive with fire. "I don't care whether you live or die. I don't care whether we all die, right here. Because I don't care about anything in this cursed world now. I might as well be dead."
"So, was it you?" asked Kidomaru, weaving another golden blade from his lips. "How did someone kill our lord?"
"Don't you dare accuse me," Kimimaro spat out, angrier than Naruto had ever seen him, "You faithless cowards."
Tayuya was still cradling her arm in the grass, when Jirobo pulled himself up, heaving for breath and still winded. "So it was him?" he whispered, pointing a thick finger to Naruto. "He did it?"
Kimimaro turned to them, away from Naruto, and he could see nothing. Naruto's lungs were reforming: he could breathe again, and he gasped, his back arching. The wounds were still raw.
They turned to him, flat on the ground now, and he felt honestly that this could be it. It would be a torturous end, no doubt, but it was fairly suitable. At least he'd killed that goddamn snake bastard.
"Go."
Kimimaro's voice was low.
"You're going to defend that bastard?" Tayuya roared, clutching her bleeding stump and her face the image of contempt. Her voice was cracking, pained gasps with every breath. "You're going to defend the piece of shit who killed Orochimaru-sama?!"
"I'm giving you one chance to go," Kimimaro repeated, lifting the long spinal blade of bone to Tayuya's chest.
"And if we don't?" Kidomaru's arrow was still poised between his lips, the string taut.
"I'll cut you apart," Kimimaro whispered. "And I won't bury you. I'll let your parts rot in the grass and your eyes get pecked out by birds. If you're still recognisable in a few weeks, I imagine someone will find you and try and collect your parts together for a Konoha bounty. If not, I imagine you'll just eventually get eaten down to your bones. Maybe foxes will pull your limbs into the thicket and eat you there, and you'll end up in his fur and bones. But you'll rot, one way or another."
They stared at him.
"Go," he repeated.
"We won't forget this," Jirobo warned, his voice low.
"Good," Kimimaro whispered, a spectre in the burned out wood. "Remember me."
One by one, they went into the darkness of the forest. Naruto couldn't move to see if they looked back, and for a long while, Naruto listened to hear if Kimimaro would leave too, waited for the soft crunch of footsteps on dry grass as he left. But they never came; Kimimaro lay down in the grass beside him, curled into himself away from Naruto, knees to his stomach. He wept.
Temari was an early riser, and the morning in Konoha was cool and misty. Even the balcony was tinged with a foggy morning blur.
Somehow, Satsuki's home was a little sadder than she'd expected. All Temari heard from foreigners, particularly Konoha foreigners, was that Suna living was sparse and quiet. To be fair to Satsuki, she had never said anything of the sort, but Temari had expected her home to be bright and vibrant, with bright painted wood everywhere and cushions of red and gold.
No. Her couch was navy, overstuffed and old, her bed was comfortable but dipped in the centre with age and use; her home was coated with an expected layer of dust, but all the furniture was plain wood, nothing to speak of. No real sentimental belongings that she could see, not even a gift. Two chairs, one table, and not much company.
Temari was quiet as she pulled out a chair and tapped her fingers, watching Satsuki's sleeping figure quietly. She had one arm draped off the table, face smushed against the pillows, hanging from the edge like a sloth from a tree branch. Temari didn't think she would be waking up anytime soon, so she stood up, a little louder, and moved to the kitchen cupboards.
Some gross-ass cup noodles, char siu pork flavour. Temari frowned. That was nasty. How old even were these? Satsuki hadn't eaten noodles in front of her in the entire time she'd known her. She opened a couple more cupboards, frowning, and found an old dry bag of rice under the kitchen counter. Not a great showing.
She closed the cupboard, and stared hard at the counter, hoping her gaze would conjure something, before she sighed. Well, Temari was a ninja.
She crept to Satsuki, gently lifting some keys from the side table beside her head, and stepped into her shoes quietly. Out she went, with a light click of the door, and Konoha's tight blue world beamed down the alleyway before it opened into the square.
Temari breathed in, and smelled so much green. Away she walked, through throngs of people, busy markets filled with busy busy people. She went to a stand, and purchased eggs, vegetables, and so much fish! Suna just didn't have fish like that, fresh like that, ready like that. There wasn't any way to keep it fully fresh when travelling through the desert, especially since night travel was so treacherous. How do you police a desert?
Fish fish fish, thinly cut and fresh, there was rice at home, vegetables, eggs. Oh, and there were some apples. She'd take a couple of them, yes. Some strange looks from the shopkeepers - foreigners? here? - and back she went, until-
-thwap. Bump, thu-bump, ah, shit, but she did manage to keep hold of the fish at least. Everything else was on the stairs. Temari swore under her breath.
"Oh, god, I'm so so sorry," gushed the girl, kneeling down and gathering everything in her arms and almost dropping it again in her nervous haste.
She moved to lean down too, until she caught a glance and stopped midstep.
"Haruno Sakura?"
She looked up with a start, and her eyebrows knotted tightly together before unfurling again, raising. "...Temari? Oh, I didn't even think… I heard Satsuki-san was training with you?"
Temari stared at her, as Sakura held two armfuls of food, kneeling on the stairs.
"No shit," said Temari, struggling to hold the sour tone from her words. "Satsuki wrote to you every fucking week. She talks about you like you're her best goddamn friend in the whole world. You just forget about her?"
"I didn't know that, I've been- it's been, well I don't know, but I came to talk to her about all that," Sakura looked nervous, trying to hold the produce in her arms still. "A-And anyway, that's not true, Naruto's always been her…"
She trailed off.
"You serious? Are you actually for real?" Temari snapped at last, holding the fish in a sopping bloody paper brown bag. It was tight in her fingers, blood seeping through the bag through her fingers down to the elbow drip drip drip onto the floor. She slung the fish onto the stairs, the fish hitting the steel with a thick thwap and then peeling off onto the ground with a fl-uup. "I swear to god. You really are a piece of shit."
Her hands were free, still bloody, she slammed Sakura's head onto the alleyway railing by her throat, fingers pressed firmly around the skin. Sakura was smaller than her, and she coughed and spluttered up at her, calloused fingers clawing at Temari.
"She wrote to you," Temari hissed, the tightening of her choke grip hot and furious as she loomed. "You ever seen Uchiha Satsuki write letters to anyone? You ever see her keep a journal, write poetry, write soulful little notes to anyone? Because, listen, despite it all I'm going to promise you. I'll promise you that she's never done that for anyone else in her goddamn life."
Boom. Temari slammed her arm against the wall beside Sakura's head, and she heard her gasp through that iron hard grip. "That must have killed her to do, to write to someone who doesn't write back. She's the proudest person I know, and I know a lot of fucking people. Your excuse for ignoring her is just, 'I don't know', and 'Naruto's her best friend anyway'? Dunno what you missed, but that Naruto dude's in some cesspit in Otogakure with the man who murdered my father. Murdered your Hokage too? Ring a bell?"
Temari was seething, her teeth were grinding, and she cocked back a fist, one, two-
Thwoomp. Eyes bloodshot and lips swollen purple, Sakura sent a chakra infused knee into her gut. Temari hit the floor, and she toppled backwards, winded onto the mucky alley floor. She coughed, spluttering, trying to hold down vomit. It had come like instinct - when had she learned to do that?
Sakura fell back against the wall, heaving for breath, coughing and gasping, and in spite of her own swimming vision, Temari staggered to her feet, infuriated by her innocent green eyes and gorgeous pink hair. One step, two step, she grabbed a handful of those pink locks and drew back the other fist again-
"Stop."
Temari's knees hit the floor, and she winced, letting go of Sakura.
Satsuki was on the steps, dressed in loose black pyjamas and looking haggard. The fans she'd slammed flat-side first into the back of her knees clicked shut in her hands. She looked down at both of them, and Temari shamefully turned her gaze away, cheeks burning as she sat back onto the ground. Haruno Sakura said nothing either, her gentle gasps echoing through the room.
There was quiet. Temari heard Satsuki sit back on the stairs, the sound of her putting her fans down onto the metal, and heard her exasperated sigh as she put her head in her hands.
"Listen, Satsuki," Temari started, "I-"
"You are going to make me lose my apartment," Satsuki snapped, giving her a cold, dark look from between her fingers. "And you are going to lose your travel visa. You might have even lost us our village's alliance if you'd killed her. I swear to god, if you dare carry on, you'll lose your feelings in your legs too because I will snap your spine clean in two."
Temari held her hands up placatingly. "Okay! Okay, fine, alright. Done. I'm done."
Satsuki drew her gaze to Sakura. She seemed to stiffen at the gaze, uptight and upright like a pink bamboo shoot.
Temari felt herself anger again, and Satsuki shot her a knowing glare. After a long moment, she closed her eyes and sighed, running her hands through her hair and turning her back to them. As she walked upwards, Temari followed suit quietly, and the girl Sakura stared up, bemused, until Temari gave her a sharp look, and she scurried up obediently behind them, until Satsuki stopped abruptly, making her stumble.
She looked back at the two of them with a cold dark look.
"Go get that fish. And the rest of it."
"What? Satsuki, that's so gross," Temari cringed.
"I will wash it. We are not wasting a good fish."
Sakura's throat was aching, her mouth still dry and a trace of fire behind her bloodshot eyes still searing her. Her fingers and toes still tingled with the oxygen deprivation.
Satsuki went through the door, which had been left ajar, and Sakura peered in. Sure enough, it was the same place, but the windows and walls were yellowed with dust, there were bags on the table, and that single plant Satsuki had kept was gone. She settled on the table with an unamused look, and Sakura hurriedly closed the door and headed for the sink.
"B-Bring those over here." She focused her gaze on the sink, busying herself with running the tap and rinsing the cloth. "I'll wash them. Sorry. It's the least I can do."
Temari lumbered over, putting down the paper package of fish, dusty vegetables, and a package of eggs with a single egg cracked inside. Sakura grimaced, lifting it up between two fingers and dropping it in the bin.
And so she washed in silence, rinsing the fish first. There was a small rip in the bag, little rocks and dirt that had gotten in, and one particularly large stone sat in the sink drain with round confidence. She cleaned it, sitting it on a plate, and moved onto the vegetables and fruit, rinsing them between her hands. They were shaking, and she felt her breaths quivering, her chest tight with a shortness of breath. It was terrifying. She'd came here, forced herself here at the news, but nothing was any better. Things were worse, somehow, and she was just as terrified as before.
But she carried on in silence. Beside her, Satsuki dipped dusty dishes in for a quick rinse in the sink to get off the dirt, wiping them clean and setting her small table. Satsuki only had two chairs at the table, Sakura realised. What would they do? Why did she only have two chairs? Sakura supposed it had never mattered to her before, because she'd never had anyone here.
That felt mean, and she tried to shake the thought off, but perhaps it was just true.
"Are you done?" Satsuki interjected into her thoughts, and Sakura yelped, dropping the fruit she'd been rinsing into the sink. She held her hands to her chest, feeling them shaking violently.
"Yes," she said. "I-I'm done. I'm sorry. I'm just- it's…"
Satsuki reached in front of her, turning off the faucet and shaking off the fruits and vegetables one by one and placing them on the draining board. "We'll talk in a bit. Just sit on the couch and stop worrying."
Sakura felt her heart rate slow a little, and she nodded, moving over and sitting awkwardly on Satsuki's couch. As Temari poured out the rice for Satsuki and Satsuki snapped at her with a sharp remark, she felt herself calm a little, and finally, she took Satsuki in.
It was the same strange foreign world. The thing was, it could have been a dream; things were just intangibly similar, and different enough to be a world unlike the one she knew. Her memories were faded but the most recent she knew, and everyone in them was strange and ethereal and not quite right. And now she, and her body, were similar but different in that same disconnect. It all felt like fantasy.
Satsuki only added to that. She was taller, not towering, tougher and maybe a little less pale; her cheekbones a bit more pronounced; her hair was longer, and she had it up in a bun with a hair comb tucked in; but all in all, it was the same Satsuki. She wasn't too different. Just taller, stronger, and almost calmer, somehow. She was not the Satsuki she had seen, what, weeks ago? But that was years, now; there were so many nights between them.
Temari tentatively poured the rice into a bowl, filling with water from the tap and salting the water on the other side of the small kitchen. She turned on the hob, tic; tic; tic; the soft whoomf of the gas lighting, soft blue flames against the bottom of the pan. Satsuki, on the other side, poured some spices and soy sauce onto the fish and let it sit in a small bowl, wiping her hands off on a hand towel without looking at either of them.
As Satsuki set about grilling the fish while awkwardly ignoring Temari, boiling the rice on top of the stove, Sakura tried to think of anything but this moment. But it wouldn't come - how would she explain herself? How would she get Satsuki to believe her? Would she believe someone, if she were in that position?
Sakura knew what that was like. Sometimes, she got angry at her mother for not buying her something that was promised to her, only to learn it wasn't her fault - the shop was closed, or it wasn't in stock anymore. It was bratty, and she knew it wasn't fair, but she couldn't help being angry all the same. It was tough to get over feelings like that, she thought reluctantly.
"Rice ready?"
Temari turned off the hob. "Yep."
"Okay. Spoon that out into some bowls. We've got some fish. I don't have any soup, but it's something."
The clinking of bowls raised Sakura from her reverie, and she was anxious again.
"I'll sit on the couch," she offered. Since there was only two chairs.
Neither of them responded. She felt more ill.
Satsuki came with a tray, plain white with circular tea stains on it, a bowl of rice, some soy sauce, and fish on little plates and bowls. The porcelain quavered against itself in a cacophony of clatters as she held it. Sakura took it, and it clattered more. She supposed Satsuki was shaking too, but she had a feeling it wasn't because she was frightened.
Temari and Satsuki pulled the chairs out, and sat down to eat. Temari finished far before Satsuki, who Sakura would still class as a pretty quick eater, and she didn't even come close to either of them, which meant she was left quietly munching fish in the silence. It didn't take long for Satsuki to stand up and boil the kettle. Nervous habit - huh.
Sakura had a weird moment while eating too, where when she expected to get full she carried on eating, still ravenous. It still felt fairly recent, yet still very long ago, when she used to diet. Now, with this appetite, it felt unthinkable, yet she didn't feel very fat. She wasn't. Sakura was a teenage girl, for sure, but she was mostly muscle.
As she finished up, putting down her chopsticks, Satsuki lifted the tray from her and finally stood in front of her for a moment. Sakura lifted her gaze from the floor as she heard her sigh, and met her eyes.
It hurt to look at her. It was like looking at a twin, or a sister. She was older, still so lovely, but she was different and there was nothing to bridge the gap. Everything was so different. She couldn't get used to it. Her chest felt tight.
"So what is it?"
Satsuki put the tray on the table (Temari put it in the sink) and she sat on the couch next to her. Next to Sakura, she was still very thin, but she was a little less muscular, even.
"What's what?" Sakura whispered, staring at her lap.
"Say it," said Satsuki, crossing her legs.
Sakura felt her heart racing, and her words escaped her for a moment, skittering on her lips like a deer on ice. "I… That's the thing." Sakura didn't want to cry. God, she was older now. She didn't cry anymore. Did she? She didn't know. "I don't know what happened. I got injured last month and when I woke up, the doctor told me the Third Hokage was dead. E-Everybody told me all these things I don't remember, not even a little bit, and that years and years had passed, and that Naruto was gone and that you were gone and everybody- I just…"
She cried, staring at her lap, and she stopped even trying to speak. She gasped in between her sobs, and she expected something, or anything, but there was nothing. Got to calm myself, she thought. Got to calm down. Got to calm down.
Sakura rubbed her eyes, her teeth chattering with that strange untamable hysteria, and she looked up. Satsuki looked back at her, coal almost-black eyes unmoved.
"Get out."
It felt like her heart was where her brain should be, each beat thrumming through her eyes like a drum. "I swear," she insisted desperately, grabbing her heavy canvas skirt in bunches, desperately trying to keep herself together. "I swear Satsuki-san, I swear on everything that I'm telling the truth, I don't remember anything, I-"
"Stop crying." Satsuki's tone was hard. Temari wouldn't look at her.
Sakura tried to hold in the tears, the quivering voice, the breath that wouldn't come, and nodded fervently, wiping her eyes again. The raw skin around them stung. "I'm trying, I am, I-"
"Just get out of my house," Satsuki said, her voice low and smooth. "I don't want to hear your excuses anymore. You're not helping me. You're absolving yourself."
Sakura stood up, her chest tight, lump in her throat, struggling for words. Temari made eye contact with her, and she shook her head.
"I'll go," whispered Sakura, her lips trembling, eyesight blurry again. "I'm sorry I came."
"Yeah." Satsuki walked to the door, socks silently shuffling on the wood as she pulled back the front door with a long enduring creak. Sakura walked out of it, struck, wordless and in pain so tight she felt like her head might simply split. Down the steps, thunk, thunk, thunk.
The door didn't slam; it closed quietly, with a click.
As Sakura met the bottom of the stairs numbly, distantly, something glass shattered loudly. And then the silence came again.
The morning came, and the smell of smoke still hung about. Tayuya's hand was cold in the grass, and the smell of blood was gone: the red had soaked into the soil.
Naruto sat up, his body still tender from wounds gone. He prodded where the holes should have been, and cracked his spine as he sat up.
Kimimaro was asleep, small in his bundle of ivory clothes. Red spattered his weapon arm, and dirt smeared his clothes brown at the back. He was lying away from him, and as Naruto stretched, he didn't know if Kimimaro had awoken.
It hadn't been the best place to sleep, but he'd been so injured he couldn't move, and then before he knew it sleep had come. He looked around: the trees had burned, but the fire had ceased. Good. He'd feel bad if the entire place burned.
He reached into his yukata, lifting out a tightly folded map and unfolding it as quietly as he could. Big splotches of ink marked bases he had to burn. Nearest was the Northern Base, but he had to go to the island base too. That one had Karin - the woman he needed to see the most. Business was business. As long as he breathed, he needed to scorch that man from the ground.
Naruto folded it away, stretching. He'd miss the free food of Orochimaru's base, though. Absolutely nothing else, but definitely that; he was hungry. Breakfast was first up.
It took him an hour or so to find a somewhat gaunt rabbit, then another to skin it and drain the blood from it before cutting the meat from it. Naruto had done it a couple of times, being with Orochimaru and having to occasionally do actual missions for him, but it wasn't to his taste, and everything about the process made him feel a little ill.
He'd been quiet while doing it all, but not silent. It was only after kindling the fire that Kimimaro rose.
"Oh, you're up." Naruto pierced the meat with a stick, perching it above the fire by a distance. "I'm cooking rabbit. If you're planning to kill me, at least wait until this is done."
Kimimaro said nothing. He lifted his sleeve to his face, looking numbly at his sleeve, blood turned almost brown now.
The rabbit charred at the bottom when it was done, and he gave the first piece to Kimimaro, who took it quietly, and ate it in silence. Naruto took the second piece, which was overdone, and ate that before Kimimaro even finished his. No fresh water though. He'd have to find that.
"I'm off to find some water." Naruto stretched, cracking his back. He felt for the scroll that everything was inside of: still there. Good. He needed that. "You coming?"
"With you?" Kimimaro's voice was barely a whisper.
Naruto eyed him. This could be the breaking point. "Yeah, well I mean, that's the offer. You don't have to come, but I'd like it if you did."
"You kill my lord, and now you ask if I want to come with you on your adventures?" Kimimaro's voice was louder now.
"Orochimaru was a dictator, not a lord. People were just frightened of him, y'know. But yeah. I'm gonna go burn some other bases, then I'm gonna let all the other people out. I need to speak to a woman called Karin."
"You've taken everything from me." Kimimaro met his eyes. Naruto could see his jaw working.
"That's not true," Naruto said. "You still have yourself."
"You took my reason for living from me," Kimimaro said. He pulled himself to his feet, walking towards Naruto. He was taller, but thinner. "You took my death from me."
"Who wants to die?"
"I did, and that's not your choice! It's mine, and it's all any shinobi truly has!" Kimimaro roared, the fire alight in his eyes again. "What I do with my life, who I follow, isn't your choice! I knew what I wanted, and I did what I had to, and you took it all away from me!"
He leaned back, unsheathed sharp bones from either arm and wielding them like ice picks. He swiped his arms forward faster than he could see, and Naruto veered back. A bone splintered straight through a tree trunk where he stood before, and Kimimaro yanked the bone free with a yelp.
"Kimimaro," Naruto said, staggering backwards. He wasn't going to get a weapon. He couldn't lose someone else after all of this. "It's true. I did this for me. But that doesn't mean I did it to hurt you."
"Fuck you!" Kimimaro screamed, eyes glistening with furious tears. He swiped with the blade, Naruto's collarbone was nicked. The shallow wound bled eagerly down his chest, hot liquid trailing. "God! Did- did you never think for just one second, that perhaps you didn't know me better than I do? That my entire existence isn't just a drop of ink in yours? That maybe- just maybe! I've lived an entire life, with an entire meaning, behind what you've seen?!"
Naruto clutched the shallow wound, blood wetting his hands, and he jumped back. "You didn't have a life, Kimimaro!"
"It was never your place to fix my problems! I needed Orochimaru-sama! I needed this pain to end! I was finally going to die with meaning, with real meaning, and I would never need to remember my life again! You've stolen that from me!"
Naruto looked at his friend.
"No," he said, shaking his head. He stumbled into the long grass, and sat looking up at him. Kimimaro bore both blades. "I've freed you from Orochimaru. You don't need anyone. This is your new life."
"That was not your decision to make, Uzumaki Naruto," Kimimaro seethed, holding the blade to between his eyes. Naruto saw that fire burning through him, through his eyes and down through his gut and charring his bones.
"We all want to believe we know people, maybe even better than they know themselves," Kimimaro whispered, breathing heavily and his weapon shaking. "It is a comfortable, empowering feeling to think we can see people's hearts. But you don't know me better than I do. You don't know my destiny. It could be that I have no hidden potential, no future at all, and all you saw was a mirage because you were a man dying of thirst in a desert without people."
Kimimaro looked like a puppet, heavy and slouching, and he pushed Naruto into the grass with one hand, the knife of bone following his brow to the ground. It hovered above him still, so close the blade was nothing but a blur to Naruto. "The truth that I know, and the one you will never accept, is that I lived my life as I chose to live my life - in the service of Orochimaru-sama, the man who gave me freedom. No matter what you thought of him, that doesn't change what he did for me. No matter what anybody else thought of him. It doesn't matter that Orochimaru-sama was a villain to you.
"To pretend there's good and bad in this world, to pretend that everybody has a shining heart or a corrupted one - to enforce it on others - makes you a dictator. Orochimaru-sama never labelled anyone. He was honest, and he never tried to decide my life for me. I chose to be in service of him."
Naruto grasped the grass between his fingers. He was alive. Orochimaru was dead. Everything from here on out, he thought, didn't matter. But that was the liberation of it.
"I know, Kimimaro," he said, feeling a strange, foreign smile come on as tears budded in his eyes. "But I didn't have the choice that you did. I had to do it for the people in my life who Orochimaru took everything from. I wanted to make sure they passed on. In the end, maybe you're right. I did it for me. I hated him. I wanted to hear him say their names."
The sky was white, and Kimimaro was pale; there wasn't an ounce of colour in his vision. Soon, blood, he thought.
"He fucking insulted me," Naruto said, his vision blurring. "He- He fucking insulted them, too. The whole thing was one big joke to him. He didn't give a shit about those people. It's one thing to kill someone - it's another to forget them. You're a man who respects everyone who crosses his path, but there is no one in this world further than that than Orochimaru. I'm trying to free you from that. I'm freeing you from the worship of a man who murdered tons like you because they didn't have a unique jutsu. Can't you see that?"
Kimimaro said nothing, bony blade still quivering above his head. He could smell his skin, the dampness of the clothes from Orochimaru's base.
"If you want to go somewhere else," Naruto said finally, exhaling, "You go. If you want to kill me, kill me. But if you kill yourself, you're disrespecting Orochimaru just as much as I did by killing him. If this life he gave you is so special, do something with it. I don't care what. You can kill me right here, follow me, go out on your own and make a family and till land if you want. But I'm going to go and burn Orochimaru's horrible life from the land like the cancer it was, no matter what you do."
Kimimaro's eyes bore him through, and for a moment, Naruto was sure he was dead. Perhaps the moment seemed so long because his brain was already bleeding: perhaps this was the last unassailable, eternal moment of his time, seeing Kimimaro's misty eyes staring right into his, forever.
But he didn't. Kimimaro pulled away, bones sinking back into his skin like a cat retracting its claws, and he stepped back into the clearing. Naruto took a deep shuddering breath.
"I won't let you take anything else from me," Kimimaro whispered. "Don't make me kill you. You're one of the only friends I've ever had."
Kimimaro was still white, colourless, bleached of all as he left. But there was nothing for it, Naruto decided. The colour would come.
It had been two days since Satsuki spoke — for a certain definition of spoke — with Sakura. They hadn't spoken since. There wasn't an awful lot to say.
Certainly, Sakura had a lot to say. But Satsuki did not have much to say back, and there was nothing to say that would really articulate her hurt. It didn't matter, she felt, that Sakura didn't remember; Satsuki still hurt. Satsuki was still ashamed. That emotion was still hers, and she was still so, so angry.
It didn't bring her any relief that she had the Sakura from before. She hadn't believed her, and the pretence had been downright insulting, but Ino had explained, and when she didn't believe Ino ("Covering for her with such a ridiculous story?"), Tsunade had explained. She still didn't feel like forgiving her.
Everyone else seemed relieved that Sakura had gone back to normal, for a certain definition of normal. But Satsuki wasn't relieved. She was hurt. The Sakura who remembered hurting her, who ignored her and cut her out, deserved to hear that. Maybe feel it too. A punch wouldn't go amiss.
There was no point if she didn't remember. If it wasn't even her.
Satsuki had gone to bed hollowly thinking about that, and her dream had felt endless, a dream you could confuse with another life if it lingered in your memories too long; it was the Chuunin exams, but she was not small anymore, nor was Sakura. Naruto was still young, and they had been forgotten by the world, but unable to escape that endless forest, forging for a way out and unable to reach the middle. They were crouching in the thicket (boom boom boom), a drum sounding somewhere distant (boom boom boom), and then a great cry ("Can you hear me?"), as they ran through the grass, then (boom boom boom) she felt the bedsheets around her legs, but then it was the thicket (boom boom boom), her hair felt slippery against her face, her hair was long now (had it always been long?), it was caught on something, Sakura was dead, Naruto was dissolving into the ground like-
She awoke feeling ill, and panicked. Sweat was thick on her skin and her clothes were damp, clinging to her back.
"Uchiha Satsuki-san!" an insistent, polite voice sounded. Boom boom boom. The door sounded like it was giving in. "Can you hear me? It's time for the meeting!"
Satsuki felt the acute frustration of being in a village where people genuinely came and banged on your door to wake you up. That hadn't happened to her in a long time, but maybe that was the esteem of being a foreign visitor. To be honest, why anyone would do it to another human being ever was beyond her.
She pulled herself from the sheets, feeling sweaty and like she needed a shower. She could feel her hair tangled at the back from her fitful rest, and a tangible taste of bad breath on her tongue. Satsuki felt nauseous as she headed for the door.
She yanked the door open, feeling unsteady on her feet as she stumbled back a step at the weight. "Yes?" she croaked angrily. Didn't really come out as aggressive as she'd hoped.
It was Rock Lee. What in gods name had possessed this man to come to her door, in the morning, and knock her awake? He wasn't famous for his comprehension of personal boundaries, but had they even had a conversation over two sentences?
"Ah, Satsuki-san," Rock Lee said, looking abashed, "you're not dressed?"
"Is that a question?" she snapped back hoarsely. Looking down, she supposed she was just wearing a big shirt and some underwear. She leaned behind the door a little for modesty. "No, I'm not dressed. What is it that's so urgent? Why do you know where I live?"
"Hokage-sama suspected you were not checking your jounin pigeonhole for news, so it came upon me to notify you about the meeting today!" he announced heartily. "It is the team assignments today. We will be meeting at the jounin mission assignment lobby in the jounin HQ."
Team assignments. God.
That said, Satsuki did need money. This place was rent free, but food and the rest of it wasn't. She was going to be a complete legal adult soon and the Konoha government wouldn't be helping her at all now that she was grown. Not to mention the price of her gear, and the fact that she was just getting plain unfit not training at all.
Team assignments were part of Tsunade recognising her official jounin status and allowing her to finally start doing jounin missions, she decided. That was okay. Not welcome at this kind of hour, really, but she would be fine as long as she was not on a team with Rock Lee, or anyone else too annoying. Ideally, she thought, not Neji either. Satsuki didn't imagine he had let go of the Hinata thing.
"We must go, Satsuki-san! Being late because of this would be unacceptable."
Goddamn. "I just woke up," she snapped, feeling her tiredness really creeping up on her. "Give me a minute. I'm gonna get in the shower and head over."
"Do you think you have enough time for that?" Lee said, incredulous.
Satsuki scowled. "I'm not sure how it's your business."
"I have been assigned the mission of making sure you attend," Lee reiterated, aghast. "I haven't been late once in my entire life! Lateness is an incredible show of disrespect!"
"Knocking on someone's door, someone you have never held a conversation with, in neon green, with the force of a battering ram at 5 in the morning," she breathed, "is disrespect. Leave. I will go to the meeting myself."
"Tsunade-sama insisted-"
"If you don't leave, I will make sure you are late."
Lee looked quietly, and politely, furious. "You're very stubborn, Satsuki-san."
"I've been informed. Leave."
She slammed the door. Long after she stepped into the shower, she was sure he was debating with himself outside.
Satsuki arrived at the mission assignment building. She was indeed, very late; everybody was filtering out of the building. The sun was just coming up, and the world felt quite awful, and bright. The air smelt like fresh grass, and there was no smell of cooking just yet.
"Satsuki-san! Over here!" the bright green boy waved from the doorway. Quite unmissable, she thought. No turning back now, though, she'd already come, and she did need her team assignments so she could start getting paid, goddammit.
The building was ugly, and clearly military-based. Everything in it was concrete and dark green or brown. It looked like the decor of where they'd taken the Chuunin exams: absolutely every expense spared, distinct with the smell of sweat.
Satsuki approached, letting on to Rock Lee with a small wave. He gave her an ecstatic smile, and headed on in, motioning to her. She followed, weaving through the crowds until she got to the main lobby. The chairs were armless, in lines and threadbare with dull green weave, and the floor and ceiling were tile, making the entire room feel like a massive bathroom somehow. There was paper all over the floor, and through the crowds, somebody familiar calling from the middle of the room, holding a large split folder of papers and sorting through them fervently. Satsuki couldn't really identify them through the crowds.
"Ah, excellent, Satsuki-san! You can still get your assignment!" Lee yelled, overjoyed with relief. She sighed, weaving through to get to the man with the folder, thinking desperately of her bed. She realised, with no small amount of anger, that she wasn't even really tired enough to go back to bed anymore. Outrageous.
She pushed through, but ended up pushing into the man, who was about her height, ponytail-
"Iruka?" she said, raising an eyebrow.
"Ah, Satsuki! Great, you're here," he smiled, rifling through the folder at record speed.
"You're on mission assignment?" she asked, watching him look through it. He had a studious look on his face.
"I'm just handing out the papers, not like I have much say," he said, fingering each section intently. "Ah!" His face lit up, and he swiped a small stapled bundle of papers from the U section with a flourish, holding it in front of her like a fresh dish. "That's your team assignment," he beamed.
"Thank you," she nodded, turning around and looking around for Lee. Hm. Whatever. She sat down on an empty seat, people bustling about, and took a better look at the pack.
The front page was relatively plain, for privacy, she supposed. It just said Team 3 in big letters, presumably so they could find it - the Hokage's seal was in the corner - and it had "Uchiha Satsuki" printed on the top right, presumably so they could look through them quickly in the assignments.
She lifted up the first page.
It was a ninja profile, fairly detailed. It struck her as a copy of the official record, maybe with some omissions - who knew - of… Hyuuga Hanabi, the official Hyuuga heiress after Hinata's death.
She froze. Her heart felt like ice in her chest.
Hanabi. Hanabi? Hyuuga Hanabi? Was there a worse choice for a team, with Satsuki in it, than Hanabi? Maybe Neji, who she knew hated her, would have been worse, but Hanabi couldn't feel any better. Good chance she hated her more, actually. It was well known that she'd wanted to bring Naruto home, that she'd tried to help him. Were the Hyuuga so nice as to just brush off that association? No way. This was bad.
But maybe it would be alright, Satsuki reasoned; after all, jounin had their own fair share of single missions, mix-ups with other teams. She knew the team wasn't something many teams stuck to rigidly. It was a malleable thing, not like the genin set up.
Deep breath. Next page.
Nakazawa Tarou. Pretty young looking, too. Hanabi was a prodigy, so jounin for her Satsuki could understand at a push - especially with the other Hyuuga heiress having been killed. There would be a lot of pressure on her. But this guy, Nakazawa Tarou? She frowned at the picture. He was young, blonde-brown hair. His scores weren't exceptional really at all, not that they were the worst she'd seen. That record was still Naruto's.
She felt her heart sink, but still, she turned the page.
Inuzuka Ashi. That didn't ring any bells, and if she was old enough to be a jounin, it should have. Satsuki had a bad feeling. If the Inuzuka had an exceptional young girl, wouldn't she have heard about it at least once? Her and Kiba weren't close, but-
Oh no.
"Ah, Uchiha Satsuki-san! It is such a beautiful sunrise, is it not? The perfect day to awaken a brand new Springtime of Youth in our new students!" Lee declared, stretching his fingers to his toes and cracking his back. "Do you have Hanabi-san? I've been asking all the jounin whether they have Hanabi-san on their team. Personally, I know I can't use ninjutsu or genjutsu, but I think I would be a great jounin-sensei to her! I could teach her how to best Neji-kun. I bested him in a fight this year, but he is refusing to honour it."
She stared at him.
"I know, it's the true, fantastical tale of hard work overcoming the prodigy!" Lee smugly declared. He flexed to emphasise his efforts. "However, Neji-kun refuses to admit this. As to be expected of the prideful Hyuuga clan. I hear Hanabi-san is the same. A tough shell to crack for you indeed! But fear not."
He flexed again, shooting her a very white smile.
"Much as I cracked Neji-kun's tough, manly exterior, I shall help you prize open the rewarding oyster of Hanabi-san's rage, and steal the shimmering pearl of genius concealed-"
Satsuki was already out the door. Hell was decidedly here.
"Hokage-sama, Uchiha Satsuki is-"
"Do not let her in here."
"She's already inside!"
"Prepare yourself, Hokage-sama!" Rock Lee was yelling again. "Satsuki-san is here for your head!"
"Are you serious? I had no idea you were such a complete idiot!" Satsuki roared, pushing past Shizune waving an outstretched hand. Shizune was rattled, and the pig was loose, squealing wildly as Satsuki launched a stapled pack of genin profiles at her. The paper slid off her face. Tsunade was very unimpressed. "Hyuuga Hinata died and everybody blamed Naruto! Do you think the Hyuuga want me teaching their prodigy?!"
"What did you just call me?" she warned, scraping her red nails on the desk. "Get the hell out of my office before I smear your esteemed skull across the wall."
Satsuki did not relent at that, and she shook Shizune off, who gave up and picked up Tonton, sulking to the side of the room and shooting Tsunade an angry look. Like it was her fault that she couldn't keep people out of her office.
"Hyuuga Hanabi," Satsuki got out, taking deep breaths, "will kill me. If she doesn't kill me, then Hyuuga Hiashi, will kill me. And if neither of them kill me, then I imagine on a sunny day, when nobody else is around, Hyuuga Neji, her cousin — who has a deeply held vendetta against me — will find me, and kill me. Did you even read her file? Do you have any idea-"
"I have dealt with far more Hyuuga than you could ever hope to see in your life, Uchiha Satsuki," Tsunade shot back. "They are mature enough to handle this with grace. Unlike you."
Satsuki almost choked, and the fury on her expression would have made a weaker woman flinch. "Grace? You're leaving me in the hands of some imaginary Hyuuga grace? They still make the second-born children slaves!"
"That's a very contentious issue, and they're not technically slaves." Tsunade held a finger up, but looked troubled, massaging her brows. She still needed to deal with that. They were very unmoving on the topic.
"What word do you use when people use the threat of torture to force others to serve people? Do you have an official term for that?"
"Slavery's more complex than that. This is a whole different topic."
"No. This is a joke," Satsuki said, staring dumbfounded at her. "This is a complete joke. You're doing this to punish me."
Tsunade leaned back in her chair, and gave her a meaningful look, crossing her legs. She looked away, and realisation crossed Satsuki's face.
"You did, didn't you?" Satsuki repeated. "You did this to punish me."
"It's not punishment, per se," Tsunade corrected her. "It's to re-establish your loyalty to Konoha. If we went everyone who went and got accredited in other nations just waltz on in here, we'd be in trouble. You need to show loyalty to the village."
"You're not sure I'm loyal," Satsuki reiterated, "So you're giving me three young children, two of which are clan heiresses? What gives you the impression I can teach in the first place? I've been here for less than a week!"
Tsunade's eyebrow twitched at that, and she stood up.
"Listen," she said, balling her hands into fists and trying to hold her temper in. "There's not a lot of jounin work around here. For one, Kakashi is still out, investigating Akatsuki. Jiraiya refuses to take genin teams at all, ever since some orphans he tutored died. You get the picture. Haruno Sakura, my best student, has lost her memories, and is basically a genin again. That's not to include the fact that lots of our jounin just fail the teams each year. For every person that passes, they have to tutor a genin team at least every three years to come even close to breaking even on the labour there. And, not every person actually makes it to jounin. Do you understand? I can't just clear you of your duties because you don't feel like teaching."
"That's the system our village has used for generations," Satsuki shot back. "How does that have anything to do with why I have to teach a child who is going to despise me, from a clan that even besides the blame by association, despises my clan?"
"I can't afford to not assign genin anymore. I can't. And quite frankly, you were the prodigy of your year. If someone unqualified starts teaching Hyuuga Hanabi, we'll really feel the heat." Tsunade slammed her hand onto a big pile of papers. "You get me? If I don't assign you, that's another team I can't allocate. Don't you think the fact you're receiving such high-ranking genin speaks to the desperation of the situation?"
Satsuki snorted. "That Inuzuka Ashi's scores are abysmal. I'd hardly call her high-ranking."
Tsunade rolled her eyes, and sat on her desk. "Her family is. You get the point. But I can't afford not to assign you a team, just because you don't want one. As I said, Sakura's lost her memory, Ino works in the hospital - another very vacant sector in Konoha - and we just can't afford to have these areas vacant. I need jounin sensei. You're a jounin. Now you're a sensei."
"I won't allow this," Satsuki fumed. "You can't just do this. You can't saddle me with three genin! I was a genin four years ago!"
"Yeah, well, four years ago I was an alcoholic with no job, so tough." Tsunade yanked open her drawer and pulled out of a bottle of sake, popping the lid with her thumb and throwing back a mouthful. "You're officially an educator. Go teach those kids a thing or two about despair."
Satsuki gave her a final, stony look, before storming from the room. She slammed the door so hard something important fell off the shelves.
Shizune put the pig down and took Satsuki's team assignment paper from the desk, glancing at the profiles in it with a thoughtful look. "You're still an alcoholic, Tsunade-sama."
She skillfully dodged the stapler Tsunade lobbed at her without even looking. Damn.
A/N: Pastries or cakes?
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