Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or any of its associated characters!
Summary: Sasuke is tired. Sasuke is hungry. Sasuke is...well, hunting, now. Vampire AU, SNS, will be explicit. Two years later...it's done! New chapter will be up every day until the fic is finished!
A/N: Hello hello friends! It was another busy one for me, so this is a later update, but! So much hype for the last chapter, aahhh I'm so happy you all liked it. This one is shorter, but it is quite big :) I hope you like it!
Bite Me
Chapter 33: Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Her heels tapped along the pavement...rhythmic. Loud. Certainly not the best shoes for the job, but she felt no need to hide her presence. Not tonight...not here.
He should have known better than to come anywhere close to here.
She flicked the cigarette between her fingers, pausing to let the smoke rise. She'd quit long ago, but still kept a pack on hand. You never knew when you'd need to find someone with an affinity to flame…
The smoke trailed behind her.
Hm.
Still not far enough.
Tsunade continued to walk. Sasuke's presence was strong, and it was possible that the other child had fled farther than expected. Orochimaru would be close behind, though...unless, of course, he perceived there to be a big enough threat.
Tsunade cracked a knuckle.
He was always a snake. Always a coward. Manda, she scoffed—quite possibly the most obvious name he could have chosen. He did always find a thrill in fooling someone right under their nose. He loved that superiority. Humiliation. Manipulation.
Tsunade stopped at a turn, and raised the cigarette again.
Look at that.
The winds must have changed.
Iruka stared at them.
"No memory?"
"Since he—since he got bitten, I mean," Naruto said, turning back to Sasuke, as if just to check. "Um—"
"I'm looking for my past," Sasuke replied, soft and small, "if there's anything left of it."
The silence filled the closet. The distant hum of chatter echoed around them, and Sasuke was both terrified and grateful to be away from it all.
Reality always seemed to hit him in this particular storage closet.
"Oh," Iruka said, breathing in. "And you've never…"
"This is the first other vampire we've seen," Naruto said. "We didn't even know if there were any others. And if we do, then that might—"
"He recognized me."
Naruto jerked back to him.
"What?"
"He recognized me," Sasuke said again. "He called me by my name."
Naruto stared.
"Did—he did?! What the fuck are we doi—we have to find him!"
"He attacked you—"
"Fuck that, I attacked him back! So did you! Sasuke, we've gotta—"
"No," Sasuke said, raising a hand, "no, you're the one who said—if I was going to rush off and be an idiot, I would have done it with Orochimaru."
Naruto breathed in.
"But we didn't. We made a plan," Sasuke said. "And this is on my terms, now."
"So we—need a plan?"
"We need a plan."
"Sorry," Iruka said, stepping closer, "just a—how do you know your name? If you—"
"I remember—bits and pieces," Sasuke replied. "I have the knowledge in my head without knowing how it got there. Like how to draw."
"Oh," Iruka said, nodding. "Alright. Okay. So—the whole time you've been coming here—"
"Yes," Sasuke replied, quiet. "Please don't...I know everyone else knows I'm a vampire, but this—"
"Oh, I won't tell. Of course not," Iruka said, as if shaking himself. "I'm sorry. I'm very sorry, Sasuke, I can't imagine—"
"It's fine," he said quickly, uncomfortable. "It's…it doesn't matter. Right now, I—Naruto, I don't want to—"
Naruto crossed his arms.
Sasuke breathed out his frustration.
"I'm not going to leave you behind," he said, and Naruto's shoulders relaxed, "but you're human, and at best, he wanted to bite you, but at worst—"
"At worst, a lot of stuff, but the fact that he recognized you is huge, Sasuke—did he say your whole name? Do you know your last name?"
"No. He only said—said Sasuke. And even that could be wishful thinki—"
"Your last name?" Iruka chimed in. "You've signed it on your art before."
"I know," Sasuke said. "I go by Sasuke Taka. It's a fake name."
"No—not that one," Iruka said. "It—it didn't start with a T. Did it? Hang on, I'm sorry, let me—"
"I'll get Sasuke's folder, I know where it—"
Naruto dashed through the door, and Sasuke stared after him. His breath hitched in his throat as he turned back—
"I haven't looked at it since—you haven't asked me to look at it since you first came in. When—"
"I've never asked you to look at it."
"You did," Iruka replied. "When you first came here, you—how long have you been like this? A—vampire?"
"A year," Sasuke said. "Almost two, I—"
"Sasuke," Iruka said, staring, "you've been coming here for at least four."
It was certainly dark.
What a fitting alleyway. Dark, damp—freezing cold. Tsunade wished she'd come prepared for more of a trek, but she was here, now. She was here, and there was the door with a small, dirty 'employees only' and there…
Was a raven. Up, above the buildings. Above the smoke from her still-lit cigarette. If she looked hard enough, she thought those eyes might be glowing a deep, blood red.
"Well," came a voice, and Tsunade snuffed the cigarette out. "Well, well, well. I thought you quit!"
"And I thought I'd never see your face again," Tsunade replied, turning towards him. "What a day for disappointment."
Orochimaru put a hand over the place his heart should have been.
"Oh!" he said, wounded and suffering and Tsunade would have rolled her eyes into the back of her skull if she trusted him a single moment away from her sight. "You wound me! My old friend. I've missed you dearly. How—"
"Enough."
Orochimaru's eyes flicked up, and back down.
"If you insist," he said, the picture of geniality still plastered over his face. "Perhaps we could move this conversation into the warmth?"
Ah.
"Why?" Tsunade asked, making no move to lower her voice. "Is there something you don't want your newly acquired Uchiha to hear?"
Orochimaru's face flashed it's hard, cold truth for barely a moment.
"Acquired?" he said, with a loud, bewildered laugh. "What a strange way to look at an agreement between two people—"
"Has he offered you anything?" Tsunade asked the sky. "Anything of worth? Or empty promises, over and over again?"
The silence rang through the snow.
Tsunade looked back into Orochimaru's eyes, and they were cold.
"Has he told you of Madara Uchiha?" she said, staring him down. "Of the technique he developed to give immortal life?"
"Tsun—"
"Of its limitations? Of its reversal—requiring a willing Uzumaki, you absolute stump of a man. Do you know what happens when an Uzumaki is under duress? Would you like to?"
She stepped forwards, and Orochimaru stepped back.
"I have half a mind to bring him here and set him loose. This knowledge is sacred, and you spit it into the dirt."
"That's enough, Tsunade," he said, and Tsunade felt him looking for his wriggling, slithering exit. "You've said your piece. Now go."
"Go?" she laughed. "And let you go on your merry way? You've violated your probation, Orochimaru, if nothing else at all. Tell me why I should even start to listen to you."
"...Uchiha—"
"Uchiha. Yes, the Uchiha. He might be interested in knowing the Senju clan, keepers of secrets. All secrets, including those of the Uchiha family—which was exactly why you tried to befriend me, wasn't it, Orochimaru?"
Orochimaru's eyes narrowed.
"But I digress." She raised her voice again, and laid down her last card. "Did you happen to see someone you used to know tonight, Uchiha?"
There was a pause—
And there it was. The flash of heat, the burst of wind—Tsunade did not flinch as the vampire flashed to her side, feathers bursting like smoke around him. She met his eyes with ease—comfortable with the danger, no stranger to the inhuman. His eyes were not yet red, but the caution was there. The readiness, the awareness...the desperation.
Tsunade knew exactly the sort of place you needed to be to go along with Orochimaru's plans.
"You know him?" he asked, and it sounded like a breath.
"I just met him tonight, actually," she replied. "But I believe he's worked with Orochimaru for quite some time...hasn't he?"
Something in Orochimaru's eyes clicked.
"Sasuke," he said, as if looking for the truth in her eyes—
Hm.
"Ah," Tsunade said. "So you did know."
"No, I—"
But the vampire's eyes already glowed a furious, furious red.
Naruto burst back into the room.
"I have it," he said, shutting the door with his back. "Sasuke—"
"Naruto," Sasuke said, turning— "how long have you known me?"
"Like, the first time I met you?" Naruto asked, clutching the folder to his chest. "Uh—like. Four—years ago? I think."
He looked past Sasuke's shoulder for confirmation, and Sasuke's mind reeled.
"Why? I—wait," Naruto said. "Did you not—do you not—"
"No," Sasuke said. "Not at all. Can I—?"
Naruto handed him the folder, eyes wide.
"But you—you knew me," he said, grabbing the second half to stop the pages from spilling— "Didn't you know me?"
"I didn't," Sasuke answered. "You were in—in classes. But I didn't know—"
He cut himself off, flipping to the last page in the folder—
The first page he'd ever slipped in.
"Sasuke Uc—Uc—" Naruto read, nudging over his shoulder. "Is that an h? Uch—"
"Uchiha," Sasuke said, and it felt like the truth. "My name is Sasuke Uchiha."
The name rang through him. It lodged in him and stuck, and Sasuke breathed in the feeling of knowing, for once, he knew—
"Uchiha," Naruto repeated, and it sounded so, so good. "Okay. Okay. Um—"
He let Sasuke take the folder back, scrambling with the phone in his pocket. Sasuke turned back to Iruka, his mind finally catching up—
"Did I ever come here with anyone?"
"No," Iruka said. "Or—no one I ever saw. You—you were quiet, the same as now—you'd come and go and talk very little. And be away for long periods of time; I didn't think anything of it when you were gone. But then—how—why did you come back? If you don't remember—"
"I don't know," Sasuke answered. "I don't—I just had a…"
Feeling.
Just a vague...something. A fleeting thought he'd tried to catch onto, standing on a new street and looking at a new sign. Unable to convince himself to enter—unable to find anywhere else to go. Sasuke had been just about ready to give up and leave—
But then the door had opened—and a blonde with bright blue eyes had apologized, laughed, and invited him in.
Sasuke swallowed at the memory.
He understood, now, that Naruto had just...seen him again. Had thought he was just coming back—Naruto had seen a familiar face, and Sasuke—and Sasuke had—
"Sasuke," Naruto said, staring at his phone. His eyes were unblinking and his brow was furrowed— "I think I might—um—"
He turned his phone around.
And Sasuke scanned it—Uchiha written in the search bar and littered with images, nearly all of them painted with the same red and white symbol. Nearly all, except...
"That house," Sasuke said, staring at the photo, the link, the title of the page—something about ancient, family houses—
"Yeah, um," Naruto breathed in, "I know where that is."
A/N: Told you it was big! More to come tomorrow :) Thank you all so much for being here!
See you soon,
- Kinomi