Hi peeps!
Another long wait for the next chapter, but here it is! Thank you for all the lovely reviews you left on the last chapter, I'm quite pleased how many of you I could surprise with the re-appearance of Bureau Guy, eheh. Also, shoutout to colasea for drawing awesome fanart for me! Come over to tumblr and have a look at it!
The title of this chapter is taken from a poem by Kay Ryan:
Waste
Not even waste
is inviolate.
The day misspent,
the love misplaced,
has inside it
the seed of redemption.
Nothing is exempt
from resurrection.
It is tiresome
how the grass
re-ripens, greening
all along the punched
and mucked horizon
once the bison
have moved on,
leaning into hunger
and hard luck.
- Kay Ryan, Waste from the collection "Say Uncle"
I hope you enjoy the new chaper! Thanks to NightsBlackRose13 again for beta'ing. By the way, the Naruto-OnePiece-crossover has updated again, so check it out if it strikes your fancy!
Also, I have a little something at the end of the chapter, please have a look at that, too!
Chapter 24: Inside It, The Seed of Redemption
The camp medic orders me to stay in bed for another two days until I am released.
My brain uses this time as an opportunity to work off all the emotions that I didn't get to feel while lying comatose, and because there is no such thing as doing one thing after another with matters of the heart, I am allowed the dubious pleasure of having to deal with them all at once. And I do, somehow. Albeit very badly.
I cannot stop myself from getting lost in the pathlessness of 'what-ifs' and 'what-could-have-beens'. It is all the same muddy color of rusted twilight that blows up like a mushroom cloud and suffocates my rational ability to think, to focus on what lies forward. It's ironic, considering that looking beyond the here and now is the only reason I have decided to return and yet, all I can seem to do is look back and regret.
Regret, regret. So much to regret and feel guilty for. No amount of sorry will ever be enough, no person that could hear me ever able to absolve me of my crimes. I am condemned to continue underneath all that, to burrow my way through and hope to not be crushed until I have made good on my unspoken promise to Obito. It is my only chance for redemption.
Sakumo tries to keep an eye on me and visits as often as he can despite his duties as Commander of the camp. He keeps treating me ever so gently, offering warmth and forgiveness that I don't deserve and the more he smiles at me, the more I feel like a thief, leeching off his kindness without ever giving anything in return.
I'm glad that my bed rest ends soon. Avoiding him will be easier when I am on the move and in use.
)()()(
On the evening of my first miserable day back from the dead, a woman enters the tent and heads straight towards my corner. Although I have never seen her before, her ridiculous good looks combined with the unmistakable midnight blue of her mantle identify her as a clanswoman of mine. There are two things that make her stand out, however: her long, wavy and purple hair that, needless to say, gives her appearance an even more ethereal quality, for one. But even more prominent than that is the fact that only one of her eyes is of the customary charcoal black – the other has a milky white color that speaks of loss of sight.
"Etsuko-chan," she greets with me a light bow. Her voice sounds low and velvety, just as beautiful as everything else about her. I bow back as well as I can from my sitting position on the bed.
Beauty like that clashes horribly with the air of depression I've built around myself.
"My name is Uchiha Naori. I don't believe we've met, yet."
Uchiha Naori. That name seems … familiar. Which means that she must be someone huge, considering the fact that Kishimoto could barely be bothered to mention more than a couple female Uchiha at all and I certainly haven't heard of her from Yashiro.
"No, we haven't," I answer. "A pleasure to meet you. Please take care of me."
A bit flatter and your voice could squash any trace of sincerity that might have been there, Etsuko.
She sits down on the same chair on which Sakumo has sat earlier, too.
"You probably wonder why I am here. I came as soon as I'd heard that you'd woken up, as is the duty of the senior Uchiha in the camp. We care for our own."
"Thank you," I say and bow again.
Granted, I have no idea how many of us are actually out here, but just the fact that she, as a woman, is the senior, is kind of impressive. For anyone who hasn't noticed, my clan doesn't think much of women in general.
"How are you feeling?"
Oh, shit. How do I answer that?
"Don't feel obligated to mince your words. I want you to talk openly to me." She smiles a small but genuine smile. "Although – I guess it's easy to demand openness without showing openness yourself. I'll start then, if you don't mind."
Her smile doesn't waver as her normal eye turns red and three tomoe start spinning rapidly. My body immediately tenses up in response, a leftover reaction courtesy to that one time Otou-san used his Sharingan to genjutsu me – even after all the training with Yashiro – but Naori's eye doesn't stay that way for long. There's another shift and the black of her tomoe turns into three lines that split the red in three parts, making her iris look like a three-petal flower.
Holy fucking shit.
That is a Mangekyou Sharingan.
And now I know who she is, too.
In the fight edo-tensei-Itachi and Sasuke versus Sage-mode-Kabuto at the beginning of the 4th Shinobi War, Itachi had used a forbidden technique that was only usable for Mangekyou-wielders to make Kabuto see the error of his ways: Izanami. There had been a flashback, too – what would Naruto have been without flashbacks – in which it was explained how Izanami came to be.
A handful of my clansmen had become super powerful Mangekyou-wielders, invented Izanagi – yeah, that technique Danzou was so particularly fond of with his arm full of stolen Sharingan – and decided to use that technique to cheat fate, so to speak. Also, start killing each other. It became really bad really fast, but one of those idiots was lucky enough to have a sensible badass friend who single-handedly invented Izanami and sat him back on his ass. That sensible badass friend's name had been – you guessed it – none other than Uchiha Naori.
And now that Uchiha Naori is sitting before me, one eye blinded – meaning that she'd used Izanami that one time already – and the other displaying one of the most powerful doujutsu in Narutoverse in its full glory.
I know I've said it before, but – Holy. Fucking. Shit.
"This, Etsuko-chan, is the next step in the evolution of the Sharingan after reaching full maturity with three tomoe. It is called the Mangekyou Sharingan."
I nod once to signal her that I'm listening.
"The Mangekyou is the most powerful form our doujutsu can take" – oh, I don't think she knows about the Rinnegan – "but we pay a heavy price to obtain it. Tell me Etsuko-chan, what happened right before you awakened your ordinary Sharingan?"
I gulp.
I have never talked about this to anybody.
Nobody asked and I was quite happy to suppress the memories.
I guess … now is the time to revisit them.
"It was the night when the Uchiha Police Building was destroyed. I was with Obito – that's my little brother – and Otou-san had left us in a side street to fight off enemies. He was … defeated, though, and the enemy came for us. I … I killed them. Her."
I can't bring myself to look her in the eye, instead fixating my gaze on my hands. They're fisted around the thin cover, the material bunched up and wrinkled underneath.
"I don't remember when exactly I activated my Sharingan, but I know that I had them when I found Otou-san … Otou-san's corpse shortly after." Burnt into my memory forever, lines and contrasts clear as crystal, color and smell vivid as if I were there still.
Naori nods. "Awakening our gift is often enough caused by emotional stress, but even more often than that, by the overwhelming desire to protect what we love. You killed that enemy nin to protect your brother, did you not?"
I nod without hesitating. For this one, I don't need to think. "Obito means the world to me."
She smiles again, this time long and full of heart-felt empathy and oh gods she's so beautiful. "I believe that this is the original reason we have developed our doujutsu – that for us Uchiha, nothing stands above the love we feel for our precious people."
Her voice is full of conviction and I believe without a doubt that she believes every word she says. I mean, that is as close to the truth as any in-Narutoverse-person who doesn't know about Kaguya can get.
"Feeling so strongly is what propels us forward, what gives us a goal every single day. We develop along the lines of our love, for better and for worse – and it makes us vulnerable in ways more dangerous than most could ever imagine."
She stops for a few heartbeats and I can literally see the memories passing before her inner eye. She would know all about pain– she gained her Mangekyou after all, and the Izanami ordeal could not have been easy either.
And now, I'm starting to understand why she is here. She must have heard reports about what had happened at Camp Sakana, deduced that I had awakened my Mangekyou and immediately come here to explain since it would be a logical conclusion to think that I have no idea what happened to me. Nobody knows that I know about the Mangekyou – how would they?
It's quite the service actually. It's surprisingly nice and considerate.
"The last stage of our doujutsu, the Mangekyou, is what we receive when we have been hurt in the worst possible way. When we realize that we failed to do the one thing we are born to do. When all we can see is the ways in which we were not enough to stop fate ripping away the love we wanted to protect. When everything in us yearns to undo what has been done, to recover what we have lost. You know that feeling well, don't you, Etsuko-chan?"
I nod mutely. The accuracy of her words is painful.
"Would you show me?"
Um.
I'm not sure what to do.
Am I supposed to act unsure about how to activate it?
Which reminds me.
… I do not even need to act as if I don't know. If I think closely about it, I really have no idea. In the heat of the battle, it was just something that, umm, happened, not something I actively worked for.
Aaand now I feel royally stupid. My face radiates way too much heat to have remained not red.
"I'm, uh, not sure how to …?" I mumble.
Naori smiles reassuringly. "Don't worry, I will guide you."
Beautiful, badass and super nice. I wasn't aware that I was looking for a role model, but I definitely found one. I'd like to be her when I grow up, please.
"Activate your Sharingan the way you always do."
I close my eyes to concentrate on the rush of chakra, trying to detect anything that might feel new or just different. It's a pity it doesn't happen though and I open my eyes again, slightly confused.
"Three tomoe," Naori comments. "How many did you have before?"
"Two," I answer. I squint in a brilliant attempt to assess my sense of vision and find that I can see even more details in dust particles than before. Cool. More potential to get distracted.
Ok, time to go one step further.
I take a deep breath and give Naori a quick glance which she answers with an encouraging nod.
I push even more chakra into my eyes and –
Nothing happens. Nothing except an increase of pressure behind my eyes that verges on painful.
"Remember," Naori's voice floats to my ears. "Try and recall the feelings you had when you awakened it."
It's terrifyingly easy, remembering Regashi's pain-filled voice, apologizing for mistakes that are not his to apologize for, and watching him close his eyes again, breathing growing ragged and finally, still –
The built-up chakra pushes through with an abrupt rush that washes my vision red.
I'm panting from the sudden onslaught and intensity of incoming signals. It feels like every energetic current in my immediate vicinity has been shoved under a magnifying glass and focused into one dense beam of information shooting right through to my brain, frying it from all sides and being matched in intensity by the roiling waves of my equally enlarged emotional landscape. If any imaginary ship ever was to brave those seas I don't see any other result than a wreck getting lost in it.
Hyper-emotionality gains yet another level of meaning as a user of the Mangekyou Sharingan. Hooray.
The sudden feel of a hand firmly – but gently – gripping my chin and guiding my face into the line of vision of Naori manages to distract me form the overwhelming sensations of my Mangekyou.
Her face is unreadable bar a tiny frown.
I hope this doesn't spell bad news.
"This," she says after another few moments of increasingly awkward silence, "is unprecedented."
Oh.
Haha.
I have no idea what she's talking about, but umm.
Surprise?
She lowers her hand. "You haven't seen your Mangekyou yet, I assume?"
I shake my head no.
Her pretty Mangekyou revert back to the standard Sharingan and a moment later, I feel a subtle ripple go through the air.
I blink a few times and when I refocus, her eyes, both of them, have changed yet again.
They have turned into Mangekyou, without doubt, but to say that this version is … strange is an understatement.
Her irises are red alright, and there're three scythe-like black arcs that look like the blades of a wind power plant, but that's not what's strange.
The strange parts are her sclera.
They're bizarrely fractured, black lines covering the standard white of eyeballs that look like a web of small blood vessels, only without blood but – yeah well, black instead.
I've never seen anything like that before. Not even in Narutoverse-as-a-manga. Because despite all the weirdness surrounding eyes in this universe, the changes only ever happened inside the irises, I think. At least for all the standard doujutsu that are not the result of some overpowered merging of Uchiha and Senju cells. Of course, there was also that whole business with edo-tensei-zombies that had grey or black sclera, depending on the grade of personality-suppression, but you know. No actual living people with sclera other than white. I think.
Hmmm.
Weird.
Also, since when do people have two different versions of the Mangekyou?
Before I can ask, Naori speaks up again. "I apologize for putting you in this genjutsu, but we don't have any mirrors at hand and this seemed to me the easiest way to show you."
Ah.
Oh. Yeah. Makes sense. Good thing I didn't ask. That would have been awkward.
Wait, does that mean that strange looking Mangekyou is mine?
"Why do they look like this?" I blurt out.
"Every Mangekyou looks different, tailored to the individual who awakened it. And yet, you're right to notice that yours are quite unusual. We shall observe whatever comes of it."
She closes her eyes and a heartbeat later, I feel the ripple again. When she reopens her eyes, they're back to the standard Sharingan and the milky white.
For a moment, none of us speaks.
"When you return to the village," she begins slowly, "the clan elders will want to know everything."
Uh. Right.
"Do you already know what you can do with them?"
"They, uh," I start but can't bring myself to continue. They rip away the life-force of my enemies. No, not chakra, life-force. And they kill me a little more with every use, but that's nothing new for Mangekyou wielders, right? Haha.
I don't think I'm ready to tell her that. Tell anybody.
"I'm not exactly sure?" I squeak instead.
"Good," Naori says. "Tell the clan elders the exact same thing. You will need the time to figure out your abilities – it's better not to give them any ideas for ill-conceived ambitions."
I think my jaw just dropped to the ground.
She is so cool?!
She stands up and looks at me with a warm expression. "I will leave you to your healing now. Rest, Etsuko-chan. Survive the guilt. And when you're ready to explore, come to me or Uchiha Kagami. No one should be left alone with this."
"Thank you," I say, honestly stunned.
Her voice and face turn serious. "You have a long way ahead you, Etsuko-chan. If I can help you in any way, no matter how small, I will. The future of the Uchiha clan lies in hands such as yours."
I nod and lean my torso forward in an imitation of a bow. She nods back.
And then she's gone.
Uchiha Kagami, eh? That mysterious ancestor of Shisui's.
I do have to admit – I am a bit curious to meet him. And I have no trouble admitting that I'm looking forward to seeing Naori again.
)()()(
The conversation with her is the only thing I think about for the next days – and by 'conversation', I actually mean the gigantic ball of issues that's weighing down on my chest.
There's the Mangekyou, obviously. It becomes increasingly obvious to me that I've been incredibly lucky to meet one of the few Uchiha that for one, do not believe in the "you gotta kill your best friend to activate it"-philosophy and for another, is not going to present me as the newest weapon of mass destruction to the clan elders. Apparently, there's a veritable club for that line of thinking with the very limited number of two members – granted, there might be more, but at least Naori hasn't offered their help to me.
While I'm, without a shadow of doubt, incredibly grateful that she's agreed to guide me through the whole Sharingan mess, I can't help but feel completely overwhelmed by everything still.
Take just the act of activating the Mangekyou, for instance. Looked easy enough in the manga and anime both: a shift, a blink or not if one felt dramatic – we're talking about Uchiha here, so of course that belongs into the list of criteria – and bam! Fires that never burn out, illusions that contest reality, portals into pockets in time and space to contemplate one's midlife crisis in peace.
Hah.
Nobody said anything about reliving the pain the moment before activation, but here it is. I'm not sure if the process is supposed to get less reliant on the emotional experience with time, but even if it is, I don't know how often I can survive recalling that memory until I'm able to activate it with nothing but intent.
Have I mentioned that I don't deal well with watching people important to me die? No?
I don't deal well with watching people important to me die. Bonus if I'm responsible for their death.
Aside from all that, there's the other small issue of my Mangekyou literally killing me, not only by means of the usual going-blind-and-drowning-in-my-own-blood-deal but by actually poisoning my life-force with every use. I mean, whose idea was that?! Who thought designing a One-Hit-Kill-ability that only works as a kamikaze attack made sense?
If I find out at some point that I'm meant to go out as some kind of sacrifice I'm going to …
… I dunno, I can't really quit, not with Obito's life on the line.
I'm probably going to get mad. Yeah, crazy fucking mad.
There.
Go big or go home, right?
Fuck. I'm feeling guilty for complaining about my Mangekyou – as if I'm trying to squash the memory of Regashi and Nawaki with it. As if I'm trying to distract myself from the knowledge that I could have saved them had I moved the right pieces at the right time, had I made proper use of the space the elasticity of time allows for. Like, leaving Orochimaru at camp, for example.
I'll probably never know if that would have made a difference, but just the possibility –
I can't stop thinking like this. I'm going crazy with these circles and spirals my mind keeps walking in, but I just can't stop.
I don't think I can get this all sorted before I step in front of the clan elders, which, needless to say, is yet another battlefield all on its own.
…
I miss Obito.
…
I think I need a drink.
)()()(
I don't find any drinkable alcohol. Instead, Orochimaru finds me.
It's not even ten minutes after I've been discharged from the hospital. I'm talking to a fellow shinobi with an unassuming appearance whose name I've already forgotten – I'm sorry, shinobi-san! – who's going to escort a handful of people who have been wounded too much to keep fighting plus me, who's joining because … I think Sakumo might have told someone at home that I'm not doing so good. Yeah.
"We leave in five days, meeting is in front of the hospital."
I bow. "Understood. I'll meet you there."
What's-his-name nods and disappears in a poof of smoke.
I should learn the shunshin, too. Looks like it might come in handy in a lot of situations.
Like, when you turn around to walk into the tent with your appointed bunk only to be intercepted by one of the worst criminals in your universe, who nobody knows is going to be one of the worst criminals in your universe, yet.
"Leaving already?"
I freeze on the spot.
He's standing before the tent flap that leads to safety, his arms folded and posture casual in a way the super glorious queen of king cobras might be when she's reasonably sure that her opponent poses no threat.
I'm very sure, too. That I pose no threat, I mean.
"A pity," he says, tone conversational – as if he was simply replying to something I said. "Change only happens if people are present to cause it. I assumed you'd be interested after what happened to your team."
What.
He unfolds his arms and gets ready to leave. "On the other hand – it does take strength to do that. I see now that I was wrong to assume you'd have that strength."
My hands have turned into fists at my body's sides.
How dare he.
He's turned away from me now, and somehow, the picture of his back accompanied by his voice makes his message just a thousand times more infuriating.
"If you ever decide to take over control of your own life, however, come see me. You know where to go."
Arrogant asshole.
Who does he think he is? Who does he think I am? Uchiha "I'm-easily-baited-by-the-promise-of-power-because-I'm-so-consumed-by-vengeance-I'm-fucking-blind"-Sasuke?
Hah.
Over my dead body.
)()()(
Simply put, it has been judged that you will be able fulfill the most important expectations within the realms of reasonable certainty.
It is important to note that there has been far more thought put into giving you the right incentives than you are aware of.
You already knew how this was going to end from the very moment you came here, didn't you?
)()()(
If you ever decide to take over control of your own life, however, come see me. You know where to go.
Over my dead body.
)()()(
Good thing I've already died, then.
)()()(
I can't believe what I am about to do. Common sense tells me to turn around and leave now, like pronto,and yet, I'm standing here, in front of the tent of the new head of research of Camp Same, hearing his voice floating over from the other side of the canvas.
And the worst thing is that, even though I can't believe it, I can explain. Kind of.
After he left me standing in front of the tent with my bunk, I was livid.
I had just lived through losing my sensei, my teammates, literally my damn life. I was 4 days away from going back home and seeing Obito again. I just wanted to be left the hell alone.
And then he comes and calls me out like that.
It's not true. I do want to change things.
I just – I just needed a break first. Was that too unreasonable?
As it turned out, there's indeed no rest for the wicked. At least not of the kind that would distract me from thinking about The Guilt:
Sakumo continued to treat me with kid gloves. Every time he gave me one of his infinitely kind smiles and that soft "how do you feel?", I felt the urge to scream growing inside me. The only reason I didn't was because he didn't deserve it. I know that I am the problem, not him. Never him in a million lives.
Naori had been called back to wherever she'd been stationed before she came to help me understand the Mangekyou. She left a message on my bunk, apologizing for her abrupt departure. I wish she didn't have to leave.
The rest of the camp so obviously didn't know how to deal with me that I gave up on asking for tasks after the fifth person told me to go rest.
I swear, if I spend one more minute on a bed, doing nothing, I'm going to self-destruct.
And that, in short, is the reason why I'm here, about to ask Orochimaru of all people for a meaningful task. I can't help but note that for the second time, his words are the only thing saving me from falling into a pit of endless despair.
It has the enormous potential of being the biggest joke of my existence yet. And this time, I don't even have the excuse to say that it wasn't my choice.
The tent flap opens and the woman he's been talking to steps out. She gives me a nod and a short "You can enter."
He already knows I'm here then. Of course he does.
There's no turning back now.
I let out a long breath.
And I enter.
)()()( )()()(
"To be fair, that is kind of surprising."
Jiraiya shifted his gaze from the tiny Uchiha who was bent over something research-y on a table on the other side of the rather large tent, face set in a concentrated frown that would have been cute had it not been so dead serious, to his teammate who was just as engrossed in his science.
"I never would have thought that you'd be the next one to have a student. I mean, you never seemed exactly interested in teaching brats."
Orochimaru removed a petri dish from his microscope stage and took another from the small assortment on his desk.
"She's not my student," he said without looking up.
"Not yet," Jiraiya corrected. "Come on, we've been teammates long enough. I can see from a mile away when you're making grabby hands at something."
At that, Orochimaru did look up, a mildly affronted look on his face. "I do not make grabby hands at anything."
Jiraiya, mature adult that he was, snickered. Sometimes, it was so easy to get a rise out of his favorite bastard and he could never resist an opportunity. It was even more fun when Hime –
His sniggering stopped abruptly when he remembered that Tsunade was not going to laugh about anything for a long time.
Orochimaru gave him a side-glance at the sudden silence.
"You know," he began slowly. "I'll get back to the village earlier than you. I could give her the crystal if you …" His sentence trailed off.
"No."
Orochimaru's answer was swift and decisive and Jiraiya felt bad for the rush of relief that coursed through his body. The truth was that he had hoped for Orochimaru to deny his offer.
Losing Nawaki …
…
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and for a few seconds, he concentrated on breathing alone.
He wondered how Orochimaru dealt with it. How he appeared so calm and collected even though the guilt must have been eating through him. Maybe taking on the last functioning member of that team was his way to repent?
If that was the case, he resolved, he would do anything to support him.
He reopened his eyes. "I'm going to tell Sensei that you'd make a great teacher for the little Uchiha."
Orochimaru's hands stilled in their task and for the first time, he lifted his head to truly look at his teammate.
"I did not ask for your help," he said, his voice tinged with surprise.
"I know," Jiraiya answered. He put a hand on the other man's shoulder, happy to note that he was still one of the few people who Orochimaru didn't mind touching. "But I'm still doing it. I genuinely believe that you can be an awesome teacher. Also, I think the girl will be good for you. She's quite a special little snowflake, isn't she?"
Orochimaru huffed.
Life, Jiraiya mused, had a habit of going on, even in the darkest of times. It was difficult to see the light shining through from different places, but if one was willing, one could see. There really was no choice, after all, if the only other option was to drown in sorrow and despair.
Maybe he should start looking for some more students himself. Ancestors knew, he had enough to seek redemption for.
Thank you for reading! As promised, here's something special for you guys: I created a poll on my profile page! I'm asking you who your favorite Joyous Children character is, so hurry over there and vote :-) I'm looking forward to the results!