Heaven Hold Us

by Okami Rayne

The War is over. But the wounded remain. In a world struggling for hope amidst terrible loss, the Tailed-Beast chakra that saved Shikamaru's life on the battlefield may yet cost him his soul. As darkness encroaches upon the hard-won light, there's only one man Naruto can turn to for help. A man no more a stranger to the darkness than Shikamaru himself. Sasuke. [BtB Post-War]

5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: NARUTO and its characters were created and are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. Original characters (Tsubasa Hibari © TA. RAYNE) and plot are the property of the author. No copyright infringement intended.

Title: Heaven Hold Us

Pairings: ShikaNeji, KakaGen, InoKiba

Rating: M / R (language, themes, violence, sexual scenes etc.)

Genre: Drama/Angst/General

Summary: The War is over. But the wounded remain. In a world struggling for hope amidst terrible loss, the Tailed-Beast chakra that saved Shikamaru's life on the battlefield may yet cost him his soul. As darkness encroaches upon the hard-won light, there's only one man Naruto can turn to for help. A man no more a stranger to the darkness than Shikamaru himself. Sasuke. [BtB Post-War]

Timeline: Post Fourth Shinobi World War. 4 months after the War.

---

HEAVEN HOLD US

V

by Okami Rayne

"It's getting worse, isn't it?"

Ibiki said nothing for a long second. He chose his words with the same surgical precision as he chose his thoughts, sticking to the facts to avoid triggering any feeling. Hers, not his. He felt nothing presently but the glass-sharp stiffness in his joints, though his voice came out cold and smooth as the flat of a blade.

"The fūinjutsu won't hold out indefinitely."

Tsunade's steepled fingers twitched against her lips. Sitting taut and tired at the Hokage bureau, she came forward in her chair and braced her elbows against the broad desk, leaning into its support. The silence weighed on her for a long moment, as heavy as the statement. One Ibiki had made repeatedly over the past month. But while her face registered no surprise at the news, she seemed to have once again hoped for a better response from her harbinger of fucking doom.

Careful, Ibiki's mind warned.

Indeed. There was a little too much emotionalism attached to that thought. That metaphor. He identified frustration as the main culprit and excised the emotion immediately – avoiding the lurking sense of failure altogether.

Inevitable.

Ibiki was a consummate mechanic when it came to his job, not a fucking magician. Along with the Uchiha train-wreck, he'd put the smoking pieces of the Nara problem together four months ago and had charted a very clear and very predictable path to the exact roadblock looming before them now. It wasn't as if he hadn't warned her.

"It won't work, Hokage-sama. Not in the long run."

"I can't guarantee it. But I can try."

She'd tried.

And while Ibiki couldn't fully control his Hokage's expectations, he could curtail them to a degree. Tsunade knew better than to summon him to satisfy any notions of hopeful wish-fulfilment; she summoned him to supply the facts in order to avoid further chaos at every bleeding corner. Not that she'd allowed him to test or explore what lay beyond those corners. No. She'd set them on this current path, blinkered and stubborn, refusing to consider the alternative every time they took this trip around the Nara minefield, using the same worn route Ibiki could not circumvent or deviate from.

So here we go again.

And there it was again, the edge of frustration biting in around the reinforced armour locked about his mind. The frustration and the inevitable sense of futility – because Tsunade could not – would not – bring herself to stop, think, or even consider the alternative.

'Taking it under advisement' was the best she had to offer.

Which really, was fuck all.

Without this alternative Ibiki, in turn, had nothing to offer in return. Had nothing to show for this useless back-and-forth mileage but Shikamaru's precarious stability and the unchanged knowledge that it couldn't last.

"How long, Ibiki?"

Ibiki's jaw twitched at the question, his scarred ledge of brow tightening beneath his hitai-ate. He didn't like to speculate, much less assume. Guesswork in this situation with Shikamaru wasn't exactly the same as playing psych games with a perp across a pockmarked table of a T&I interrogation room. It was more like attempting to dismantle a cutting-edge timebomb across a psychologically pockmarked distance; all the while trying to calculate the blast radius with no idea of the exact number on the countdown or how accurate those numbers even were, given the nature of the mind in question. The potential "bomb" in this scenario was of an entirely foreign construction and unknown design without proper psychological evaluation.

I'm not the right man for this.

Sure, Ibiki had the training. But he didn't have the right touch. Not when it came to trauma. He dealt in damage control and contingency planning. When that failed, he operated to exploit, examine, and erase damage, not fix it.

There's no fixing this.

"The Nara aren't built to house senjutsu chakra," he stated for what he hoped – there's that word – would be the final time. "In this case, a sealing technique only delays the inevitable."

"Shikaku—"

"Different," Ibiki cut her off, a thinly veiled impatience eating into his voice. He worked hard to contain it. "On too many counts to list. Tailed Beast chakra wasn't a catalyst for Shikaku. Shuken's experimentation was. Shikaku had an entire system holding him together in the fallout of that incident. Shikamaru has duct tape."

Nice job on the frustration.

Tsunade stiffened at the flippancy of the statement and shot him a sharp look that would've castrated weaker men. Ibiki didn't so much as flinch, steering her back to the grim reality, the worn-out road she wouldn't surrender.

"And Sasuke?" Tsunade asked suddenly, surprising them both as she swerved to avoid his next statement, ignoring the exhausting fact that they'd just have to circle right the hell back. "The seals we've used on him have proved to be eff—"

"Also different," Ibiki bit out, the ache in his joints flaring hot and cold. He shifted his weight like that might even out the edge in his voice. "No less volatile. But different. Currently contained."

"Currently? And if that changes?"

"Always a possibility."

"That's not reassuring."

"It's not supposed to be. He's crazy as a shithouse rat."

She checked him with a look. "Ibiki…"

Unmoved, Ibiki gave a noncommittal grunt. "Off the record opinion. I'm not a shrink."

"Still not any closer to reassuring me."

"There are measures in place for Uchiha. And I'm testing them all the time."

A dubious shadow flickered across Tsunade's face. "What exactly do you mean by that? Testing them how?"

Fuck.

"Carefully," Ibiki diverted, not wanting to burden her with that precarious operation just yet – Uchiha Sasuke's sanity was an entirely different shitshow altogether. "We have a contingency plan when it comes to Uchiha. But Shikamaru? With his mind? Who's to say."

"You, I'd hoped," Tsunade countered beneath her breath, staring at the Buddhist statue sitting serenely on her desk like maybe if she wished hard enough, she could pull a miracle out of its bronze ass. "Damn it."

Ibiki's lip quirked humourlessly. He didn't think reciting a sutra would inspire confidence, so he pivoted on his heel and took a slow step towards the large circular windows haloing the Hokage office, offering their usual panorama. Staring past his reflection and out into the night, he watched the village lights sparkle like gilt thread in the darkness.

It wasn't a casual move.

It granted Tsunade the privacy to gather her thoughts.

It took him out of her space.

And out of range from a fist.

No doubt the news had impacted. He'd herded her back onto the Nara hotzone and straight into the massive fucking wall they repeatedly hit every time they spun their wheels in the same pointless direction.

She needed to give way.

Let him take point.

Do what he did best.

Give me the green light…

Instead, his Hokage sat there, her lips drawn into a tight line, searching his profile out the corner of her eye. Ibiki kept his gaze on the glass, working to divert all the angry mental traffic crowding in around his head. He could feel the frustrated words piling up behind his teeth, a breath away from pouring out his scarred mouth.

Contain that shit, Morino.

He did. A lot better than the frown tugging at his downturned mouth. How the hell to run her off this dead-end road before the ticking Nara timebomb blew it all to irreparable hell? She looked to him for direction, but the map of his face held the same bleak terrain it always did when she stared at him this way, expecting a different outcome whilst making the same fucking choice over and over again.

Madness.

To save or damn them both, he gave her something as equally condemning as his blank expression when he finally turned to face her. "You know what I have to say." He gave a measured pause to let that square between them, his voice quiet and low, checking his frustration ruthlessly. "That hasn't changed. Nothing can change if we stay in this lane, hoping for an outcome that's already dead by the wayside."

Tsunade glared at him.

A vein forked at her temple.

Ibiki observed its twitching palpitation and waited for her jaw to start grinding, her fists to start clenching. Unfortunately, he'd lost the luxury of proceeding with caution. Time was ticking down to one hell of a boom.

He needed permission to explore other options.

Well, option.

Hell, there had only ever been one. Tsunade knew it. Had known it for as many months as she'd refused to hear it. And even without that vein pounding in her head, the brittle glint in her eye told him she was no closer to wanting to hear it now.

She'll have to.

Cerebral mechanic or not, Ibiki was done pretending he could pull a deus ex machina out of the overheated operating system that was swift becoming his brain. He could feel the gears jamming and smoking inside him every time they covered the same damn ground by entertaining the same damn conversation over and over again.

Something had to give.

Who the fuck cared if it was his head from his neck at this point? He was done being forced to disappoint her.

"You wanted to try. We tried. Call it or cut me loose. I can't serve you this way."

He waited for the eruption.

Whether it be the vein in her head.

Or the fuse in her eyes.

Waited for the flying chair, the cambering desk, the raging disgust at his treasonous words and all they alluded to. But this time around there was nothing flammable in the look Tsunade levelled on him. Surprisingly, the fire sucked out of her eyes, leaving them so empty of their usual heated stubbornness that Ibiki quickly retraced his mental steps to ensure that he'd actually voiced the statements outside the quarantine of his mind.

Yes, he'd spoken.

To his shock, she'd actually heard.

Finally…

Four months down the line…

But even understanding came at a cost. He saw that cost sinking into her, dragging at her shoulders, forcing her elbows to lock. Ibiki derived no pleasure or victory from the win, even if it spared him the Hokage's previous outbursts. It didn't please him in the slightest to be right – to be the one in the position to say 'I told you so'. He wasn't that petty even if he could be that cruel.

The situation was cruel enough.

Tsunade sniffed, her gaze cutting away from him to stare across the room.

Even the smiling Buddha went ignored.

Ibiki watched her, his expression masterfully still while Tsunade wrestled with the resignation threatening to steal across her face. To her credit, she beat it back, brows pulling together in a frown. Conflicted. Cornered. But conscious now of the only option she had left…the only option she'd ever really had to begin with.

"I can't trust him, Ibiki."

"I'm not asking you to trust him. I'm asking you to trust me."

Tsunade's eyes fell shut for a brief second, the frown digging deep. She shook her head. Not in denial. "Look at everything he did to Sasuke."

"We don't know everything he did to Sasuke."

"And Shuken with Shikamaru? How is that different?"

Ibiki spared her the list-off and simply held her gaze. It wasn't just a stare. It was a statement. "It's different, Hokage-sama."

"Not so different."

"Entirely different. Sasuke made a choice. Shikamaru didn't have one."

"You don't think I know that!" Tsunade snarled, a weak, defeated growl as the maternal instinct towards her shinobi lashed out like a wounded tigress, slivers of burning wet amber flashing through her lashes. "Then. Now. He has no choice at all."

"No. He doesn't." Ibiki gazed back, his scarred face unmoved. "But you do."

The air stilled for a beat. So did the look on Tsunade's face as she struggled to stomach this rancid truth…and all the responsibility required to digest it…and deal with it.

"You really call that a choice, Ibiki?"

"It's a chance. And that's a hell of a lot better than what we've got right now." He spared her the details of exactly what that was – or rather, what it wasn't.

And that was no fault of the Hokage.

Because she'd tried…

And that counted for a lot. She'd bought them time, but time was a pricy bitch, and her cost was rising. He didn't need to spell that out either. It was scratched all over the wall of silence standing between them now.

Finally, at great length, Tsunade's hands lowered, shoulders dropping from their rigid peak as she slid back and away from the desk, pressing her spine into the chair's hollow embrace. It took a moment for the final vestiges of resistance to fall away, but Ibiki timed it to the second, unsurprised when she finally turned a near lost look on him, the four-month fight bleeding out raw as her voice.

"That snake won't help me without wanting something in return."

Ibiki grunted, shoulders rolling in a lazy shrug. "That's an accurate enough assumption. Good thing I'm well versed in negotiation."

Tsunade tried for a snort but it slipped away from her, a pale hand swiping angrily across her eyes. "Damn it. I'd hoped that I could…" she trailed off, swallowed down a caustic laugh and thudded her skull back into the chair, damp amber eyes scouring the ceiling for strength.

She couldn't look at him.

Could barely get the words out. "I really tried, Ibiki…"

"You've never needed to convince me of that. Or anyone else."

"Yoshino…"

"She knows."

Tsunade sniffed again, her eyes drifting down to settle on his face, searching once more, but thankfully no longer for direction. "I'd hoped," she murmured again, so soft it almost passed unheard. "Stupid."

Ibiki pretended not to hear. He glanced briefly away, then back. "I have your sanction to move on this? Because I need to move fast."

A final sigh and Tsunade straightened, her expression slowly closing off, the mask of professionalism nailing itself into place. "Whatever you need."

"Uchiha."

There was a moment of very tense and very confused silence. Tsunade sat back, her topaz eyes sharpening on him. Ibiki couldn't help but notice that for such a shitty poker player, her expression gave very little away, even to someone as shrewd as him.

He was impressed.

She wasn't.

"Uchiha," she repeated. Slow. Meaningful. "You already have him."

"Not the way I need him."

"That doesn't tell me anything."

"Plausible deniability is a wonderful thing."

"Ibiki."

He assessed the impatience in her tone, and the wisdom of testing it. "Trust me."

And here, she showed her hand. The fierce internal debate quivered in her eyes like a flame struggling against a chill wind. He was asking for a lot more than trust. And they both knew it.

"I'll speak with him," she said at last.

"No."

Tsunade blinked, a finely winged brow sketching upward. "I think we've established that he won't negotiate with you, Ibiki. Or anyone else, apparently."

Ibiki's mouth cut into a razor smile. "Not with me. Not with you. Not even with Kakashi." He paused here, compelled to state the obvious, if only to drive her a little closer to where he suddenly needed to her to be. "Funny," he said without the slightest trace of amusement, "there only ever seems to be one option in these scenarios."

It took a second for that to compute before Tsunade's eyes rounded, her comprehension immediately superseded by that tigress flash of protective concern. "No. I can't allow that. Not with this. Naruto already feels—"

"Whatever I needed, you said," Ibiki reminded, his head tipped to indicate a breach in terms. "If not the Jinchūriki, then who? The Haruno girl? Uchiha won't listen to her."

"You don't know that."

Oh yes I fucking do.

"Hn. You'd rather I send her in, instead?"

Tsunade hesitated, sensing the trap she'd unwittingly wandered into. He had her there. And yet, for all the gravity of the situation, she gave him the driest sliver of a smile – reminding Ibiki all over again why he'd sooner have cut out his dead heart than continue to exploit the emotion buried in her own. Too bad that option was never on the table. He'd have complied in an instant, no questions fucking asked, to spare her the choices…and more importantly, the 'consequences in action', as one Shiranui Genma might say.

Hn. Genma would love this.

About as much as a kick to his nuts. Such was the game, rigged as it seemed, but Ibiki was nothing if not a "good sport" when it came to risk assessment and damage control. He'd sooner take his chances, however shitty, than cut his losses and chalk Shikaku's son up to being one more victim of The War.

Losing Shikamaru was not an option.

Losing Sasuke, however…

Hn. His fate is above my paygrade.

And miles beneath his capacity to give a shit.

Treason was treason. And trade-offs were trade-offs. One man's sanity for another man's salvation. The systems Ibiki operated didn't run on genin pinkie-promises and rainbows, even if that was the kind of wide-eyed redemption campaign Hatake Kakashi and Uzumaki Naruto were attempting to run. As if that could scrub out the graffiti verdict already stamped across Uchiha Sasuke's cellblock.

TRAITOR.

Guilty as charged. Beyond any reasonable doubt. But of course, the Uzumaki kid would sooner give his other arm than accept that ruling. Ibiki expected the whole 'cry for the devil' atonement shit from Naruto.

But Kakashi?

Hn. Still a soft touch when it comes to the Uchiha, Hatake.

Which left them on opposite sides of a fence too fucked-up to straddle. But straddle it Kakashi did. Or maybe he hopped from one side to the other, depending which side Naruto was standing on.

Shit. That kid is going to be a spanner in the works.

A big spanner.

A very big fucking spanner.

Ibiki would have to engineer this entire operation extremely carefully. Naruto would have his own motivations and agendas when it came to the Uchiha – that was par for the course when dealing with heroic do-gooders. Sadly, they often lacked the capacity to be impartial.

Naruto was a soul-saving optimist.

Ibiki was a hard-line realist.

And the reality was simple. If it came down to a choice between Nara Shikamaru or Uchiha Sasuke? Ibiki would throw Sasuke into the meat-grinding system if only to see his blood grease the wheels.

Hn. Real impartial.

Nothing he'd lose sleep over. He'd thought worse things. Done worse things.

Ibiki never forgave easy.

And he sure as shit never forgot.

"The Hyūga," Tsunade said quietly, gaze turned inward, running over old ground and dead options in a last-ditch effort to avoid the inevitable before her gaze flicked up, alighting on him with a brief flash of hope. It barely held in her eyes. "What if Hiashi—?"

Ibiki cut her short, shaking his head. "He's tried."

Which was kinder than saying he'd failed. Failed to do for Shikamaru what his twin brother had managed to do for Shikaku. But that, like so much else, was different. Shikaku hadn't had Tailed-Beast chakra blasting through his tenketsu, bursting them open like ruptured veins, triggering old pathways and – more disturbingly – forging new ones. The Kyūbi's chakra had opened Shikamaru up like a fucking conduction grid for the natural energy Shuken had altered him to receive over three years ago.

It hadn't hit all at once.

Blessing and a curse.

The blessing being that one fast hit would've killed Shikamaru in an instant. The curse? They hadn't caught it in time to ensure that still wouldn't happen. The slow and sinister way it had wormed and situated itself inside the shadow-nin had caused the medics to write it off as the chakra sickness so many shinobi were still recovering from. By the time they'd brought in Hyūga eyes, they'd been too late in understanding just what the hell they were dealing with. To be fair, they were no closer to knowing that now.

"The Byakugan can't help us any further. I need fresh eyes on this," he paused a second. Added, "Fresh blood too."

Tsunade's gaze flattened on him like a hammer, face devoid of all humour and tolerance for such casual treatment of such a cold statement. Ibiki continued to hold that stare, unrepentant. As much as he wished to grant her full plausible deniability, there was a need for some measure of disclosure. Just enough for her to sign off on the offer he was proposing without being totally blind to the peril. He needed a waiver. A fine-print disclaimer, carefully worded.

He settled on, "Results don't come without risks. I trust you understand what I mean when I say that."

She understood.

It was in her eyes.

All the same, Tsunade weighed it, doing the mental triage in her head. Looking wearier by the second. "Appeal to Orochimaru," she stated, as if confirming the contract, the words sloughing from her in a heavy sigh before more followed, even heavier. "Go through Sasuke…by going through Naruto."

Ibiki's lips gave a tight twitch, too tense to be a smile. "Needs must."

"I don't like it, Ibiki. Not one damn bit."

Well sure. What was to like? Orochimaru was still a sociopathic snake in the grass as far as Ibiki was concerned – opportunistic to the last. As for Sasuke? The Uchiha's batcrap sanity was circling the drain. Then there was Naruto. A goddamned aneurysm in all the brains required to run this operation. Shit. Like it? Ibiki wasn't exactly breaking out the saké over this trilemma-winning shitshow.

"It's unfortunate," he admitted. "I can't help that. But I may be able to help Shikaku's son."

"And Sasuke?"

Ibiki said nothing for a long second. "That depends."

"On what?"

"On how committed he is to change as he once was to chaos."

"You're not convinced."

"Hn. I'm open to being proved wrong."

Tsunade frowned, her eyes tracking his face. "And will Sasuke walking back into the snake pit prove you wrong?"

Ibiki blinked slowly. "Not as much as him walking back out of it with something useful."

"Useful," she echoed, a sour edge to it. "Provided he walks back out at all."

"No reason to believe he won't. He could skin Orochimaru alive one-handed – no pun intended. He'd probably enjoy it too."

"Ibiki…"

"Just following the pathology. Let him surprise me. Let him prove he's not beyond saving."

"And you think Naruto is just going to come to heel while Sasuke goes about 'proving' that?"

"I think you get to determine the length of Uzumaki's leash."

Tsunade huffed, a wry note playing beneath her exasperated chuckle. "You say that. But you know that kid."

"I do." He did. And it wasn't encouraging. But Ibiki knew something else too and wasted no time in exploiting it. "I also know that kid blames himself for Hyūga Neji and Nara Shikamaru. I think that's a good enough length of rope to tie him up with, provided he's not hanging from it already."

Tsunade's smile cracked off.

The tigress peered out once more, eyes glowing.

There was a long pause. Substantial. Aggressive. Ibiki bore its threat without a flicker of regret for what he'd said or how it sounded. Because it was the truth. Naruto felt culpable. That gave Tsunade a measure of control over him – whether she'd take that control depended on whether she was more concerned with being righteous or being a realist.

She couldn't be both.

Not with this.

And Ibiki clocked the exact second that registered on her face. The faintest wince.

"Dammit…"

To hell and back, Ibiki agreed – because that's how far he was willing to go for Shikaku's boy. He wouldn't be the only one. And that, if nothing else, was more than enough to go on. To try on. Gods knew, they'd tried everything else.

Eventually, Tsunade's conflicted expression grew sombre and still – her stare going a little vacant. "I made the wrong call, didn't I?" she whispered at last. "I waited too long."

"You did what you believed was right."

"And now? I'm hard-pressed to believe that using Naruto to manipulate Sasuke is the right choice…especially if we're planning to sink one step lower by involving that snake."

"I never said it was right. I said it was a chance. Right? Wrong? Not my remit."

Her gaze hardened a little. "No…but it's mine, Ibiki."

Undoubtedly. Because there was no plausible deniability to be had there. Not where Orochimaru was concerned. The village was pissed and divided enough, harbouring the Uchiha felon within its walls, to say nothing of the questionable and unpopular pardoning of that criminal viper and his merry band of misfits.

Right?

Wrong?

Ibiki didn't envy Tsunade that moral dilemma, or all the dirty politics constantly undermining it both in the streets and in the corridors of power. No. He wouldn't want to sit on that cursed throne. Giving ground, Ibiki eased back on his heels, though he kept his gaze set squarely on Tsunade's feline eyes, watching the emotion scintillating within them.

Struggle. Pain. Doubt.

There was nothing much there to which he could personally relate. But professionally, he understood both the gravity of what he was suggesting and the enormity of the consequences. He'd carried the practical weight before at the behest of former Hokages and he would do so again without question. If he could, he'd have carried the full weight of what was bearing down on his Hokage now.

Hn. Carry it where?

Granted, he had no capacity for emotionalism. However, he possessed the capacity to dismantle what he could not carry. So, he moved to do just that. His stance loosened, his head cleared, and his deep baritone cut out with the cold and detached confidence he always projected, speaking without a nuance of hesitation.

"I can't promise you that acting on this choice will be the right move, Godaime. But I can assure you that failing to act at all will certainly be the wrong one. I don't have to believe that. I know it…and so do you."

Tsunade gave his words their due.

Leaning further back, she interlaced her fingers slowly, the calm move at odds with the emotion that gripped her expression, tugging her lips into a bleak and bitter smile. "The Councillors were right…I guess I failed Shikaku as spectacularly as Hiruzen, not to have considered these hard choices sooner. And not to have seen what was happening with Shikamaru."

"Tch. You're not psychic. Even Hyūga eyes required a double-take."

"No. I could have done more."

"You believe that?"

"I know it…and so do you."

Ibiki shook his head. "No one could have predicted this. Much less known how to prepare for it. How could they? It was an anomaly that even Shikaku, for all his genius, never foresaw or factored in regarding his son."

"But I might've been able to, Ibiki." Growling, Tsunade looked away, jaw tight. "Instead of a full and ongoing study into Shuken's senjutsu alterations, I let the Nara clan take control of Shikamaru's recovery after Hyūga Neji flushed the natural energy from his system at the near cost of his own lif—" She cut off abruptly, looking stunned and repentant, as if she'd unwittingly sinned within the sanctity of a temple or a shrine…or in this case, a graveyard.

Ibiki didn't follow the thought any further.

He'd stopped counting the losses a long time ago.

At length, Tsunade cleared her throat and continued on, her voice hushed, pained, "I just passed Shikamaru off into his father's care, not because it was the right choice…but because it was easier. Easier to absolve myself of the residual guilt over what my predecessors did, or failed to do, regarding Shuken years before…but I shouldn't have allowed it."

"Much was permitted. For better or worse. Both before your involvement and after your choice to step back – and I know there was a hell of a lot more than 'residual guilt' that led you to make that call."

"Doesn't matter. It was clearly the wrong call. So was my last one, to think I could contain Shikamaru's condition with – what did you call it? Duct tape."

Ibiki almost winced, but took it on the chin.

Denied blood, Tsunade huffed a cold laugh and pressed her eyes shut, the veins at her temples stark and blue against her pale skin. "I'm on a roll, aren't I? The Legendary Sucker." A disgusted snort and she sat back, turned her face away. "If winning the War was a victory, then this is the other shoe falling. I failed Shikaku and now I'm failing his son."

Ibiki took a moment on that. But only a moment. "Hokage," he said, his tone falling very low and very calm, appealing to her head. He could do nothing for her heart. "Give me the Jinchūriki. Give me Uchiha. Let me set this in motion. Let me make this right."

The deliberate use of that last word snagged her gaze exactly as he'd intended.

Though her face remained turned away from him, Tsunade glanced sidelong out the corner of one tired amber eye. "Careful, Ibiki…that almost sounds like a guarantee."

Hn. If only.

Rolling his broad and burdened shoulders, Ibiki slotted his aching hands into the pockets of his trench-coat and measured out the slimmest of smiles, borrowing her own words from months back, his voice a rueful echo in the silence that followed.

"I can't guarantee it," he said. "But I can try."

---

"Try not to move," the voice advised.

Soft, feminine.

A far cry from the growling inner wolf snarling at him to mobilise his laid-out ass and get to—"Akamaru," he wheezed, the name quivering like a string of reedy air out his bruised mouth. "Aka—"

"Is resting," the voice assured. "As you need to be. Akamaru will be fine, Kiba. Just breathe. I can't let you sleep just yet. Soon, I promise."

A flare of green light behind his closed lids, bright as a strobe. The tingling balm of curative chakra eased over the agony riding his nerves like lightning. The pain had owned him for the past few hours. No let up. No choice. He couldn't check out of consciousness thanks to a fucking concussion that'd knocked his brain into a dull grey sludge inside his bleeding skull. Hurt to think. Hurt not to think.

Hurt.

Just plain fucking hurt.

But not as much as seeing Ino that way…

What way?

His brain struggled to supplant the question with the answer, colouring in the blanks in his memory in vivid angry shades, lots of red, an exaggeration of the image that'd been burned into his brain before it'd all gone red and he'd attacked whoever and whatever had been closest and culpable.

Genma…

Well shit.

That explained his hospitalisation.

And Akamaru's…

Angry tears stung his nose. He worked his throat, tried to swallow and almost choked. That burning green light dimmed behind his stinging eyelids, the warmth that accompanied it slipping south to settle above his neck. Like honey down his throat, easing the rawness. Had Genma got him in a chokehold in the end? Or plain punched his lights out? He didn't remember…wasn't sure he wanted to…not the fight…and not what had spurned it…

Ino…

He couldn't hold that thought…

So he drifted for a moment, pulled back and forth between one spectrum of pain and another until it all kind of evened out into a dull throb, his entire body beating like a drum. The rhythm held him, distracted him from the stricture of the bandages and gave him something to focus on to keep from slipping into sleep. The quiet female tones and gentle touches continued on the periphery, assembling into an order his busted brain could organise and his nose could finally determine by scent alone…

Shizune.

Sakura...and intermingled with her scent was a smell he vaguely recognised from somewhere that felt like it belonged in a different chapter, a different time…

Hanegakure? Hibari?

Sterile and chemical scents rushed in next, filling up his bloody nose.

Someone touched his shoulder. Sakura. And told him to, "Rest."

Then stillness and silence. A heavy gauze of quiet with the odd sounds bleeding through; the whispering skip of orderlies' feet and rumbling gurneys beyond the thin-walled room; the rattle of metal links as privacy curtains were drawn across their rails. Then smaller, closer, sounds, the noise shrinking as his senses wound down from hypervigilance to a hazy cataloguing of his immediate space, taking in sounds and smells in lieu of opening his bruised and swollen eyes…

The beep of a machine nearby.

The astringent stink of hand sanitiser and the rubbery trace of latex.

The skitter of his own breath rattling in and out, in and out.

Over-bleached sheets and the barest, almost ghosting, scent of flowers…

Flowers?

A presence in the room.

It intruded upon the moment by increments, leading first with that barely-there scent – hyacinth and lilies – confusing Kiba's already jumbled brain, throwing him off whatever idle game-trail his wounded mind had been loping down just seconds before…

Wait a second…

Hyacinth and lilies…

Kiba stiffened and every hurting muscle felt it, a hiss of pain catching hard behind his teeth. The sound garnered a soft hiccup of breath from the intruder, then abrupt silence. Kiba's ears strained in that silence, but he didn't dare open his eyes. Every instinct inside him went on immediate point, hairs standing on end. A bristling feeling, like he wanted to snarl…wanted to shout…scream…

And then she touched him.

Feather light, down his arm and across the back of his vein-striped hand, ghosting over the cannula secured there, the useless IV dosing him full of some shitty sedative that did little to kick the pain in his body and absolutely nothing to kill the pain in his heart.

"Don't," he snarled, but it came out frayed – raw and catching in his throat.

Her touch stilled, but it didn't withdraw.

Neither did she.

And he felt that on more levels that just the physical.

Even with his eyes shut, Kiba knew precisely where she stood. Could feel the heat coming off her body, beating down on him like a relentless sun. Hot and itchy across his skin, leaving him red and blistered where once it had warmed him, enflamed him…

It burned something fierce now.

Like the salt in his nose. His tears. Hers. Didn't fucking matter. He stared into the fizzing darkness behind his closed lids, picturing the portrait of her face, all stains and runny paint. Shit. Clawing his eyeballs out would be kinder than opening them to see that face…her face…her eyes…

"Kiba…"

His pulse spiked on the monitor.

Gave too much away.

Fuck it.

Growling, his nose crinkled in a snarl, split lip pulling back. "Get the hell out, Ino."

She flinched but remained, the pads of her fingers twitching against his skin, wounding him deeper than any hit Genma had landed. He heard her swallow, imagined the gentle movement of that pretty throat, chasing his imagination down along the soft and milky curve of shoulder to the sensitive junction where he'd sunk his teeth countless times; never hard enough to hurt or harm – just enough to mark, possess…it's not as if she hadn't gotten her claws into him…deep into him…too bad he hadn't accounted for how hard and fast she'd extract them…or the damage they'd leave behind…

His throat constricted.

She stroked his cheek.

He jerked as if stabbed, one golden eye flaring open, the world an inky mess through the pain and tears. "GET OUT!"

Ino's touch ripped away, drawing unseen blood. She staggered back as if struck or shoved, the blurred lines of her body hazing into a mesh of confusing colour in Kiba's ever-swimming vision, his head pounding to the rush of blood, the scent of hyacinth and lilies overpowered by salt and sweat and…

The colours moved, so did the whole damn room…

She came forward so suddenly it took his breath. Not in the good way. He felt her hands on him again, the force of her impact rocking the medical bed, punching another hiss from him.

Watery breath fired at his ear, her voice so hoarse it hurt to hear it.

"Hate me. Hurt me. Don't leave me."

He fucking wanted to do all three. Lying bound and rigid in her arms, that feral, animal part howled for retribution as the human beat it back with bloody hands. He clenched his eyes tighter until stars burst in his vision, setting off bad, bad fire.

Fuck.

She needed to leave. He wasn't lucid enough to control himself – wasn't even sure he wanted to…and that scared him about as much as it disgusted him. He'd never raised a hand to her outside of sparring – even then, she bitched about him pulling his punches.

He wouldn't do that now if the feral part took over.

He tried to sit up, tried to push her away, his body shot and his heart weak against the onslaught of affection – fuck I miss you – though it hit like an assault. A fucking war of attrition on his pride…and other parts of him…parts she'd tamed with touch alone...

I'm no one's bitch…

But he'd become something other in her arms…less bite…less bark…less bravado…

Yeah, a domesticated whelp…

Her kisses cut like knives.

Her hands left scars beneath his skin.

"Don't leave me."

What a cruel joke. A gas-lighting load of shit. His chakra burned hotter than the hell he wanted to raise, the pain he wanted to rip out by the roots…because she'd fucking planted it there…right in the stupid, puppy-eyed, kicked-dog heart of him…a merciless flowering seed…sprouting up now, its vines cording around his heart like her arms around his neck, strangling a growl from him…

"Ino…"

She kissed him so softly it shouldn't have hurt so fucking bad.

"Stop it…" he hissed the words, his voice getting tighter and tighter…a tremble quivering through his limbs, the violence itching inside him, pulling at his skin worse than the stitches and the scars. "Get the fuck out before I—"

"Do it," she pushed. "Do it."

The monitor by the bedside began to beep, louder, faster. But all he could hear was the sound of Ino's breath at his ear, a hot desert wind, her lips chapped and dry against his cheek. Then the streak of her tears, burning cold along his jaw…and somewhere, underneath all that sadness and salt and the dried tang of blood, he caught the toxic scent of whatever drug she'd taken…or had let take her…

"Please, Kiba…"

The past stole in, a brief flash to ease the pain…

A vision of silky thread grass…

The rustling strands slipping through his fingers…

"Please, Kiba."

Soft as her flaxen hair, spread beneath her like a halo in the dying light…

"I love you."

Fresh pain burst open inside him…violent and uncontrollable. His chakra flared – and so did the agony in every senbon-shredded nerve. The humanity cut out inside him and the beast rose to take its place. Roaring, he surged up like a rabid dog. The cannula tore from the back of his hand, a snapped leash. He lunged for Ino, fangs bared, elongated nails puncturing the tender flesh of her arms, vicious as needles…but he had no drug to deliver into her veins…

Just me, baby…guess that's never enough…

"KIBA!"

A female shout.

Too sharp and loud to identify immediately.

But it yanked his leash.

A lucid flash and Ino froze in his grip, her face a blotted canvas in his golden bloodshot eye, all her colours still bleeding together. He squinted into the mess, his pupil quivering between animal-slit and human wholeness as he struggled to see her – find her – in all that stinging blurring chaos…

"I love you."

The hurt was so gutting he almost retched…

Instead, he roared…

Screamed point-blank against Ino's gasping mouth until—

A stinging jab at his arm...

A kaleidoscopic flurry of chemicals across his mind…

The drugged feeling of sinking…

Strong hands wrenched them apart, one pressing him down into the sheets, boneless and confused whilst Ino fought to follow him down, her mouth moving desperately against his cracked lips, swallowing his dying roar, her voice whispering, pleading…

"Hate me, Kiba…please hate me…please, please…"

I want to, sweetheart…

"Ino, stop!" Sakura. Close. Scared. "INO!"

A memory slipped past the swiftly closing window in his mind…

Silky thread grass…wildflowers in her hair…her expression smiley-confused…

"What? It's a picnic…What's so funny? It was this or me skinning you somethin' I caught earlier."

"Aw, am I taming your savage ways?"

"Somethin' like that."

"Something?"

Blonde strands swishing against his face…matted and bloody…

"INO! Stop it!"

…the cornflower blue of her smiling eyes…

"Kiba…don't leave, ok?"

"And go where? You're the hand that feeds – and occasionally scratches."

"Ha. Ha. Shut up and kiss me."

…the tinkle of her laughter against his lips…

Salt and sadness stinging his mouth…

Now a melting liquid vision, contorted and tunnelling into messed up memory…

Dreams, lies.

Mugen Tsukuyomi.

Her face undone. Her expression incinerated by a detonation of flame. The War. Still raging in her heart. Still burning in her eyes. In her touch. Ashes. Brick. Ruin. Meadows wrecked; flowers gone to graveyards. More bones than bodies left to bury. But still forced to watch. Watch the girl he loved…bent double at the grave she hated – Yamanaka Inoichi etched into the bleak and unforgiving stone…

"Hit me. Hurt me."

He never had. Never could. But she could hit. And she could hurt. And she did. Relentless. Circling back again and again. Hit and run and return. But she was in his fucking marrow. So Kiba had caged up his inner wolf and taken her shit like a whipped dog – up until his body couldn't…even if his heart could.

Sucker.

No. Nature. Running its brutal course. Because as his Ma and sister had always warned him, love – when it finally took them by the throat – came with loyalty for an Inuzuka. Too bad that loving in vain meant a collar around their fucking necks, if not a chain. Too tame a metaphor for the eviscerating hara-kiri kind of shit her self-destructive spiral put him through.

Loyalty felt like a blade in his gut.

Hell, so did love.

He hadn't just fallen on that blade, he'd run himself clean through, then reversed and done it again, like a dumb-shit bleeding-heart idiot…kept on doing it too…

"And you'll do it again." Shino's voice. It came unbidden, disembodied and floating at his ear. "And why will you do it? Because you're either too stubborn or too stupid to admit that she's not the same."

"Fuck you. This ain't her."

"This isn't you, either. Don't enable it. Walk away before you get—"

"Go piss up a rope. What the hell would you know about it?"

Apparently more than Kiba…because it'd all gone down exactly as Shino had predicted it would. Like a tonne of bloody bricks on Kiba's stupid head, crashing down around him and Ino like the flaming rubble the retrieval team had pulled her father's body out of, barely recognisable. Like the look in Ino's eyes ever since that moment…those memories…

"Your father walked away, Kiba! Mine was TAKEN away! Like Asuma! Like Naoki! Like Neji! You don't get it!"

"What's to get? Gone is gone. Doesn't matter how. So come on already. Hiss and fucking spit. Throw shit. Get mad. Go wild. I'm not leaving."

Even when she'd given him every possible reason to.

Made it sooooo damn easy too.

Even those friends who'd never believed Kiba capable of fidelity wouldn't have batted an eye if he'd chosen to walk away from her. No one would've called him a coward, a cad, or a commitment freak. No one would've condemned him as a fair-weather fucker taking the easy way out – as his father had done, walking out on Kiba's Ma and her two kids.

Ain't the same.

Crying shame too. And too damn bad. Too damn fucking bad that Kiba couldn't credit his 'stand by your girl' stupidity to some stubborn 'I ain't like my daddy' issues. Because his father had never loved his mother. Yeah, no. Kiba didn't have that no-strings-attached pass-go…he had a life sentence and a battered padlock…just couldn't turn the 'get me outta jail' key…even though Ino had all but shoved it through the bleeding lock…twisting and turning it like a fucking knife…ramming it home at every vicious opportunity…all so he could…

"Hate me."

Yeah, she'd made it easy alright.

So hate her…

Maybe he could try…surely the animal in him could turn on her…couldn't it? Hadn't it?

"Please. Please."

"GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Ino shouting…Ino swearing…a shrill and angry scream…real or remembered, it didn't really matter…sinking further into the drugged and numbing dark, Kiba knew he couldn't reach her now anymore than he could back then…

Gone is gone.

More shouting, more salt burning in his nose…hyacinth and lilies withering away…

"Don't leave me."

The pain those words inflicted followed him way down deep into the yawning black…a crimson ribbon in his bloodstream…

"Don't leave me."

How can I, baby? You left first.

And then it all swirled away, like tainted water down a drain…

---

Darkness gyres around him in thick ropes. Ropes that flicker and spark, electric as eels, swimming through the void in which he floats. His body is younger. But not by much. Two or three years. Give or take.

Take. Take. Take.

They do. This mass of slithering limbs. They snake over the contours of his flesh, sighing out soft and sibilant whispers, sounds infused with a distinctly serpent edge…

He gives.

Because he takes too.

Power.

What's a little pain?

It doesn't hurt me.

Nothing much does anymore.

A single palm, rough as snakeskin, touches him. Glides over his face and skims one high planar cheek, thumb caressing the ridge of bone. If it is a tender touch, then it's a practiced one. Fingers, ghost-white and dry, card raven strands away from his face to reveal the emptiness standing there…

"Ah, you consent?"

He stares up at nothing. Feels nothing.

"We agreed."

There's power in that. Same as in the chakra slithering about him now, unseen snakes in the sheets. He remembers this. Just as he remembers the feathering of the forked tongue…reliving, again, the devil's whisper at his ear, caressing the shell…

"Thiiisssss body, my boy…you give it up again…without hesssiiiitation…without…recoursseeee…uncaring of how I might usseee it…"

He repeats, "We agreed."

"Ah yyesssss. But I still need to hear it."

Every time. Always making sure he signs off on the line of consent. What the hell was that? Professional courtesy? A tickle of that tongue at his ear, the dry lips scraping, almost gentle. The Snake was odd like that.

"Let me take thisss body?"

It alludes to more than what's being asked. But he takes the mundane interpretation, because it's always the same…even the reverent singsong way with which this question is sighed against his ear never alters its breathless amazement, no matter how many times he answers back…

"Do as you want." Automatic. Redundant. But not the next words. Never the next words. "So long as you give me what I want."

Amusement rattles like a snake's tail, a susurrating hiss that shivers out across the scar-veined marble of his skin like a thousand laughing tongues, all feathering out, all feeling their way along leanly muscled contours…hands follow…gentle-rough…

He doesn't flinch.

Never has.

He's not a child. Not by shinobi standards, certainly not by civilian ones, given what he's carried inside him since that horrific blood-soaked night. Nothing could possess him as utterly as that ruin.

But still…

He knows he should feel something.

Disgust.

Revulsion.

Shame.

But there's nothing.

Nothing at all.

Nothing but the act playing out in its familiar tedious rehearsal until the slick and probing tongue deviates from its usual path along his bare throat – his pulse flat and steady – the wet appendage tracing along the sharp line of his jaw before it swipes, viper-fast, straight across his unsuspecting mouth, teasing the seal, demanding entry.

He stiffens in shock.

This is a first.

But not the first.

Swift as an adder's bite, memory – mixed up and misplaced – diffuses a bitter stinging poison into his veins. A flash of angry sky-bright eyes and whiskered cheeks. A wide and noisy mouth, shooting off shit before smashing unceremoniously into his own sneering lips. Shocked and shining eyes filling up wide as moons, gazes fused in dumbstruck terror and…

Something changes in him.

Both inside and out.

And for the first time since The Snake had touched him this way, his body not only reacts as he suspected it always should have in this situation, but it also feels what he hoped it never would…

Like it wants him to crawl the fuck out of its filthy tainted skin.

Stunned cold, he freezes against the sheets.

That snaking tongue retreats…

But the feeling remains. Paralyses him. Holds him rigid.

The Snake leans back. Golden eyes bore into him from above, the basilisk stare thin as needles, sliding under his prickling skin as surely as the words. "Ah, Sasssuke-kun…so here you are…"

No. No. No. No.

Another memory bites…

There's water now…

Thundering down…

Their bodies plummet like a stone towards the foaming plunge-pool far below…

This was a stupid idea.

He needs to break the fall, but he cannot extricate himself. His left hand is fused with that usuratonkachi bastard's. He strains the opposite way, almost rips his apprehended arm from its aching socket…

A rock rises up, shark-fin sharp…

They try to use it as a blade…a severing edge…

Useless.

The gelatinous shit binding them together simply stretches and recoils, throwing them up and pulling them apart before it rubberband-snaps them back together again, causing snarling mouths to collide; teeth clacking, lips splitting, faces hot with—

"WHY IS IT ALWAYS YOU!?"

He jerks from the memory and it snaps off all wrong. Not fully dislodged. Leaves splinters inside him. Cold shards shredding up the air in his throat.

Another stroke across his cheek.

Abrasive as rope burn.

He goes pale and cold beneath The Snake – his eyes blown wide where before he'd always kept them shut…so used to keeping the illicit and unpleasant scene closed off and buried six feet deep with everything else he'd left behind because he's already…

Dead.

I'm dead to this.

Something comes alive Orochimaru's eyes. The Snake eases further back, his long mobile neck bending slowly to one side, head canted with unsettling fascination. Watching the abnormal reaction playing out beneath him like it's holding a match to the depraved fire glowing both sterile and wild in his reptilian gaze.

"Who'd have thought. All you've let me do…and you recoil from a kisssss?"

He bolts up, shoving hard.

So sudden and reactive he upends his mentor, monster, maker – never 'master' – with a quick torque of his hips. Twists onto his elbow as if to be sick, gut heaving, the muscles in his stomach clenched against the sudden surge of bile…

No. No. No. No.

He can't breathe.

Can't think.

But fuck…he feels…feels…

"…it kinda…hurts me…"

Those words don't belong in this memory!

Orochimaru strokes his spine with saccharine sweetness. "Ssshhh."

So loud in his head.

So wrong in his head…and wrong someplace else too but he's supposed to be—

DEAD TO THIS!

The Snake's open mouth skims his shoulderblade, pointed teeth against the curse-mark. Snarling, he rolls fluid as a cat from the branding touch, right to the very edge of the futon, shards of dark hair whipping across his slick and bloodless face, mouth gasping open, eyes blown wide.

Orochimaru tuts, low and taunting. "Ah, seeing that fox hasss done this to you, yesss? Come here, let me unravel the knots he's tied you into…"

Whatever blood remains, drains from his face as surely as if those viper fangs were embedded in his neck, sucking blood, scarring him worse than the curse-mark ever had.

That fox…

"I should've…killed…" the words crack and die in his throat.

"Come…" The Snake whispers…and the connotation is so far from innocuous its depravity hits him centre-mass, punching a choked sound from him. "Come here, Sasssu—"

He lurches onto his feet and the world spins…

"SHUT UP!"

…his gaze swings like a drunkard's, back and forth in a blind drift. He staggers sideways, gropes along the endless jigsaw wall, gasps at the pain cramping up inside him and goes down hard and fast on his knees, folding over, emptying out three years' worth of bile and bitter loathing in a long and silent scream…

"Where are you now?" a woman asks.

The memory cut out.

Uchiha Sasuke's eyes slipped open.

Darkness.

Diffusing inside him and all around. But, just like the memory he'd so quickly departed from, it was not an empty darkness. Different, yes. Empty, no. The blindfold, warmed from his body-heat and pressed tight against his face, drew a curtain across his mismatched eyes and the conflict rippling through them.

"…it kinda…hurts me…"

He blinked hard. Felt the rough fabric, embroidered with chakra-seals, scratching and pressing at his lashes. No apparitions rose up to taunt him. He blinked again, just to be sure.

He was familiar with the flashbacks.

Just not the…

Feelings…

"Sasuke?" the woman pressed.

His eyes turned towards her beneath the blindfold. These people hid his weapons. What the hell did any of them hope to gain from his words? They only had to look into his eyes – his two unholy scabbards – to determine everything they needed to know about what to do with him.

Do to him.

They'd executed a strict protocol to contain what he could unleash but there was something still off about this whole 'the verdict's still out' bullshit. Even with his useless stump of an elbow cinched to his body and his other arm bound in chains, they should've done more to expedite his sentence. And they didn't need for him to speak to tell them that.

Kakashi knew.

So did the Hokage.

The whole damn village.

It wasn't so complicated really. It certainly didn't require the pointless interpersonal psych-games that they'd resorted to now, pulling him from solitary isolation time and again just to get him to speak.

And say what?

He'd said enough to Kakashi.

Too much.

Far more than he'd ever intended to.

"Where were you, Sasuke?" the woman asked again, reminding him once more that just like in his memories, he was, unfortunately, no longer alone.

He had nothing to say to her.

To the others like her.

To any of you…

But they kept on coming, returning as promised – as ordered. Here a man, there a woman – a roll of a dice may have determined that. A conveyor belt of shrinks and T&I lackeys charged to sit across from the Uchiha traitor, all of them squinting through the darkness that revolved both around him and inside him in hopes of glimpsing – what? The reason for his stay of fucking execution?

Go ask him.

Had anyone thought to do that?

Probably not.

Silence now. Or maybe the woman was speaking again, and he'd just stopped hearing…because it was the same bullshit every time…deeply personal questions he was no closer to answering no matter how artfully delivered. Reframed by different minds but essentially the same as they redoubled their efforts. He suspected they were trying to determine just how deep the darkness still ran inside him…desperate to clarify what that darkness had completely washed away and eroded…and what pathetic little of him still remained…and if any of it might still be salvageable...

"Surprise me, Uchiha," the sadist, Ibiki, had said.

I'm here, aren't I? Sasuke had thought.

Surrendering himself into the hands of a ruthless Council he had once sworn to obliterate had shocked everyone bar the T&I veteran. Morino probably suspected Sasuke was running some kind of long con. Had assumed point on the mission to prove it. Until further notice, Sasuke's brain was Ibiki's nut to crack. And Ibiki would keep piling on the pressure until the truth's black kernel revealed itself.

Surprise, Morino…

That kernel was already cracked.

Morino just didn't know what to do with it.

Like the woman sat across from him now.

Time ticked by at a slow crawl, and he endured it, embraced it. Listened while its steady turn shaved seconds off the small ticking clock stationed somewhere to the far left of the cell. They always brought the clock. A metronome designed to measure all these wasted minutes...hours…days…or whatever passage existed between the time that had passed and the time he had left…

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The clock was a comfort, not an irritant. In the calculated silence, its sound gave dimension to the shapeless black he'd been living in for the past four months, granting him a kind of echolocation that oriented space and time in the otherwise bodiless shadows. A void he'd been staring into for weeks on end while T&I went to work carefully examining and excavating this broken Uchiha relic in some kind of fucked-up restoration bid, only to push him back to breaking point.

"Surprise me, Uchiha."

He could do that. He could bite out his own tongue and spit it at the sadist's feet. Because he'd sooner do that, than talk about the remembered darkness this woman and all her white-coat friends wanted to deliver him back into…

He'd travelled further back this time…

Back to sixteen…

Back to The Snake.

Wasn't sure why the hell his thoughts had dragged him there…of all the places he'd been…of all the people scrawled upon the twisted pages of his story…

Why Orochimaru?

Why now?

Why at all?

He hadn't thought about Orochimaru since The War…and he'd never, not once, given a second thought or a backward glance to the things he'd let that Snake do to him back when he was—

It doesn't matter…

Because weeks later, by Sasuke's own hand, that Snake had ceased to exist – along with the evidence of what had happened. It hadn't bothered Sasuke at the time, not even later when he'd seen the Snake again. It was dead and buried, like so much else. So there was no good reason why any of it should bother him now…he'd taken from Orochimaru too, hadn't he?

Power.

He'd never cared about the price of that power. He'd always known there'd be a cost.

"In exchange for the curse mark's power, you will be tethered to Orochimaru-sama…"

Tethered…

Is that what that was?

Teeth scraping his collarbone, blunt nails digging into his lower back, lifting him into the hungry thrust—

Sasuke sucked a breath through his nose.

Short and sharp.

Audible.

"Sasuke?" came the woman's soft and lilting tones, a near-croon. "Are you still remembering?"

Not consciously. Not willingly. He'd never tallied these memories. But apparently, somewhere inside him, his body had kept the score.

"Ah! This body…this body…"

Though he sat perfectly still, a pulse beat strongly in the side of his neck.

The woman must have seen it. "Where are you? What is it?"

Was it.

It was nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing worth the dangerous feeling that crawled inside him now. A blistering itch that spread like flames, hot as Susanoo's wrath, threatening to eat into his hidden eyes and blacken the whiteness of his face…

Just like the…

The old curse-mark…

And as if by design, his throat and jaw prickled with ghost-heat, his skin suffused with the remembered taint of sinister chakra – the memory playing out in reality, one side of his face growing hot beneath the blindfold…

Genjutsu…

No. He'd have sensed that coming off this bitch long before. Whatever this was, it came from within. And right now, he was miles off in knowing how to counter it, unable to put distance or distraction between himself and the strobe-flashes projecting his past across the screen of his mind…

"GIVE ME YOUR BODY!"

Bile lurched up his throat. So sudden and so violent his eyes clenched shut behind the blindfold though he caught himself from coming forwards, spine stiff as a whipcord, jaw tight.

He could feel the woman's eyes on him.

"Sasuke?" she pressed, just to the side of nervous – or was that excitement?

Sasuke swallowed, slow as he dared, and felt the acid catch and burn at the back of his tongue, branding his mouth like a 'speak no evil' curse seal. He'd have spat at her feet, if he didn't risk emptying his stomach altogether. The hollow of his throat dipped hard, a ragged breath threatening to roll up like smoke.

He held it.

But she caught something off him.

Maybe it was a chill.

"I understand, Sasuke," she said quite suddenly, terminating the topic. Smart play. Her trained and modulated voice shifted in the same beat at his pulse, taking on a sad and consolatory tone. "It's okay. We don't have to talk about whatever that is, Sasuke."

The repeated use of his name irked him.

So did the assumption that he felt compelled to talk about anything at all, much less the memories twisting like cobras inside him…

He forced them to still.

And that stillness screamed.

So did his sanity…

Well…whatever remained of it.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The cursory silence fell, drawing a curtain over the moment. They always dipped him in ice after the hot water. He was never sure whose benefit that was for, but it remained predictable. Only this time around, his body wasn't relaxing into the "cooling-off period's" short reprieve.

It took a lot just to keep his expression level.

Never mind keep his breathing even.

After the mandatory pause, the woman's voice slid once more into the silence, precise as a needle into the vein. "If we can step away from where you are right now and maybe travel along the timeline to when you left the village. You remember, Sasuke? Back to that moment years ago? When you decided to walk away from your family—"

His head snapped up.

"Your friends," she amended fast.

Not fast enough.

The Rinnegan pulsed in his skull.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke. I meant your friends."

Sharingan glowing molten-hot in its socket.

"I'm sorry," she repeated.

She wasn't sorry.

She knew exactly what she fucking meant. Or more accurately, exactly what it meant to him.

A mounted picture canted and fell from a wall in his head.

Struck his mind and—

Shattered glass…

"Nii-san!"

Cobweb ceases across a snapshot…

"Compared to yours, our pain will be over in an instant."

The crackle-hiss-whoosh of a flame…

"Itachi, just promise me this…that you'll take care of Sasuke…"

Red, red, red bleeding at the edges of the burning photo…its corners furling from the heat… foetal as a child…

"You don't ever have to forgive me…"

Curling in on the blackening faces…the faces of his…

Family.

The air went electric.

Filled with a static that whistled and popped. It crackled across the fabric of the blindfold. Raised the skin along his shackled arm. Sent the metal links quivering with a conductive hum.

"Sasuke…"

Black tomoe whirling…

"Sasuke?"

A wild red spinning in his eye…

In his head…

Fuming pain smoking up his vision…

Sweat stung the air. Sour and putrid from across the room. Fear. Oil on his black flames. Because there was never any light, even in his fire. Remembered, suddenly, what he could do with that fire. That sweet consuming heat. Rising, burning – filling up the holes in his chest. Holes in the shape of…

My family.

Chair legs scraped back, a catch-and-drag. "Sasuke…" soft, wary. "Stop."

"STOP!"

Arms around him…

"Please!"

Thin pale vines, lily-white and shaking…

Not strong enough to hold him.

Or his darkness.

Sakura.

"She suffers from loving you!"

"I have absolutely no reason to love her and likewise—"

Her broken eyes, a green mosaic, piecing him together all wrong…

"—I can see no reason why she would love me."

Let alone forgive him.

"I'm sorry."

He'd meant it. Remembers. He'd meant it.

Prove it.

He tried. Tried to stop. Or at least he fought to. Began stamping out the flames rising up. Jaw tight. Molars grinding down. He could feel the woman's gaze on him. Scrutinising. Searching. Straining to hear what his parched mouth wouldn't shape and his dry tongue couldn't speak. Throat tightening…straining…swallowing convulsively around the hot lava ball working up, up, up…

"Can I get you some water, Sasuke-kun?"

She could go to fucking hell. And if he couldn't control the demons rising up inside him, he'd be joining her there. She spoke his name again and he heard it screamed a hundred times, in a hundred different voices, across a hundred different memories, across a hundred different miles inside the melting landscape of his mind…

"Sasuke-kun!"

"SASUKE!"

"Saasssukeeee."

He wasn't sure what was worse at this point…

His fast-rising chakra or the hundred running mouths…

And then their voices melded together…

And shit…that was worse…

Infinitely worse…

Because when things started to run together in his head this way, reality threatened to warp and bleed into something altogether more disturbing than the past and all its burning pictures resurrecting themselves inside of him…

God. No. You know what's real…

The shackles locked about his ankles…

The sparking manacle around his wrist…

The tightening blindfold across his eyes, a pulse of blue-white light creeping in through the fibres…a warning glow as the embroidered seal flared at his brow…triggering a chain reaction around the entire building he couldn't see, but some part of him could feel – humming, vibrating, glowing to life.

Chakra seals…

The woman shouted, not with one voice, but with many. "SASUKE! STOP!

He couldn't.

Good thing he didn't have to try.

The entire building pulsed.

Seconds behind this trigger came the mechanism designed to shut him down. A flash-bang burn across his eyes and agony seized his skull in a vice, stretching its dominating reach along the length of his spine. A seizure that clamped down on his rising energy much as it had the other night with Kakashi – only stronger.

So much stronger.

An unseen barrier-jutsu slammed down around him, quick enough to narrow the blast radius of his misfiring chakra, but not enough to stop the far more damaging explosion…

His mind, after all, was an armed grenade…

She'd already pulled the pin.

Family.

And no barrier jutsu or chakra-seal could stop what detonated inside the walls…

The walls of course, being his fucking head.

LAUGHTER.

It exploded in Sasuke's mind. Loud. High. Psychotic.

His own.

A howling hysteria that blew through every synapse, whipped up from the stormlands and the valleys of the shadow, bursting abscesses of memory in a thousand shades of certifiable red; redder than the blood pooling in his clenched hand; redder than the blazing eye concealed beneath the blindfold, its black tomoe pinwheeling wildly…

Spinning…spinning…spinning…

"SASUKE!"

Itachi spewing blood…from his mouth…his eyes…his nose…dead at his feet…his nii-san's blood an anointing streak across his brow…

Karin gasping like a beached creature on the ground…pitiful…useless to him…as useless as—

Sakura twisting around to expose her chest – her heart – an open target, as vulnerable to him now as it had ever been, lined up so beautifully with Chidori's lethal trajectory and—

A grey and silver shield sweeping in, deflecting the kill that would have cut her down.

Kakashi.

"How far you've fallen, Sasuke…"

Fallen. Fallen clan. Fallen karma. Let the world fall with him. Before him. Let it all come crashing down into the darkness where the bodies were interred…

Mother.

Father.

Brother.

"Compared to yours, our pain will be over in an instant."

And now that pain lived on in him. A deep fissure zigzagged down his chest. A volcanic sensation. A crater breaking open, wider than the one in his head. Incinerating heat welled up. A bubbling pitch. Searing behind his ribs.

The Uchiha fan…cracked down its centre…just like him…

Itachi's blood on broken rock…

A great cliff-face hurtling upwards…

And down, way down, so far below the ledge on which he stood, was the sweet and miserable abyss…

Why fight?

His promises meant nothing here. And besides. He'd never really made any. None he'd spoken. None he'd pledged. Really, it wasn't so far to fall…just one small step and it was an easy slide down into the darkness…and from there…maybe he'd float apart like his brother, knowing he was finished…because as he'd told Kakashi…his future was as undeserved as every unjust thing that'd twisted him to forfeit it…

Indra…child of a corrupt prophecy…

A karmic wheel set in motion eons ago…

He was always destined to this darkness…

It's not as if he hadn't warned them…all of them…

He'd said it…

Screamed it…

His own voice yelled it to him now…without words…only laughter…laughter…and somewhere, cast like a dying autumn leaf in that hurricane of howling madness…he could hear himself whisper…

Just let me fall.

And then there was another voice in his head…

And that voice reached out towards him just as the darkness reached up to take him…

The voice reached him first.

Reached out and told him…

"I'm going to keep holding out my hand…until you take it…"

Fresh agony hit Sasuke broadside. Hard and fast. Intense and blinding. The final failsafe kicking in. A blue-white blast of ice-cold fire. Sasuke's head rocked back, a shout catching behind his teeth as twin bolts of chakra needled through his eyes, pinning them to the sockets. A sobering squelch. Wet and bloody.

It delivered him from madness into instant lucid pain.

This…isn't…pain…

He could deal with pain. He'd had his eyes ripped from their moorings – that pain was worse. But even that pain hurt less than...

"When I see you take on stuff and…get all messed up…it kinda…hurts me…"

Two blue eyes…and the light that lived inside them.

Faster than the seals, that light cut across his echoing madness…

Slit its throat.

The laughter howling through his head choked off. A terminating gurgle that bounced around the chasm still blasted open in his chest. He hung at its jagged precipice, grasping onto the edge of his sanity one-handed until the voice came again.

As strong as any reaching hand.

"…it hurts so much inside…that I can't just leave it alone…you know?"

Yes.

He knew.

And that knowing fisted in his mind and yanked him back from the abyss completely.

Dark magma cooled inside him…

The crushing band around his skull loosened by degrees…

The pain faded…

And slowly, very fucking slowly, Uchiha Sasuke eased back from the crater's edge. From that bottomless hole blown into him so young. It had swallowed so much…but not everything.

One shaking mental step…

One staggering gasp at a time…

The world came juddering back…

And he wasn't the only one breathing hard into the ringing silence left behind. Across the room, the shaken woman pulled on the air. Sharp, shaken little sips. She cleared her throat and made to speak, her breath sucking in for a long and wavering pause before she finally said, "I'm sorry, Sasuke."

No, she wasn't.

They never were.

And for a moment, hovering at that edge, neither was he.

Whatever that said about him – or them, for provoking it – was their shit to square and their job to figure out. Sasuke kept his focus solely on his mental footwork, easing his mind further away from the fuming crater.

His own personal Valley of the End…

It was always there.

A perilous ledge where his vengeance had driven him. A ledge where his sanity went whenever it hopped its shoddy fence and stopped to teeter at the knife-sharp brink like a suicidal jumper…sometimes, childlike, it would sit there, swinging it's legs…peering down deep…bending so far into the madness beyond that it wouldn't take much to push him over its murderous edge…

Truly, it never had.

And they kept pushing.

Why?

Fucking idiots. He was a man hanging on by his fingertips. What more proof did these morons really need? Or rather, one moron, who could've ended it all.

Usuratonkachi…

Shaking, Sasuke pulled a long-drawn breath and eased back, both mentally and physically this time. By incremental degrees, his psychological footing stabilised and the static still crackling about the room fizzled away to the very edges of his aura, causing those unseen chakra-needles to retract, leaving his eyeballs to throb in the wake of whatever damage the sealing technique might've caused.

Nothing permanent.

Just neuralgic stabs at the base of his skull. Vicious and punishing. Not unlike the pain that came after over-exerting the weapons glinting beneath his closed lids. These bastards wouldn't risk damaging those weapons. After all, his eyes could be salvaged, even if his sanity couldn't.

Hn. Maybe that's their play…

Kill him, harvest the goods. Not a bad call. He'd have made the same one, not so long ago.

A rickety creak sounded out.

The woman.

She'd come forward a little in her chair, her presence suddenly magnified. An ill-timed move…and just as likely to pull the pin from Sasuke's head all over again than anything she still had to say to him…or worse, ask of him.

God…don't speak…don't speak…

A cold sweat gathered in the palm of his bloody hand. He laid it like a blade against his thigh, fingernails retracting from the flesh, flexing out the claw they'd tangled into just moments before. A claw he wanted to curl around the woman's throat until her jugular caved beneath his fingers with a wet crack.

And there it was again.

The violence.

The hate.

The tiredness this hate inspired went deep. Bone deep. Way into his marrow. Sasuke tried to breathe through it. Felt the slow intake of breath gather cold in his chest and freeze there, fingers shivering as he fought not to furl them, fist them, his entire body cramping up against the psychological stress-position this four-month T&I mindfuck had forced him into…

It was a dangerous play.

Unless Kakashi wanted him to go for the insanity plea, in which case it was genius.

"You still have a future, Sasuke."

In an asylum, maybe.

Even if that was the smartest option, somehow Sasuke doubted that was the case being built against him – or their intent in going about it in such a spectacularly stupid way.

Ibiki isn't stupid.

No. There was something more to all this forensic intel-gathering as they crowded their shrinks into the homicidal hellhole that lived inside his head. What were they after that wasn't already sprayed bloody on the walls? It's like they were dusting about for fingerprints left behind by his motives when they'd already got him dead to rights based on his actions. Motives didn't matter. It was an open and shut case. Unless of course he possessed information they needed, regarding a different case or criminal...which didn't make sense. Orochimaru was probably rotting in a cell similar to his. They had the Snake in their clutches - why go through him?

Whatever they're looking for…they're asking the wrong questions…

Or sending in the wrong people. Why? If they stopped probing around the crater inside him and asked something less likely to trigger a fucking psychosis, he might actually have had answers. Unless this whole thing was nothing more than T&I getting their kicks in on behalf of the entire village. Or at least, on behalf of all those shinobi denied their shots. He understood that motive, however stupid their methods. It proved they just didn't understand his madness.

And that wasn't just stupid.

It was dangerous.

But again, Ibiki's not stupid.

Just his people. Or at least the ones currently assigned to him. They took no pains in hiding that stupidity. Because rather than leave, the woman remained in the room with him. As if her straitjacket-patient hadn't just been a twitch away from plummeting into full-blown derangement. As if the seals slapped around the entire building – never mind the actual cell – weren't still buzzing and humming like angry bees, quivering against the malicious emanations still catching sparks in Sasuke's blood.

He couldn't fully stamp it out.

Not tonight.

It smoked at the edges of his aura, embers waiting to catch once more.

He clenched his eyes shut.

Stop.

Of course, it didn't. Neither did the woman; who'd remained blessedly silent for all of two minutes. "All this power inside you, Sasuke," she observed. "Do you remember the day you walked away from the village in order to find it? Where were you exactly when you decided to choose it?"

What?

Sighing, Sasuke lifted his head in a tired drift, his wrecked eyes flickering and tapering into confused slits behind the blindfold. Even if he'd been willing to answer, his mind wasn't balanced enough for a solid response. He wasn't even sure he'd heard right…or if he even understood the question.

Where…was I?

Did she mean that figuratively? Where the hell were any borderline-crazy shinobi in the moment that they made that choice; or more importantly, who were they when they made it? What face did they wear, what skin did they shed, when they chose to step into a darkness that would either damn them or deliver them?

How many, in their madness, even remembered choosing?

You do, his mind supplied. You remember.

He did.

Which was strange…

Even as a damaged orphan, he'd always thought damnation would be a process of discovery or slow degeneration. That he'd get a little more mileage before his moral compass started sliding so steeply south. The hollowing out of a shinobi's humanity was supposed to happen kill-by-kill until the red stopped washing out and instead started sinking in. A layer-by-layer shedding of the old skin; that 'total eclipse of conscience' Kakashi had once talked about. That's how it was supposed to happen – wasn't it?

Not for you.

No.

Not for Sasuke.

No slippery slopes for him. Just a short ledge and a steep drop. Even in his madness, he'd somehow retained the clarity of his fall. That was the most fucked up part. He remembered stepping over that edge. Remembered precisely where he'd been and exactly who he'd been when he'd done it.

He'd always known.

Always known when he was standing in darkness…

And always known where that darkness stood within him…

Even before he'd chosen it.

A double-edged foresight. Because the reverse was also true. He'd always known where the light stood. Always know exactly when and where it had threatened to flicker back on inside him…and that knowing had often left him colder than the dark…because of what that light always threatened to bear witness to…

In the darkness he could hide it…

But not in the light…

It shed too much on his past. On the bodies buried in it. One could vanish in the dark. But in the light…?

His light?

"I'm going to keep holding out my hand…until you take it…"

Sasuke shoved the memory aside – the familiar grasp reaching out once more – and forced his brain to continue its earlier line of questioning to keep that memory – and everything attached to it – at bay. He was still too close to the brink.

I always will be.

So why the hell was he still in Konoha and not rotting in Hōzuki-jō? Why the hell was the Hokage dragging this out?

Condemn me already…

A bare-shiver in the air, the sinister crackle of his chakra picking up once more.

Condemn me before I fa—

"Then I'll just stop you again."

And again, the reaching hand touched his mind. Tightened its grasp. Stopped the violence from army-crawling its way back to the hazardous ledge…dragging against the darkness's inexorable grip and pulling Sasuke back in the other direction…back into the light…

"Why…why do you keep on…involving yourself with me?"

One blue eye peering out at him…the other swollen shut…gazing across with such terrifying intensity it hurt to…

"You know that already…I mean come on, don't you?"

Like rainfall over burning ruin, the memory of that reply doused the remaining embers of his violence. Put out the dying chakra-sparks in a cool rush…flooding over his body and flushing out the tension still thrumming around it...killing the danger...erasing the threat...

The static in the building guttered out – and so did the hot pulsing of the seals.

Exhaustion swept in…

Tidal…

Tremendous…

It dragged Sasuke out to calmer sea before washing him up on the shore of the woman's last question; a question about the power he'd craved...coveted...had almost used to send the entire ninja world up in flames…

"Where were you exactly when you decided to choose it?"

"It doesn't matter," Sasuke breathed at last, so low and hoarse it barely carried.

The woman said nothing.

Her shock at hearing his voice was palpable in the silence holding from her end.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The clock kept turning.

So did the tide of exhaustion.

Sasuke crushed a wince, the faintest curl of his lip. How was it that saying just three words had depleted more strength than the backlash of the seals? His lids grew heavy, his breathing too. What had she even asked again? What had he even answered?

Hn. It doesn't matter…

"It matters, Sasuke," the woman said, corralling him back, sounding breathless again.

Excited.

He could hear it in her tone. The expectation. The anticipation. The tone he imagined shrinks took when they neared the potential 'breakthrough' moment. Whatever the fuck that meant in his case.

Nothing good.

His eyes rolled shut as if in pain behind the blindfold, exasperation picking at all his unravelled threads. But the violence didn't come. Even contempt was a struggle. The tiredness, however, was relentless – crashing into him and over him, foamy combers and a distant bird-like cry…

A hawk.

A gull.

The last time he'd wept was by the ocean…his tears indistinguishable from the water's stinging spray.

Nii-san…

God, he wanted to sleep.

Was denied.

"It matters a great deal," the woman stressed again, leaning on the word 'great' like she could actually sell it. "Would you rather waste away in here? Unheard and alone?"

Alone.

"You're trying to be alone again, and I can't let that happen!"

Maybe it needed to happen. If him being alone meant others stayed alive, surely it was a no-brainer? Was it really such a stretch to extrapolate from who he'd been four months ago? Was it really so difficult to imagine what the hell it all might look like if he finally and fully lost his grip on reality altogether? Did they really need more proof of what he was capable of?

He'd paid for this power with everything in him.

And that was just the power he'd taken…

Never mind the power he'd been given…

He had a feeling the cost of that 'gift' was still pending…had a deeper, darker feeling, that it would demand a hell of a lot more than his left arm. T&I got twitchy over his chakra spiking? God. That didn't even qualify as an earth-tremor on the Richter scale of his capacity for destruction. Didn't even hint at the volcanic activity simmering in the abyss, the hateful lava boiling away deep down inside him, held at bay right now by sheer dint of will.

Liar.

Not worth thinking about, even if that was true. Fact was, even he didn't know the full potential of the chakra he now possessed. After his last blowout, he'd had no chance to test or determine just what was required to own and control such power – let alone consider how such power might own and control him.

Was that the aim of this 'breakthrough' bullshit?

Did this woman – did any of them – have any concept of what his 'breakthrough' might look like?

Or what it might do to this entire village and everyone in it?

Kakashi, perhaps.

"How far you've fallen, Sasuke…"

Not true, sensei.

With Sasuke, the fall had always been a short one.

"It's important that you remember where you were when you made your choice, Sasuke," the woman said, as if that were actually true. She even left the appropriate pause for a response.

Of course, he offered no such thing.

One, because he didn't want to.

Two, because he didn't see the relevance.

It doesn't matter.

She tried again, but had grace enough to reframe it. Slightly. "My colleagues love to talk about your fall from grace. But I'm less interested in that. What I want to know is where you were standing when you made the choice that led to that very fall."

If Sasuke had it in him, he'd have scoffed a hollow laugh.

As it happened, he just shook his head.

Where had he been standing?

That's just it.

He hadn't been standing.

He'd been on his knees.

A sinner fresh out of faith. Or maybe a cynic, desperate to believe. In the exact moment before his 'fall' he'd been both, which had made it the most telling moment in the entire history of his choices. A moment of absolute truth. Because it was the only moment that he had ever truly hesitated on his path…

Not like he'd hesitated with Kakashi after his sensei had roped him to the tree…

Not like he'd hesitated with Sakura when she'd caught him at the gates…

His hesitation with her had been a strategic stall, despite the sentiment…the shackled feeling of gratitude…finally released…a fragile but heavy thing that'd fled his chest the second he'd unburdened the load, cut its ties, and set it free…

"Thank you. For everything."

He'd meant those words.

Really meant them.

They'd been a parting nod, a backward wave, a curt goodbye to whatever or whoever he might've been had he stopped in her arms. Had he stayed in them. Had he twisted himself into a new shape. A false shape. A shape she still configured him into. A shape designed to walk a different path.

He'd never know that path…

He'd never know the kid who might've been able to walk it…

Hours later he was already someone else. Some-thing else. Locked in a bloody round at The Valley of the End. The final hour where all the warring and all the heated words suddenly parsed down into a single and decisive moment…a moment that maybe could've veered him from the darkness…if only he'd waited just a little longer…looked just a little harder for…

The light.

There'd been none whatsoever standing in his own eyes. Not by the end. He'd known because he'd seen. Both eyes charred and black. Sunken in his skull like two burned-up coals, their pitted emptiness reflected back at him in Naruto's hitai-ate...

As for the light?

He'd waited for it…

Knelt there in the misting rain and the falling darkness, the chakra-charged air both damp and heavy in his stalled lungs…his empty eyes staring…waiting…

But the light never came.

Because Naruto's eyes never opened.

Allowing for Sasuke to close his own forever...leaving him blind to crimes committed both by him and against him...blind to the choices he just couldn't bring himself to face because the truth was, he'd been called to the darkness long before Orochimaru had gotten his fangs in…

Called by something stronger than any fragile hope for his future.

How to hope for such a thing, when his future had always been buried in his past?

The past.

Is that what this woman wanted to hear? Is that why they kept pushing him back towards the edge? Back to the past? Because that's where he'd been kneeling before he'd finally staggered to his feet and walked away, eyes fixed ahead. And even though those eyes had changed and morphed along the way, his vision had remained unmoved…unchanged…

Myopic in his madness.

So completely blinded despite the extinguishable and excruciating light which that usuratonkachi bastard kept holding up to his darkness, forcing Sasuke, again and again, to smother its immortal flame, its insufferable burn, over and over and—

"OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN! JUST GIVE UP AND LET ME CUT YOU DOWN ALREADY!"

Sasuke's throat went tight, the air fisting in his lungs.

"Sorry. Can't do that."

God, neither could he. He didn't have the strength or the stability for that memory right now. His eyes squeezed shut, eased open on a flicker. Stared into darkness he hoped would be empty.

It wasn't.

Bright eyes haunted the void, staring back at him through that same darkness. Punching two crystal-blue holes into the endless black, their light so fierce and unwavering they seemed to demand so much more than deliverance from the darkness inside him.

What if I…?

"Then I'll just stop you again."

Phantom pain cut into the empty space where his left hand and arm used to be…following up the ghost-limb until he felt a great stricture in his chest that he was too tired to pretend he couldn't feel…

"Sasuke…" The woman's voice changed. Gentled in a way that didn't sound affected, though it probably was. "Aren't you tired of feeling this way?"

Her most accurate swipe in the dark so far.

A screw twisted deep inside him.

That's far enough…

Not trusting himself, Sasuke's mind shut down like a steel trap.

And so did those smiling eyes staring back at him.

Though the woman droned on, her voice sounded fainter, further away. "Aren't you tired of living in the past that your silence is condemning you to? A prison cell without pardon or treatment? Why did you surrender yourself at all if this is all you hoped to gain? Don't you understand that this might be your only chance to turn things around…?"

The only thing turning around for Sasuke…were the hands on that clock.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Turning and turning like the words he wasn't hearing…

The emotions he wasn't feeling…

Until the woman's words turned to—

"Uzumaki Naruto."

Sasuke had only to hear that name…

…and something inside him stopped turning altogether.

Stop…

By the grace of some mercy he didn't deserve, everything did.

The tick, tick, tick, faded away…

The woman's voice trailing close behind…

With no outward sign of his withdrawal, Sasuke closed his blood-shot eyes behind the blindfold, went slipping away through the cracks sealing up in his mind…went somewhere far, and cold, and quiet…and waited.

---

A/N: Thank you, Perchta. Thank you.

A/N: Happy Spring, dear reader! I hope that you are keeping safe and well. I address this in the singular because to me, every single individual who takes a chance on my work –especially those who so kindly take the time to reach out and drop me a review – matters to me. I want you to know how much I appreciate you. I remain grateful beyond measure for the support still shown to me after all this time. I remain equally happy and thankful to the new readers and reviewers jumping aboard the crazy-train. I am your reckless driver. Please grab the 'oh shit' handle and hold on. I promise not to run us off the tracks completely. You matter to me so very much. Thank you. Xx

A/N 2: While I cannot promise regular or finished updates for this bonus addition to the original standalone BtB series (BtB—UtS) storyline, I do try my best to return to this instalment whenever I am able – or more recently, whenever I am capable. Being in total creative burnout for the past few months has introduced me to a rather incinerating and unforgiving circle of hell. This rusty update has been an attempt to try to wring some drops from my dried-up mind as well as to thank those whose reviews, feedback, and messages have bolstered and supported me; both here, on Tumblr, and at the other haunts where I hang my hat. I hope the delivery of this chapter isn't too badly savaged by the Cerberus hell-dog-BITCH chomping down on my confidence and tearing my writing brain to shreds. Your messages help me sort those shreds. Forever thankful for your faith in me Xx

A/N 3: A plot-setting chapter. Questions? Hit me up on Tumblr under okamirayne and drop me an ASK, I'll do my best to answer!

A/N 4: Never hurts to reiterate that HHU shares its ocean-space with other characters and will indeed explore some other ships in its rocky sea. (Maybe some of you have already guessed where I'm going with that) Nor does it hurt to reassure uncertain readers that BtB will diverge massively from post-War canon, delivering a one Hyūga Neji from his crushing canon fate. I will once again state it explicitly – Neji was always going to return in the BtB-verse if ever I was mad enough to write post-war. My insanity at this point, is no longer in question. Sorry, Kishimoto-sama…Neji's death just don't fly in my screaming monkey brain.