Poison
He was slim, and almost feminine-looking. For a while, Kabuto found himself reminded of Sasuke as he stared at the boy who was slumped on the rock, a tiny trickle of blood flowing from between his lips. He heaved a sigh, and made to stand, but the shinobi found himself hissing sharply from the pain when he tried to move his arm - his arm was broken. How...?
Quickly, he glanced back at the unconscious boy, and the black leather that clothed him. The boy bore no headband, nor any visible mark of the any of the villages - Kabuto highly doubted the possibility that this boy, considering his strength and his ability to have broken his arm, was from one of the lesser villages. It just could not be.
And it wasn't just that. Kabuto was sure he'd managed to hit the boy straight on with a shuriken in his heart, but from where he stood, he could see the rising and falling of the boy's chest - the boy was still alive, even after he had taken a hit in the heart.
An... undead?
He took a moment to transfer chakra and healed his arm; it tired him, but the side effects was something he would have to deal with if he wanted to be strong and healthy enough to do whatever he needed to do next. When he reached the boy's side, and turned him so that his back lay on the grass - the boy looked straight into him with those disarming blue eyes of his. Kabuto found himself silenced by the unearthly stare, unable to move, unable to speak.
"Are you," the boy asked calmly - far too calmly for one who had something stuck in his heart, "going to kill me?"
Kabuto smiled. A little smile. "You're going to die anyway," he said.
And the boy laughed. It was a strange laughter - one he often heard out of Orochimaru, but not totally like it. The boy sounded... more than amused. Delighted. "I can't," the boy whispered, "die."
"Why? You've got something to do?" he asked, a bit entertained. This was starting to remind him of a certain loudmouthed blond kid back in Hidden Leaf, a boy who had a dream to become somebody.
But this boy only laughed again. "You don't get it, do you?" His voice was calm. Steady, even, and his breaths - his words were stronger this time; it was all as if the boy was recovering so quickly... "I can't die."
Kabuto found himself moving back in disbelief - as the boy sat up, and easily tugged the weapon out from where it should have struck his heart - the weapon coming out clean and free of any traces of blood.
And, in that instant, Kabuto found himself extending his pity towards this strange boy who had neither won nor lost to him in a fight.
§
He'd taken him back to Orochimaru, who had looked upon the boy with interest.
"You can't die?"
Zexion - for that was his name, or so he had claimed - shook his head.
"Why not?"
To tell the truth, even Kabuto was curious as to who this boy was, where he had come from, and what he was - to have a weapon hit his heart in a fatal position, and yet be able to survive...
There was a strange, tiny smile on Zexion's lips, as he said, "I don't have a heart."
§
Kabuto only realised a few hours later that Zexion had meant it literally. Their bodies pressed against each other, Kabuto had rested his head on the boy's chest and heard nothing - no heartbeat, no rhythm... But Zexion was soft and Zexion was warm - Zexion didn't resist at all, lying on the bed like a limp doll; Kabuto liked people better that way.
§
There was poison on his kunai, and even though Zexion had no heart, the poison had entered his body.
Orochimaru was away taunting some idiots from Hidden Leaf, so that left Kabuto alone to deal with a sick and dying Zexion - the latter of which sounded more amused than anything else. In fact, the news that he was dying seemed to have pleased Zexion more than it should have.
"I'll be able to die at last," the boy whispered softly, and Kabuto found himself looking into those sorrowful blue eyes with cold anger. "I've never... thought of poison. I don't think we have."
He let the 'we' slip for now. Kabuto was not willing to let Zexion - his Zexion, damn it, fall away like grains of sand through his fingers.
There were pills, he knew, and there was medicine.
He crushed the tiny balls inside his mouth and forced the boy's mouth opened, pushing the damp powder in and made him swallow.
It was not their first kiss, but neither was it to be their last.
owari.
Notes: This was really noodleness' fault. She told me to write Kabuto/Zexion. I can't write Kabuto. Zexion is out of his character. And... my muses want more. I know this is really off Kingdom Hearts-canon, the fact that Zexion cannot die, but it's part of a unwritten backstory that might be written... someday.
