A/N: Just some prior warning, slow chapter. Another update should be here quick, so stick with it if you can.
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Uzumaki
Chapter 38
The evening was coming to a regrettable close. Satsuki was tired, and a part of her dreaded the morning, where she would test her team. As she walked home from dinner, someone called out to her.
"Oi, Satsuki!"
It was Temari, waving gently.
She lifted her hand, waving back. Temari caught up with her, a light jog in her step.
"Hey."
"You busy? I have to head back and organise a meeting, but," Temari shrugged, "Don't want to. Can I get a drink?" She motioned to the metal stairs of Satsuki's apartment.
Satsuki sighed, but let a smile quirk her lips all the same. "Sure."
"How was your day, then? I'll make the coffee. You sit tight."
"I don't have any coffee."
"I do! All the way from Suna. My treat, since you guys don't have this stuff anywhere for below 1000 ryo a bag. Robbing Konoha bastards."
Satsuki did, settling on her overstuffed, worn couch and feeling the springs acutely against her as she lent back. She'd slept here, once or twice, strewn with scrolls, plagued with nightmares, cold sweats and a very sore neck.
She'd held those days at arm's length as she'd trained, nothing in mind but making sure she was strong enough next time. Temari had never asked about the past, so Satsuki never spoke about it. Now she sat amongst her memories, familiar streets and smells for miles around her.
And the children. It was as though she was drowning in sweltering nostalgia, hot unbreathable air down her throat.
Satsuki traced a figure of eight on the table, feeling the transition from soft to coarse where the varnish wore away. The sun was setting, and the hot orange cast across her walls reminded her of Suna with a twinge.
"I met my team," Satsuki said. "They were hard work."
"A genin team?" Temari gaped at her, letting the kettle overflow under the tap and spill cold water all over her hands. She put it in the sink, staring at her as the tap gushed water down the drain. "You're kidding."
"No," said Satsuki, feeling distant. "Tsunade assigned me a genin team. She says the village is overrun with need for ninja."
Temari broke out into laughter, doubling over for a moment with full-throated cackling. "No way! Oh my god, no way." Temari got the last of it out, coughing before she sighed, giggles fading a little. "Seriously though, that's awful. How the hell are you going to handle being around kids that much? Do you guys pay much for that work?"
"Only slightly more than the average jounin wage." Satsuki felt a circular tea stain around her fingers. When was that from? Water immortalised, wood swollen years ago. "I don't have a choice."
"You reckon they'll fail?" Temari hummed, drying her hands off and pouring out the overflow of the kettle. "Or are you just gonna fail them? That dickhead Jotaro back home used to do that. He failed a girl I knew twice because he hated kids."
Satsuki shook her head.
"No? They seem good?"
She shook her head again. "No."
"Then just fail them," Temari shrugged, putting the kettle on the stovetop. "If they don't seem good enough, and you don't want a team, it's the easiest solution, right?"
"It is," said Satsuki, looking at her fingertip. Covered in dust from the table, that she still needed to clean. She was reluctant to admit it, but it had occurred to her that this place was a place frozen in time. It got dusty, the sheets became musty, and the air became dry and dirty, but it was all as it was before.
The thought had come to her that maybe this dust had just little bits and parts of the past in it. Perhaps Naruto's hair was on her floor somewhere, a spare button from his coat under a table leg, maybe a pin from Sakura's sewing kit strewn in a drawer. The dirt, she knew, was her failure to order, compartmentalise - to move on.
But she realised with some pain that she didn't want to move on at all. The wound was not healed, it was simply covered; she'd peeled back the bandage to find the flesh still oozing, infected, wet with rot and festering.
Her mind was pulled back by the shrieking of the kettle. Temari poured the coffee to brew and sat down, putting her feet on the table and jolting a cloud of dust into the air. Her nose wrinkled. "Damn, Satsuki. You gotta clean. That is a lot of dust. You're gonna be drinking a solid layer of that if you don't watch out."
"I should fail them," Satsuki said, staring at the hot coffee as she pulled her mug back, dragging it through the dust like a sled through snow. "It's the easiest solution."
"Sure," Temari shrugged, sipping. "So what do you want to do instead?"
Satsuki felt a million things run through her head, and her heart raced at one of them, she breathed in, settled herself. "I have things to do."
"Like killing that certain man?" Temari gave her a sidelong look.
A long moment passed between them. Temari poured the coffee, and blowing on it gently, Satsuki brought it to her lips, smelling that dark chocolate aftertaste. The first sip was bitter, melding away into something softer.
"Uchiha Itachi," she whispered, speaking to no one. "Of the Akatsuki."
Temari started, and Satsuki kept her gaze to the coffee, but she could see Temari's reflection in it anyway: she was aghast.
"Your brother is in the Akatsuki?" she breathed, staring. "Why didn't you say?"
"I do my utmost to not think about that bastard," Satsuki said, but it didn't have as much force as she would have liked.
Satsuki knew Temari was aware of the massacre, but Temari had never pressed her for more information. She was grateful for that. But the Akatsuki was more relevant to Gaara now than ever.
"Still." Temari looked a little offended. "We need to know everything we can about them! You know that, right?"
"Of course I know that," Satsuki snapped, leaning forward, feeling sharp and sleepless at the memory of Itachi. "I don't know shit about my brother. All I know is that he joined the Akatsuki after… after killing my entire clan. Why he killed them, I don't know. He returned and taunted me about everything I'd lost, then he left again." She took another sip and placed the cup down with considerable force. "God, I fucking despise him."
"That's not true, that it's useless though," Temari offered, pulling her feet off the table and drinking the rest of her coffee with a gulp. She poured a fresh cup. "That's more than I knew a moment ago. The Akatsuki are incredibly secretive."
"They were after Naruto, too," Satsuki said quietly. "They came to Konoha to look for him."
"Naruto?"
"He had the Nine Tails," Satsuki said, choking up against her will, but trying to breathe deeply, pushing away the lump in her throat. "I realised that eventually. But my brother came to Konoha to capture him."
Temari softened a little.
"I lost that fight," Satsuki whispered. "I didn't avenge my family. Then Naruto left. Sakura disappeared. I lost everything but my training."
"I'm sorry," Temari said. "I didn't mean to drag that up."
Satsuki didn't respond, her mind whirring. She had lost everything: that was the truth, she realised. In some capacity, everything she had loved had slipped away, disappeared, hidden from her. All she'd had was a potent, simple rage.
Satsuki had not trained to kill Itachi, to capture Naruto, not for any such cause: she trained so she would never again lie paralysed, traumatised, brutalised. Satsuki trained for her pride.
She stood, shaking her head and pouring herself a cup of coffee as she moved to look out the window.
"When you became a ninja," Satsuki asked, mind wandering again, "What did your teachers tell you it was all about?"
"To be honest, Baki-sensei had it rough," Temari offered, thinking. "It wasn't easy for the guy. He couldn't, for instance, teach Gaara a lesson about getting his ass kicked or anything. But what he tried to impart was this idea of… well, that it's not about winning, or conquering, but about yourself. The idea that being a ninja isn't just about preservation of the cause, but is about conquering yourself. Fear, and weakness, and all that. And that if you can conquer even those basic needs, then you can endure anything, do anything."
"Huh." Satsuki sipped the coffee, looking out onto the marketplace. A flower vendor was packing away; it was sparse for plants, but some bouquets still hung from the top. "Kakashi was different. He taught us that being a ninja was secondary to the value of others."
Temari snorted derisively. "Yeah, Suna never really did care for that angle. Almost everything we got taught was about overcoming our human self. Maybe it was to turn us into weapons, maybe it was just a creed, I dunno. But it's fucking miserable."
Satsuki finished the cup, and put it down, staring into the square as the sun set abrasively before her. Maybe Kakashi really had been different. Tsunade had informed her that he was expected back soon, from a long S-rank mission gathering intel on the Akatsuki. If she passed these little shits, she was going to need his help desperately, she knew. She half-heartedly wished he was already here.
She blinked, puzzled a moment. Why bother passing them at all? What purpose would a test even serve?
She zoned out, staring without staring at vendors packing their goods away. There was a ninja tools vendor, packing away lines of kunai, picking hanging tanto from the top line like fruit from a branch.
It couldn't hurt to give it a try. If not to pass them, but to shut up Tsunade.
"So what kind of genin tests do they do in Suna?" asked Satsuki. "I have no idea what to test them on. I already know they're terrible ninja with no teamwork."
"Are you wanting to test them and maybe pass them, or are you just looking to torture them?"
Satsuki shrugged. "I can go either way."
"Oh ho."
Morning.
Hanabi couldn't be bothered brushing her teeth after breakfast. She hadn't eaten much anyway, and she hated the bathroom mirror. She got dressed, and she chewed mint gum as she packed her bag.
She looked over her ninja tools, thinking hard. What would beat Uchiha Satsuki? It all depended on the test. Fighting her, beating her, outsmarting her - something along those lines. Hanabi needed an edge, but what kind of edge? She still couldn't think of anything.
Uchiha Satsuki was going to be a master of genjutsu, she knew that much. She would be able to read Hanabi's movements. Her taijutsu, by virtue of age, would be far more advanced: her ninjutsu was fire-based, but she also had fans for her Gliding Edge taijutsu. The dual wielding would make her movement quick and unencumbered: she'd be able to deal with Hanabi's taijutsu easily.
Hanabi looked at her equipment. No matter how much she shook it about, she couldn't see how she, even with two other people, could possibly defeat Uchiha Satsuki. It hurt her to admit it. Her father was insistent she would defeat such a "crude dojutsu" easily: Hanabi had no such confidence. Even with Ashi's speed and tracking, and Tarou's... whatever he had, Hanabi couldn't see a victory.
Her edge was her cunning, her determination, and of course, her eyes. Satsuki wouldn't be able to surprise her. And even though Satsuki was faster and stronger, she didn't want this as bad as Hanabi wanted it.
Wire, bombs, tags, tripwires - it was a lot, but she decided it might be her only recourse. Hopefully the other two idiots would have something useful, but she doubted it.
She dressed, combing through her long, silken dark hair and stretching. She wore a loose, breathable white kimono top, and dark tight pants with pockets. Movement was key for the Gentle Fist.
Hanabi didn't have mirrors in her room anymore, so she looked at her legs for lint, counted her tags and kunai and shuriken, felt for her gum. She swiped her good luck bracelet from the desk on second thoughts, fastening it around her right wrist as she swept into the hall.
"I'm going," she said quietly, with no intention of anyone hearing her.
"Do your best."
She blinked. It was Hiashi.
He was worn these days, older, colder, but just as sour. She didn't look at him, pulling on her shoes as she opened the front door to sit on the step. She yanked her left shoe on. "I always do. You don't have to tell me."
"Avoid her eyes."
"I know that, Father."
"Make sure you do not lose."
"I won't," she got out, crushing the gum between her teeth as she ground her molars together. "Stop giving me useless advice."
"Do not speak to me that way, Hanabi. And remove that gum. It's disgusting."
"I'll do what I want!" she snapped at last, turning to him and giving him a furious scowl. "Telling me how to do my own test! I'm the one doing it, not you! If you're so desperate to tell people what to do, why don't you go out and do a mission every once in a while?! Sat here looking down your nose at people!"
"Hanabi! How dare-"
I dare, she thought, pulling her other shoe on and fleeing the Hyuuga compound. I fight, and I dare. I don't sit like a statue in my own home, telling other people how they ought to live their lives while ignoring my own.
Hanabi felt for her shuriken, her tools, her bracelet: she had enough to get her through. She had to pass this test. Not for Hiashi, not for herself, not for anyone. Not for anyone that would be here to see it, at least.
It was a sharp morning. The air was close with looming rain, but the world was still dry; there was no sound of morning birdsong. The birds huddled in the trees, waiting for the storm.
Ashi was already here, exceedingly early, but Hanabi could not see Tarou as of yet. Ashi was stretching.
"Hanabi-san! Good morning!" Ashi cheered, waving with both arms. "You look ready!"
Hanabi didn't want to bother with this, but it occurred to her that she knew for sure that she alone would never beat Satsuki, at least not before she was trained. There was too much age and experience between them.
"I am," Hanabi said.
"Me too!" Ashi flexed. "I trained all evening! I got a good amount of sleep too. I'm all ready to go."
Hanabi sat under the foliage of the tree, stretching out her legs and feeling for the tense muscles in her calves as she did. The air was crisp with a soft breeze.
She could see Tarou through her Byakugan, crossing the street and heading for the edge of the field. "Tarou's coming."
"Wow," Ashi whistled. "That's the Byakugan, huh?"
"Yes," she said, trying to encourage herself to be patient. "I can see all around me for a great distance."
"Cool!" Ashi's dog, Blackfire, was sleeping next to her as she stretched. "Right, I'm gonna run a lap, and then I'll see you in a minute and we can talk about the test and stuff! See you, Hanabi-san!"
Ashi sprinted off. Hanabi noted that she was quite fast-footed; she was across the field before Hanabi knew it.
Tarou arrived, hands in his pockets. He looked nervous. His pack was full of scrolls, a pen and ink. Seals. Not bad, but how good would it be against someone this skilled?
He waved at her, sitting beside her. "No Satsuki-sensei?"
"No sensei." Hanabi folded her arms. "Obviously."
"Well, it's still early yet," said Tarou, looking through his bag.
Ashi finished her run, heavy steps plodding into the ground as she panted, grabbing her knees. Blackfire stood up, stretching.
"Hey, Tarou!" Ashi said, breathing deeply with a grin. "Good- to see ya!"
"Hey, Ashi," he said. "How are you feeling about the test?"
Ashi stretched her arms above her head, but she looked a little hesitant. "I mean… okay. Not super confident, if I'm honest."
Tarou nodded slowly. "Why don't we all talk about our strengths and weaknesses? It'll help us know what plan of action to take if sensei springs something unexpected on us."
"Okay, okay!" Ashi sat down, smiling, pulling a strand of soft brown hair from her face as she gathered her breath. "Well, for me, I'm mainly focused on taijutsu, and I have some tracking stuff."
Taijutsu. Great, thought Hanabi glumly. There was no way they could possibly beat Satsuki with taijutsu.
"Okay," Tarou nodded, "What's your tracking like?"
Ashi tapped her nose. "I can smell someone from really far away. I can tell what they're doing, sometimes I can even tell what they're feeling. I can track people really well, and I can tell apart a clone."
"And you, Hanabi-san?" Tarou motioned to her.
"I'm a Hyuuga."
Tarou blinked, and Ashi stared. "So…?"
"Don't you know the Hyuuga clan abilities?"
"I know about the Byakugan," Ashi explained. "Is that it?"
"No," Hanabi sighed, shaking her head. "Okay. So I use the Byakugan, which can see in all directions, and through objects. I can see the points of chakra release on a person's body - their tenketsu - and I hit them using my Juken. That's a Hyuuga style of fighting that uses chakra to deactivate the tenketsu. So I can stop people using chakra if I can catch them with my Gentle Fist."
"That sounds really strong," said Tarou, "Can you use that on Satsuki-sensei?"
"Are we fighting Satsuki-sensei?" said Ashi, taken aback. "There's no way we're gonna win!"
"It's possible we'll have to impress her," offered Tarou. "Or maybe steal something from her. At any rate, we need to know how to beat her."
Hanabi sighed, rolling her eyes and folding her arms again."I can't use the Gentle Fist on her," she said.
"What?"
"I am skilled with it," Hanabi admitted, "but Satsuki is going to be too fast to hit. Her Sharingan will be able to predict my movements, and we're not strong enough to stun her."
"So what's Satsuki-sensei's abilities? You know them?" Ashi asked, rocking on her feet.
"Her Sharingan can copy techniques," Hanabi said. "It can track even very fast movements, and even predict them."
Tarou sighed. "That sounds… tough."
"Yes. She's the last living user of the Gliding Edge, which is the technique of the Uchiha women." Hanabi popped a piece of gum, chewing slowly. "She'll use her two fans to attack."
"Fans? I thought that was a Suna thing," Tarou wondered.
"How do you attack with a fan?" Ashi looked worried. "Like, big gusts of wind?"
"No, like sharp edges on them," said Hanabi. "But I don't know anything else. It was a guarded style when the Uchiha still existed, and now they're gone it's even more elusive."
"The Uchiha are gone? They were a clan?"
Tarou stopped Ashi. "That's a big topic. Maybe we should get into it later."
"So what else?"
"The Sharingan can cast genjutsu just by looking into the person's eyes," said Hanabi. "And they can't have genjutsu used on them."
"Oh, I can handle that!" said Ashi brightly. "All Inuzuka dogs are fully trained in dispelling genjutsu!"
"How?"
"He bites me," she shrugs. "If I start acting spacey or not responding, he'll give me a bite, and I'll wake up. Sometimes he bites me when I'm sleeping though."
"What about you, Tarou?"
"Nothing," he said. Hanabi sighed.
"Me neither," she admitted. "The Hyuuga used to teach genjutsu dispelling at a young age when the Uchiha were still running the Konoha Police, but since then it's not been a priority. I've never truly practiced that."
"Tarou-kun, is there anything you're super good at, or super bad at that we should know about?" Ashi piped up, giving the hopeless request a cheery swing nevertheless.
"I'm skilled at the average academy jutsu," he said. "Not that great at it, but I have a grasp. I have a good grasp of traps. My strongest area is seals. I've brought a bunch with me and I can do them on the fly. I know how to store something, and how to release something, but I can't do any big objects. I have a few store-bought elemental seals with me, so I might be able to use them in a pinch. And I have bombs too."
"A bit of variation would help," Hanabi muttered. "Taijutsu, taijutsu and genin-level traps and seals? This is rough. We need more ninjutsu."
A silence passed between them before Ashi shook her head, smiling. "Iruka-sensei wouldn't have put us together unless he knew we had something to offer each other! We're strong, and together, we're going to be able to solve problems no one else can!"
The sentiment was nice, Hanabi thought, but it didn't solve the root weakness they had that was Uchiha Satsuki's root strength: ninjutsu. They sat in some silence in the grass as the spring sun came into full bold force above them, before Tarou sighed, shrugging. "What's the plan then? What do we have over her?"
"I honestly don't know," Hanabi admitted. It was a hard feeling.
Ashi shrugged, mustering a strong smile. "Well, then we should stick to our strengths. Hanabi, you're really talented, so like, do whatever you want! I'll stick to Taijutsu and my clan techniques, and Tarou, you try and co-ordinate us and use your seals where you can! I'm sure it'll work out!"
Hanabi didn't have much faith that they'd win, she admitted that outright, but she had to hold back a quirk of the lips as Ashi fist-pumped enthusiastically and her dog began to howl. The sentiment was encouraging, she admitted. Even if their journey was doomed to end here.
It was a long journey to the Northern Hideout, and soon the soft trees, rice paddies and gentle rolling hills of the Land of Rice Paddies gave way to long stretches of rock, cliffsides and crags jutting out of the ground like broken bones out of skin. They were abrupt, dry and strange, and the only plants were prickly and coarse. The very earth was against Kimimaro and Naruto as they walked.
"Where are we going?" asked Kimimaro, finally, peering at him from the shade of the umbrella.
Naruto's skin had tanned a shade under the harsh eye of the weather. Kimimaro was grateful for the umbrella: despite the spring weather, the sunlight was sharp.
"To the Northern Hideout," Naruto declared, stretching. "I'm gonna collect more of Orochimaru's documents. I think I'm gonna look at his research after I've burned the place to the ground."
Kimimaro suppressed a shudder at the idea, but steadied himself. The Northern Hideout was where Juugo had been kept. After Kimimaro had been marked as Orochimaru's new body, Juugo had been sealed away here at his own request, and when he'd been destined for death, Juugo had not, as far as he knew, been released. He wouldn't want to leave anyway.
That, Kimimaro thought quietly as they trundled through the canyons, was his biggest, and only, regret. Juugo being forever locked away was something he had found difficult to reconcile, but it had been his destiny, and so there had been no point thinking about it: like a tsunami, or a drought, it simply was.
"This is where your pal is, right?" Naruto went on, scratching behind his head. "Juno? Juugo. It's Juugo, isn't it?"
"Juugo of the Northern Hideout."
"That's his second name?"
"It's a title."
"Well, what happened to his second name?"
"Juugo renounced it." Kimimaro adjusted the umbrella, moving it to his other hand and resting it on his shoulder. "Juugo's clan was cursed. He wants nothing to do with his blood."
"Huh." Naruto drank a sip of water from the skin he'd bought, handing it to Kimimaro. "It's all about the blood with everyone, huh?"
"Orochimaru-sama collected unique bloodlines."
"Yeah, I know that, but it's… well, you know, it's like more and more I go through life, the more it's about your family, or who you know, or something like that." Naruto sighed. "Like back in the day… I didn't really know about other bloodlines. I thought we were all the same. Now it seems like I'm surrounded by people who are just better from the start."
"We're all different. Some of us are just born to kill."
Naruto shook his head, grinning at him. "You talking about you? I've never met anyone so not born to kill in my entire life. You're way too nice!"
"What about your clan, then?"
Naruto blinked.
"My clan?"
"Your clan," nodded Kimimaro. "I heard Orochimaru-sama talking about the Uzumaki once or twice. You are part of a clan."
"Maybe technically," Naruto shrugged. "But I've never met one. Before he died, Orochimaru mentioned that I had a relative that worked for him. Karin. I'm not sure where she is, though."
"She's at the Southern Hideout."
Naruto raised his eyebrows. "Yeah? How'd you know?"
"She was one of Orochimaru-sama's most prized subordinates," said Kimimaro. "She's a warden, and she has a unique bloodline ability."
Naruto looked outraged. "What? She's got a bloodline ability? Dude, that's so not fair! Why don't I have one? I'm Uzumaki Naruto!"
"How would I know why you don't have one?" Kimimaro shot back.
"Because you know so much! That's super unfair," Naruto pouted, folding his arms. "She's got one and I don't?"
"That's just how it is."
"But I'm the best!" Naruto pointed at himself for emphasis. "How can there be another Uzumaki out there, and she's got a bloodline ability? How's that fair?"
Kimimaro exhaled deeply. "I did not make the rules. Nobody did. That's not how it works."
"Can't believe this. Everybody I know in their clan has their bloodline. You have one!"
"I'm not an Uzumaki!" snapped Kimimaro.
"But oh no, I just got missed out. This is some real bullshit. They're just trying to keep me down."
Kimimaro found himself losing his patience. "Who? Who are you talking about?"
"The man! The man's trying to keep me down!"
"There is no man!" snapped Kimimaro. "Nobody is trying to keep you down! How do you think genetics works?"
"What's a gyretic?"
Kimimaro breathed in deeply, stilling himself. It was a long walk yet.
As Kimimaro and Naruto trekked through the rock, with no sight of the other base yet, the sky began to turn.
"It's going to rain," said Kimimaro, looking upwards.
"How can you tell?"
"The air is close."
Indeed, it began pattering down, and with no hint of the base in the canyon, Kimimaro and Naruto found a nook in the rock, where it broke off to leave a small cove in its side. Kimimaro propped his umbrella at the front of the cave, and they settled.
Kimimaro sat on his knees, looking out into the landscape as Naruto shuffled around his belongings, before pulling out a small cloth bag filled with rations. He put one on Kimimaro's lap, before leaning back onto the rock and eating at it keenly, nose wrinkling at the taste. The rain was coming down in great waves, the wind whipping at the front of the cave as it lashed into the stony canyon.
"Strange weather," Naruto hummed.
"Spring showers," Kimimaro noted, eating his ration tentatively.
"Ah, it's spring, huh," Naruto said, leaning back. "Forgot about that."
"I want to ask you about Orochimaru," said Kimimaro, looking Naruto eye to eye for a moment. His expression was serious, but not angry, and Naruto shrugged, putting his knees to his chest and tapping the ground.
"Cool," Naruto took a sip from the skin, holding it out to Kimimaro. "What is it?"
Kimimaro took the skin, sipping as well, before he finally spoke. "How did you manage to kill Orochimaru-sama?" he said, looking him in the eye. "Did you plan it? Was this why you came in the first place?"
Naruto gave him an apologetic smile. "Yeah. That's why I came to Otogakure in the first place, yeah. I waited a long time for him to be vulnerable enough to do it, and I had to kill Kabuto first."
"So Kabuto's dead." Kimimaro didn't feel much regarding that information. Kabuto had put him through much pain. "That's how you impersonated him?"
"Yeah," Naruto said, swallowing the ration whole. "I killed him first. That's how I got to Orochimaru."
The rain was steadying into a repetitive whip, not noise but almost a mechanical chugging, waves of rain hitting the ground like the steady tap of a drum.
"Why?" Kimimaro said at last.
Naruto was still, not laughing, but his smile was bitter. "Well, I could give you a whole host of excuses if you'd like. Interested?"
Kimimaro shook his head. "Just the truth."
"Well, Kimimaro," Naruto stretched his fingers out, cracking them, "To be honest with you, it feels like he's the reason everything hurts. It felt like an insatiable urge. Like I had to kill him, or else nothing would be right again."
"What do you mean?" Kimimaro said.
"You ever lost someone?"
"In a way." Thunder rumbled overhead. "My entire family killed themselves, engaging in senseless war over and over. They are all gone. But I didn't care for them. They imprisoned me."
Naruto nodded slowly. "I see. I guess it's not the same then."
"Orochimaru-sama killed someone close to you?"
He nodded, and the pain was fresh again. He tried not to think about the pain of it, and now that Orochimaru was dead, he'd been sure it would transform into satisfaction. But it hadn't. It still hurt.
"Orochimaru caused the Sand Invasion, which meant that a murderous kid from Sunagakure was in the Chuunin Exams. He killed a girl in my class, and… well, afterwards, I realised she musta liked me. The Third Hokage, who Orochimaru killed, was the only real family I had."
"You were related?"
"No." A flash of lightning cracked the sky, silently. No thunder yet. "I don't have any relatives, as I said, it's just… well, it's kind of like how Orochimaru is to you. He's like family, right?"
"He was my saviour, not my family," Kimimaro said. "He was above me. Irrevocably superior to me. I owed everything to him."
"Okay, then not like Orochimaru. Something else." Thunder rumbled: it must have been far. "The Third clothed me, took care of me when I could. Ruffled my hair. Laughed at me, told me off and yelled at me when I did dumb shit."
"He yelled at you?"
"Like family," Naruto said. "I think that's what family do. Parents who tell their kids off, siblings who fight. It's like, those people in your life can criticise you, and it doesn't hurt. Because you know they really want the best for you."
"Can anyone be family, then?"
That was a difficult question. Lightning struck again, a gunshot in water; silent, looming.
"I dunno," Naruto whispered. "It seems like there's something special to when people share blood, y'know? It's like… unconditional. Something people who aren't related can't have. Like, something beyond words."
"Like animals."
"Maybe," Naruto shrugged. "I don't know. I don't have it. But I want to find Karin, I want to find out about the Uzumaki so… maybe I can find someone. Maybe I can find out if that's real."
"I suppose that's not something I'll ever have," Kimimaro said, a tone of something pained in his voice. Naruto blinked.
"Maybe, but," Naruto began, "That reminds me…"
He pulled out a scroll from the fold of his yukata. "This is for Juugo, right? Of the North Base?"
Kimimaro blinked. It was the scroll he'd written for Juugo after his death: his name was addressed on its front so fast it had smudged. Something about that pained him. He'd written it so fast.
"Yes." Kimimaro took it, looking at it carefully.
"I guess you can give it to him yourself, now," Naruto grinned. "Is Juugo like family to you? Apart from the whole related part, of course."
Kimimaro stared at the paper, and his heart hurt.
"No," he said.
"Oh? So how do you know him?"
"I met him under Orochimaru-sama," Kimimaro said. "He was experiencing terrible, uncontrollable rages. He hated himself for it. He could not live an ordinary life, and he is a very gentle person. It hurt him deeply that he seemed to injure, or kill, those around him with impunity."
Naruto crossed his arms, whistling. "That's a rough deal."
"I met him, and I was able to frighten his other self," he said. "Around me, Juugo's rages never hurt anyone, and he never hurt me. I balanced him."
"So why's he in the North Base?"
Kimimaro felt shame burn his cheeks, and he looked down, resisting the urge to bury his face in the folds of his clothes.
"You don't have to say," Naruto offered hesitantly. "Just sounds like you two were close."
"We were," Kimimaro whispered. "And when I offered my body to Orochimaru-sama, they tried to find somebody else who would be able to balance Juugo's rages. But no matter how hard they looked, nobody could do it."
Naruto softened, looking away. "Oh. I see."
"So Juugo is locked up here." Kimimaro swallowed. "After they tried and tried to find somebody else, he resigned himself to imprisonment. He's been locked up here, in a tight iron cell at his own request, ever since. There isn't a glimmer of light in there. He resigned himself to dying in a box."
Kimimaro closed his eyes, willing away those images. That had hurt him the most.
The box. Kimimaro had been imprisoned his growing years, his captors very rarely releasing him for warfare, for training. He'd never been able to escape; he'd never been able to understand his imprisonment; his learning of language had always been through listening to their boastful tales of rage and conquest. His childhood had not only been lost, but stunted; Kimimaro had never known what it was like to be a child, but he often thought his saving grace was that he had not known. If he had known, and been deprived, perhaps he would have truly gone mad.
But that was Juugo's fate. To know, and to not have.
"That never made you think twice about the, y'know, container thing?" Naruto asked. "You never thought about giving up, not for your own sake, but for Juugo's?"
"I never thought about giving up for my sake," he whispered. "But I often thought about doing it for him."
"Yeah?"
"Over time, it got easier," Kimimaro admitted. "The longer I was away from Juugo, the more I was able to stop thinking about him, to stop worrying and missing him. He never left my thoughts entirely, but I pushed the memories of him down. It made it easier."
"Why did you choose Orochimaru?"
"Because Orochimaru-sama was my saviour," Kimimaro said quietly. "And outside of everything else, I believed I owed him my life with no exception. Not even for Juugo."
"But Juugo was your friend, right?"
"No." Kimimaro touched the rainwater with a delicate finger as it dripped off of the umbrella.
Naruto frowned. "Yeah? What was he to you, then?"
Kimimaro thought long, and hard, before he spoke.
The rain came down in great waves, still chugging along, not violent, but it simply was; relentless and keen, like a monsoon, but not violent. The sharp sun was forgotten; in moments, the water here would suck the heat right out of the rock. Soon, it would be cold.
"Naruto," he whispered, a strange hesitation, a strange honesty about him. "Have you ever loved someone?"
Naruto thought about that, biting his thumb in thought. "It's hard to say. Maybe."
"What did that feel like?"
"Insane," Naruto said. "It felt ridiculous. I didn't understand it at all. Everything about it was so dumb, but… it felt super important. It was actually really kinda scary."
"Then I loved Juugo," Kimimaro said quietly.
"Huh," Naruto blinked. "I didn't know that was how it worked."
"How what worked?"
"Love. Like, two guys."
"I've only read about love," Kimimaro said. "I've never known it, or people who were in love. I've never seen it. I can only tell you what I'm feeling. And it feels like I've gone mad."
The rock was becoming cold, and Naruto relished it, pressing his palm against the precipice.
"What about him, then?" Naruto asked.
"What?"
"Does he love you?"
Kimimaro was quiet.
These were the feelings he'd wanted to die with him, unspoken and unacknowledged. They'd brought him nothing but pain. He was a ghost, a spectre, and he knew that.
He was a creature grown in a tank too small, and it showed. He had never known love, and he had never known he needed love, but outside of the tank, all he did was search for it. He loved Juugo, because Juugo needed him; he worshipped Orochimaru, because he needed him.
Grown in isolation of others, his love had become malformed and desperate. In the shadow of human interaction, locked in a cage, his love had become unconditional and strange to others. Surrounded by blood, violence had become part of his love. Unafraid of death, his love had become intertwined with its inevitability.
These things he knew. But for all his knowledge, it didn't change the feeling.
His love for Juugo felt horribly wholehearted. He was pure, and kind, and his acts of kindness made his chest twist. His smile made life in Kimimaro, made him want to be alive. They were impossible feelings. He had resolved to forget them, and when that would not come, he resolved to die with them.
"I don't know," Kimimaro whispered. "But I don't think so."
The rain wasn't letting up, and it was getting a little cold, but it wasn't unbearable, and they were together. That alone kept the nook warm, and Kimimaro couldn't help but feel grateful for any company.
"Don't worry, Kimimaro," Naruto grinned, and his smile reassured him. "It'll be alright. We just have to carry on."
A/N: You guys like cinnamon? I like cinnamon.