Chapter 8
There are times for bluntness and times for an affected obsequity; there are times for plainness and times for platitude. Sometimes an uncanny naivety of intention and action salves the suspicious heart, relieves it from self imposed confinement, and sets it through propinquity upon the steps of paradise or the steppes of delight; at other times, the flies of flattery alight upon decadent heartstrings, or on a countenance immured in luxury, and with such frenzy slaver and rub their limbs against that soft centre of manured impressionability, that the result is nearly the same— the foothills of contentment are through the telescope of self delusion for a moment glimpsed.
Gato of Gato enterprises, she knew, was best satisfied through the latter. In taking this mission she had forsaken personal comfort: the man repulsed her, as did the token simpering and sucking up she was expected to do. But it was all with the germ of an idea in mind, all for the sake of Naruto and the village, for how else...
Satsuki sighed, shook her head, and stamped the ground. Naruto was ten minutes late.
She had run into Gato before, of course. There was something about him that made her skin crawl, even back in the day, when she was innocent in some ways, and had not yet digested the notion that at the penumbra of human freewill lies a sulfurous cynicism; one that, if allowed to operate unchecked, would not just spread inward and consume the husk of the person who possessed it, but would, like a forest fire, fan outward and cinder all she held dear. So now when she encountered it, she stayed clear of that cynicism— or shattered the person possessing it.
But staying clear was not an option here. And Gato was beyond shattering, was in himself a shrine of evil before which half the world prostrated itself.
And cynicism was all he inspired.
She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.
Back in the day, in her naivety and eagerness to prove herself, she had let herself be drawn into a cosmos of evil which was neither star spangled nor constellated. But it was sprawling nonetheless, populated with planets of apathy and tracts of indifference, satellites of corruption and comets of depravity, all governed by the gravitational fields of greed. She'd seen a kind of evil that existed in the mundane. Evil in cufflinks and pinstripes; evil dissected and analyzed, defined and codified, tethered to a wheel of black-lettered legalese; evil abounding in fusty ledgers and called on with a rustle of pages by jaded accountants; announced numerically, lackadaisically— spawned with a jangle, intruding upon reality in currency conceived, multiplying with a multiplicity of coin, spreading outward, a cancer grown. She had caught a world in the process of its creation, one defined and refined by a sceptered hand that scrimmaged and stymied and savaged not for sport but profit. Gato harnessed cruelty and whipped it forth at will; he added to it a veil of impersonality, an impenetrable air of detachment. He killed without hate. Bloodlessly. For business.
And while this in itself was not uncommon, what separated him from the rest was the sense of psychopathy which like a prowling tiger paced behind the smoke and mirrors of his vices: look beyond the braggadocio, the clownish suit, the balding pate, the affected accent, the swinishness when he swilled drink, the lechery; and there was...nothing— nothing but the void. This was a man not just lacking in finer sentiment, but in sentiment itself; a man unfeeling, who through every gesture and every clipped word communicated a wrongness, an emptiness; a man secure not in a sense of self but a lack of it— his rage, like his pity, was non-existent. Perhaps in the futile hope of feeling something, something! he glutted himself upon the world and its carnival of sorrows: carved up domains, cannibalized countries, killed with impunity. His empire was constructed atop a crematorium: corpses, like children's toys defunct, desolated the attic of his past. And he did all this, Satsuki thought, for the tepid flicker of contentment offered by a fraction of an uptick in a bank account already limitless: money to him was a motley substitute for sentiment.
And when that flicker faded he once more set in motion the apparatus that brought about someone else's ruin…
Ruin. The word for a second spun out of her control the steering wheel of her mind; images of ruin like termites descended on the decrepit wattled hutments wherein she tenanted a destitute conscience; and for the merest of moments she recalled with startling clarity a merchant in Iwa who in despair thrust forth a fistful of money, an urchin in Kusa who sightless stood outside the slagheap of what was once his village, a sentinel in Taki whom she had staked to a wooden post, and an eternal silence that in the cold cocoon of her dreams distended into the tinkle of coins, the laughter of hyenas. Satsuki shut her eyes, but there reverberated through her mind the sobs of a mother, the screams of a child— and through this all the rise and fall of a knife in synchronicity with each plea, a rise and fall that in its rhythms resembled an infant heart yet to be rent.
"Sorry I'm late."
She opened her eyes. Looked at him and smirked. The termites were shaken off. Her mind was hers once more.
"What took you so long?"
Naruto rubbed his head, as he often did when embarrassed.
"Was outta soap," he mumbled, avoiding her eyes. "So had'ta go and get myself one. But halfway through there was this blind old lady who needed help crossing a street and she made such a racket when I said I was running late that I had'ta say, ' Shinobi o' the leaf, madame'. That scared her into submission. I left her there. I hope she fell into a ditch and died. But anyway, I carried on. And then a black cat crossed my path and since I am very superstitious I of course took the long route to the shop, and—"
"You overslept, didn't you?" She asked flatly.
He hung his head and rubbed it again. Satsuki had a sudden urge to reach out and poke his forehead. But the thought of that gesture brought back memories unbidden, ones best left unexplored. So she refrained.
They made their way to the gate, where Kotetsu recognized her and raised his hand in greeting. They'd worked together before. He was the first chunin she served with after herself becoming one, and three years later when she'd taken over as an ANBU captain his was the first face that greeted her. He'd worked under her for a year before quitting due to...a clash in morals and ideals.
The other Chunin she knew, but had never spoken to. One Izumo Kamizuki.
"You heard the news from Kumo, chief?" Kotetsu asked.
Satsuki offered him a nod.
"Fuck, man," he laughed, "I hope those shitheads got wiped. There's a rumour that the Raikage received a fatal blow and is at death's door."
"I heard he's dead, and thank the lord if it's true," said Izumo.
"It is not," Satsuki informed them. "I spoke to Genma, who as Kotetsu here knows has a contact there. He says the Raikage is shaken but all right. The brother is in bad shape, but alive. There was considerable damage to property, and some death too, perhaps; but it is not as bad as what we had here, back in the day."
"Aw, man. That's a damn shame," Kotetsu said, and the bandages on his face crinkled in agreement. "Where you headed, by the way?"
"Wave," she said. "Two month job, perhaps."
"Aw, that sucks. Place's a piss pot right now. Kurenai went that way sometime ago and on my mother you'd think she saw some shit. Asuma— you know Asuma, chief? Ha, 'course you do. Yeah, he and I had a drink the other day and he says— he's dating her, Kurenai—but, listen to this, he says place is a ghost town. Kids starving on the streets an' all." He shook his head and leant forward with interest. "We with em or against em?"
"I am not at liberty to say."
"Against em, then." He laughed. "Damn, chief, you're still easy to bait." He turned towards his register, which lay open on a rickety table. "I'll put you down for two months. Send in a search party if you don't return in three?"
Satsuki rolled her eyes.
"Aw, there's that eye roll again," Kotetsu complained. "Izu, I been baby-sitting this girl ever since she was in her diapers, man, and this is how she repays me. A guy's got no respect no more. They judge me on my jacket, man."
"A tragedy for the ages, I am sure," Satsuki said dryly. "And if it bothers you so, then upgrade that jacket, you incorrigible lout. Heaven knows you are wasted here."
"Wasted? Why, I never! Wasted, she says, Izu. Why, this damn place," he tapped the table with his fist, "this place's as cushy as it gets. Just sit here and watch the people come and go. Talk to 'em 'bout the weather and banter with 'em. I got a private line to the latest gossip from all over the world. We hear it before the Hokage does." He grinned. "Come now, chief. Admit it. You loved yer week here as a security guard. You sat right there and painted all day. And often—" he turned to Naruto, who, much to Satsuki's horror, was listening with interest, "often she'd make 'em sad eyes and just imagine being a painter forever. You'd hear it in her sighs. We all got a life unlived, lad, and the one week she spent here was hers. Now she spends her days bitterly jealous o' free folk like me. Don't let your dreams be dreams, unlike chief over there. You can smell the insomnia on her if you lean in and take a good long whiff."
"Kotetsu, what the fuck."
No seriously. What the fuck. This had never happened. She'd been bored to tears, and if not for her drawings she'd have harakiri'd herself before the week was out.
...
"I wanna man that outpost someday," Naruto said wistfully, an hour after they'd left it behind. He'd been very silent until then. But his face was now the very image of longing and misery.
"...shut up, Naruto."
She could feel a headache coming on. She needed strong coffee. It was too early in the day for this.
"Your seal's a masterpiece," she said, crossing her hands across her chest and resting her hip against a tree trunk that was next to their campfire. He was stuffing himself, but now he paused and looked up.
"Sorry, what?"
They'd made camp for the night. They'd travelled a good distance and were halfway through the land of fire, though the tract of woods they paused in was in the middle of nowhere, and adjoined fens and lakes and marshes and was besprent with snakes and scorpions and other scuttling predators besides. There was no town for a hundred miles either way. Satsuki would've preferred an inn and a bath over this insect infested hell-hole, but she'd been here before. One did not acquire a taste for luxuries in this business. Besides, Naruto was dog tired and flagging by the end, and though he did not complain she could see in his cumbersome movements a man dead on his feet. So they'd stopped. There was time, anyway.
"You heard them talk this morning."
"Yeah, 'bout your dead dreams of being an artist."
"Not that, idiot. Before that. The land of lightning thing. Kumo. The Raikage."
"Oh, that." He shrugged. "Figured it was none o' my business."
She sighed.
"It kind of is," she confessed. "The Raikage's brother is a Jinchuuriki."
He'd been shaking his legs and only half paying attention. Now he went very still and slowly swiveled about till he was facing her.
"Is he, now?" There was a certain tension to his voice, a stiffness in his shoulders.
"Kumo, like us, has had a difficult history with their Jinchuuriki. There've always been incidents— hostilities, break aways, the skies set afire, ice girt mountains riven, the snow streaking down in an avalanche and swallowing up the remains of a shattered host … you get the idea. Theirs, in fact, is a history more violent than ours. But they've always been obsessed, in a way we never were, with controlling their Jinchuuriki. They've stubbornly held onto the notion that beneath the violence and the imperfections of a tailed beast there lies a greatness unexplored. And so the Raikage helped seal the Hachibi into his brother."
An oppressive silence greeted this declaration.
"The seal," she went on, "was imperfect. It is why I mentioned yours. They gave us a glimpse of yours a while ago in a confidential report, and the thing is a miracle. An impossibility. We haven't been able to fully decode it, but from what we can gather it has a set of inbuilt safeguards to ensure stability and avoid a breakaway. Kumo— Kumo has never had a seal master quite as era-defining in ingenuity as the lord fourth. And the brother suffered for it."
"It went wrong?"
"He has phases of normality. But he's kept away from public scrutiny. Understandably so— it is quite intolerable to him. He is volatile at the best of times. And there are … episodes. The one I mentioned this morning was particularly violent. I've heard he's in a coma."
Naruto barked out a laugh. It was harsh to listen to, a set of needles sprayed across tile, the sound echoing on for an eternity.
"Good for him, I guess. When have you lot ever given a shit about familial ties?"
Conversation cooled after that. She considered arguing the point with him. But there was a distant look in his eyes—the spectre of his past had him in its translucent clasp. So she refrained. He needed space, and given that she'd come to find him tolerable (grown quite fond of him and his quirks, in fact, though she'd never say it out loud) it was the least she could do.
Midnight drew upon them like a quilt lacquered obsidian.
The clouds at daybreak were scudding strips of translucent gauze behind which there grew like a plum engorged a fractious sun the colour of rust. The humid air and the wind which winched and whirled betokened the onset of a dust storm. The ground was unverdured, an ochre spiderweb wherein tree stumps like caramel coloured houseflies were caught between earthen cracks. The smell of stubble set ablaze winged the air and was a plumed incense beating against it and turning it pungent.
They'd travelled two hours, and the nearest town was no longer too far off. They'd have to stop somewhere come afternoon, for if there was one thing that even Jonins loathed while traversing, it was a sandstorm.
Satsuki snuck a glance at Naruto through the corner of an eye, then tucked an errant lock behind her ear and pinched her lips together. His glum silence made her yearn for his former brashness. His silence communicated a wrongness, presaged calamity; in the month they'd spent together she'd learnt that the boy, despite first appearances, and despite his occasional outburst, was sprightly and verbose, cut out for action, not contemplation. His naivety, which came from not knowing himself and not seeing the world, had its own peculiar charm. It was a charm the city dweller saw in the rustic, the scientist in the primitive— one that stemmed from simplicity. And sometimes she envied it, for the horror to reality lay in its realization and internalization. Even those like her who took it on its terms and sought to hew from it for themselves a totem of greatness walked a tightrope beneath which there gaped jagged spires of resentment and cynicism. Hers was a high stakes waltz of life and death, where to go wrong was to go mad— she'd seen her betters crushed under boulders of guilt.
The ignorant, on the other hand, lived in unreality, or at least in an altered state of reality, and so in a way were better off for it. They had no responsibility; they were children, not warriors; they had the understanding and the inclinations of unshod urchins, and took at all times the path of least resistance, whereas it was in friction that greatness lay, though it scorched the soil and left the soles of one's feet mangled…
Either way, he wasn't talking, and while personal space and privacy were sacred, this glumness would more likely than not lead to insurrection; and if not to that, then to a descent into depression, or the bottle. In this business one never thought too deeply, never dwelt on things, never allowed one's conscience to get in the way, because that was a rabbit hole from which not many returned. Minute by minute was the motto; minute by minute and day by day one lived and barely lived and made peace with the present, with the certainty of the moment and the eternal uncertainty of all beyond. One looked outwards, and kept looking outwards, because to look too far inward was to run the risk of discovering something unsavoury, best kept under lock and key. And one never forgot one's roots or one's family, the first of which he disowned and the second of which he thought had betrayed him.
And so she found herself in a situation where she was forced to take initiative and try and enliven the mood, or at the very least get him talking and keep him talking.
There was just one issue with this. She was absolutely horrible at making conversation. Oh, she could maintain it, sure, but starting one and keeping it going had always been an issue.
"It's your first time outside the village, isn't it?" she tried.
"Yeah."
Thirty seconds of awkward silence followed.
"So, um, how do you like it?"
"Sucks."
...this wasn't going well.
"Oh? Which parts in particular?"
She congratulated herself. There was no way he was getting out of this without a longer resp-
"Tis just rocks. Rocks and mosquitoes."
"…"
She wiped a thin film of sweat off her forehead.
Nibbled her lip.
"It isn't," she announced, eventually. "Do you not see the kaleidoscope of shadow the sun makes there, right there, when it falls on that tree stump? There's a world waiting to be sketched in that interplay of light and shadow, but only if you look for it."
"..uh huh."
"What I mean," she persisted, "is that there is a magic in the ordinary, waiting to be captured on paper. Not falsified, but enlarged, so that you can see, truly see, the beauty in things. Rocks are not rocks, but castles of possibility. The rings in trees are as the rotation of worlds, and even in insect infested dens there is always … something of paradise— something quite extraordinary. This is as with most things in life. Weren't you the one who went on and on about trying to enjoy the 'little things in life'?"
He shrugged.
"And aren't ya the ones hell bent on taking life? Man's gotta keep up with the times."
"I give up." She threw up her hands. "You're moping. Stop moping. I don't like it."
She didn't realize he was laughing till he brought his hand up to try and pass it off as a coughing fit. Then he gave up and laughed without shame.
...the nerve of some people.
But she felt her lips curve into a reluctant smile.
"Beauty in little things, huh? I guess we aren't really that different, after all," he said wryly.
She thought once more of a misted over house in the recesses of memory where a mother begged for her child; of how Kotesu had told her not to do it; of how he had wavered and shouted and frothed and raged, and the next day tendered his resignation, and how she through it all had been unmoved, quite unmoved. Of how no one on her team looked at her the same way after that. Of how she and she alone stood so far above the rest, Konoha's sentinel, its most ardent protector, willing to do as bid and savage the world that she the day before had beautified on canvas. She crushed with her fingers what her heart enshrined. And it was all for love, familial love, the most beautiful kind there was, for they were hers and she was theirs and that was all there was to it.
Her smile grew more beautiful. Naruto's own widened in response. He could not know what turn her thoughts had taken.
Silly boy. Silly, silly boy.
"I guess we are not," she replied.
And a shard of guilt for a fleeting second wedged itself in her heart.
A/N: No perfect Jinchuuriki in this fic. Bee isn't one, as mentioned in scenes one and two. This detail is non canon. But it will be a relevant detail later. Had to set the ground work for it rn, is all, as an entire later arc hinges upon it.
I once more remind you that character povs (mostly) aren't omniscient. So certain takes on certain other characters can more often than not be reductionist and one eyed.
Reviews, as always, are much appreciated.