Chapter 15

He strode through the streets, head held high. Whistled and clapped, then flapped his arms like pinions. His heart swelled with swansong; his face, he knew, wore a stupid grin. He did not bother scrubbing it off. Now that the weight of choice was behind him, he felt a kinship with the nightingale— felt remarkably free, as if floating through air. Snatches of lyrics long forgotten returned to him; and they were flush with hope, ripe with the promise of salvation. Naruto laughed; sucked in a deep breath and laughed; for the world was rid of woe and whirled to sumptuous symphonies. Each thatch, vine, shrub and bud in bloom was aromatic; each dilapidated hut was refulgent. Life was beautiful — life had meaning again.

He whistled and walked. Followed the rutted road that adjoined a hillock. The road was at an incline. It broadened upwards, then excurved. Strips of railing greeted his ascent. Up he went, up and up, the buildings falling away, diminishing into dots on the earth, akin to the constellated dots in the sky.

The road tapered off and incurved, then twisted into the hillock's mouth. At its tip was a park. Naruto continued whistling and walked into it, then froze midstep.

Sunset spilled off park benches, turning them a lacquered bronze. The redolent remains of day blended with the dusky hues of night: sight faded, and the world was viewed in outlines. And in outline, too, he saw her. She was seated on a bench, her back to him. She was staring at the boys before her— they kicked a ball about and cast into the air their war whoops. She stared, and sketched.

He considered turning around and walking away— truly, he did. But there was a weightlessness to the world, and a wellspring of joy bubbled and foamed in his soul. This night, of all nights, he would sup with his mortal enemies if he were asked to, and offer them his benison— so the prospect of another encounter with her was far from daunting.

So Naruto whistled again and strolled onward; walked right up to the bench and vaulted it, then dropped down next to her, a broad grin on his face.

Her expression was awash with frustration. He caught in her downward gaze the intense concentration which was a comrade to all creation. He continued whistling— she shot him an irked sideways glance through the fringes of her lashes, then tucked an errant lock behind her ear on instinct and returned to her sketching.

"You seem happy," Satsuki said.

"You don't."

The pencil in her right hand flew; the brush in her left unerringly dipped and swished, placing here a daub, there a stroke; creasing and lacing and cincturing at will the shapes on the page. With each stroke she unassembled their surroundings; with each twist of her wrist the world blurred and dissolved into a kaleidoscope of colour, then was recreated in panorama. And still she drew; and still the pencil flew, producing nebulous shapes that might have been ellipses and parabolas, or something else altogether.

"I'm happy if you're happy," she muttered, squinting at her sketch.

"Sooooo cheesy. Who are ya, and what have ya done to Satsuki Uchiha?"

She snorted. Shook her head. The pencil's motions grew frantic; the brush relentlessly swerved and dipped, then flew to the pallette by her side, where it swirled for a second, scooping up colour: then she returned it to her sketch; and, at a speed he could scarcely follow, the brush resumed its reckless assault.

"Hey. What are ya painting?"

"Sketching," she corrected. "And then filling in colour."

"Same shit. What ya painting?"

"Landscape. People."

Naruto tried and failed at catching a glimpse of her sketch, which the position of her shoulder hid from sight. Then he huffed and looked at the dirt-covered children who were kicking a ball about and falling over each other.

"Bunch of peasant kids too mundane to draw, no?"

The pencil paused mid stroke.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Like, you're a snob."

She slowly, methodically placed her brush to one side; then in an equally languid motion she placed the pencil behind her ear, giving him all the time in the world to wish he had put his foot in his mouth instead. Then she looked him in the eye, her face expressionless.

"I'm a . . . what?" Her tone was deceptively placid, but her eyes were stabby.

Very stabby.

"Person of culture, I mean," Naruto blurted out, eyes wide, hands held out in front of him, as if to ward off an evil spirit. Please don't stab me through the eye. "Clan kid. Refined and stuff. Lover of the grand and all. A bunch of kids fighting over a ball is . . . well, it's not exactly stuff of legends."

She scrutinized him for a second, as if gauging the sincerity of the sentiment expressed.

"I like it," she said.

"The game or the kids?"

"The scene. The possibilities."

"Oh." He shrugged. "Ok. That's ok, I guess."

She grabbed her brush again. The flourishes resumed, but this time she seemed to be adding finishing touches.

"Hey. Can I see?"

"I never show my art to anyone."

"Cool." Naruto grinned. He turned on the wit, the charm, the charisma. His teeth gleamed. His whiskers quivered. "Can I see, though?"

"No."

"Aw, crap." His shoulders slumped. "Please?"

"No."

"Pretty please?"

"No."

"Show me," he whispered theatrically, in a sing-song voice. He leant in and mimed looking over her shoulder. His voice rose an octave. "Show me, show me, show me, show me."

Her eyebrow twitched.

Naruto leant back and laughed.

"Nah, just kidding. It's ok if you don't wanna."

Satsuki stared at her sketchbook, then at the pallette by her side. She chewed her lip; she brushed away her locks with a colour stained hand, imprinting blue fingerprints on one cheek. She plucked the pencil from behind her ear and packed it away, then rotated the paintbrush, which was in her other hand, and pondered over something. Then, almost on impulse, she took a leap of faith and held out the book.

Her jaw was tight. Her lips had thinned. There was tension in her posture and stiffness in her outstretched hand— she looked as if she were being sent out to face a firing squad.

Naruto took it tentatively.

"If you don't want me to—" he began.

"Just take a damn look and tell me what you think," she hissed. There was a manic, murderous gleam in her eyes.

He stared at the sky, where the sun was dying. Sighed. Said his prayers.

Then looked.

She had captured the ochre shade of soil and the spotted whiteness of birch and the gloom of great oaks and the reddish tint of maple trees. She had spun around these an aery nest of shadow. Nestled within the maple was the golden splash of setting sun— she had turned each leaf into a firelit row boat that carried sunset into the night.

She had captured, too, the burnished bronze of the benches and the breeze-inspired swayings of the swings. The slides were stained with the gauze of dusk, and so were the children, drawn in outline, dribbling about with their chequered ball. He looked closely, and realized not all children were in outline— some faced him. And while their forms were accurate, their faces were frozen: the faces she had drawn lacked the resistless freedom of game. They did not celebrate the ephemerality of sensation or vaunt the vein of passion. Instead, they were rigid and waxen. Monotonous and tenebrous, though marblesque in visage and regal in feature. There was a wrongness to them— they were utterly devoid of soul.

"You can't draw faces."

"What?"

Naruto gestured to the page.

"This is beautiful. Like, outstanding. The woods sing and all. But the kids are like . . . they're wisps of smoke turned into boys and girls. Yeah. That's it. Can't see the joy on their faces— joy of the moment, you know? They feel . . . lifeless. The kids are lifeless. It's, like, a lot of prettiness but a whole lotta nothing."

Satsuki was tense a moment ago— she deflated now. She looked crestfallen.

"Ah," she said. "All right. That's . . . all right."

Naruto winced. Raised a hand in apology.

"I don't got the first clue what I'm talking about."

"It's fine."

"Don't take it to heart, yeah?" He handed back the sketchbook.

"It's fine, Naruto."

She stared at what she had drawn for half a minute, as if to glean its drawbacks and confirm what he had said; then she folded the sketchbook and slipped it into a sealing scroll. She packed in her palette too. Said nothing. Her gaze dropped to her feet.

"I'm an idiot," Naruto mumbled.

"You were trying to help."

"I hurt you."

"It'd take more than words to hurt me." She raised her head and offered him a smile.

They were interrupted by a ball dropping between them. It clanked off the bench and spun upwards. Satsuki stretched out her hands on reflex and caught it on its way back down.

A child, perhaps ten years of age, faltered forward and stood before them. His face was sweat streaked. It was contorted with tension and red with the intensity of his running. He extended an arm, asking for the ball.

Satsuki held it between her hands. Studied it for a moment, taking in the dirt, the chequers, the wear and tear. Then she looked up and studied the child's flushed face. She gazed on till the boy grew uncomfortable and dipped his head, inadvertently taking a step back. Then, as if freed from the bonds of whatever thought was running through her mind, she tossed him the ball. The boy scampered off.

She kept staring after him. The corner of her lip crept upward, giving Naruto the impression she was consciously smothering a smile. She turned to him, her expression wistful.

"I've never had these things," she confessed.

"Huh?"

"They seem to be enjoying themselves."

Naruto steepled his palms. Leant forward gravely, as if letting her in on a secret.

"We can, too," he whispered. "I'll use my outstanding stealth to nick their football. Then we'll come back here at night, when no one's watching, and kick it about."

"...Idiot."

"You break my heart sometimes," Naruto sighed. Then he straightened. "Seriously, though. If you've never had a kickabout, you've missed out on a childhood."

"That's ironic, coming from you."

"Hey, I was miserable. But they didn't put me on a battlefield before I was potty trained."

Satsuki gave him a wry smile.

"Very funny."

"I'm serious. You're dedicated . . . but well, caged too. You know what I mean?"

"I do not."

There was a note of warning in her statement. Her face went blank.

Naruto looked ahead. The children were done with their game. Their worn raiments were bedraggled, their slippered feet caked in grime. They were exhausted, but their voices lilted the air with laughter as they trooped past. Naruto turned his head and watched them disappear from view, then stood up and walked over to the slides. Kicked one aimlessly. He turned around, and saw Satsuki observing him, a hawkish look in her eye. He grinned and waved, then walked over to the swing and gestured that she join him.

She hesitated, then came over.

Naruto reached out and gave the swing a push, then laughed at how the hinges creaked as it squeaked and shuttled forth

"Swings, man. It's always the damn swing. I remember being on one of these every evening. People just walked by. I didn't even exist to 'em. So I went back and forth, back and forth, swinging by myself. And before I knew it, I was happy."

He pushed again. Checked its motion with his knee, then pushed a third time.

"Hollered at the setting sun at the top of my lungs," he sighed. "Felt alive. Hell, my world was full of surprises. One day I discovered a frog pouch and named him gama-chan. Next day I decided to paint the Kage monument. It's why I woke up, day after day."

"To paint the Hokage monument?" she asked flatly.

"To discover things. Something special was lurking just around the corner— always, always. I was convinced of it. Just had to find it, that's all. Just peel away the layers, you know, one after the other, and something good would happen to me."

Naruto rubbed his fingers together, as if gathering gold dust. Puffed his cheeks out and shrugged. "I mean, nothing ever did, but that isn't the point. I kept looking. Had fun once in a while and all. Didn't take shit from anyone. I was free as a kid. Can you say the same?"

Satsuki raised an eyebrow.

"Perhaps I can. Perhaps I'm not telling you."

"Or maybe you just got nothing to say, because you weren't."

"You're assuming a lot."

Naruto laughed.

"Am I wrong, though?"

" . . . you are."

Her lack of conviction was endearing.

"Listen," he laughed. " People who had a childhood don't stare at a swing as if it's an ancient instrument used for a beheading."

"Rude."

"What can I say? Messin' with ya just brings out the worst in me."

Her lip curved. She inclined her head in acknowledgement.

"Same . . . so can't complain." Her expression turned contemplative. "I have told you about my day at the lakeside."

"That," Naruto stuck out his index finger and wagged it in negation, "does not count. That was you preparing to be a Shinobi. Everything in your life's about that. Where's the child? Where are her stuffed toys, where's her sense of wonderment? That's what I wanna hear about. The rest is, eh . . ."

He shuddered and made a retching sound.

Satsuki rolled her eyes.

"You're weird, Naruto."

"I dunno. Maybe I'm just concerned."

"About my childhood?"

"About you."

"Me?" She was taken aback. "You shouldn't be. I'm a top Shinobi."

"So what? Everyone needs someone to look out for 'em."

Her face relaxed. The smile she offered him was in equal parts ironic and radiant.

"And you'll look out for me?"

"To the extent I can, yeah."

"Promise?" Her tone was teasing.

"Promise." He grinned.

"That's very sweet of you."

In the silence that settled she strayed away from him and ambled to the edge of the park, there to grasp a strip of railing and stare at the roseate mantle of the setting sun. There was something noble about her when seen like this, something aristocratic and imperciptibly tragic to her angular features, which the dying light illumined.

"I don't like recollecting . . ." Satsuki paused. Sighed. Gathered her thoughts. "Some things are too painful to remember, because you don't appreciate them when you have them."

She returned to his side, her hands knotted behind her.

"There's no going back," she said. "There's no fixing the past. Leaf taught me to . . . move on. It was the first discipline they drilled in, so it is instinctive now. Never look back, never feel guilt, always take that next step. It's the first building block towards an elite mentality. If you dwell on your mistakes, it kills you."

"Dunno. Doesn't sound like a happy formula to me."

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's limiting. I don't see how you can be that way and be happy with your life."

"Why does that matter?"

"Eh?"

"Happiness."

"Lemme get this straight," Naruto said slowly, emphasizing each syllable, as if speaking to a specially abled child. "You," he pointed to her, "are asking me," he pointed to himself, "why happiness matters."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Yes?"

"I give up." He threw his hands into the air, then tucked them into his pockets. "No, really. I'm done. There's no getting through to some people."

She rolled her eyes.

"I do as I'm told," she said. "I see nothing wrong with that."

"Even if it makes ya sad?"

"Yes."

"Very sad?"

"Yes."

"Heartbroken, like?"

"Yes."

"You're a different breed, Satsuki-sama." Naruto yawned. Covered his mouth with one hand and rubbed his eyes with the other. "One of 'em hip and cool head in the sand types, with a will of fire and a heart of stone. May your place as a boogie-woman in children's bedtime fables be forever secure."

"You're mocking me."

"What gave it away?"

Her expression was a paradox: happy and sad at the same time, as if she had lost something of value but found something else in its stead, something she could celebrate and hold on to.

Her retort, when it emerged, was light and fond.

"At times, I wish you'd be more serious."

"You'd like me a lot less. And I'd be charged with sedition."

"You're hard to dislike," she sighed, "no matter what nonsense you spout."

"That's a confession of undying love, isn't it?"

"You wish."

"It is, then. That's all the confirmation I need."

Her arms were crossed across her hakama; her eyes were alight with mischief.

"Delusion doesn't suit you," Satsuki murmured.

"Suits ya, though," Naruto returned. "You're a shill."

The second that statement left his mouth he bit his tongue— realized he had ruptured their peace and crossed a line.

The mischief fizzled out. Her face clouded over. She grew sombre, and her expression became melancholy. Then the dampness of her mood dissipated and she grew irritated. He witnessed this metamorphosis, from moody to bristling; and for the second time in the space of ten minutes Naruto wished he had put his foot in his mouth.

"You don't know what it is like to be beholden," she bit out.

"Huh?"

She made her way back to the bench and rummaged around her sealing scroll. From this she drew a little black book, different from the sketchbook she had offered him. Then she returned to him, the book held between her fingers like offal about to be offered to a shrine. There was something frantic about her gestures— something abnormal, almost. She held it out to him— pushed it against his chest when he made no motion to accept.

He grasped it and flipped it open. Flipped to the first page.

The initial images were of a sun spangled district where a little girl frolicked. She had her arms around a teenager's waist— he noted the resemblance, and realized it was her brother.

Flipped the page.

The boy carried her on his back and told her tales of far off places. He knit for her the rich tapestry of his various journeys; and in the pages that followed she had drawn them in visceral detail. Only, it was she who partook in them. She partook through his stories in the savour of spices and the sway of streamers; she walked unshod through paved pathways in foreign lands and took in the scent of daffodils. She floated on the nimbus of fancy to rock falls and deserts, sunlit cities and sumptuous palaces, eyries and aerial heaps. And everywhere she went they loved her and called her fair and made her queen. The world catered to her every whim— the world was her playground.

He turned the page . . . and the images mutated.

The boy was gone.

In the sky was a lustreless sun, its fading reds smothered by a vacuous immensity of white. And behind that gloaming pall there roamed ghastly shapes— faceless, formless and fetid— seen only in outline, shrouded in shadow. Trapped within the charnelhouse of each cloud were the terrors of a child, forever haunting, forever threatening to condense.

The girl roamed under this listless sky, bedecked in black. Her face was distorted. The reds in her eyes glimmered with tears. She scrambled forward blindly. Surged past a brook that was bloated with bodies, and made her way into the woods. She reached out, arms extended in entreaty; she cried for the brother who had betrayed her, and searched for something, anything, to hold on to. Naruto turned the page and traced her journey. She tripped over vines as she went; she was trammelled up by thickets. She scraped her legs against tree trunks and stumbled face first into the loamy soil, sobbing. Her fantasies were forgotten— her family was gone. She stood back up and ran; ran with outstretched arms; ran from the ruined district in the backdrop which was rubescent in a fiery blaze and sent to the heavens on pinions of smoke its carrion call.

Death dogged her every step; death lurked in the heart of that forest, and in the blue-black hues of innumerable elongating shadows. The trees whispered; the trees trembled; the trees chimed; the trees were alive, while her family was not— and in their sentience, they replaced her family: delivered her from the chaos of wind whipped branches and guided her into the order of a clearing, where a bandaged man with a cane in hand awaited.

He held out to her a puff of soil; and page by page the girl's expression morphed from terror to gratitude, for she had found meaning— had something to protect, someone to live for. Reality replaced fantasy— devotion devoured wonderment.

Naruto turned the page and came to the tale's conclusion. The final sheet offered a sunlit sky and a sideways view of the child in a glade: she was shrouded in a canopy of creepers; she was nestled in vines and crowned by them. The branches bowed to caress her hair the way a mother would. She too held soil in her hands. Infused with it was her blood, her soul.

She had perhaps meant for it to be devotional— but to him it was a disturbing image.

"Now you see," Satsuki said, and Naruto recognized the note of fanatical rapture that crept into her voice; "now you see what they mean to me. Now you know . . . they're my family."

"I . . . this is . . . it's perfect."

And it was. It was terrifyingly captivating, and the most mesmerizing artistry he had seen, for it was heartfelt and punctuated with passion. Yet there was something unnatural about it, something that seemed a grotesque perversion of natural order; for she had replaced her mother with a motherland, and that dense thicket doubled up as the residual remains of a family long lost. He flipped back the page, and at the centre of it all was the bandaged man, his limbs twined in roots, his face lost in shadow. It was someone Naruto had never seen before. He was about to ask, but she began to speak again.

"It is. And so are they. They're perfect too. They've made me what I am today. They took me in after my brother . . ."

She closed her eyes.

"They took in the last living relation of a traitor, and forgave her for her brother's sins. To you they may be cruel; but to me they are the kindest people in the world. They are the father I lost, the mother I lost, the clan whose pyre I stood over. They take life, yes . . . but to me they are life itself. They gave me a second chance— and I will repay that trust, no matter what. I have forsaken my happiness for them in the past . . . and I will do so in the future too."

"What if they tell ya to kill me?"

He asked it on a whim. But that snapped her out of her rapture.

"That's a silly question."

"Fun one, though. Friend or village?"

Naruto had meant it as a joke— he had meant to tempt her away from the tirade he sensed she was about to go on. He wanted to avoid listening to this, for it made him deeply uncomfortable. There was a pervasive sense of wrongness about this— about all this. But the second he said it her face lost all colour. She became an etiolating phantom. The self assurance evaporated. Suddenly she seemed skittish and fragile, as if hunted. She spun away— seemed trapped in some recurrent nightmare.

"Hey, it was a joke. I'm awesome. I know you'd pick me."

No response.

"Hey, you ok?"

She turned to face him. He watched the conflict on her countenance; and, as he watched, the ground thrummed, the trees trilled, and the world wavered into an arboret. His mind's eye concretized his suspicions: foliage flowered and wound around her. Her arms were rendered immobile; her head was crushed and drawn under, disappearing into an evergreen embrace. This done, the vines retreated, her crushed form still in their clammy clasp. Her blood slathered the soil. Sobbed into the ground. She was dragged into the leaf-fringed earth she so loved; she was buried alive in the soil's sepulcher, so her screams could not be heard. Naruto started, shook his head; and, when he looked up, everything was still the same— the fog of fantasy was gone; Satsuki had not moved; the indecision in her expression had solidified into certitude. There was something else on her face— something he could not place, but something which, when observed closely, remarkably resembled regret.

"Let's not talk about this again," she murmured.

"Sure. Sure. You're the boss."

She reached out and grabbed his arm. He took in with alarm her desperation; observed the whiteness of her knuckles, and was struck by the sense that she wasn't seeing him at all— was seeing, instead, some spectre from her past.

"I . . . I'm sorry," Satsuki whispered. "I did not mean to be rude. You are my friend. I'd never hurt you. I'd do . . . almost anything for you."

"But you would not put me over the village."

"No." She let go of his arm. Her own extended appendage hovered limply for a second, then dropped to her side. Her head dropped too. "Not that. I can't do that."

"That's all the answer I need." He grinned. "Thanks for the conversation, sensei."

A/N: Thanks a ton to everyone who left encouraging reviews last time out! I was touched by some of the support and some of the stories shared.

Additional observations (feel free to skip these if you are the kind of person who likes piecing things together on their own, or is able to follow everything I am writing). Only the arc end A/N is truly relevant. I leave this for the people interested in my thought processes and the fic's direction.

Naruto only uses the term sensei to address Satsuki when:

a) he is memeing her, or b) when he is deeply hurt, or c) when he is talking about her to someone else. Never does he address her as sensei in a serious manner at any point. To him, he is her equal, even if the current disparity between their skill levels is vast.

On Satsuki's self image

One of the main themes of this work is that people are a product of their circumstances, and that their perceptions and decisions are tainted by their upbringing and their biases. This applies to Satsuki too. She doesn't really see herself as a person (and, by extension, this applies to how she percieves the world around her). In her eyes, she's an indispensible instrument to serve certain interests. Think Haku, but less obvious. Again, this is not thrown in out of nowhere: the reasons behind this come back to her conditioning and her life experiences. She has limited self awareness (or a consciously repressed one, anyway, since she does realize the issues with what she does) and even less empathy. She struggles to see people as people. To summarize in a sentence: much like her canon counterpart, she isn't a balanced, well adjusted individual.

In fact, she's comfortably the more flawed of the two main characters, and by a huge margin.

On Satsuki's loyalty towards Konoha

Satsuki's love for Konoha is far more insidious than it looks. Why? Because she is not aware of the Uchiha coup attempt, and she is not aware of the truth behind the massacre. Her love for Konoha stems from their having taken her in when she was a victimized child her brother broke into pieces. She projects the familial ideal onto the fascist shadow state that massacred her clan, because they are a stand-in for the family she lost. It is an imperfect substitution— her loyalty to her clan lies in the repressed realm of the self (the personal), which is why it emerges through imagery, in dream sequences, and during her conversations with Naruto (still to be covered). It is also why that clan village overlap starts to waver pre Wave ending (not yet fully realized). But this projection of the familial onto the national is why her devotion to Konoha is as frenzied and unshakeable as it is, to the point she'd do anything, commit any atrocity, cause any amount of hurt and grief to anyone they point a finger at, her own personal wishes be damned. It goes far, far beyond the professional. They are a literal stand-in for the value the Uchiha clan had for Sasuke in canon, and her commitment to them is just as fierce and unwavering.

This is because her commitment to them is in reality a commitment to the family she lost. It is a broken child groping about in the dark, attempting to replace her massacred clan with the 'motherland' ideal. A replacement Konoha implicitly encourages and stands behind, all while sweeping under the rug the bodies of the clan they slaughtered. She is a tool to them— an effective one. She's the perfect sort of bloodhound to have, and the leash they hold is crafted out of her own misplaced sense of love.

If this were to unravel, then it would be a psyche shattering tiers traumatic event. Unlike canon Sasuke, vengeance has never been an association Satsuki has made. It's been trained out of her. In canon, when Sasuke realizes the truth about the massacre, his vengeance, which he has turned into the crux of his personality, simply shifts targets. It is an easy switch for him— an inevitable one. Satsuki has no such organic obsession cultivated over the years, bar for defending the village. Her loyalty, her love for family, and her talents as a professional are all she has, which is why she lashes out whenever Naruto questions any of these. So for even one of these three pillars to crumble; to realize her entire life is a lie, and that her love for her village was carefully cultivated and encouraged, would utterly devastate her. It would be the death of who she is and everything she stands for. The 'professional' aspect would not just shatter— it would be blown to bits at point blank range with a blunderbuss. And the more personal aspects would not escape unscathed either.

Anyway, that's it for now. Reviews are much appreciated.