Diclaimer: I own nothing.
Loyalty is a funny thing. Everyone and everything has a loyalty to something or other. Animals are loyal to their instincts, their own senses of self-preservation. Their pack or herd. People are a little more complex. They can be loyal to a million different things at once. Family, nation, clan, friends, ambitions, dreams, and goals. Even in the things we own we express loyalty. We may only have clothes in certain colors, a certain brand from a certain store, a certain symbol. . . Loyalties can be the most powerful things in the world, the deciding factors in our lives, pulling you forward to do what you have to.
But. . .
Loyalties can be easily betrayed.
To break someone's trust in you, to betray all of your loyalties and duties to them is the most difficult thing you can ever attempt and the easiest thing in the world at the same time. Loyalty is just a word. Easily shattered into a thousand glimmering shards with one small choice left unmade.
Some people say that truth and justice will always prevail. I don't believe it. Those words are as easily broken as loyalty. In all probablity they never exsisted in the first place. Simple letters and syllables strung together to give people a false sense of comfort and security. Like the old blanket you used to carry around and could never go anywhere without. The thin, worn-out and thread-bare stitches that form the ragged cloth of lies and untruths that we all hide behind at night for the fear of the monsters called "evil" and "wrong-doing" jumping out from underneath out bed and eating us up should we dare stray from the paths of what is "true" and "just."
In the end, it's the loyalties we choose to make and break that define us, not someone else's fucked up sense of right and wrong. Those loyalties decide how we start and, most often, end our lives. What we choose to dedicate ouselves to is our decision and our's alone. We cannot claim that someone else made us do it, that we had no choice. As cliche as it sounds, there is always a choice, but most people are just to weak or cowardly to accept the choice of death.
I had no such option, but I probably would have jumped at the chance to kill myself if I knew what my choice would bring. I chose power. I chose to leave, leave and betray everything and everyone who had ever cared about me to go off and kill the shadows of my past.
I chose Orochimaru.
I thought he could help me. Thought that he could give me the power I needed to kill Itatchi. He did, actually. He stuck to that part of his word, at least. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was my own stupidity. I can only blame my current situation on myself. Because I forgot the first rule of power.
It never comes without a price.
The particular price he had in mind was my body. I kill Itatchi, I grow powerful for him. . . and he steals away my body in return. He was even so kind as to offer to complete the other half of my dream for me, resurrecting my clan. After all, the Sharingan is too precious a commodity to allow it to fade to nothing with my body's death. He wants lots of little heirs to take over when my body grows as sick and weak as his new body is now.
Or maybe the sick fucker just likes to fuck with people. Literally and figuratively.
But even worse than that. Even worse than stealing my body and my life. Even worse than marking me his slave, his little pet to play with when he gets bored. Even worse than taking me into his bed and all but raping me. Even worse is. . .
Even worse, he makes me enjoy it.
The first time it happened, he. . . I was. . . repulsed, to put it mildly. I wanted jump out of my own skin and scrub myself clean until there was nothing left for him to ever defile again. I was sick to my stomach for days afterwards and barely had the strength to deposite the little that was left in my stomach into the toilet. It seemed to amuse him, the sick, pedophiliac bastard. The second time was more. . . bearable than the first. But not by much. He actually made an effort to see that I got some pleasure out of it this time. But that in itself, the fact that I had enjoyed the sick, twisted things he had done to me made my stay with him into a whole new level of hell.
The third time came a long while after the second. We had been hunting down Itatchi ("I promised I would help you, didn't I Sasuke-kun?") and Kabuto --traitor-- had been looking for leads in the dingy town bar that was underneath the only inn the pathetic little village had. Orochimaru said that we would wait upstairs because we attracted too much attention. When he said that, he looked at me in such a hungry, vicious way that I knew what he wanted. Kabuto saw it too, I think, because he gave this really sympathetic glance, and I think that he had to do the same thing before I got here.
I remember how he just ripped off my clothes and threw them into a corner. How he moved so slowly over me. How leaned so close that our bare chests touched. How his wet, heavy breath felt in my ear. How he whispered sweetly to me, telling me how pretty I was underneath him. How he said he wanted to hear me scream his name sooo badly. And as twisted as that was, it wasn't the sick part.
The sick part was that I did exactly what he said.
I screamed until my thraot was raw and aching. I begged him for more and called out his name.
I enjoyed it.
And now I think back, as I stand here in the desert heat waiting for one of Orochimaru's associates to meet us, to my life in Konohakagure. I couldn't go back if I wanted to. I belong to Orochimaru. He even gave me a silver collar that I wear even now, just barely visible under my turtleneck, the normally cool metal warm from the desert heat and its presence a constant reminder of what I belong to.
Who I belong to.
I think back to Sakura, who always talked to me even when I ignored her. To Lee who wanted to badly to beat that first time I fought him. And to. . . Naruto. Naruto was the only person I could have ever really considered a friend. Yeah, we were rivals, but we were more than that. We showed a side of ourselves to eachother that no one else got to see. We risked our lives for and with eachother. The last thing I ever want to do is see him again. If I did see him again, he'd probably ask who I was and what I had done with the real Sasuke. Not that that will ever happen. Konoha wouldn't take me back if I got on my knees and begged. I betrayed them and I can never go back.
I have to stop thinking about him. The people Orochimaru was waiting for are here. A bunch of Sand. I knew they had been allied with him when he attcked during the chuunin exam. I stand perfectly still, all cold marble an sharp edges, just like I was told. We have to make a good impression, now don't we? We have to be good little lapdogs, no matter much I want to just rip off this stupid heavy black cloak and stomp it into the ground. Who wears black in the desert?
The mini-army of Sand that have assembled are moving out of the way now, and the fear is evident on their faces. Someone pushes to the front and faces Orochimaru. A man. . . boy? Ah, I recognize him now. Gaara of the Desert. Briefly, I wonder why someone with a demon trapped inside them would need to ally themsleves with someone like Orochimaru. Isn't he strong enough?
I draw my attention away from Gaara to look at the rest of the Sand. Carefully, I look them over for poetntial weaknesses. Hmph. They all look pretty pathetic. Or maybe its the fact that they all look scared shitless of Badger-Boy? I resist the urge to shake my head at their obvious fear. Shinobi do not show emotion. But the second I take a good look at the tanned boy standing behind Gaara, so small and inconspicuous behind the imposing demon vessle that its almost impossible to notice him, that rule goes out of my head and through the window.
The boy standing behind Gaara is. . . Naruto.
For a moment all I can think is 'Naruto got taller.' And then I realize where I am, who I'm with, who he's with, what I just thought, and I'm hard pressed not to start laughing out loud this whole situation is so absurd. I must have made some kind of movement because his head turns to look at me. Our eyes lock and he gets the same deer-in-headlights look I'm sure I just had.
Our locked gazes don't break from eachother's eyes even as Orochimaru makes some inane comment about moving to a more comfortable location, and everyone starts moving towards the temporary shelter we set up. Only when I start to follow Orochimaru, our eyes still riveted on eachother, does a movment catch my eye and I turn my gaze discreetly as possible to see what it was, finally moving my eyes away from the scraggly blonde.
Gaara has extended his hand behind him, one finger bent, as though beckoning someone to follow him. I look over to Naruto again, following Gaara like a puppy, and my eyes go wide, I'm sure. At first I didn't see anything unusual, but then I notice that the skin aroundhis neck is moving. No, not his skin. Sand is moving around his neck, leading him after Gaara like a dog on an unseen leash.
The sunlight glints off my silver collar.
The sand around his neck shifts restlessly.
Our eyes lock again and we have a silent moment of undertsanding. We know who we belong to.
Years later, when the Leaf is crushed and renamed the Sound, Orochimaru calls me. I know it's time, and I know that for all intents and pruposes, I'm about to die. I don't really care all that much anymore. Almost everyone I've ever known is dead and I'm just as good as. Orochimaru gave me the power to kill Itachi and now he'll resurrect my clan. My dream is near complete and I have no reason to live anymore.
Everything is ready when I get there and there's no reason to delay anymore. Orochimaru gives a mocking speech about all the good I've done for him and all the good use my body will be used for in future. When he finally finishes, he asks if I have any last requests.
Surprisingly enough, I do.
"Yeah," I say and I don't think he actually expected me to answer. "I want a grave marker."
In his best sarcastic/you-have-two-seconds-to-live voice, he asks if I want anything on it.
"Yeah," I say again. "'Here lies the loyalties of traitors.'"
And the world goes black.
END
Umm. . . yeah. About this fic. . . is it normal to be scared of your own work? I swear that I didn't write this. I sat down after I posted "Dreams Come True" and my hands started moving on their own. I just posted it now because the first draft was really crappy. Still couldn't get the end right, dammit.
I claim no resposibility for any psychological damage this may have caused, nor will I pay any therapy bills (mostly 'cause I'm still paying off my own).
. . .
God, I need help. . .
R&R!