I'm still alive! I think. This damn virus and the way it's being handled are a shitshow of their own making (and we are not merely the clowns, my friend, but the entire circus) but they ain't got nothing on this crash-in-slow-motion that I've got going on.
Review response:
1. TigrezzTail: Definitely in relation to Yuurei, as I (albeit briefly) touch on in this chapter, and am liable to follow up over it in successive ones.
2. Noahendless: Me too! I've found that when I write Naruto, he has a proclivity to end up around women who aren't afraid to deliver scathing remarks. This may reflect my own natural instinct to go for women with dry wit.
: Will they join her? Probably not. Are they still very much aligned with her goals and ideals, including her deference to Naruto as their "real" leader? Absolutely. This is Yuurei's story, the tale of a demon king's rise...but every king needs his generals, and those generals are his closest aides.
Let's get this trainwreck moving.
Outside, the sun was beating down harshly on the village of Sunagakure. But inside the Kazekage's mansion, Yugito sat on the floor of a guest room, and Yuurei kneeled behind her. A stack of paper sat beside the demon, who'd raised his hitai-ate to look at the situation with his Sharingan. That was less about the spinning tomoe in his eye allowing him some greater power in this situation, though, and more about making sure he had the depth perception to be accurate.
"Before we begin, I want to clarify a few things about the process." Yuurei said. "When I start, the seal is going to activate. When I'm done, you'll think less than a second has passed. Matatabi's youki absolutely must stay inside of her seal, or else the risk to your life becomes much more severe than anything my seal could do. And...this isn't a removal process, it's just the first step. Are you ready?"
"Not going to ask me if I really want to do this?" Yugito joked darkly.
"I assumed that you were willing to take the risks involved when you demanded I go through with it." Yuurei countered, "Which means, even though we both agree that none of this is your fault, you're also the one who takes responsibility if something unintended happens after I mess with the seal."
"Deal. Now get it over with." Yugito's eyes squeezed shut at the sound of a distant thunderclap, her unconscious speech turning Yuurei's words into a contract. She'd come too far to have regrets now, though.
Yuurei's hands moved to Yugito's shoulders, taking the band that held her hair into a ponytail and loosening it. Gently, he tied her hair into a topknot, revealing his bloody seal on the back of her neck. Looking at his handiwork, Yuurei winced; he hadn't just gone overboard with the intention to prevent Yugito from attacking him, he'd left her unable to survive if he so willed it. Taking a deep breath, his fingers brushed down the back of her neck with a feather-light touch, and she shuddered unconsciously. Without another word, he activated the seal, and there was almost a mechanical halt as Yugito's body froze. She would continue to breathe, but that was all, and her consciousness was gone. Yuurei set to work immediately, reams of paper spreading out as he launched into his efforts, allowing blood to drip from his wrist through a hollow channel in the brush until it reached the tool's bristles.
With his right hand occupied by the task of creating a matrix for the sealing efforts to be contained, Yuurei cut open the palm of his left hand and placed it over the seal on Yugito's neck. Actively willing the wound to avoid closing, his blood flowed into the activated seal, priming it for the changes he was about to instill into it. After three hours of effort, the matrix had been completed, and the silence was smothering him. Still, he carried on—he owed this to Yugito. Bleeding out from both of his hands, he was too dehydrated to sweat, and he briefly considered the concept that exhaustion had pushed him to madness.
After another three hours, the interior of the seal's modifications had been finished, and Yuurei let out a deep breath he hadn't realized he was holding. It was now or never, he mused, and after making the half-Ram seal with his right hand, he watched the markings flow up from the paper and glide across the stone floor. They crawled up Yugito's body, a swirling mass of red squiggles, and turned into a spiral as the spun around the seal beneath Yuurei's left hand. His chakra flowed like water, finalizing the changes he'd made, and a small burst of energy signaled the end of the lengthy process.
Yugito's body moved backwards, almost seeming to fall with force as she lightly crashed into Yuurei's uncovered torso.
"Are you alright?" He asked, speaking softly; sound would carry in the air of the early evening, and he didn't feel like causing a stir in someone else's home.
"I should be mad at you." The older blonde said. "But I'm not. I don't think I can be."
Yuurei understood with a brief glance that something had gone horribly wrong. Though his natural eye color and Yugito's were both red, his was a much bloodier color, and hers was a much brighter and fiery shade. Looking at her face, though, her left eye had changed to blood-red and bloodshot—a perfect replica of the eye he'd lost in the early days of his stay in Nami no Kuni.
"Let me look. I want to know what happened." Yuurei said, his complexion unnaturally pale as he held Yugito up while moving back from her. The seal on her neck had changed completely, shrinking in size, and the blond demon held his breath as he stared at the markings he'd written in blood.
The original seal had been entirely focused on making Yugito obedient to him, and as he looked, he found that several of his original markings had disappeared completely. Under ordinary circumstances, this would mean they'd been removed, but Yuurei hadn't been trying to remove the seal. The only conclusion, then, was that pouring his blood into the seal for so long had caused it to sink into her—to go from an external seal to a fundamental part of her physiology. He'd permanently given her autonomy, and removed his ability to freeze her movements at will, but the trade-off was too immense for him to really wrap his brain around: until the day she died, Yugito was now hardwired to submit to him. Even if he permanently removed the seal at a later date, he'd never be able to undo that damage. Schooling his face so that his horror wouldn't be apparent, his left hand moved to the floor as his forehead came to rest on the back of Yugito's shoulder. At the same time, Yuurei moved his right arm to drape loosely around the base of Yugito's neck.
"I'm sorry." He said, too tired to begin explaining where he thought he went wrong.
"I should have given you more time to prepare." Yugito disagreed, her right arm twisting as she moved to run her hand through Yuurei's hair. "I should be mad, I should be thinking about what will happen if Kumo ever finds us, I should be panicking about how easily you can take advantage of me. I should be doing a lot of thinking about a lot of negative things, but...I'm not worried. Maybe that's the sense of security that comes with...being your person."
"I didn't want this to happen." Yuurei said, adamant.
"I know." Yugito replied, and from the way the skin on the side of her mouth pulled, Yuurei could tell she was showing a soft smile. "I didn't either, before it happened, but I'm fine with it now. Funny how fast change can set in when you mess directly with someone's mind, huh?"
That last sentence made Yuurei pause, and as he relived the last six hours with the ability of the Sharingan, he was even further disgusted with himself. The seal on Yugito's neck was at the base of her brain stem; it was little wonder that the effects had been so severely pronounced. He'd placed a behavior-altering seal right on top of the organ that controlled her body's ability to move and think, which meant that the pieces of the original seal had imprinted themselves directly onto her brain when they sank into her skin.
Fuck. I'm sorry. I-" Yuurei said, but Yugito interrupted him.
"Shh." She cut off his apology. "We'll figure it out. Logically, I know it's weird, but it's not that hard to live with."
Though he could hardly be considered willing, Yuurei couldn't stop himself from finally succumbing to his exhaustion, and Yugito's grin widened a little more as she heard him snore lightly.
"You really did try your hardest, didn't you? Silly man." Her throat rumbled with a purring sort of laugh as she stood, bringing Yuurei up with her before dragging him over to the bed. "But don't get any ideas, or I'll have to act."
Is it really wise to play him for a fool like this? It's true that we managed to burn away some of the seal, but you must be aware of what he thinks happened. And...it did happen. Just not to the extent he believes. Matatabi said.
I'm compelled to follow him, but I can break through that if I feel like it. He acted in good faith, even if we ignore that he can't lie. I think he might have cried, if he had the energy.
Yugito wasn't used to other people showing her that kind of goodwill. Even among her family, all resources and opportunities fell to her cousins; if Konoha was still feeling the leftover tensions from the Warring Clans Era, and Suna was perennially the most destitute of the five great Hidden Villages, Kumo was the village still affected by antiquated notions like "a woman's role," and no amount of generational movement seemed to change that. Otherwise, she thought, there was no reason why the kidnapped Hyuuga heiress was being raised as a glorified broodmare—likely with the intention of having one of the Raikage's sons produce a new generation of their clan. By any stretch of the means, Yuurei was the only man outside of her immediate family who didn't look at her with an idea of gains and losses, or the benefits of their relationship, in mind.
It irked her, quite a bit, to know that a bar that low still had people doing the limbo to get under it. Still, she didn't want to get too attached to him. Even putting aside the decade of their age difference, all he'd done was show her a basic level of human decency. No matter how much the override in her brain compelled her to keep Yuurei in her thoughts, just like she realized she was doing as she shuffled his unconscious body into the room's sole bed, she refused to give in without a fight.
Reining in the urge to set up some sort of prank on her fellow blond, Yugito slid into the bed and pressed herself in two directions: deeper into the mattress, and closer to Yuurei's body. She'd discovered during their trek through Kaze no Kuni that Yuurei's body had an unnatural head to it, and it was one that made the chilly desert nights far more bearable. Plus, the mild rush of joy and contentment that her Fuinjutsu-altered brain released wasn't too bad either. While her mind really did feel like only a second had gone by, her muscles were well aware of how long she'd been locked in place. The physical weariness was quick to claim her, and she fell asleep with a peaceful look on her face.
On the outskirts of Konoha, two very different scenes were taking place. At the city's northern gate, the Sound Four were waiting for their comrade-to-be to show her face. And, at the eastern gate, a tall man with white hair was leading a much younger man outside of Konoha's walls. As Sai guided Ayame to her entourage, well aware of his father's intentions, Jiraiya and Sasuke left to find Tsunade, fully intent on briefly bringing her back to Konoha. It was an ill-fated mission, in Jiraiya's opinion, but the general consensus among the populace was that Tsunade was the only person capable of curing their newly-anointed Godaime Hokage's pervasive illness.
"Do you really think this will work?" Sasuke asked.
"No, but that's why you're coming with me." Jiraiya smirked, his broad metal head-guard reflecting sunlight as it gleamed. "If anything is going to convince my old teammate to come back home, a heartfelt request from the the Hokage's younger brother will do it."
"If you say so." Sasuke's gaze filtered to the corners of his eyes, watching Jiraiya as they moved. Their pace wasn't particularly relaxed, but it was hard to think that they were in a hurry either. Their trip continued in silence for a while until the older man broke it.
"Say...you were one of the two survivors of the mission to Nami no Kuni, weren't you?" Jiraiya asked at length.
"I am." Sasuke replied, keeping to himself that he knew Naruto had survived. If he'd wanted to stay in Konoha, he would have done so, and there were certain freedoms that one could take when they weren't tied down to a hidden village. Clearly, Naruto had something to accomplish that wasn't possible if he was required to stay in Konoha. Though his two-word reply was slightly off-putting to Jiraiya, the Gama Sennin didn't take too much offense to it, and Sasuke's tone told him that the Uchiha wasn't averse to talking about the subject.
"Did you know Naruto well?" Jiraiya asked, deciding to push his luck after that leading question.
"I think I did." Sasuke responded. "He was two years older than everyone in our class, but he started the same year we did. He was bigger and stronger than the rest of us, so nobody could beat him when we sparred."
And so the time passed, with Sasuke talking some about his former teammate, finally recounting the fight against Zabuza and Haku after they'd finally made their way to Nami no Kuni. "Everything during that battle was my fault. I spent a long time running from that fact, but my fireball was big enough to block our view. The oinin used that opening to make clones and kill Kakashi. And Naruto...he was hurt enough that he decided to buy time."
"Sometimes, a ninja's duty is to sacrifice." Jiraiya mused aloud. "It's a truth engraved into his DNA. His parents did it for him, their parents did it for them...see to it that the minutes and days that he bought you turn into years."
Something about the way Jiraiya spoke conveyed a deep sense of loss, beyond the idea that he was an old man trying to impart wisdom on the young. Putting his words with the leading questions he'd offered earlier in their conversation, Sasuke could only make one conclusion.
"If you don't mind me asking, sir, who was Naruto to you?" The brunet's question came with the subtlety of a wrecking ball, and Jiraiya momentarily closed his eyes as he continued moving forward.
"...I was the Jounin-sensei of his parents, on their Genin team, and his father later became my direct apprentice until his election as the Yondaime Hokage. If Minato and Kushina were a monument to all of my triumphs, then Naruto was a testament to all of my sins. My specific line of work takes me outside of Konoha a lot, and I always meant to check in with him after he reached the age to enter the Academy, but...it's a little too late for that now." The giant of a man spoke somberly.
In his view, he hadn't truly failed Minato and Kushina on the night of Naruto's birth; in a greater sense, the Yondaime Hokage and his wife were the only people alive who could have hoped to subdue the Kyuubi. Rather, he'd failed his erstwhile students every day after that horrific night—their child, their only begotten son, for whom they'd made him the godfather, had grown up in the world with nobody to trust or rely on. It hurt his heart to know that he'd not only let them down, but he'd let their son down as well.
Briefly, Sasuke considered the idea of telling Jiraiya that he'd seen Naruto during the invasion of Konoha. After a moment of thought, though, he threw the idea away. If Naruto wanted to be found, he would have remained in the city,. And no matter what his personal ties to Naruto were, Jiraiya was still a high-ranking shinobi of Konoha. Once he found the blond, he'd be authorized to bring him back to the village or brand him a nukenin. In the eerie quiet that passed between the pair, Sasuke wondered what the cost of his silence would be if Naruto was discovered by chance. But, frankly, the Uchiha had faith in his one-time teammate's ability to hide from unwanted attention—Naruto had practically dropped off the face of the earth, completely avoiding detection in the months he'd been gone. If not for the fact that he'd seen Naruto with his own eyes during the invasion, he would still believe the red-eyed teen was dead.
The silence between the pair eventually transitioned from awkward and depressive to companionable and businesslike, as neither Sasuke nor Jiraiya could think of particular topics to talk about. Only after arriving in the nearest town did they start speaking again, this time hunting for information as they asked around for clues to Tsunade's whereabouts. And all the while, the lone woman of Team Seven's four Genin traveled further and further from Konoha. Accompanied by the Sound Four, Ayame pressed her way forward, firm in the belief that waiting for Naruto would only leave her in his wake.
