When he woke up again, Asuka was alone. The candles had nearly burnt out, their wax spilling over the edges of the torches they were mounted on. Occasionally, it dripped onto the floor with a hissing squelch.
Asuka found he really needed a cigarette.
Rat hadn't let him have one before the mission because the smell of lingering smoke on his person would be an identifying characteristic. An ANBU agent was no one. They weren't allowed to have identifying characteristics.
Asuka didn't know how long it'd been since the battle in Water Country, as he'd been in and out of consciousness so many times, and it was a bit difficult to tell if it was day or not underground. He felt like he was beginning to go into withdrawal. His lip twitched.
Asuka sat up, looked around. It was the same cave he initially woke up in. He supposed this was to be 'his' cave, then.
He heard chittering. A bat swooped down, chased by another.
"Fuck this," said Asuka. He got up and left.
There was a winding path that seemed to lead out of his private cavern.
The ceiling of the cave became smaller and narrower as did the path until Asuka ended up crawling on his hands and knees. His heartbeat quickened, but his resolve strengthened.
After about five more minutes of crawling, Asuka came upon a larger cavern. It smelled wet, but not musty. Somewhere, there must've been a crack leading to the outside. He left the passageway and stood up. Water streamed down the side of a wall, bleached white due to erosion. The roof of the cave rose suddenly, tens and tens of feet high. Asuka suspected that this system of caves was in the mountains due to this sudden gain– that, or very deep underground.
In the back of the cavern, head scratching the top of the cave's roof, sat the ugliest goddamn statue that Asuka had ever seen. The thing had like, nine eyes, and several arms chained together. It looked disfigured, and Asuka knew for a fact that he'd be seeing it in his nightmares that same evening.
In the middle of the room was a round table with a pitcher of water on it. Sitting around the table were six orange-haired men with identical violet ringed eyes and a blue haired woman, all wearing that vile cloud cloak, and his very best friend, Uchiha Obito.
Asuka narrowed his eyes.
The group immediately stopped all discussion once they noticed his presence.
"Do any of you have any cigarettes?" They fucking kidnapped him. The least they could do would be polite and give him his fucking smokes.
The blue-haired kunoichi looked alarmed. Immediately, she turned to her nearest companion and whispered something. One of the orange-haired men, one with six piercings in his nose and a spiky hairstyle, asked, "Aren't you a little young to be smoking?"
"If I'm old enough to die for my village, then I think I'm old enough to have my death sticks, thanks. You got any smokes?"
"No," said the kunoichi warily, "none of us have any cigarettes."
"Shame," said Asuka. He scrunched up his nose and walked a bit closer to them. "What do you people do here anyway?"
"We're an organization dedicated towards creating world peace." The same pierced man as earlier replied.
Asuka nodded. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, "If you're so peaceful, why do you insist on keeping me hostage?"
The man shifted his gaze from Asuka to Obito, the question in his eyes.
"It was either that or kill you."
"And you want me alive because I remind you of Rin."
Silence.
The others at the table looked baffled.
"You have information that cannot get out." That could ruin this organization, ruin groundwork that is taking years to lay– the chaos in the Bloody Mist alone–
"Why don't you just kill me then?"
He was taking a gamble, he realized. This is an interrogation, a necessary one. In order to know more about his captor, he's going to have to pull some metaphorical fingernails. (Humiliate him in front of his colleagues.)
"Information is power," said Obito. "And you, an ANBU agent, have a lot of it that will serve useful to my future plans."
Ah, of course. The village. Obito's former village, as he's an Uchiha.
Asuka cocked his head, "Shouldn't you have information on Konoha already? I mean, you must be from there, right? Unless that eye's stolen."
"It's my eye, you little shit."
Overwhelming pain flooded his neck and spread to every nerve Asuka had. He gasped and dropped to his knees, clutching the spot where the mark was.
"A curse mark?" said the spiky haired man, eyes widening minutely.
"Madara, how much does this child know?" The kunoichi asked.
"Enough."
"Even with the safeguard of the curse mark…"
"I won't allow anyone to kill her."
Asuka felt the pain gradually subsiding and managed to get up. He grit his teeth. Shit, now he REALLY wanted a cigarette.
"Fuck it. Fine. I'll join your stupid club," Asuka rubbed at the skin on his neck. It was burning hot. He scowled. "What? Don't look at me like that. I'd rather be a missing-nin than a corpse."
Asuka, of course, was lying.
His mental health was shit.
If and when he could, he decided he'd sell these losers out for a corn chip and a dollar. But right now, he honestly just wanted to live long enough to get a fucking cigarette and light it up.
.
.
.
"That settles that," Obito said cheerily, voice jumping up into a different register entirely. "Welcome to Akatsuki!"
"Huh, that's the name of one of my summons." Asuka said, silently praying he wouldn't be forced into wearing one of those ugly cloaks. "Nohara Asuka, pleased to meet your acquaintance." he bowed.
The kunoichi cleared her throat and blinked, then seemed to get over the situation. "Konan."
"I am Pein," said the man with the spiky hair and the piercings, "I am the leader of this organization."
Somehow, Asuka doubted that.
"This meeting seemed important, so please forgive me for intruding, Konan-sama, Pein-sama. O-jii-san."
He left to follow another tunnel out to a different section of the cave system.
He found another cave that had a small stream running through it. Torches stuck out of the ground at odd angles. There was a futon in the back corner of the room. It looked entirely unused. Asuka noted, amusedly, that there seemed to be a large amount of ryō stuffed underneath it, making the beige blanket cast a lumpy shadow.
Next to it, on the floor, there was a half full glass of water by a duffel bag. A full, lumpy duffel bag. Stacked on top of it was another duffel bag, though this one was half deflated.
Um, thought Asuka.
He contemplated touching it, but then, from the other end of the cave, saw a flicker of movement.
"Got any cigarettes?"
"Not if you're here for my fucking money."
"I couldn't care less about your money. I don't know where the hell I am. I don't even know what you people do."
"We're mercenaries. We hunt bounties. We do whatever the richest fuckers want us to."
"And you're missing-nin?"
"Seems fairly obvious," said the man in the shadows. He stepped out of the darkness, out of the small creek. Water dripped onto the stone cave floor.
Holy shitting Sage, was this guy ugly.
He looked like a corpse that had been repeatedly dismembered then sewn back together again with appendages from different people, only except the thread was sentient and wanted to eat your soul.
"Alright," He tried really hard to keep his tone even, "Why do you need so much money?"
"It's not really us who need it," said the nightmare creature, seemingly delighted to be able to talk about his favorite thing, "The boss sets a threshold of collection every month. It's real high. Most goes to him for world peace purposes, the rest we all get to keep."
"...So would you say you're in this organization for its aims of achieving world peace or for the money?"
The man-shadow-demon-thing scoffed. "The money, obviously. I'm the treasurer. Back in my old village, you worked and worked and killed countless people. All for what? Wages you could barely feed yourself on! Here, you don't worry about things like affording food or proper medical care. Sure, world peace would be nice, but I'd rather be fabulously wealthy. It helps that the job isn't too strenuous either."
Damn. Perhaps Asuka might not hate it here.
"Nohara Asuka. I'm new here."
"Kakuzu. I thought that. Don't touch my fucking stuff."
In another cave off to the side was a gigantic puppet. It looked like if a scorpion, a shrimp and a man were all tossed in a blender, baked in the oven at 365 degrees and poured into a mold to form a grade-A monstrosity.
There were other puppets in this cave; hanging off of the walls, hanging from the ceiling, split into parts on the floor. In the middle of it all sat what looked to be a young man with light skin and red hair, fixing the arm of a faceless puppet.
Asuka stepped into the room.
He saw that the man's torso was detached from the rest of his body.
Asuka left the fucking cave.
Asuka missed being outside. He missed the sun and his grandmother's garden. Faintly, he wondered how the herbs were doing. Two days before the mission, he had planted a new crop of chamomile. His stomach soured as Asuka realized it would be incredibly difficult in his current circumstances to check on it.
These caves were boring.
He couldn't really do anything. He left the book Kakashi lent him at home–since threats of violence had been made if that book wasn't returned in pristine condition– and all of his weapons had been confiscated when he had been abducted here.
Asuka ultimately decided to follow the underground river.
Maybe he'd escape that way.
…
He waded into the water. It was up to his mid calf, and icy cold. Asuka knew there were probably weird cave creatures here, but oh well. He wondered if the Akatsuki ever used the river to fish.
And what they ate, for the matter.
Eventually he came to a point where the river became deeper. He spotted a large stone and hopped on it. Strange glowing worms lit up the walls of the cavern, and everything was illuminated with a faint blue light.
Asuka bit down on his thumb until it cut open. He smeared a small bit of chakra into a drop of blood onto the boulder. "Summoning jutsu."
Poof!
He really hadn't expected that to work. He'd thought the cursed seal had somehow affected his chakra, but thankfully not.
"Asuka-kun!" cried Natsuki. She bounded over to him immediately. Natsuki had floppy ears like her sister Katsuki, but she was a light gray with white patches instead of black. "We were so afraid!"
"Natsuki," he breathed, pushing a hand through long wet hair, "I am so glad to see you."
"What happened? Katsu-chan told me she could feel your chakra and then all of a sudden it just- just vanished!"
"Some weird jutsu. I got abducted by some dickhead rogue Uchiha. I think it's part of his sharingan–some special evolution of their bloodline limit or something," Asuka said, remembering the spiraling triangular shape.
"Come with me, Asuka-kun," Natsuki grabbed the sleeve of his yukata in her mouth and tugged. "I'll reverse summon you out of here! We must tell Kanae-sama you're alright! She's been worried sick!"
Asuka picked Natsuki up and placed her beside him. He tugged his sleeve away from her and frowned. The last time he had seen his grandmother… Well, let's just say the neighbors down the street had heard the screaming match, and the Nohara clan compound was in a fairly isolated area to begin with.
Asuka grimaced.
"You can tell her, but I don't know if I'll be able to leave this place," he said, gesturing to the curse mark.
Natsuki let out a squeak of righteous indignation. Her whiskers twitched angrily.
Besides, as much as Asuka liked Konoha, he wasn't sure he wanted to stay in its service for the rest of his life. As a shinobi, he's a tool that's used for the betterment of the village, and tools don't get to have feelings, or control over their own fates. Never once had anyone ever asked Asuka what he wanted– and it'd become evidently clear over the past year that what Asuka wants is at odds with the emotionless tool he's supposed to be.
Call him selfish, but Asuka did not give a shit.
He'll always want to protect the village and its people, but not at the price of his own happiness.
These Akatsuki freaks– puppets and zombies and creepy kidnappers– he'd reckon that he could actually have a chance for inner peace here. Plus the whole world peace thing sounds cool.
"Natsuki, can you please get me a pack of cigarettes?"
