Sasuke was fifteen when he finally killed Orochimaru.
He had broken one of the rules, though at the time it hadn't seemed as extreme as the others he'd broken. By now Orochimaru was used to his defiance and even humored it when it amused him. But the rules 'do not go here, do not go there' had been a rule Sasuke strangely took heed to. Until now.
Perhaps it was curiosity that possessed his limbs or the boredom of the monotony that plagued his days which was strange on its own or that telltale ambiance that gently knocked against the solidness of his skull. He walks down this hallway, takes a right, then a left, goes down and further still, wondering what he might find, wondering why he even cares.
He finds a girl, twisted and blue.
Finds them all twisted and blue, with black eyes and black hands. On racks and walls, displayed like the meat at a slaughterhouse. Cut into pieces or sewn together, parts that do not quite match. Lined on the walls that stretch for days. It would take him ten years he thinks before ever reaching the end of the room. It is so cold in here, in this room, in this wing he was not supposed to go to, the rules he'd been indifferent to until now.
There is no blood, the room is absent of the smell of it, and the girl, twisted and blue, stares at him with endless holes for eyes, in fact, eyes are absent of her. He imagines her skin is as cold as death and rock-solid, laid out on a silver table. Chest open and everything within sealed into jars. They robbed her, he thinks morbidly, there is nothing left in her.
He does not know what is a worse fate. To be hollowed out into a husk or being made into an inhabitable flesh bag. The girl, with twisted limbs frozen in place and skin so dead that it's blue, stares at him with black holes for eyes, sneers at him with lips fattened by blackened blood and cold, unforgivable rot, and he knows that the contempt is deserved.
To Orochimaru immortality was something that could be stored in a jar. Or hacked into with sterilized scalpels. Something that could be prodded, peeled, or picked at. Was something that you could pull apart then reassemble like a jigsaw puzzle and contain in a freezer to be frozen in one man's image forever. Twisted horrors with skin of blue and rotting holes for eyes.
His Sharingan is on before he can stop himself, the perversion of men forever emboldened into his memory, another memorial to stand proudly in its terrible bleakness within the gallery of his mind. And it is then, as he escapes the horrid sight, that he truly takes in the world around him, the suffering far beyond his own. The abyss is a fence he peaks over as he walks the winding corridors, the ones he'd once walked with apathy and vague discomfort, and senses the cold and arcane chakra that's made its home in the walls caging them all in; and sees it for the death that it is with such a disturbing clarity that cannot be described or gauged by the human tongue.
His feet find him further down the left-wing, a testament to the horrors that one man could inflict, that for so many years Sasuke could hear the treble and moans of the man's victims from so far down and so far away.
It strikes him then that he has been a pliant mule with its belly exposed to the bladed pendulum edging ever closer to slice him open and spill his guts onto the floor. Complicit, perhaps just as guilty, For ignoring these atrocities in the name of power, under the false guise of ignorance. Had made himself ignorant when he knew what would become of less fortunate children who entered these halls, seeing them once and then never again. He had known but he hadn't really known. Does that make it worse? How was he any different from Kabuto or Orochimaru or Itachi?
Was Sasuke not a righteous man set on a righteous path? Do righteous men not do righteous things? How could he call himself an avenger set on ridding the world of the tyranny of evil men without paying heed to the victims of that tyranny? How could he avenge his clan and not in the same breath uphold the ideals his clan believed in?
His hands grip the bars of a man's cage, crude yet strong. The man sits in a crouch, back bent and head down, the tail of his spine flexing. Sasuke's shadow-filled in the sliver of light from the torches on the wall.
"What do you want," the man asked, voice gruff like sawed wood.
Sasuke's eyes took him in, the shock of white hair and skin stretched over a gaunt face, skin so thin that it kissed his bones like a lover. What powers dwell in such a sickly looking man's blood- he wonders, for Orochimaru to keep him alive for so long?
"I want to help you," he says despite himself, despite his better judgment.
There was always the chance that there was one more thing to learn, one more edge over Itachi to gain before he enacted his justice. Not anymore, not after what he's seen. Men have tried to kill Orochimaru for less.
"I want to help all of you," he says louder, this time, like a fool. His voice echos and fills in the silence of every condemned cell. But none of Orochimaru's shinobi come to confront him, Kabuto doesn't reveal himself. The medic-nin would love nothing more than to see Sasuke face the full brunt of Orochimaru's ire; felt the sannin was too lenient with him.
The man looked up at him with mad beady eyes, bloodshot and dry. "Why do you care for us now? You have never cared for us before. You walked among them, beside them, out there, and never looked our way. Never wanted for anything. You are the prince of this hellhole, and this is the kingdom you will inherit,"
The other prisoners lean against the bars of their cage, hearkening to hear, but silent, just as eager for his answer.
"I know I showed no empathy and for that I am regretful," he'd been so caught up in his own misery that he'd suppressed the horrors around him to little more than shadows stretching on the wall, fleeting and easy to look over. "I want to set you free, I want to set you all free,"
"And how will you do that? Do you know how many revolts I've seen rise and fall in these very walls? You'll trip over your own blade," he talked as though he were a man of forty, but Sasuke's skillful eyes can see the youthful man he'd once been. Now he looked like a man twice his age, hair white with shock and face as gaunt as a corpse, like that limb-twisted blue girl.
"I will set you free," because he will. Because he is not a monster. When he leaves, he will not leave them to this fate.
Sasuke had not known how he was going to do it, just that he would. And then a blessing came. Or a curse, in his eyes at least. For the world has the funny way of pulling him back in when he so desperately wants to pull away.
The night was young and the moon bright. It cut across the dark forest floor in slivers of silver, one of the few forests in a land riddled with rice fields. Sweat dried on his warm skin and the wind slinked beneath his clothes. The throbs and aches that'd once accompanied him after long hours of training ceased to be, and so, quite languidly, he allowed himself to rest against a tree, his sword at his hip and ears alert.
So when the bushes decided to rustle and his shadows decided to make themselves known, he was ready. But there would be no need.
"At ease," Takerio spoke with a smirk. "Long time, no see, Uchiha,"
Sasuke loosened his grip on his weapon. "Long time no see," he repeated. "I thought you were dead or worse,"
"What's worse than being dead?" the other youth joked, and Sasuke almost smiled.
They both knew there were worse things than death.
"You came,"
"You summoned me, and I still owe you. So, you're going to kill Orochimaru," Takerio stated. It was never a question of if he would but when. Perhaps the older youth had seen it in his eyes, all those years ago, or perhaps it was common sense.
"Soon," Sasuke answered.
Takerio's smile widened. "Good. I want in. And so does he."
That's when the other figure approached. A man cloaked in black, with an orange mask twisted in a spiral. It reminds him of the disfigured faces dwelling in Orochimaru's lab.
The pale smile of the moon cast the masked man's shadow on the ground twenty feet tall, a heralding of death itself. They regard each other with thinly-veiled distrust, one gleaming red eye focused on two.
Orochimaru has long ceased in the ritual of locking Sasuke's door, once he'd been assured that the young Uchiha would not runoff. Since then, Sasuke has found many ways to escape the confines of the hideout without notice.
The ramifications of this action make it easier to slip out and plan.
Takerio and the masked man take to hiding out in those complex and elusive tunnels beneath the ground, where Takerio has a garrison of soldiers stationed, all composed of the shinobi and ex-experiments who he used to ward over. The fact that they hadn't banded together to slit Takerio's throat is a testament to their loyalty and trustworthiness.
"You have to talk to people," Takerio jokes, "An activity you don't like to partake in unless you're trying to swindle some information out of somebody,"
The masked man scoffs. "Then that means you'll have less of a chance of swaying Orochimaru's shinobi to your side. Did you think about the long term at all when you first got it into your head that you wanted to kill your master?"
Sasuke grits his teeth, "I don't need a lecture from a masked freak,"
The masked man enjoys pointing out his flaws and imperfections, and Sasuke likes to do so in turn. He wants to ask Takerio where the man came from anyway.
Takerio shakes his head and brings their attention back to the map. "We'll have a unit come in from the west, which leads to an opening joined in with the shinobi quarters, while another unit will lead the front. One unit will be led by me, the other by Tobi, who'll free the prisoners and give them weapons,"
Sasuke looked up to see the masked man looking at him intently. "I'm guessing that's you," he drawled.
"And what will you be doing, Uchiha?"
Sasuke straightens up with a pointed glare. "I'm going to kill Orochimaru myself,"
He waited for the underestimation, the insults. None came. "I suppose you know his weaknesses best,"
"Yeah," Sasuke agrees. "I do."
He knows he's being followed by someone. The few next times he slips out he selects different locations to meet the masked man at. The man always knows how to find him. Takerio spends most of his time preparing his men, showing them the ins and outs of the tunnels of this specific territory. Meanwhile, it is just Sasuke and the man, and their plans of deceit to fool whoever thinks their stealth is up to par with his.
It's hard to concentrate though when he remembers the shine of red that'd peaked from behind that mask. He was tired of ignoring the elephant in the room.
"Tell me why you have the Sharingan," it's not a question, it's a command. He wants to know, he will know.
The man only tilts his head and says, "Why don't you ask Konoha?"
Sasuke feels his blood curdle, feels something inside of him go numb. "What are you insinuating?"
Because when he thinks about it, really thinks about it, there were no funerals, no bodies to bury. Where had they gone?
The masked man's single eye crinkles into a smile, and something about the gesture is oddly familiar. "I insinuate nothing,"
The younger man could feel his patience running thin. "You know something about my clan,"
"Let's focus on the person who's been tailing you for the past few days instead, yes?" The masked man takes a kunai and without even turning away from Sasuke sends it flying into the bushes. There's a shriek and a tumble. "Come out. Now."
They do.
It's a boy, perhaps a year younger than Sasuke, and by the clothes he's wearing, he's one of Orochimaru's.
"I don't mean any harm," he promises, eyes wide. How had such a creature survived with Orochimaru? He looked like an average shinobi at best, and when he felt for his chakra it was little more than a candle in comparison to the great inferno of his own.
Sasuke yanks the boy by the collar and pulls him closer to the kunai in his left hand. "Why were you following me?"
The nameless boy shudders slightly, his hands gesturing in a placating manner.
"It's not what you think-"
"Oh, it isn't?" Sasuke sneered. "If you had good intentions you would have approached me earlier instead of spying on me. I hope you know all the information you've been giving Orochimaru is false. Perhaps I should send you back to him to face his wrath when he realizes you were wrong,"
"No, really I want to join you! Please!"
Sasuke considered the boy for a moment, weighing his choices.
He could let the boy live and hope that he wasn't being deceived or he could kill this boy, in the chance that he was being deceived, before the boy could ruin their plans and put everyone's life in jeopardy.
The masked man must have sensed Sasuke's indecision.
"Kill him," the masked man urges. "He'll ruin everything. He's a loyal lapdog, brainwashed and subservient with fear. He'll go running to Orochimaru. Your plans will be foiled. Think of the other innocents that will be killed or tortured and mutilated. Weigh his life against theirs-"
Sasuke slits the boy's throat just to make the masked man stop talking. He does it before he can quite stop himself and it comes as a surprise, this impulse. It shocks him, horrifies him even.
The boy drops to the ground like a bird with a broken wing, and grips at his wound in vain, eyes wide like a heifer calf that's just been put to the slaughter. The wound weeps, staining the brilliant white of his shirt red.
Protect the weak, defend the weak, his father had always told him.
The murder weighs on his mind as the day of the revolt steadily approaches. Because Orochimaru doesn't seem to suspect a thing, still suspended in the illusion that he will soon have Sasuke's body.
So when he happens upon another group of boys he ignores the masked man's warnings. They're the same stock and flock of the boy he'd murdered. Wide-eyed and green in a way that Sasuke isn't. His boyish innocence had been robbed of him a long time ago.
"Please don't hurt us, we only want to help," the tall and lanky one with brown hair speaks up first.
Sasuke nods. He does not want to listen to the masked man this time.
"What happened to our friend? He wanted to join you after overhearing you talking to one of the prisoners... we all do. Want to join you that is," the boy is nervous but certain at least, in his convictions. "It was hard work convincing us, but he wanted to do what was right. We debated and debated and decided that we too would fight to overthrow Orochimaru. But our friend, he went searching for you, did you see him? We've been searching for him for days,"
He stares at the boys. The tallest among them, the one with the bright orange hair, and the one with the silver eyes framed with glasses. They must have been good for something, for Orochimaru to keep them around. Perhaps, it was intelligence. A Shinobi force needed that just as much as they needed able-bodied warriors with brute force and strong chakra. Or maybe they were just cannon fodder, something to fill in the lower ranks of an army.
For so many years these faces blended into the background. He'd ignored them. Shadows he'd called them, blurred images he cared nothing for. They were as real as ever now. Sasuke shook his head and carried the burden of the truth in his heart.
"How do we know we can trust you," Takerio interrogated. Sasuke was glad he was here this time.
"It's simple. The fact that we're even speaking to you and not reporting you to Orochimaru is proof enough. We know that he dislikes any subordination, real or imagined. He'd kill us just for speaking to you if he ever found out,"
Yes, that made sense. So why had he killed that boy? The masked man chuckled and as the boys looked on in puzzlement. Even Takerio seemed disturbed. But only Sasuke knew what the joke was.
"Perhaps Orochimaru is already onto us and your friend is dead," Sasuke lied, "All the more reason to act quickly,"
Takerio had his men in the tunnels, shinobi, and ex-prisoners alike that'd lived beneath his direction and trusted him. Sasuke thinks they killed everyone else (the ones who objected) at his hideout, the wisest course of action in that scenario. And now they plan to do the same here.
How many more innocents would Sasuke kill? The shinobi he could have swayed to his side had he not callously ignored them or written them off. He loathed this, this intense guilt. Felt like it would follow him everywhere for the rest of his days.
"This is the way of the world," the masked man whispers, "Many innocents die in the name of a good cause. Think instead of those who you will set free,"
The valley of darkness. The righteous man. The shepherd. The tyranny of evil men.
Three shadows slide across the walls with a purpose in their hearts and a common goal to see it through.
Sasuke spares any he can. Join me or die, he says. Fight for a man he would sooner see you dead or fight for your freedom.
Sometimes they chose him. Sometimes they didn't. And when they didn't...they died. The masked man made sure of it.
He feels the blood on his hands as though he struck the blow himself. Though the masked man is right, think of those that you will set free and the burden of killing becomes easier.
He thinks of the girl with the twisted limbs and blue skin, the man in the cell who looked twice his age, the children who came in once and never appeared again. Sasuke doesn't see the people he kills, just the ones he's trying to bring to salvation.
Ouroboros, a snake consuming its own tail. Doomed to forever be the rope on the gallow that it hangs itself on.
The tunnels beneath the lands that led to every hideout was the gallow, the people trapped within the hideouts were the rope on which Orochimaru hung himself. Sasuke was simply the hangman.
The blood on the floor was as thick as wax and the silver of his sword was painted a full red. The cages were open and empty, and the prisoners that'd been trapped within stood as tall as any freeman, their blades wet with the men who'd kept them locked in the dark for so long.
Then there were the men Takerio had brought along from the hideout he was warding over; the prisoners he'd conspired with before killing all of Orochimaru's shinobi stationed there. This is a fantastic tale, perfectly crafted.
The masked man did not stand among them, only in the shadows, in the dark, unseen and unheard. Just like he wanted. He'd had one job. Open the cages and give them weapons. He did his job well.
They all look at Sasuke, shock on their faces as clear as day. In his left hand is the sword and in his right is Orochimaru's unseemly head.
"This is his namesake," he says and they listen. So many faces, some as brown as the earth, some as pale as snow, from lands he couldn't place the names to. They listen as he says, "A snake eating its own tail. He wanted to consume so much of the world that in his arrogance of doing so, he ended up consuming himself,"
Savior, they began to whisper. Hero. Sasuke is neither of those things.
He couldn't help but get a distinct feeling that the masked man was smiling.
What do we do now? That had been the question that followed him around for days. What do we do now?
Sasuke knew what he needed to do. His main objective has always been Itachi, finding Itachi, killing Itachi. It's been the main constant in his life and he plans on seeing it through. He's already selected members of a team to help him track his brother.
The masked man approaches him the night before his departure and Sasuke steels himself for the same debate he'd had with Takerio days prior.
"They want to follow you," the man says, but there's no emotion behind it, no passion. It's just a statement, a fact. "You killed Orochimaru after all. None of them had thought you could actually do it. When they were set free, when I placed those weapons in their hand, they did not fight with the hope of ever seeing tomorrow, could not conceive the idea of living in a world with Orochimaru dead and them free. But you did what no other could. They want to follow you, you'd be a fool to throw that opportunity away,"
Sasuke scoffs. "I don't care for silly power games. I already have a purpose,"
"But you cannot deny that you have a penchant for inspiring people," the masked man countered.
Sasuke doesn't see why. As Suigetsu said, he did what any of them would have done given the chance. It was only a matter of time and if it hadn't been Sasuke it would have been someone else, probably Takerio himself.
"What happens after you kill your brother?" the masked man asked suddenly.
Sasuke gripped the hilt of his sword. "How do you know about that?"
"I know a lot about you, Sasuke Uchiha. Things that you don't even know about yourself. And things about your brother as well," the masked man pressed in closer, the shadows growing around him.
He felt more dangerous than Orochimaru, somehow. A thick suffocating danger that bordered on killing intent. Though not toward Sasuke, not entirely. Maybe it was the world that he hated and everything in it.
"I ask you again, what happens after you kill Itachi?"
No one had asked Sasuke that before. He hasn't even asked himself. But he knows that Itachi is strong, always has been, and that he'll have his work cut out for him when he finally does confront his brother. It can either go one of two ways. With Itachi prevailing and Sasuke dying, or both dying.
"Death," he answers and the masked man chuckles.
Sasuke draws his sword and aims straight for his heart. The sword pierces the man's chest hilt deep, and further still, until Sasuke is gliding through him. The shock of it chills his blood.
"All your life you've lived for this one purpose," the man continued, unbothered. "But what happens when you're finished? Revenge is a bittersweet fruit. You consume it too fast and it's gone before you can even savor it. You'll kill your brother, and when the drive that kept you going for so long dies, so too will you. You'll be a ghost, a hollowed-out shell of a being. So before you work yourself into an early grave, do this first. I'll even help you get there, to that early grave you yearn for," the silence between them stretched and stretched.
Sasuke sheathed his sword and spun on his heel to face the masked man. "Do what first?"
"How long do you think it will be before word of Orochimaru's death gets out?" he began. "Soon these lands will be up for grabs just like every other small nation, and the people who dwell in them, including the people who want to follow you, the ones who have never known any other home since the day they were stolen, will be vulnerable."
It made sense in a way. Orochimaru had so thoroughly monopolized the land that had once been a country of its own, Daimyo and all, that his death was sure to cause a power vacuum. What's to say Iwa wouldn't swoop in and claim it? What's to say he wouldn't be indirectly replacing one slaver for another?
And who's to say he could go up against one of the five great nations? It is said that Iwa's military is five times that of Konoha's and better equipped in every way. Especially after years of mining Canyon and the disputed land for ore. What was a small group of renegades against that? He estimated that there were about a thousand of them, two thousand at the most. The only reason why they even have those numbers is because they skillfully attacked every hideout there was, accepting all who wanted to join and killing the ones who didn't. And still, it wasn't enough.
"We don't have the numbers, " Sasuke said at last.
"Oh," the masked man laughed. "But you do. They're in the land of Canyon and the disputed land, within the villages and nomadic clans that have been trampled upon. Those are your numbers."
Convincing people to fight was a hard thing when they had much to lose. Such was the case with the villages of Canyon and the nomadic clans that roamed the disputed lands.
Most of them ignored the newly found movement of renegades' request for aid, but one leader, Kyōkage (or Kyōkokukage) Azuri Yan, decided to humor them.
("The only one with a spine," Suigetsu had remarked snidely.)
"I struck a deal with Iwa, an unspoken deal," she'd explained. "We'd let them do their business and stay out of the way, and they'd stay out of ours. You see, we're one of the few shinobi villages here, and they suspected that if we rallied against them then the others would follow, and even the non-shinobi villages would feel emboldened to support us. But the truth is we don't know if they would. However, if we had more manpower, another force backing us I think that they would. This is why I want to join you. Though the hard part comes in the form of actually convincing the other leaders to follow suit,"
That's where Sasuke found himself now. In a long hall filled with more than a thousand people and another five hundred surrounding the building. There was a great echo of shouts and debates and bickering bouncing off the walls. No one could reach an accord on whether or not they should join the renegades' fight in pushing out Iwa or remain unseen.
It was only a matter of time before he grew fed up with it. "If you don't fight now you'll be walked over forever," he spoke and somehow his voice managed to silence theirs. "Orochimaru is gone. I killed him. So you won't have to worry about a foe from the east but what about a foe from the west? You worry about remaining unseen by Iwa but the only reason why they've been so cordial with you is because they feared conflict with the Sound Village would only alert Konoha of their actions. With no competitor, Iwa will only act more ruthlessly. It's only common sense then to rise up against your subjugators. Be the conflict they wish to avoid and they will leave you alone,"
A tall burly man stood, "And how do you suggest we do that? Iwa is powerful-"
"And for a nation so powerful they're also cowardly. They'll do anything to avoid conflict with Konoha," he lied. Perhaps Iwa was cowardly, but most of their subtly had something to do with keeping Konoha in the dark. "Which means, that if we were to join forces to push them out, they'd leave,"
That was a bold claim, one he's not sure if he can back up. One of them will call my bluff, he hoped, and then no one can say that I didn't try to do what was right.
"If what you say is true," the man spoke after a long bout of deafening silence,
"Then my people will join forces with yours as well as the Village Hidden in the Canyon,"
And all it takes is one to join before the rest follow.