Note: Hi! If I was to guesstimate, I'd say this fic will have approximately 50 chapters, give or take. I could be wrong. I just figured I'd tell y'all anyway.
"It's a cute building," Mito complimented, eyeing the building on 'Sasuke's land'. He'd really have to find a good name for it.
"Thanks. Yugito designed it. She calls it a stronghold." Nevermind the fact that it was a quarter complete. Work still needed to be done.
Sasuke unlocked the door, letting Mito in. Yugito was in the next room, she called it her office. When he stepped inside, she was frantically scrawling out various mathematical equations, stuff that even Sasuke barely comprehended, like Navier-Stokes or Archimedes' whatever. She was a bit of a physics geek.
"Mito, meet Nii Yugito," Yugito's head swivelled to greet Mito politely.
"Hey. Uh, sorry for kidnapping you," she muttered a sincere-sounding apology. Mito scanned some of the mathematical equations, her respect for Yugito apparently going up. Or maybe they were starting to hate each other. He couldn't tell.
"It's fine. I was getting bored anyway." Mito replied.
"So, now that we've got all that we need, let's head to Snow Country. Come on," he urged them to start packing up. It felt like he'd barely been gone an hour when the journey to Uzushiogakure and back took two days.
"Hang on," Mito started, "what exactly do I have to do?" Yugito guessed she wanted to gauge how much equipment she'd need.
"You won't need any paper. A bit of ink. Can you seal the Niibi into me?" Cue Mito's shock.
"You want me to seal a Bijuu into you? That's completely unheard of. I've never done that before!" Mito was afraid, and that made Yugito afraid.
"There's a first time for everything," Sasuke reassured.
Yugito approached Mito, taking her shirt off, leaving her in a bra.
"It's hard to explain," she remarked, turning around to reveal a tattoo - no, a seal - that stretched from her abdomen to her upper back. Mito was aghast at the fact that she already had a Bijuu in her.
She began scrutinising the seal. They both stared at Yugito for very different reasons, though he'd never admit it.
"Sturdy. Not too complicated. I can add to it to accommodate the Niibi. Yeah, I can do it," they all breathed a collective sigh of relief.
"That doesn't mean I should," Mito stated, folding her arms sternly. "This could have unprecedented consequences. You're the first person to house a Bijuu. This could shorten your life expectancy by 50%." Yugito deadpanned.
"Considering the amount of people that want to slit my throat, I'm not living very long anyway."
"Yeah, she's right," Sasuke cleared his throat impatiently, "Come on. Let's go."
They had to make a pit stop at a town in Snow Country so Mito could buy some sealing supplies (though, most of the seal would be done using blood), and then they could head for the mountains and track the other Niibi down. Mito was off frolicking around the shopping centre, leaving Yugito and Sasuke to sit on a bench overlooking a snowy landscape. Both of them were too tired and dreadful to shop.
"So," he initiated the conversation, "You're worried." Her expression changed recently, displaying all the signs of exhaustion and worry. Yugito leant back, facing him.
"I suppose. I don't know what'll happen when it's sealed into me. I think I can handle two Bijuu, but I'm not too hopeful."
"It's whatever. I won't be worried for long. In a few hours or so, I'll either be dead or fine," she joked. Self-deprecating humour was always a great way to alleviate stress. "And it's not like it changes the outcome of what'll happen."
"It's just human nature to worry," Sasuke said, resting a palm against his cheek.
Yugito fiddled nervously, "Sorry that you have to deal with this because of me." It was actually adorable how she was apologising. Sasuke may have omitted the little detail that it was his fault she was even here.
"Wanna play a game?" He figured that'd distract her better.
"What kind of game?"
"It's a game where we ask each other questions until we get into a conversation," he said. It wasn't really a game, just some stupid thing Naruto used to do, but it fit the situation. And Sasuke was curious.
"I'll go first," he cleared his throat, "What's the worst thing you've ever done?" He didn't give Yugito a chance to refuse the 'game', jumping into a personal question straight away.
"Do I get to refuse to answer?" Sasuke smirked in reply, shaking his head. He didn't care if he was insensitive.
"I killed my mother," she bluntly stated, completely guiltless. Sasuke couldn't really judge. She probably had her reasons, and besides, he didn't exactly have a record free of fratricide.
"What about you?"
"I went rogue, I tried to kill my best friend, my friends, the girl that had a crush on me, tried to destroy Konoha, I did kill my brother." While there was an increasingly long list of atrocities and murders he'd committed to choose from, Sasuke figured those topped the list. They stared at each other blankly.
"My turn. What's your deep, dark past?" Sasuke leant his head on her shoulder, readying himself for a nice bedtime story, as well as the answer to two questions: what's Yugito's sob story and what would it take for her to go emo?
Yugito seemed startled by the sudden closeness, but nevertheless started her story.
"Um," she fumbled for what to say, "Well, my mum ended up having 27 children. I was the youngest." Jesus Christ, he couldn't help but pity that woman and her hoo-ha.
"I think most of them are dead," Yugito said. Well, that went from 100 to 0 real quick. "Because my mum was running this sex and organ trafficking organisation. She popped out so many kids because she wanted to sell our organs." He had to admit her sob story was incredibly interesting. It could've been a movie.
"Although," she continued, "the Kumo officials decided to make me a Jinchuuriki. There was something wrong with the seal at first, so the next time I saw my mum, I got mad enough to go all nekomata on her, and well...Matatabi ate her. And then I got the seal fixed." Sasuke blinked, shocked.
"That's fucked up. Sorry," he commented. Yugito hummed absently. They drifted off into an awkward silence until she reflected the question back at him.
"You?"
Sasuke heaved a sigh, "When I was 7, my older brother, Itachi, killed the whole Uchiha clan. Everyone. He said it was to test his capacity. He didn't kill me because I was too pathetic at the time," Sasuke almost laughed bitterly.
"Itachi psychologically tortured me in a genjutsu making me relive the Massacre 518,403 times. I went rogue to get revenge. I found out that he was actually forced to kill the clan by the village elders because the Uchiha were planning a coup." Sasuke paused, collecting his thoughts.
"He couldn't kill me. I lost my revenge, so I killed the elder Danzo and became a power-obsessed megalomaniac. I got better though." Sasuke whistled.
As he recited the story, he found it strange that the pain seemed to mitigate, or he was desensitised to it. His previous misery likened to a distant dream, maybe because there was so much happening in his life right now, he didn't have time to dwell.
Yugito frowned. Despite his head on her shoulder, she knew he wasn't a very touchy person, but she wrapped her arms around him in a loose embrace anyway.
"Sorry," she muttered before letting go. Funny how they apologised to each other after their sob stories. Then again, what else were you meant to do with a degree of tact?
With perfect timing, Mito strolled towards them, carrying a bag full of supplies. Almost instantaneously, Sasuke detached his head from Yugito's shoulder, straightening his posture. He rose from the bench, stretching and jogging on the spot. Well, he could tick 'nice long conversation with a girl overlooking a landscape' off his bucket list.
"What are you doing?" Mito asked, watching him stretch his gastrocnemii with uncertainty.
"Warming up," he replied, "We've got a Bijuu to seal."
"I've always wanted to come here," Mito remarked, boisterously skipping ahead. She was annoyingly energetic and enthusiastic. Yugito remained ahead of Sasuke and Mito, sniffing out the second Niibi just like a cat. Apparently, she had a built-in Bijuu detector. Maybe it was a Jinchuuriki thing.
"Well, why didn't you?" Yugito asked off-handedly, attempting to make small talk.
"Eh, my clan is a bit uptight," Mito replied, closely sticking to Yugito as she walked into a cave. "I mean, it could be worse. I just wish my only purpose in life wasn't to get married and pop out babies, you know?" Yugito sent her a sympathetic look.
Sasuke trudged through the thick snow, internally cursing: girl talk. Yugito and Mito started vigorously complimenting each other and cursing out this androcentric society while Sasuke roamed the cave. He wiped away some fragmented snow at a cave wall, his eyes widening - why were there claw marks on the cave wall?
His train of thought was interrupted by a guttural roar that made his hair stick up cartoonishly. It seems like Yugito did her Bijuu-finding job a bit too well.