Naruto
Future Paths
Chapter 02: A Kaleidoscope of Lightning and Vengeance
Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. If it was do you think I'd be wasting time writing fanfiction about it?
Spoiler Warning: Same as last chapter. I won't try and put spoilers in, but they may appear.
Sasuke frowned as some vague prompting from the depths of his subconscious pushed him from his dreams and into the waking world. Drowsily he shook his head and looked around. Nothing seemed amiss and that didn't change as he pushed himself into a sitting position. To either side of him Kakashi and Naruto snored on, oblivious to whatever had wakened him while outside the rain continued unabated, though the worst of the storm seemed to have passed as it was no longer accompanied by thunder and lightning. Cautiously Sasuke activated his Sharingan, but even that did not reveal anything out of the ordinary. Still, something had caused him to awaken and he wasn't about to go back to sleep until he discovered what it was. There was something about Mai and the entire situation that had put him on edge since the beginning.
Following the vague promptings that had awoken him in the first place, Sasuke rose on silent feet and padded over to the door leading to the room where Sakura slept. Alone and isolated as she was, Sakura made the most logical target for an attacker and the fact that she was the least powerful member of the team made it even worse. He stepped over Naruto, the blonde shinobi's breath tickling his bare legs as he passed, but Sasuke ignored it. He was quieter than a shadow as he drifted over to the door that led to where Sakura was sleeping. As quietly as was possible, which was pretty damn quiet for someone who had gotten top marks in stealth at the Academy, he eased open the door and stepped in.
Sakura lay curled up under the blankets on the futon she had been loaned, her frame rising and falling with each breath. Sasuke watched for several seconds longer, just to make sure she was fine. He stayed around long enough to see Sakura turn over so that she faced him, her eyes still closed and pulling the blankets tighter around her as she went. Her eyes were still shut though and a faint smile touched her face as she murmured, "Sasuke-kun," in a tone of voice that made the blood rush to Sasuke's face. Satisfied that Sakura was safe and more than a little embarrassed Sasuke backed out of the still open door and closed it, making slightly more noise than when he had opened it.
Turning around he was greeted not with slumbering forms of Kakashi and Naruto but an utterly featureless void. He had not yet let his Sharingan return to a dormant state, but even it could not see anything but endless black that stretched of into infinity. Fighting back a rising tide of panic at having been cornered, Sasuke's hands flashed out in a set of seals for a fire element technique, but before he could unleash the stream of flame, he saw a light wink into existence in the distance. This was followed by another and a then a third and Sasuke let his accumulated chakra dissipate as these first three were joined by another three, and then a dozen and then hundred more beyond count, surrounding him and filling the void with soft silvery light.
Sasuke turned around, wishing briefly that he had the Hyuuga's Byakugan rather than Uchiha's Sharingan so that he could see all of it in a single glance. As he returned to the facing roughly the same direction he was greeted with the sight of Mai, standing there and leaning on her staff, though Sasuke could have sworn she hadn't been there when he looked moments earlier. Once again he fell into a defensive stance, hands hovering just a few centimetres apart and poised to form any number of seals. "Oh relax boy," she said dismissively when she saw what he was doing. "No harm will before you in this place that you don't bring upon yourself.
Sasuke didn't move and Mai's eyes narrowed in suspicion as she looked at him.
"All right then," she said grumpily. "Since you choose not to believe me, perhaps I should show you what happens here."
She pointed her staff and Sasuke felt his gaze being drawn inexorably towards where it pointed. He tried to fight it, but his body refused to obey his commands and his head and eyes turned of their own volition. What he saw once his gaze was locked firmly on the spot where the staff pointed was that one of the stars had detached itself from the blazing mass of its fellow and was rushing straight toward him. He tried to move, but his body once again refused to answer his commands. He couldn't even close his eyes when the brilliant point of light struck him between the eyes, whiting out his vision, Sharingan or no, before fading to blackness.
Sasuke knelt over Itachi's fallen frame, his hand buried in his brother's chest up to the wrist and still crackling with residual chakra from his use of Raikiri and his breath came in ragged gasps. He was dimly aware of the sounds of battle in the background as Sakura, Kakashi and Naruto battled with the ragged remains of Akatsuki, but for Sasuke the entire world had focused down to him and his brother's corpse. A tiny part of Sasuke sorrowed for the lost opportunity for a few last words between them, but the Raikiri was too powerful, tearing straight through Itachi's heart. He died before he hit the floor. The rest of Sasuke was simply to numb to feel anything at that moment.
But within that numbness a feeling stirred, a feeling akin to that Sasuke felt the first time his Sharingan had activated in the battle on the bridge with the Mist Missing-nin Haku. Somewhere in the deep, dark corners of the dark haired Leaf-nin's psyche a floodgate opened and through it flooded raw power. Sasuke threw back his head and opened his mouth in a silent roar of mixed anguish and exhilaration as the power surged through him; changing him in tiny, subtle ways, save for his eyes. The changes in his eyes were far from subtle and Sasuke could feel them shifting and warping and in that instant he knew what those changes heralded. The onset of the Mangekyou Sharingan, the ultimate expression of the power held by the Uchiha Clan, as far beyond the Sharingan as the Sharingan was beyond the eyesight of lesser mortals, surpassing even the lauded Byakugan.
The changes wrought by that rush of power were not purely physical either. Born in the pain of grief and bloodshed, the power seared through his mind and as it passed it twisted and warped and even erased the capacity for such emotions as love and compassion, leaving behind only anger, hatred, pain, grief and a desperate, burning need to use the power that resided within him.
All too soon and not soon enough the initial rush of power faded, the changes taking only a moment that was at the same time an eternity. But the power did not fade completely, instead settling into his bones, his blood until it was interwoven with the very fibre of Sasuke's being, demanding to be used and Sasuke was more than willing to oblige.
He stood, wrenching his hand free from Itachi's chest, ignoring the wet sucking sound and the stabbing pricks from the shattered stumps of broken rib bones. Surveying the battle field, he picked his targets out, a cold, cruel smile forming on his lips as he noted his team mates. Sakura was masterful, fighting three Akatsuki members at once, confusing them with such masterful genjutsu that they inflicted more damage on each other than she did. She would be dangerous, for her genjutsu were so cleverly constructed that they could fool even his Sharingan or an Inuzuka's sense of smell, fooling the brain into filling in the missing details.
Kakashi was also in the thick of things, engaging yet another Akatsuki member in one on one combat, unleashing rare and little known jutsus to confuse and hinder his opponent. It was proving to be a singularly effective technique, for Kakashi's transplanted Sharingan had allowed him to copy hundreds of jutsus in his time, some of them known only to a few people at most and the same applied to the defences against them. Sasuke regarded him cautiously, for Kakashi always kept an ace up his sleeve and it was almost certain that he knew techniques that Sasuke had not seen before, possibly even one that would grant him a decisive advantage. His Sharingan, though less powerful due to his lack of Uchiha blood would make him a hard target to hit as well.
And then there was Naruto. He was fighting the sole remaining Akatsuki member present and the outcome was a forgone conclusion. The fool fighting him was either new or had been paying attention for the last decade, for her battle with Naruto had quickly turned into a pure endurance match and absolutely no one could outlast the loud mouthed blonde. Even before he tapped into Kyuubi's power he was possessed of awesome chakra capacity of his own. Kyuubi's presence also granted him preternatural healing abilities, allowing him to soak up truly phenomenal amounts of punishment and keep on fighting. The only way to defeat him was with a single strike, either a critical hit to a vital organ that would kill instantly or an overwhelming blow that would leave nothing left to heal.
Sasuke's upper lip curled into something that might have been called a grin if the observer were feeling particularly generous and he nodded to himself, his plan of action ready. His hands flashed as he performed a relatively short set of seals and then slammed one hand down into the ground. The ground surged once, and before the other Leaf-nin or the Akatsuki members could react five stone dragons shot up from the ground, smashing paving stones and sending dirt flying. They all emerged from beneath the Akatsuki members feet, their jaws gaping wide enough to swallow a man whole. In the blink of an eye the dragons' heads were over five meters into their and each of them had an Akatsuki member caught within their jaws. As one the dragons then slammed their jaws shut, reducing the five renegade shinobi to little more than a runny red paste.
They froze like that as Sasuke removed his hand from the ground, cutting of the chakra that animated the stone beasts. His fellow Leaf-nin were stunned into inaction for a fraction of a second, but that was fraction of second too long. It was Sakura who was the first to fall, making the fatal mistake of meeting Sasuke's transformed eyes. She barely had time to register the grin of Sasuke's face as he said, "Tsuki-yomi!" and then her world was nothing but pain.
It was all over in less than a second, at least from the outside point of view. From Sakura and Sasuke's shared point of view, it was three days and for Sakura at least, those three days might as well have been an eternity, filled with nothing but pain, torment and the horror that one of the people she had cared for most in the world had betrayed her in one of the most horrible ways imaginable. It was inevitable that she collapse when she was finally released, for no one's mind could take that sort of punishment without shutting down. There was in fact a very good chance that she was already dead, the psychological torment overloading her brain completely and even if it hadn't she would probably spend out the rest of her days as a vegetable. Just to be safe though, Sasuke reached out as he ran past her and in a single fluid motion snapped her neck, shattering both the atlas and axis, guarantying death.
It was all over before Kakashi or Naruto could react and Sasuke wasn't about to give them a chance. He turned to face his greatest rival even as his foot steps carried him closer to the man who had been his teacher and unleashed the second of the Mangekyou Sharingan's greatest weapons. "Amaterasu!" The words were almost lost in the roar of the black flames that erupted along the path of his gaze engulfing Naruto in their terrible embrace, cutting off his shrieks of pain. A tiny part of Sasuke was aware that he had just depleted most of his chakra reserves and would only have enough left to deal with Kakashi, but it was the only thing powerful enough to finish of Naruto that wouldn't give Kakashi a chance to prepare himself.
Now focused solely on his final target, Sasuke concentrated all his remaining chakra into his hand, ignoring the tiny electrical bolts that came of and the chirping sound that seemed to accompany them. He watched as if in slow motion as Kakashi's hand reached down to his leg, one finger snaring the ring of a kunai and pulling it out of its holster. The gleaming blade rose towards a ready position, but for all his training and experience, Kakashi had never expected one his former students to turn on him as Sasuke had done and the surprise cost him the ultimate price. When Kakashi had originally created his sole original move, he had called it Chidori for the sound it made when passed through the air, and for the longest time after learning it, Sasuke had called it that until he too duplicated the feat that caused Kakashi to change the name to Raikiri. A jutsu capable of cutting through a bolt of lightning was more than capable of parting a man's head from his shoulders.
Sasuke had not chance to stop though, for before Kakashi's head even hit the ground, from behind him came a roar of an ancient rage that presaged a harbinger of destruction. Acting on instinct Sasuke spun to face that direction and his eyes widened as a figure emerged from the blazing black fireball that had engulfed Naruto. There was still enough left to recognise the blonde shinobi in what emerged from what should have been assured destruction, wrapped in burning red aura of chakra, but it wasn't Naruto anymore, or at least it wasn't Naruto alone. The red-brown fur that now covered most of his body, the fingers and toes transmuted into claws, the partial muzzle filled with cruelly pointed teeth, the nine lashing tails emerging from the base of the spine and most importantly the absence of the seals on the stomach all said quite clearly that Kyuubi was free once again. Sasuke's eyes could also read in every line of his stance that Naruto and Kyuubi were united in a single purpose, his destruction.
Instinctively Sasuke reached out with both hands to ward off the attack, years of training having gone out the window, not noticing the blue glow that still surrounded one hand, fading fast but still present. Kyuubi/Naruto, overeager to get his hands on his victim didn't seem to notice either, for as his weight bore them both down Sasuke's hand passed through flesh and bone to pierce his heart. But it was too late for Sasuke as well, for even as his hand dealt the death blow to fusion of man and monster, that creature's teeth closed on his throat, closing with a savage force that severed both carotid arteries and crushed both the trachea and the spine. Death came a fraction of a second later, but it came all the same and Sasuke didn't even have the breath to scream as the darkness claimed him.
Sasuke surged upwards, screaming. His screams were short lived though, followed closely by nausea and he barely had a chance to get on his hands and knees before he was brining up the contents of his stomach. He continued to do so for several long minutes until nothing was left and even then he was wracked by dry heaves. Once the heaving stopped, he remained on his hands and knees, gasping for air and trying to rid himself of what he had just seen, praying that it was all some kind of horrible dream. It took quite some time before he was able to stand, but the instant he was able to, he was up, rounding on Mai. "What did you just do to me!" he yelled; advancing on her menacingly, anger hiding the tremble in his limbs.
"I showed you your future," Mai replied with aplomb, not batting an eyelid. "Or at least one of them. It's not my fault if you didn't like what you saw."
Sasuke wasn't about to be placated as easily as that. "Who are you?" he demanded.
"I'm an old woman whose doing you a favour, so you should show more manners than that boy."
"You call that a favour?" Sasuke asked, incredulous. "That was a nightmare!"
"Then you now know to avoid what may happen then," Mai snapped back and Sasuke was, reluctantly, forced to agree with her logic.
Mai nodded to herself when she saw him subsiding. "That's better," she said, still frowning at him. "But somehow I think you need a little more convincing."
She pointed her staff again and this time Sasuke surrendered after a token effort to resist the inexorable turning of his head to look at where it pointed. What he saw was another star that had separated itself from the pack and was racing towards him, though this one occasionally seemed to waver slightly off course, though never by more than a few degrees. It was more of an impression than something that the eyes could actually make out. Still, it did the same as the last one, catching Sasuke right between the eyes, this time seeming to infuse him with an odd feeling of warmth as his vision whited out and then faded to black.
Sasuke found himself lying face down in the dirt with absolutely no idea of how he got there.
He lay there for several moments trying to remember how he had come to be in that position, and drawing a blank. That was when he felt someone grab him by the elbows and lift him to his feet. Sasuke turned to look at his benefactors, blinking blearily as their forms swum into focus and he saw that it was Shino and Choji. Standing just past them were Naruto, Neji and Tenten, all three of them doubled over with laughter. Well Naruto and Neji were doubled up anyway and Tenten would have been if she hadn't been using Neji as a support to stay upright. That was when Sasuke remembered how he had wound up kissing dirt. He had tripped while trying to reach the high notes of some song that he had been singing. He wasn't sure what song it was or why exactly he had been singing, only that he had not been alone before tripping and it had seemed like a good idea.
An impartial observer would most likely have just shaken their head and sighed at what was going on in the streets of Konoha. No one was entirely sure what had started the now infamous tradition of Konoha's 'Boys Night Out' but everyone in the village was well and truly aware of its existence. It happened only irregularly, mostly because all the members involved were active ninja as well and one or more of them frequently were out of the village on assignment, but that only made things worse, not better for all the participants seemed to store up all their excess energy and blow it off in one big night, usually with the aid of a bit too much alcohol. The individuals involved were not only active ninja, but some of the most famous in and out of the village. The so called 'Konoha Boys' as they dubbed themselves, were Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, Naara Shikamaru, Akichimi Choji, Aburame Shino, Inuzuka Kiba (accompanied by Akamaru as a matter of course), Hyuuga Neji and oddly enough Tenten. No one knew how the weapons specialist kunoichi had come to be a part of it. She had simple invited herself along one time and became a regular fixture. She certainly held her own in causing mayhem and was even the originator of the now infamous 'Operation: Give Hyuuga Hisashi a Heart Attack.'
Sasuke brushed himself with a dignity that can only be achieved whilst drunk and thanked Choji and Shino for aiding him to his feet. Choji, who was actually the closest to sober of any of them courtesy of body mass and his constant snacking, just grunted in acknowledgement and returned to helping Kiba support the utterly boneless Shikamaru while Shino replied with solemn dignity, "The liquid precipitation in the Country of Water is deposited primarily on the flat lowlands." Shino was a very odd drunk.
Sasuke scratched his head in thought as he tried to remember where he had been headed before he taken his brief detour to inspect the ground up close and personal. "We're… hic… headed for Kiba's… hic… 'stash,'" Shikamaru said, by now well accustomed to the vagaries of Sasuke's memory once alcohol became involved.
"Oh yeah," Sasuke replied in a bemused sort of fashion. "Um, where was it again?"
This just sent Neji, Naruto and Tenten off into more gales of laughter, even as Shino picked him up bodily and pointed him in the right direction.
So they continued, punctuated by several wrong turns, throughout the village, singing as they went, with mixed results. Shino made up both the words and tune as he went along, Kiba and Akamaru attempted to sing in harmony, with the key word being attempted, and the rest of them verbally staggered all over the place, totally unable to keep the beat. In fact Naruto was the only one who was any good, singing on time and in key with a melodious baritone, which was ironic as when sober he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. So finally, accompanied by shouts, curses and threats to take a complaint to the Hokage, they left the village proper and arrived at one of the secluded training areas, not to far from the Forest of Death. In fact it was bisected by one of the streams that fed through the Forest of Death and it was over to this that Kiba meandered, reaching in and retrieving a wooden crate full of bottle of sake and other alcoholic beverages.
"Kiba, my man, you are a genius!" Naruto declared, reaching into the crate and retrieving an oversized bottle of sake, pulling the lid off with his teeth and knocking back a generous swing, after which everyone followed suit.
For the best part of an hour the booze flowed freely, putting a serious dent in Kiba's supply, and the mood gradually got mellower and mellower while the stories and jokes that were exchanged got bawdier and bawdier. Finally, as the moon was reaching its peak overhead, casting the clearing a pale silvery light Naruto staggered to his feet, holding a sake bottle in one hand, drained almost to the dregs. "Gentlemen and Tenten, who were not sure fits into the category of a lady any more," Neji cheered at that, "while the booze holds out, I would like to propose a toast!" He raised his sake bottle even higher. "To the Country of Fire, to the Hidden Village of the Leaf and to the best damn bunch of friends that anyone could ask for!"
This was met by cheers and an enthusiastic cry of, "Cry God for Harry, England and Saint George!" from Shino, followed by the sounds of several bottles of sake and cans of beer being emptied and at least one thud caused by a body hitting the ground.
"Very touching," a voice said as several figures emerged from the darkness.
"Neechan!" Kiba greeted the figure who had spoken cheerily.
Inuzuka Tsume just shook her head and walked over to pick up her younger by the back of his jacket. "All right runt," she said. "Fun time's over and we're heading home.
Kiba just laughed as he was propelled forward even as Tsume reached down and tucked Akamaru under one arm. As if that was some sort of cue, the other figures that had emerged from the darkness began coming forward to collect their wayward charged. Rock Lee sighed in long suffering tolerance as he hoisted the madly giggling Tenten and the now unconscious Neji (it had been him hitting the ground) over his shoulders to cart them back to their respective residences. As he passed Ino, who was picking up the completely immobile Shikamaru while chivvying on the still ambulatory Choji, Tenten paused in her giggling fit long enough to give Ino a laviscious wink and say, "What do you say you and I go somewhere and have some real fun tomorrow." Ino ignored her, which was probably the best idea. With Tenten's sense of humour it was impossible to tell whether or not she was joking when she made comments like that. She was the one who had suggested that Naruto use Sexy no Jutsu and kiss Hinata in public after all.
Kurenai Yuuhi was also there and Shino greeted her with a cheerful, "Auguries of destruction be a lullaby for rebirth." Kurenai just cocked an eyebrow at him and after a moment or two Shino climbed unsteadily to his feet and was promptly marched off with Kurenai's hands on his shoulders, partly to make sure he was aimed in the right direction and partly to keep him upright. This struck Naruto as enormously funny, but Naruto's sense of humour was questionable at the best of times and he didn't wind up laughing long anyway as Hinata appeared behind him.
"Yo, Hinata-chan!" he said with a drunken good cheer as he leaned back to look up at her.
"It's time to go home Naruto-kun," Hinata said softly but in a tone that brooked no argument. To back up her words one slender hand reached out and grabbed a hunk of blonde hair and simply dragged her wayward boyfriend off bodily. Too boozed up to feel any real pain, Naruto just stared at the sky in bemusement.
It was then Sasuke's turn to laugh, but he discovered that he who laughs last does not always laugh longest as a pair of long, well manicured fingers reached out from behind him and hauled him to his feet by one ear. "And just exactly what is so funny?" Sakura asked in a menacingly sweet tone of voice that spelled nothing but trouble for Sasuke.
Amusement instantly forgotten Sasuke swallowed nervously, but Sakura's question had obviously been rhetorical, for the pink haired kunoichi didn't wait for an answer but proceeded to walk away, still gripping Sasuke's ear, leaving him no choice but to follow or lose the appendage. Sasuke could think of very little more humiliating than being dragged through the streets of Konoha by one ear and he wasn't sure if the fact that only a few patrolling ANBU members saw him due to the lateness of the hour made it better or worse. Finally they reached Sasuke's house, but Sakura didn't relent, dragging him by his ear all the way to his bedroom.
"Bed, now!" she ordered, finally releasing Sasuke's much abused ear, only to point to his bed, unmade since the previous night.
Sasuke sighed, but knew better than to argue with Sakura when she was in a mood like that, so even as Sakura turned her back to give him some privacy he stripped off down to his boxers and climbed under the sheets and was almost asleep before his head hit the pillow. He stayed just conscious enough to be aware of Sakura turning around to look at him and mutter, "What am I going to do with you?"
By that point he couldn't be certain if it was real or if he was dreaming when a soft pair of lips brushed his forehead and Sakura's voice whispered, "Oyasumi nasai, Sasuke-chan."
Sasuke blinked as his awareness once again returned to the star studded void where Mai stood, looking over him. It took him several seconds to remember where he was, almost as if the alcohol induced absentmindedness from the vision still lingered. Still in a slightly befuddled state he said, "I am going to have such a hangover."
Mai cackled at that, bringing Sasuke more or less back to the present in a rush, for he had not meant to speak out loud. "That's the price of having too much to drink boy," Mai said, still cackling, though they tapered off as a thoughtful look passed over her wizened features. "Though come to think of it, you're probably the first I've had get drunk in their vision. Well, at least that I know of."
"You don't see the visions as well?" Sasuke asked, a little surprised. He had assumed that since she was the one inducing the visions that she was able to observe them as well.
"No," Mai said, shaking her head. "These are your futures, not mine and they're a private thing. Though sometimes I'll admit I can make pretty good guesses as to what some of my other guests have seen, at least in general. I may not be able to see the visions myself, but when you've been around as long as I have, you get to be a pretty good judge of human nature and how they react."
"Just how old are you?" Sasuke asked. He never saw the blow that followed the question coming, and the next thing he knew his head was hurting and Mai was lowering her staff back to the ground.
"You should no better than to ask a woman her age boy," she said testily. "What do they teach you children these days?" She shook her head and sighed. "What ever happened to good old fashioned respect for your elders I ask?" Mai sighed again, and then shook her head, as if clearing some mental cobwebs.
"Enough of regrets," she said, half to her herself and half to Sasuke. "The night's wearing on and I'm not getting any younger. So if you would just look this way…"
This time as she pointed her staff, Sasuke looked to where it was pointing before the inexorable compulsion took over. Though Mai's intentions seemed benign enough, he didn't like the feeling of his own body not being under his control, so he pre-empted it. He thought he might have seen the ghost of a smile on Mai's lips as he turned, but then all his attention was focused on the star that had separated itself from the pack and was making a beeline for him and this time Sasuke was ready for it. Prepared or not though, it was still a shock when it struck him between the eyes, whiting out his vision and then fading to black.
It was a cold, windy day as the caravan crossed over the border and while it wasn't raining, the clouds overhead and the thunder in the distance promised that it would be in the not too distant future. It really wasn't unexpected, for the Country of Lightning took its name from the titanic storms that battered the nation all year around and those who travelled there knew that weather was always a problem. Still the trade was lucrative, or at least it had been before what was already being called the Collapse, for the constant storm activity had washed away almost all the fertile topsoil centuries ago and the few crops that could grow in what was left were constantly battered by storms and harvests were meagre at best, meaning that there was always a demand for fresh foodstuffs. That at least hadn't changed during the Collapse, but now fewer merchants were willing to risk the journey through a countryside plagued by thieves, petty tyrants demanding tribute to pass through their territory and renegade shinobi who were just as prone to slaughter everyone they came across they were to rob them. Even the fact that at least part of the journey would be under the protection of the sole remaining member of the five great nations, guarded by the Cloud-nin who had proved to be the only ones capable of turning back the forces mustered by Akatsuki that had destroyed the Villages of Mist, Stone Leaf and Sand and killed the other four Great Feudal Lords, was enough to stir many merchants. A few, more foolhardy than most or motivated by greed were willing to make the trip but none of them were foolish enough to make the journey without some sort of protection.
The Cloud-nin guarding the border crossing scrutinised the guards accompanying the caravan carefully. In days gone by they might have been looking for known missing-nin from other villages, but now they were too shorthanded to do more than look after their own. With all the old treaties little more than a memory, they concentrated solely on looking for those who were wanted in the Country of Lightning alone. Their gazes lingered on one of the shinobi mixed in with the hired swordsman, studying him carefully, though they made no move to detain him. Sasuke ignored them as he ignored everything not pertinent to the task at hand. Once upon a time he may have felt annoyance or irritation and possibly even anger at attention the Cloud-nin were giving him, but now he felt nothing. He hadn't felt anything since the day that his brother had died by his own hand.
He remembered that fight and the grievous injuries he suffered and he remembered how the pain, grief and rage that he had carried with him since the day that Itachi had slaughtered all the other members of the Uchiha clan save him had come boiling to the surface and had driven him to fight on despite the wounds he had taken. He remembered the feel of the kunai as it had slid between Itachi's ribs until its point had found and pierced his heart and the look of disbelief that had crossed Itachi's face seconds before the explosion tag wrapped around the kunai's hilt had detonated. Everything after that was a blur, a handful of images standing but making no sense out of their context. When next Sasuke had become aware of his surroundings, he was waking up in an abandoned hut in the middle of a forest, his wounds cleaned and bandaged or stitched and most half healed or better. He had waited in the hut for three days, waiting in case anyone returned, but no one did. He left the hut on the fourth day and made his way to a town.
It was there that he had learnt that both the Country of Fire and the Country of Wind had fallen, their lords dead and the shinobi of their hidden villages either dead or scattered, no longer a force to be reckoned with. He had expected to feel something on hearing that news, but there was nothing in his soul but an empty void where his emotions had been. It was if the battle it Itachi and his long recuperation had burned the capacity for emotion out of him. He observed the fall of once great nations into hundred of squabbling domains with out even a tiny spark of feeling. He simply went about the business of hiring himself out as a guard, judging it to be the least troublesome form of employment for a former shinobi and many of his more principled former comrades had done the same. Those less burdened with scruples turned bandit and highwaymen. Sasuke had no particular objection to that profession and the only thing that stopped him from taking it up himself was that in the long run it would probably be less successful.
These musings continued until the caravan reached the first town across the border. Before the Collapse it had been a thriving trade town but since trade had decreased the town was distinctly less prosperous, though what little trade did come through was enough to keep it alive, which is more than a few places could have claimed. Once they had entered the town gates, the caravan master called all the guards together and doled out their pay before sending them on their way. It was expensive to pay the number of guardsmen necessary to properly guard the caravan and they weren't about to waste money by paying them to do guard duty in lands guarded by the Cloud-nin. The guard contingent took their pay with varying degrees of enthusiasm and went their individual ways, some to take advantage of the entertainments for off duty guardsmen that any trade town boasted, no matter how impoverished, others to seek employment with caravans heading back across the border. Sasuke chose the later option, as did most of those whom he had identified as former shinobi, whether they still wore their village's forehead protector or not, while most of the swordsman chose the former.
He had been to this town before, even if he had never bothered to learn its name, so Sasuke had no difficulty in finding his way through the streets to the staging area for the outbound caravans. He noticed one caravan master who was just setting up a hiring stall for guardsman and was about to head over there when he was stopped by a hand grabbing his elbow. Sasuke spun; sliding a kunai from the pouch he wore strapped to the inside of his forearm, but was stopped dead in his tracks halfway through his turn, unable to move. "Just relax would you," a familiar voice said. "You could poke someone's eye out with that thing."
"Naara Shikamaru," Sasuke said, identifying the speaker as he looked down as best he could in his immobilised state to see that his shadow was indeed touching the other man's. As he did so, the pressure holding him in place was released and as he watched Shikamaru's shadow twitched and resumed a more normal stated.
"Nice to see that you still remember me," the lanky shadow wielder replied as he let Sasuke's arm go. "It's been a while."
"It has," Sasuke agreed, offering no more.
Shikamaru just stared at him and then sighed, muttering under his breath. "What happened to you?" he asked. "We could have used you at Konoha."
"I fought Itachi and killed him. I don't remember much for the next few months and Konoha had already been destroyed by the time I came to my senses."
The slight frown that had creased Shikamaru's brow eased slightly. "Well, that explains that at least anyway. That's all in the past now anyway. We could really use your help now though."
"Why do you need my help?"
"We had regained enough strength since the invasion by the Sound and Sand that Akatsuki didn't dare face us take us on all at once. They lured about half the village away on fake missions before they attacked and even then the destruction wasn't as complete as they wanted. Tsunade-sama, Jiriya and Naruto led a rear guard action that allowed some of use to get the civilian population out more or less intact. We tried to get to those who got lured away on missions, but most of them were caught in ambushes. Still some were able to escape and we've been trying to round them up and get some sort of effective fighting force together."
"You want to try and resurrect Konoha," Sasuke said, and it was not a question.
Shikamaru snorted and shrugged. "Guess even a lazy bum like me has the will of fire that the Third was always talking about. Those of us who survived made a vow that one way or another Konoha will be reborn. No matter how hard the effort or how long it takes the Leaf will bloom again." A smile spread across Shikamaru's face at that, a rather crooked smile, but a smile none the less. "Having you with us will be a big help. The return of the last surviving Uchiha will be a big boost to our reputation if nothing else."
"I'm not coming with you," Sasuke said flatly.
It took a few seconds for Shikamaru to actually process that statement and when he did he stared as Sasuke. "What do you mean you're not coming," he said.
"Just that. I'm not coming. You're living for a dream that can not come true and I want no part of it." He turned to leave, slipping out of Shikamaru's attempt to grab him again and walking off.
"You were one of Konoha's greatest!" Shikamaru called after him. "Are you just going to live out your life like this? A faceless caravan guard who's either going to wind up dead with a bandit's knife stuck in him or buried in a shallow grave with nothing to show for his life when age eventually catches up with him."
"I don't care," Sasuke said. "We must all die some time and how it happens and what happens after doesn't matter."
Shikamaru was not finished though. "Are you willing to let your clan die?"
That actually caused Sasuke to stop dead in his tracks, but it was still not enough for even the tiniest flicker of emotion to warm his heart. "My clan died years ago," he replied. "I'm just taking longer about it than everyone else."
Shikamaru continued to call after him, but he ignored the cries as no longer relevant. Others might have their dreams, but not him, not anymore. He had no wants, no desires and what the work he did was enough to fulfil his basic needs. It was enough and it always would be.
When Sasuke awoke from the vision he awoke shivering. The sheer emptiness that he had just experienced chilled him to the very core. He wrapped his arms around himself, though he knew it would do no good for the cold he experienced came from within, not from without and even the blazing heat of the desert could not effect it.
"Just remember that it's only a possibility," Mai said, coming over to him and laying one bony on his shoulder. "You are the one who ultimately decides if what you see this night comes to pass."
Mai's words and the simple feel of human contact was enough to banish the worst the lingering sense of emptiness that plagued Sasuke and he drew a shuddering breath and pulled himself up to his full height once again. "I'll be all right," he said Mai and she smiled at him and gave his shoulder one final pat before withdrawing her hand.
"That's the spirit boy," she said. "Now, how about one more and then we'll call it a night then."
Sasuke nodded and looked once again as Mai pointed yet another star. Once again the star she pointed to seemed to detach itself from the general background and seemed to race towards him. Sasuke had just enough time to wonder what caused the sense of movement despite the fact the star remained a pinpoint of light whose brightness did not change, no matter how close it got and then he was once again struck between the eyes and was overwhelmed by light that faded to black nothingness.
Sasuke sighed and rubbed his eyes as placed yet another piece of paperwork in his out tray and retrieved the next item needing his attention from his inbox. No matter how diligently he worked and how many hours a day he put in that damned pile never seemed to get any smaller. In fact it was all he could do to stop the pile from getting so high that his entire desk would be buried in paperwork. It had seemed like a good idea when he had first started out, but if had had even the slightest inkling of how much paperwork it would require rebuilding Konoha's police force would have remained a dream.
It had seemed like a good idea initially, at least to Sasuke. The Uchiha had formed the back bone of Konoha's police force, even to the point where the stylised fan of the Uchiha Clan had been incorporated into their insignia and when Itachi had massacred every other member of the clan save Sasuke, the police force had simply collapsed, their numbers too few to remain effective. Instead the survivors had been transferred over to ANBU, along with the duties of their former position. When he had finally made jounin and ANBU one of Sasuke's first duties had been the routine security patrols that had formerly been the responsibility of the police force and that was what had given him the idea of resurrecting it as part of his eventual, long term goal of restoring the Uchiha Clan to something approaching its former state.
Tsunade had obviously agreed with him for when he had approached her with the idea, she had released him from his regular duties to pursue the idea with barely even a token argument. That had been the last thing that Sasuke had got with any degree of ease though. The properties used by the police force had mostly belonged to the Uchiha Clan and were on permanent lone to the village and in the intervening years had been assigned to other duties and rather than just order them freed up for his use, Tsunade had forced Sasuke to try and convince the current occupants to allow him to reclaim the facilities for their original use. For the most part it hadn't been too painful, at least until Sasuke tried to reclaim the main holding cells, which had been appropriated by ANBU for their own use. That had been the first argument the fledgling police force had with ANBU, but it was by no means the last. The bitterest disagreement and the one that didn't look like it was going to end any time soon was the one over personnel. Sasuke had persuaded a few of the old police force members out of retirement and filled out the ranks by shamelessly plundering the new jounins and the more promising chunins, but ANBU still commanded the pick of the jounin candidates, including the ones best suited the roles that Sasuke needed to fill.
The ability to multi-task was almost essential for any ninja, though a few rare exceptions like Lee and Naruto seemed to be able to get by without it, so Sasuke was able to mentally grumble and prepare himself for the next, inevitable confrontation with his former colleagues in ANBU while the rest of his attention was on the paperwork he had to sign. It was only when his hand was beginning to cramp that he stopped and actually looked up from what he was doing and noted the time. He sighed when he saw that it was well into the evening, wondering where exactly the day had gone. About that time he was interrupted by his stomach, reminding him that it had been a long time since the rather scanty lunch he had wolfed down between requisition forms some time around noon, and by one of his subordinates. Sasuke was sure that given enough time he could have remembered the young man's name but he could work up the energy right then. "What is it?" he snapped, perhaps harsher than he should have been.
The other shinobi didn't some much as even flinch. Everyone in the office knew how long Sasuke worked and how cranky he got when he was tired, not that anyone would dare say such a thing to his face of course. "We thought you should know we've just picked up Konohamaru again. What do you want us to with him?"
Sasuke sighed and was suddenly overcome with the urge to take off his forehead protector and start hitting his head against the wall. Konohamaru, heir to the title of Konoha's resident prankster which he had inherited from Naruto was the other big thorn in Sasuke's side after the ongoing personnel dispute with ANBU. There was a very fine line between public nuisance and public menace and Konohamaru was very aware of where that line and always made sure to stay of the safe side of it, so Sasuke couldn't do what he really wanted to do, which was to wring his scrawny little neck, but it was starting to grate on his nerves. It didn't help matters any that Naruto, who was Tsunade's second in command in all but name, cheered him on every step of the way.
"I don't want to deal with it right now," Sasuke said. "Just throw him in a holding cell overnight and let him stew in his own juices for a while. I'll deal with him in the morning."
The other ninja grinned briefly before schooling his face into a properly serious mask that did nothing to hide exactly how good he thought Sasuke's idea was. "Yes sir!" he replied, all but coming to attention and saluting.
"Oh, and before you go, tell everyone else that I'm calling it a night. If you need me, you know where to find me."
"Yes sir. Good night."
"You too," Sasuke said, waving the other man away as he stood up and worked out the kinks in his spine.
Once he was confident of being able to move freely, he left the office, saying his farewells to the office staff as he passed through the main area and taking a deep breath of fresh evening air as he stepped outside. He walked casually along Konoha's streets, occasionally responding to called out greetings. To an observer he could have been any one of Konoha's ninja out for an evening stroll, at least until he stepped into the shadows between a pair of streetlights and didn't come out again.
Under the cover of darkness he ducked into a small alley and from there into a hidden passageway concealed beneath the street. Few who had not served in ANBU knew of the existence of the place he had just entered and no one who had not been a part of ANBU knew of its location. It was the most secure facility in Konoha and reserved exclusively for Class S criminals. The two ANBU guards who were inside, anonymous under their robes and masks didn't react to Sasuke's presence. For all the professional antagonism between their two organisations they bore no personal animosity for Sasuke himself and they politely looked the other way for Sasuke's occasional visits to the holding facility.
Most of the cells that Sasuke passed were empty, but in good condition just in case they were needed. They were all sturdily constructed, proof against anything nature or their possible occupants might throw against them and Sasuke knew from his own time in ANBU that they were inspected regularly. They were the closest thing to escape proof that anyone had been able to come up with, though it was conceded by some at least that there was a good chance that either Naruto or Gaara with their demon born power and endurance might be able escape from them if they wanted to.
There were quite a few cells though no one truly believed that they would ever need to use all of them, so it took Sasuke a bit to reach the one that was his goal, the only occupied cell in the entire facility, at least at the moment. The cell's occupant was a pale, waxy figure from being kept below ground for so long, though it was ensured that he got enough Vitamin D from other sources in his diet to keep him healthy. He was also wasted and almost painfully thin, not from lack of nutrition but from sitting in one position for so long, utterly motionless that his muscles had atrophied from lack of use. He was utterly bald and permanently so. Sasuke didn't know the details but someone in the medical branch had accidentally stumbled across the formula for a depilatory that killed off hair follicles after only a few treatments and it was now routine for ANBU to use it on all their long term prisoners lest they find a way to conceal something in their hair.
Sasuke spent a long time studying his features, noting the numerous scars that covered his body, but his gaze was always drawn back to the scars over his eyes. Sasuke had been responsible for the one over his left eye. It was Naruto who was responsible for the malformed shape of the right eye socket and the rather pronounced bend in the bridge of the nose, but it was ANBU surgeons who were responsible for the scar over the eye socket itself. Either way he was forever more denied the power that was his and Sasuke's shared birthright.
"I know you're there little brother," Itachi said without moving, his deep voice no longer dark and resonant but hoarse and scratchy from disuse. "I can hear you breathing."
"I never tried to hide my presence," Sasuke replied, looking at the human wreck that had once been his brother.
"Have you come to kill me?" Itachi always asked the same question and Sasuke always answered the same way.
"No. I don't need to kill you." This time around Sasuke felt compelled to add a little something more, though he could not say why. "I proved that when I beat you and dragged you back here."
"You proved nothing," Itachi spat, pulling himself into a sitting position and making the manacles around his wrists jangle. The manacles weren't there to restrain him. They were there to drain his chakra and sap his physical strength as an added measure of security. "You need the help of that Kyuubi brat and the woman to do it. You're weak."
"And you're wrong," Sasuke said. "Having friends and something that you want to protect is true strength. Naruto and Sakura know it. I knew it, even if I let Orochimaru's curse seal fool me into thinking otherwise. Gaara knows it. Gods help us even Kabuto and Kimimaro knew it. It's that strength that was your downfall."
"You're a fool little brother. You let your friends drag you down. Unless you're willing to sacrifice them you'll never know exactly what you're capable of."
"There are some sacrifices that are not worth making. Goodbye Itachi."
With that Sasuke spun one heel and walked back the way he had come, leaving Itachi alone once again. As he walked, Sasuke allowed the ghost of a smile to flit across his face. His true vengeance against Itachi was knowing that there was another way to awaken the Mangekyou Sharingan and it would awaken stronger and more powerful than the twisted, crippled version born in blood that Itachi had once possessed. One day, when the time was right, he would tell Itachi that and then his vengeance would be complete, but until then he left Itachi to the tender care of the ANBU interrogators. The interrogators were patient people and willing to spend months waiting for a subject to break enough to get the information they wanted and Sasuke was willing to let them do their jobs before he took his final vengeance.
He smiled for truth as he stepped back out onto the street like he had never left. His visits with Itachi always reminded him that for all he had lost by his brother's hands, he had gained just as much and maybe even more by his own and that he had much to be thankful for. As he walked he pondered exactly where to go to dinner, even contemplating dropping by Ichiruka Ramen to let Naruto know where Konohamaru was spending the night and maybe even rubbing his nose in it a little. Then he decided on a spur of the moment to stop by and see if Sakura was free to go and see a movie. He felt like treating himself. Plans made he walked on, all the while smiling and whistling a jaunty little tune to himself.
Sasuke blinked a little muzzily as he came around from his final vision and saw Mai looking at him. "Any comments?" she asked.
Sasuke just looked down at his hands, frowning in confusion as he replayed what he had learnt from that last vision. He had given over half his life to avenging the deaths of his family and clan and he had thought that the only way to do that would be to kill Itachi with his own hands. To know that there was another path was… disconcerting. He didn't truly know how to feel about it. "I don't know," he said softly, but Mai heard him anyway.
"That happens," she said philosophically. "But you're the only one who can truly decide if what you saw is what you wanted or not. That being said, there are some things I must tell you before you once again seek your bed. The first is that unless we meet again, all memory of this night will be blocked from your conscious mind. I would not do it that way if I had a choice, but I am constrained by certain rules that I cannot break."
"If I can't remember why show me in the first place?" Sasuke asked, most of his attention still focused on what he had learnt in the last vision.
"You won't remember it in your mind, but the heart can remember where the head forgets. Though you may not know it, you will carry with you what you have seen this night, so listen to your heart. Secondly it may come to pass that our paths will cross again. Should that happen, remember that what I showed you tonight is but a small fraction of the endless possibilities and you may end up walking a different path all together. What happens once you leave here is depends on you, not me, so just keep that in mind if you ever want to ask why what came to pass was nothing like what I showed you."
Sasuke nodded absent-mindedly and Mai sighed softly. He was not the first that she had seen who had been too distracted by what they saw to pay much attention to what she told them. "All right then, that's it. I Now I think it's about time that you were going back to bed, so shoo!"
Sasuke's attention was brought firmly back to the present when Mai's staff began banging against his shins. Retreating before he suffered too serious a bruising, he looked up and saw that the door through which he had entered was suspended in the void before him. Taking Mai's hint he opened it and walked through and found himself back in the main room of Mai's little cottage. He went to look behind him, but found that he had closed the door without even realising it. Shrugging, and deciding that it wasn't worth bothering about; he padded back to the empty futon and slipped back under the sheets. He lay staring at the ceiling for several long minutes before sleep finally returned to claim him and carry him off to the land of dreams where he dreamt of new possibilites.
Author's Notes:
First and foremost I must give many thanks to the people of the IJC St Lucia Chapter for acting as sounding boards and throwing out ideas to act as the seeds for some of the above visions. Without their help this chapter would have been much longer in coming, so once again thank you.
As for the little challenge I set up for the end of the first chapter, we have had two winners, both of whom have declined to make any suggestions, but thank you anyway. For those of you who couldn't figure out the references they are as follows.
Kaleidoscope: The Mangekyou Sharingan (Mangekyou = Kaleidoscope)
Lightning: Raikiri/Chidori (And why oh why did Kishimoto-sensei have to change the name? Raikiri/Lightning Edge sounds so much cooler in both languages)
Vengance: Sasuke's basic character motivation, which play a part in three out of the four visions one way or another
Next time is Naruto!!!
Chapter 03: The Vortex of Destiny