A/N: This chapter probably deserves a warning. So, uh, warning for the following: Blood, language, gore, psychological torture, physical torture, nudity (no, that THAT is not happening), beheading, body horror, body modification (without consent) and general (strong) violence. Fun!
Snap!
Sasori glanced upward as Rock Lee jumped off a branch with a thick vine in one calloused hand and a kunai in the other, landing gracefully on his feet on the landing of the sycamore tree. The tree was huge, extraordinarily so, able to fit all thirty-something of them in its heart, where branches separated from the unbreakable vertical trunk, each branch boasting incredible thickness and stability. A shady, thick canopy protected them from the weather.
Lee acknowledged Sasori with a two-fingered salute. "Will this be enough to secure the crates?"
"Maybe two, three at most," the red-haired man informed him, sound faraway. The Uchiha and Deidara have yet to report. Where the hell are they? He tapped his foot impatiently, disliking their tardiness and doing his best to ignore the worm of worry wiggling its way through his heart. But the sycamore hadn't yet become completely occupied, people still streaming in from Hatake's orders. He would give them a small while longer.
Lee took Sasori's words to heart, passing the vines over to Shikamaru before scaling up the trunk and to the neighboring tree to collect more vines. The Nara passed the makeshift ropes to Gai, who stacked two crates on top of each other and bound them tightly before pushing them into a random cavity in the trunk. There were multiple crates already secured like this with rope, but they had run out of the material.
"Troubled?" Chiyo said as she appeared from god-knew-where. He hardly spared her a glance. She was not the woman that he wanted to see right now, but she was acceptable company.
"They should be back by now," Sasori stated, biting down on his teeth in the most minuscule show of frustration. In his periphery, he could see Sasuke help Hanabi get up a particularly steep side of the tree. Good thing, too, as they were so high up the ground, it would have meant certain death if she had fallen from this height. "Those two," he jerked his head toward the pair, "were stationed at the very front of the line. Why are they here, and not Deidara?"
Chiyo, noticing that he'd left out the Uchiha couple, couldn't help but smirk slightly. "I'm sure they'll show up soon, my worried grandson. Stop fretting." She patted his shoulder, but from the pinched expression on his face, he didn't seem to be any less tense. She sighed. "I'm serious, Sasori. Go make yourself useful." Then she left.
It was sound advice, Sasori had to admit, but a more petulant side of him simply wanted to keep standing around, not wanting to bow his head to his grandmother's whims. In the end, he forced himself to move, lifting his rift arm up. Vines burst forth as his white Zetsu appendage disassembled itself, wrapping around a sturdy branch near the very top of the sycamore. Ignoring any surprised gasps around him, he willed the arm to retract, pulling himself up like a bucket in a well. The new limb was surprisingly obedient, but he was sure that there were more abilities that he'd yet to witness and command. As he skipped across to the next tree with little trouble, snatching moss-covered vines, he recalled the day he had put his utmost faith into Deidara.
She'd held his life in her tongued-hands that day, and it was sheer, impossible luck that her crazy plan had worked. But before Neji had cut the bridge (he remembered, with no small amount of disdain, that it'd been the Hyuuga boy and not some random), before Sawako had been bisected...
Deidara screaming in rage and disbelief as the smoke cleared, revealing that the monster chasing them had shielded itself from the blast by summoning vines from the ground (or it could have been its body, he wasn't sure) to encircle it tightly.
"Thanks for your help!" said a sweaty Lee, interrupting Sasori's train of thought. "Really appreciate it. Our youthful effort will not go to waste!" As if to verify his proclamation, Lee karate-chopped more vines with a newfound vigor, and Sasori was not surprised to hear Gai echoing his mini-me's rallying cries from somewhere down below.
"Hmph. Don't get too ahead of yourself," Sasori advised, turning to Lee with a bland, yet ominous expression. "After all, this might all go to waste in the end."
At first, Lee seemed unsure of what to make of Sasori's cynicism. But then Sasori could practically see an epiphany strike him as his eyes sparkled unnaturally brightly. Then, cupping one hand around his mouth, he called down to his larger counterpart, "Gai-sensei, is this what you would call a hip attitude?!" Then, to Sasori's horror, the boy mimicked his words, even trying to impersonate his tone and expression.
"How modern!" Gai shouted back, sounding scandalized. "You can't let yourself lose to the wiles of nihilism, Lee!" He said something about the power of youth that Sasori didn't really care to listen to, ending with, "In many ways, he is like my eternal rival!"
Eternal rival? Who was that again? He was sure that Gai had mentioned this elusive rival once before, back in Akatsuki, but—
Sasori's eyes widened ever so slightly. "Oh, hell no," he deadpanned, incredibly unamused. It was one thing to call him out on his bleak view of the world, but to compare him to the likes of Hatake? When this was all over, he was going to strangle Gai with those obnoxious, ostentatious orange leg warmers of his.
By the time the boxes and boxes of TNT were safely secured, everyone was already back.
Well. Almost.
Sasori searched for a certain blonde head of hair in the crowd, even when he couldn't feel her chakra signature among them. He would never admit it to anyone, not even himself, but anxiety was gnawing away at his heart, and he wanted nothing more than to shake Hatake and demand the whereabouts of Deidara (and the Uchiha; they, too, were good friends of his and valuable comrades) before going off on his own to search for them.
He wasn't the only one full of questions, it seemed, as the younger Uchiha brat, Sasuke, got right up in Hatake's face and asked, "Where is my brother? And Izumi?" He left out Deidara, but her name was practically hanging in the air.
"Kakashi-kun?" Rin prompted hesitantly. "What did you find?"
So the Hatake had gone out already? And they still weren't here? Chopping vines had been a good distraction, but Sasori could no longer ignore what was directly in front of him. His gut and brain told him the same thing, that the missing were either dead or just that: missing and unable to be located.
Kakashi hesitated for a moment more before answering, "Gone." It was such a simple word, but it left Sasori raring for more answers, even as he felt the heaviness of Hatake's words.
"That is not an answer," Sasori said cuttingly, his voice a cold fire. He wasn't in the mood for Kakashi's vague bullshit, and he made it very clear. "Where is Deidara?"
Kakashi took in a deep breath. Then he told them of what he had found. Of the puddles of blood in the grass, the decimated TNT boxes and the scattered powder nearby. "I can't say for certain if they are dead or alive," he concluded. "But the lack of... severed parts and amount of blood spilled tells me that they were probably incapacitated and captured."
Well, of course. Sasori had been able to glean about as much from Kakashi's recount. But so what? They might have been alive maybe minutes ago, but they could easily be dead now.
Sasori did nothing as Sasuke grabbed Kakashi by the collar and slammed him into the tree trunk, only holding out an arm to stop some boxes from tipping out.
"You were there!" Sasuke bellowed, his Sharingan practically pulsing in his eyes in rage. "How did you not see anything?!"
"Sasuke!" Rin shouted. "That's enough! Release him at once!" Her daughter was hiding behind her leg, cowering in fear at the raised, angry voices that seemed to be echoing through the forest. Her son, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen, but Sasori did not care for his whereabouts at the moment.
"Sasuke, please!" Sakura echoed. "Just let him go and we can talk this out."
Their words fell on deaf ears. Sasuke only tightened his grip of Kakashi's collar, his knuckles pressing into the soft flesh of his throat, leaving just enough space to let him talk. "How could you fail him like that?" Sasuke's lip trembled, and for a second, Sasori thought that he was about to cry. "You were there. So why didn't you save them?"
"Your brother's... orders..." Kakashi grabbed Sasuke's hand and pushed him away. He massaged his threat. "They were closing in. My orders were to evacuate the rest of you." The words sounded pathetic, even to himself, but he did not wilt.
Sasori didn't need to see him physically bend. He knew that Hatake was breaking slowly inside, scrambling to reassemble his parts. Just days ago, he would have been happy to see Sakumo's legacy crumbling, but he remained ambivalent now. Instead of rage, he felt only... a hollow pity.
"Kakashi?" This time, it was Naruto who uttered his name, worriedly.
"I'm sorry." The Hatake's apology was delivered mechanically, but they could all hear the raw pain in his voice. So raw that some actually turned away to hide their tears. "I'm so sorry. There is nothing I hate more than abandoning my comrades."
"Then why did you do it?!" Tears were gathering at the corners of Sasuke's eyes, threatening to fall. Sakura grabbed his shoulders to prevent him from lunging at Kakashi again, her grip strong, but shaky. "This isn't the first time you've failed us!" His words were barbed, meant to hurt as much as possible.
"Oi, teme, shut up!" Naruto's own temper flared, unwilling to see Kakashi, already down, be kicked any longer. "This has nothing to do with the past!"
But everything to do with the present, Sasori thought. He did not begrudge Sasuke. In fact, he felt that their feelings on this matter were aligned. Because of Kakashi's decision, three people who he considered his closest familiars—one more so than the others—had been captured by unholy abominations of nature, and were now likely dead. Eaten alive. His fists clenched, and it took every ounce of his self-control and reasoning to not flay Hatake alive. He had, of course, protected the rest of them by making this decision. And Itachi had ordered it. Sasori could point fingers all day, but that wouldn't help matters.
There was more shouting that Sasori didn't catch. Rin got involved at one point, as did most of them. Gai, Anko, Hitoshi... Eventually, they tired themselves out. It was a little past afternoon, and because of the winter, the sun was setting prematurely. It was going to be completely dark soon.
A fire was not set. There were a million reasons why this would be a bad idea. Sasori couldn't eat or sleep as he sat far away from the others, who were downing rations, watching the stars.
From so high up, Sasori could actually see the remnants of their old camp from here. It looked trashed, as if wild animals had stomped through the area and poked through every nook and cranny. But the wind was still in their favor, and by some miracle, the Zetsu had not heard their argument; while the Zetsu army scoped the area, the group of survivors remained undiscovered. Humans weren't supposed to climb trees, after all. Not trees like this, anyway. They would never think to look up.
Feeling a little claustrophobic despite everything, Sasori hauled himself up to the canopy of the tree, sitting down on the uppermost branch to admire the stars. His entire being ached from a perceived loss, and he longed to leave them all behind to search for his missing partner.
But he couldn't. Logic and rationality dictated his actions, and he could not let such a raw emotion like love move him to act impulsively. He was a man of precision and careful thought and planning, and those qualities kept him alive after all these years. Right now, his best option was to wait for the long night to be over. They hadn't yet discussed what would happen now that key members of their group were gone. Presumed dead. He'd heard that term being tossed around by more than one. Discussion would happen tonight, Sasori presumed. It would have to. They were all living on borrowed time. Sooner or later, the Zetsu would find them and slaughter them all, so they had to act first. But right now, they were all grieving.
Most of them grieved the loss of their leader, Itachi, who had been their beacon of light during this shitstorm.
Others were less fortunate.
Rin had lost two members of the family she had married into, the family which she loved so dearly. Not only that, she had also lost a close friend in Deidara, who she had spent her days with in Akatsuki. Who she had grown to love and appreciate, and who her children had admired. The last he had seen of her, she'd been catatonic, and Hikari had cried herself to sleep in her arms. He wasn't sure how to comfort her. He'd left that up to Kakashi instead.
Deidara had been Kakashi's friend, too, he recalled. Had been. He never hated his nihilistic nature more than now. Bitterness enveloped him, and he found that he could no longer enjoy the stars on such a beautiful night, when there was absolutely nothing beautiful about his thoughts. When there was no one to enjoy it with.
He was familiar with bitterness. It usually encompassed most of his feelings, made up more than half of the brewing storm of emotion swirling in his traitorous heart.
Sasori glanced down at his hands, only to find that they were covered by leaves that did not fall in the winter. How strange, as sycamores were known to be deciduous. But he paid it no heed. If anyone were to observe him, they would be greeted with a funny sight: Sasori protruding from the treetop like a parasitic growth, only some of the upper half of his body visible to the world.
He was about to return to where everyone else was and perhaps whip out his calligraphy brush and paper of poetry (he'd come to accept it as such) when rustling caught his attention. Sasori retreated to below the canopy, brown eyes blinking as he adjusted to the darkness that came with the absence of the moon's light.
Standing on a wide branch below him were Sasuke and Daichi. From the looks of it, Sasuke had surprised Daichi with his sudden appearance. So that was where Rin's son had been hiding out all day. Sasori wouldn't have seen him, as he had ascended the great sycamore from the opposite side, and the boy only emitted a detectable chakra signature when he had his Sharingan activated.
Wearily, Daichi stepped backward before turning away, slumping against the centre tree trunk and sliding down. Sasuke watched him for a bit before he spoke.
"What do you want?" Daichi's voice was tired. Much too tired from a child his age. Then again, he'd seen things that no child should ever have to see.
Sasuke didn't immediately reply. In fact, he stayed still for so long that Sasori half-wondered if he'd fallen asleep. In actuality, he was debating on just what to start with. So he started with the most obvious one, "I'm sorry."
"For—for what?"
"A lot of things. My actions during the war, especially." Sasuke let out a frustrated huff, passing his hand through his hair. "I betrayed the Uchiha."
"Yeah. You did." There was no inflection in Daichi's voice, and he simply kept staring into the dark, at leaves he could not see.
"I killed your father."
Daichi did react more aggressively then, nearly knocking his head against the tree trunk as he turned quickly. "What do you want?!" he hissed. "What are you trying to achieve?!" He gritted his teeth. "Besides... I don't even care about that anymore."
Sasuke voiced what Sasori was thinking, "You clearly do, you brat." He stood closer to Daichi, his cloak rippling in the evening breeze. "Are you afraid, Daichi, that you're becoming like me?"
No answer.
"You're not a monster. You're just a kid," Sasuke stated bluntly.
Daichi inhaled sharply. "I cut his arm off. I could have killed him. I wish I had. I'm like you, now. A monster."
"No!" Sasuke was more forceful this time. "It means that you're human, which is a fuck-lot better than what I am." He sneered in the direction Daichi was facing. "I'm a traitor and a kinslayer. You—you are a boy."
So are you, Sasori thought, pressing his abdomen against the branch he was observing them from. They were both boys who had bloomed too early after having their lives torn apart by war and death, who had the potential to break out from their self-imposed prisons and start anew.
He wondered, suddenly, if this was what Deidara was trying to tell him. Starting fresh. Breaking away from the darkness cast by your own shadow. Reshaping your life into something more worthwhile. He'd been so convinced that he would need an eternity—one that he didn't have—to ever forgive himself. Sasori narrowed his eyes in contemplation. Maybe all he needed to do was simply try.
None of them said anything. Then Daichi shivered from the cold, and Sasuke didn't protest when the boy shuffled closer to him for warmth.
They clearly weren't going to move for a while so Sasori let them be, slinking to the other side of the tree to descend. As he disappeared into the night, Sasuke turned his head to his direction once, catching only the black hem of an Akatsuki cloak.
Tenten didn't know what she was eating. Only that it was stale, cold, slimy, and tasted like cardboard. Still, food was food, and she wasn't exactly in a position to be picky.
"Pass the salt," Shikamaru, seated next to her, said to Choji, who had ended up on the opposite side of him in their little circle.
"Oh, I don't have it," replied Choji through a mouthful of wet-cardboard-in-a-can. He thumbed to the person sitting next to him. "Neji does."
And he was probably why Tenten had kept her eyes down the whole time. It was no secret that she wasn't exactly fond of Neji, but... She also wasn't entirely sure what to make of him. Hinata seemed to trust him, and Hanabi was... coming around faster than Tenten would have thought. Both Hyuuga sisters were sleeping right now, curled up against one another against the tree trunk. They weren't the only ones fast asleep either.
"Ah," said Shikamaru. "Pass the salt, Neji." The indifference in his voice astounded Tenten, who knew for a fact that he was just as confused about Neji as she was. The bun-haired girl frown. Of course, that conversation had been a few nights ago, and his mind could have changed at any time between then and now. Shikamaru was kind of a fickle guy.
"Where's Lee?" Choji asked Tenten in an attempt to make conversation that extended beyond asking for the little plastic bag of precious salt, which Neji was handing to Shikamaru, looking for the world like a normal teenage boy.
Tenten almost groaned at that. "Don't even get me started. He's convinced that he needs to get to Gai-san's level as quickly as possible and he's," she paused, unsure of how to say the next words, "climbing up at down the tree with Gai-san using only his legs." As she spoke the very words, they could feel Lee's head bump against the main landing which almost everyone was occupying, he and Gai doing their exercises somewhere closer to the bottom of the sycamore.
Shikamaru snorted, almost choking on his food. Choji did choke, and ended up in a coughing fit that was solved when he downed some water from his canteen. Neji actually chuckled quietly in amusement, which surprised Tenten. So he was capable of feeling actual human emotions and had a sense of humor. Duly noted.
Tenten smiled weakly. She was still wary of the Hyuuga, naturally, but so far, he was surprising... docile, if not a little high-strung at times.
At that point, Choji declared that he needed to take a tinkle off the side of the tree, and Shikamaru said he was going to talk to his father. Both boys got up at the same time and split up, leaving Tenten alone with Neji.
Tenten internally cringed at the silence that stretched between them after the other boys left. Awkward. She was uncertain of what exactly to say to him, so she focused on eating instead.
At first, nothing happened, for which she was glad for. But then, the boy spoke.
"You're Tenten." A statement, not a question. She had a feeling that he normally talked without question marks. His voice had this... posh quality to it, as if he wasn't a Hyuuga-monster but a Hyuuga-royal.
"Yeah," Tenten said. "And you're Neji." Wonderful. Now could he please stop trying to force conversation? An irk mark appeared on her cheek as she scraped the inside of her tin can to collect as much wet-cardboard-mush as possible on the blunt kunai she used for eating. "Nice to meet you." Hopefully, that would be that.
"You don't like me much. It's unsurprising." Neji had already finished his salted-cardboard, so his mouth wasn't obstructed by food. He scoffed irritably, "I suppose I sealed my own fate." Half of his face became obscured by leafy shadow as he slumped forward, balancing his elbows on his knees.
"You didn't seal any fate." Tenten surprised herself by even opening her mouth. "It was just bad luck, that's all," she added gruffly, setting down her can. "You didn't ask to be turned into a monster, did you?" If he had, she wouldn't be even remotely ashamed of taking it all back.
"Of course not," Neji said scathingly, his brow creasing into a more pronounced frown. Tenten had reason to believe that this boy in front of her never had much reason to smile. "But if I hadn't ran away from my problems like a coward, then this would have never happened. Your comrades... would still be alive."
Silence.
Tenten wiped the back of her mouth with one gloved hand. "There's no guarantee," she told him evenly. "Even if things were different, that wouldn't mean that they'd still be around. I mean, yeah, don't get me wrong—what you did was unforgivable," she ignored his deepening scowl, "but at the same time... you're just another victim. It was out of your control." She thought of Orochimaru, with his frightening hiss and tenacity, who, in the end, had just been another hapless individual facing the consequences of the Ame-Tsuki war.
Thoughts of the war had her sitting up straighter, grasping her empty can again to fiddle with it. With everything happening around her, she had completely forgotten about what was going on outside of the wilderness. Is the war still going on? she wondered. And if it was, then who was winning? Who had died? Who was still suffering? Was Akatsuki city still in one piece? Or had the city fallen?
"Unforgivable, yet I'm not the one at fault," Neji surmised, looking thoroughly stumped. "You make no sense, Tenten-san."
Seriously, where were Choji and Shikamaru? She was going to give them a talking to when they got back for leaving her to deal with this asshole alone.
"It's unforgivable," she seethed, crushing the can in her hand, "because no matter what, it still doesn't change the fact that you murdered so many people. It just means that you're a little more sympathetic." Though she wasn't feeling much sympathy for him at the moment. "Goodnight, Hyuuga-san." With that, she got up and stalked away, not caring where she ends up as long as it was far away from him.
In an overhanging branch, Shikamaru sighed, leaning against the tree trunk, "Well, that was a drag."
Karin, holding an assortment of cans and rubbish, deposited them in an adequate recess in a tree branch, her legs wobbling from the sheer height. Geez! Of all the jobs I get, it's this one. I only accepted it because it meant that I might be able to find Sasuke...
She didn't know when or how, but she was certain that she had fallen in love with Sasuke somewhere along the way. But he was nowhere to be found right now, and she needed an excuse to traverse around the tree.
At least the forest was calm, although she could feel a high concentration of malicious, unnatural chakra some miles away. It made her belly churn, but she had already vomited three times today, so there was really nothing to upchuck. Karin forced herself to focus on the tranquility of the mountain instead, rather than the looming threat of the Zetsu army.
She craned her neck, looking for any sign of Sasuke, but she couldn't see anything. Karin was about to give up on her fruitless search and head back—maybe catch a few winks; they might be her last—when leaves rustled and a figure landed behind her, shaking the branch. Karin screeched, abruptly cutting it off by clamping one hand over her mouth. She nearly toppled over, but managed to keep her footing.
"Sasuke?" She turned around hopefully.
Sasori stared back at her, eyes glowing faintly in the dark. "No," he said flatly, almost mockingly, "Not Sasuke."
Clearly not. Embarrassed, Karin allowed him to pass, the hem of his Akatsuki cloak flapping gently in the wind. He'd had all the clouds removed on his cloak, she noticed. Why? She suspected for obscurity.
She followed Sasori down, feeling much safer behind him than she would have in front of him. That man had a powerful, dampening presence, and she didn't really want to get in his way too much. She was just lucky that he was on their side.
Her previous spot had been taken, Karin discovered with a twinge of annoyance, so she found herself a new one. It was next to a sleeping woman with purple markings on her face. Rin, her mind supplied for her.
She pitied the woman who had lost so much. She knew that she'd lost her husband in Akatsuki to those Tsuki dogs—they all knew. And now, her next immediate family had been killed. Or, at least, Karin assumed so. It was very unlikely that they were still alive.
Her daughter was sleeping in her arms, her eyes red-rimmed. Occasionally, she sniffled.
A cold wind blew through the trees, and Karin shivered, hugging her legs close to her chest. I wonder what she's going through... How bad it is...
"Are you going to keep staring at her?"
"Ack!" Karin tilted her head up to see Neji looking down at her. "Me? Staring?" She scoffed. "No." Then she realized just who exactly she was talking to and paled. "Ahh... Neji-kun, right?" she said demurely, playing up her feminine charm. Maybe then she'd be more likely to live. "What brings you... here?" She winced at how lame her own words sounded to her.
It was Neji's turn to wince. "There—"
"My eternal rival Neji!" Karin was almost knocked over by the rush of air that accompanied Rock Lee's arrival. "I challenge you to a tree-climbing competition, only we are not allowed to use our hands or feet!"
There was a faint, "That's the spirit, Lee!" in the background. Karin gawked as Lee attempted to grab Neji and drag him to the dreaded competition.
"Lee, what are you doing?!" came a shriek, and Tenten came into view. "Lee, let go of him! Now!"
The brown-haired weapons mistress proceeded to separate them, scolding Lee all the while. Karin could only stare.
Eventually, Neji and Lee were on their way, and Tenten sighed. "Sorry about that, Karin. Can I sit?"
And Karin offered a smile. "Sure... Tenten."
Finding Sasuke could wait.
Kakashi took in a deep breath, taking in the beauty of the night sky through a hole in the canopy.
I failed you again, Obito. I'm sorry.
He'd held Rin for hours, and his shirt was still soaked with her tears, and Hikari's as well.
Why did he keep failing his best friend? He was supposed to protect his family now that he was gone, not... condemn them to their deaths. Full of self-loathing and regret, Kakashi buried his face in his hands.
"Kakashi?" The branch trembled, then Gai was seated beside him. "Ah, there you are." His thick eyebrows were drawn in a sorrowful frown that made Kakashi's heart clench. Of course, Gai had lost many as well. With his youthful attitude, Gai wasn't the type to dwell on things, but it had been a tough few months.
The entire Big 4, some of Gai's closest friends, were all dead except for Gai himself. It hadn't really struck Kakashi until now, until Gai pressed one hand to his face to cover his eyes, tears falling from behind his fingers.
"It's been hard," Gai chuckled through tears, abruptly choking on a sob. "I'm sorry for everything, Kakashi."
"Yeah," Kakashi said hoarsely. "Me too." He patted Gai's back heavily before his arm fell to his side. "Hey," he said awkwardly, "you still have Lee, you know." That boy and Kakashi himself were all Gai had left now.
"I'll protect him with my life," Gai promised. "His youthful spirit empowers my own."
Kakashi nodded.
"In these few weeks, he's become almost like a son to me," Gai told him. "It makes me happy to see him with his friends." At first, Kakashi thought that he was talking about Tenten and maybe Naruto, but Gai went on to say that Lee had become buddies with Neji as well. Or, well, he was trying to. Neji wasn't exactly being mean about it, so Lee took it as a good sign. Tenten served as a mediator of some sort between the boys, and she seemed to be including Karin as well.
Strangely, it reminded him of his own kids, for lack of a better term. Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. Too bad Sasuke seemed hellbent on hating him now, and Sakura and Naruto were left in a limbo between their supporting their friend or Kakashi.
"How's Rin?" asked Gai.
"Heartbroken," Kakashi answered honestly. "She's asleep right now. I... I don't know what to do."
Gai contemplated his response. "I think all she would want from you is for you to be true."
"What's that supposed to mean?" But Gai had gone all starry-eyed from staring at the sky, and there would be no answer to that anytime soon.
Another sigh drew from his lips, and Kakashi tilted his head upward to join Gai in his stargazing, knowing that this might be the last lovely thing he'd witness in his lifetime. If Gai ever became choked up, Kakashi ignored it with an indifferent ease, and the normally energetic man was grateful for it.
It was only later in the night that they all gathered to discuss what would be happening next.
Sasori pretended that their little war council wasn't in complete shambles as he took a seat beside his grandmother. The wood was uncomfortable but he just had to deal with it.
Not all of them were here. Some were asleep, or simply didn't want to participate in this discussion. But they were few and in between so the meeting proceeded.
Kakashi opened up discussion with, "We should proceed with the current plan."
And then it all went to shit from there, Sasori opined, already feeling a headache incoming. Many tried to come up with alternatives, losing faith in themselves now that Itachi was gone. That damn Uchiha had carried a lot of their weight on his shoulders. How had he survived without losing his mind?
Or maybe he had, and Sasori was just none the wiser.
"Three-hundred strong!" Shikaku reminded them. "And not even a hundred of us. It will be a slaughter. Itachi was worth a hundred men. Without him, we'll have to proceed in a more careful manner."
"Not all of them will be there!" argued Anko, who preferred direct confrontation. "We just need to get enough of them out of the camp long enough for Sasori and Neji to plant the explosives. Both of them are fast as fuck, so we'll have a fighting chance."
It went back and forth, with Sasori interjecting at random times to give stupid suggestion givers a good tongue lashing or to input improvements to ideas. In the end, they combined Nara Shikaku's strategy with Itachi's original plan.
A diversion would be created, but they would be sacrificing some of their explosives for that. With the remaining TNT, they wouldn't be able to decimate the whole camp, but they would take out a good chunk of it, as well as the Zetsu forces. It would be just enough for them to hurry all the way to Konoha, where they would be taken in as refugees, and warn them of the growing threat in the mountains. The Zetsu were not invincible to military power; with the amount that Konoha had, they would have more than enough to destroy them. The scattering of the TNT would still be left up to Sasori and Neji.
When it was all over, Sasori was left feeling drained. All he wanted was for everything to be over. Maybe see Deidara again. She was out there somewhere, a hopeful part of him he hated said. He clung on to that hope, ironically, without even realizing it. Without her, he would enter that horribly mundane, meaningless life again.
As frustratingly dependent as it sounded, he'd come to rely on her in a way during these past months, and he knew that she felt the same. It was a rapport they'd subconsciously constructed, and it had lifted him from the dark world he'd stood upon into a space of endless possibilities.
She was alive, he told himself as he curled up into a shallow recess in the tree trunk, setting paper on his thighs and putting down a lantern next to him, she had to be.
If she weren't, he would know.
Sasori began to write for the first time since he had lost half of his right arm, the text coming out a little wobbly at first. He'd trained himself to be ambidextrous during his time as Suna's Royal Assassin, but had mostly used the skill to develop better control of his puppets and other weapons.
The night delved deeper and deeper, and Sasori was on the verge of falling asleep. He'd written half a page's worth of useless, worthless words and sentences. His left hand moved on its own, the bottom calligraphy strokes of kanji trailing downward and spirally and curving into a shape.
With his eyelids at half-mast, Sasori continued to draw, a form of art that he had not practiced in years. Between now and when he started, he'd taken a break to fix his puppets into the best condition they could possibly be in for tomorrow's confrontation. He wasn't sure if he needed them, as he would undoubtedly be in close range with Zetsu monsters, and his puppets were designed for long range battles.
We're running out of time.
Frustrated, he lifted his brush and prepared to slash downward to erase the ink drawing from existence.
Then he paused, his breath catching in his throat as he noticed for the first time what his wicked hand had been producing.
Deidara. It looked just like her. Either he was better than he'd first assumed or he was losing himself in his own sleepy delirium. Her absence was suddenly prominent again, and he felt like he'd been punched in the gut. Grimacing, Sasori tucked his calligraphy brush back into its kit.
A wave of calm—one that he recognized as the state of serenity that enveloped him before a storm of anger—washed over him, and his long, curved Zetsu fingers traced over the dry ink that made up the slope of Deidara's cheek.
It would never replace the real one. And then that anger surged, and he shredded the paper, his brown eyes hard as he watched the wind carry the tiny bits of paper away, towards the ravine which housed the Zetsu camp.
There are only a few places she can be, Sasori rationalized, the cold, calculating side of his personality taking over, in a monster's stomach, lying dead in the forest, or...
His eyes narrowed hatefully, he got out of his makeshift bed and walked over to a section of the sycamore landing that provided him a view of the ravine. For a second, the entire valley exploded into flame, then he blinked and the world returned to normal.
He was going to find her in that camp, dead or alive.
It felt like days had passed.
In reality, it'd been mere hours. Woozily, Deidara turned on her side, the chains connecting her wrists to the floor clanking noisily.
The woman in the next cell had stopped screaming. In the incredibly dim lighting, Deidara couldn't see her.
She was certain that she was underground. She could smell the water in the ground, and fresh earth and minerals mingled with the scent of rot and death.
What happened to me? The last thing she remembered was Kabuto leering at her before she passed out from fatigue and her injuries. She couldn't feel her wounds anymore. It was like they weren't even there. All she could feel was the stiffness in her bones, her knotted muscles, and...
A sharp pain bit into her neck and Deidara hissed, chains following her arm and she lifted her hand to palm her nape.
What the hell?
There was some sort of crusted... ink running across her skin.
A tattoo?
The beginnings of panic welled in her throat, and she put her other hand to her mouth, biting her fingernails. With the hand on her neck, she used a finger to trace the lines printed onto her skin.
She nearly choked. It was a number. She was sure it was a number.
"Did you like my present... 72?" Kabuto's disembodied voice came from the front of her cell.
72.
72.
She wanted nothing more than to claw the dehumanizing number off her skin, but then the door of her prison opened and Kabuto strode in, wheeling something covered behind him.
Deidara sat up, glaring at him with pure hatred. But before she could speak, Kabuto uncovered whatever he had with him, revealing it to be a mirror. Vines snaked out from underneath his dull brown cloak. The tip of the pointed appendages unlocked her manacles so that the chains fell off, but said manacles were still strapped tightly to her bony wrist. Her chakra was still suppressed, and her legs still chained to the ground.
She regarded him warily as Kabuto aligned the mirror toward her, smiling widely. "Strip, 72."
"What?" There was a lifetime worth of outraged venom in that very word alone. "No, fuck no, you sick bastard!"
"You are in no position to be refusing me." A vine snaked around her neck, squeezing slightly. The pointed end kissed her ashen skin, drawing out a droplet of blood.
Trembling with barely contained fury that made her forget about the number on her neck, she began to remove her garb as Kabuto's grip on her throat tightened. She untied the obi that doubled as a belt that had all of her clay attached to it. The obi and clay were tossed to the corner of the cell, as if it were unimportant.
Deidara shivered as her shirt slipped off her shoulders, her front becoming exposed to the cold air. Her pants went next, soiled with dirt, blood, and other substances she didn't care for.
"Look in the mirror."
Deidara didn't move, staring at the wall instead.
"Look in the mirror, 72. That's an order," Kabuto hissed, giving Deidara a full view of his jagged black teeth.
She faced the mirror, but kept her eyes glued to her feet.
Irritated, another vine shot out of Kabuto's cloak, forcing itself under Deidara's chin and pushing up so that she was forced to see herself in the smudged glass.
She exhaled sharply.
"What do you see, 72?" Kabuto whispered, his voice suddenly sounding right next to her ear. She must have zoned out a little, for she suddenly felt his hands pressing into her back and making her walk forward, closer to the mirror.
Deidara didn't answer, merely bringing a hand to her mouth and biting her finger to stop from crying out in miserable frustration. She knew that she'd been malnourished for some time now, but this...
She could count each of her ribs, and her pelvic bone was clearly visible against her grey skin. Her thighs were less than half as thick and strong as they once were. As for her face, her eyes were dull and sunken, and her cheeks had lost all color.
"Chakra is an amazing thing," Kabuto narrated in the background, amused by her reaction. "You have not been eating regularly, or enough to keep your body from shutting down. Instead, your body has been using your chakra to sustain itself. Once that's locked away... your body has no more energy to feed off of."
"Fuck you," Deidara said lowly.
"Do you want to know what I see, 72? I see a lost and broken doll, worn down by the harsh reality of this cruel world. A doll that can be repaired and improved."
"Fuck you!" she screamed, throwing her arm back in a punch. Tears burned the back of her eyeballs, and she bit down a sob.
Kabuto merely watched as she shattered the mirror with her knuckles, the punch landing exactly where his head had appeared in the reflection. Shards of glass were embedded in her hand, and blood dripped languidly down her arm as she panted, the simple action enough to drain her of all her energy.
"Shall we get started?" Kabuto's cold, clammy hands landed on her thin shoulders. "Come, 72."
"I'm not going anywhere with you—"
Kabuto knocked her out by having a vine tap the back of her neck, where her designated number was printed. "Your consent would have made things easier for you." She was already breaking. Before long, she would be an empty slate for Kabuto to fill.
The woman in the next cell was repeatedly bashing her skull into the stone wall in a slow, almost languid pace. Itachi could hear the tell-tale thumps despite having his back turned toward her prison.
More than once, she ceased her mindless self-harm and crawled toward him, wrapping her hands around metal bars that sucked the chakra from her system until there was just enough left to keep her alive. The bars maybe absorbed a drop or two of energy before reaching the limit.
Blearily, Itachi glanced over his shoulder, a difficult task considering that he was lying on his side. She was staring at him, dull brown eyes peaking out between long, unkempt strands of hair.
The woman reminded him of a living skeleton. She was all skin and bones, not an ounce of muscle or fat visible on her body. Her cheeks were sunken in, making her jaw protrude grotesquely, and lack of exposure to sunlight assured that her skin was almost colorless.
She pressed herself against the bars. "Hhhh..." she rasped, panting heavily. "Hhhh..."
Help?
As if she were frustrated immensely, she started to hit her forehead against the metal. Itachi sat up. The motion itself was unbelievably exhausting as the chakra-absorbing chains wrapped around his legs and wrists did their job. She had no confines, he noted, other than the cell.
Whoever was running this place, they obviously didn't consider her a threat to anyone or anything. Except, perhaps, herself.
He blinked slowly at her, wondering what exactly to make of this broken, mindless doll. The scars on her body suggested a violent medical history, one of syringes and scalpels and tubes.
Am I going to become like her?
He smiled, an unexpected feeling of content washing over him, a stark contrast to the bleak disgust he'd been experiencing just seconds ago. I already am. I'm an animal. This was my destiny.
No, he wasn't an animal. No, maybe he was, but he was also a soldier and an effective killing machine. He couldn't exactly remember what he was fighting for, but he was sure it was a cause worthy of great sacrifice.
Somewhere in his muddled mind, Itachi, husband and father, was lost. He did not reemerge, even as the animal and the soldier grappled for dominance.
Itachi faded in and out, the only company he had being the woman, who he largely ignored.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed before he came. He'd had no food, no water, for what seemed like days.
"Hello? Are you awake in there, 73-san?" The woman moaned, opening her mouth to reveal black, broken teeth. There were shards of enamel embedded in her gums that would have surely hurt. Then she began biting the bars, pushing the shrapnel of teeth further into the flesh of her mouth. "45-chan, stop." 45 did not stop. "I said, stop."
There was a cold, ominous wind that accompanied his tone, and Itachi was suddenly more coherent. Even the woman ceased her actions, staring hollowly at the grey-haired man.
He was the same man who had apprehended them at the outpost. Itachi narrowed his eyes, a flame of loathing burning in his belly. There was nothing more than he would have liked at this moment than to punch him right in his pale, cracked face. It would be a glorious thing—to feel his nose cave in, his eyes rolling backwards behind those scratched lenses as shards of bone penetrated his soft brain.
"You must have so many questions," remarked the man. "In the end, it won't matter. You are nothing, 73, except a tool for me to prolong my own survival. If you are polite, I'm sure 45 will be nice enough to give you some insight into your situation. Assuming that she miraculously comes out of her near-vegetative state."
"She's useless," Itachi said callously. "Why do you keep her around?"
"A delightfully simple question with an equally simple answer." He smiled, and Itachi was instantly reminded of a snake. "Because I enjoy taking in the fruits of my efforts, even if they are rotten and inedible. They are failures, but also reminders of my success. You cannot have one without the other, you see." He paused. "I suppose you could, but wouldn't that be utterly meaningless? One cannot enjoy the taste of success without first knowing failure. Enjoy your stay, 73, and your sense of being, because I assure you, it will not last for long." An annoyed scowl. "You're lucky that 72 is stubborn." Then he was gone, the tail end of his brown garment sweeping behind him.
The words chilled him to the bone, and he actually shuddered, vibrations shaking his shoulders. 72 is stubborn. 72 is stubborn.
Who is 72?
Was it Izumi?
He almost vomited. It anything that the man had said was true, and if 45's horrible scarring was any indication, then—
He did vomit then. He was lucky that he was still upright, otherwise he might have choked on his own vomit. The prisons were sloped, he realised, as he watched his vomit slowly trickle toward the wall end of his cell, where a drain ran along said wall.
A more sinister reason took root in his mind and his fists clenched, nails digging into his palms.
"Izumi..." he muttered, uttering the very name a blow to his sanity.
"It's not her."
Itachi turned around so quickly that he almost gave himself whiplash. The worst he got for it, however, was a migraine that bit into his skull. He made note not to move so deftly and suddenly again until he was certain of his limits again.
There was another person in the cell to his right. But they were huddled in the corner, shrouded in shadow, so he hadn't spotted them.
The person slowly opened their eyes, and green orbs stared at him. "Your... wife. It's not her. 72 is the other one."
Relief and sheer horror pounced upon him both at once, and his head spun again. He almost collapsed from sheer fatigue, and he couldn't help but be shocked by how weak the chains and lack of nutrition had rendered him.
"How long has it been?" Itachi asked no one in particular.
"Since you arrived?" The eyes in the dark became half-lidded. "Barely a day. It always seems longer. This place eats away your energy. It's hell, 73."
"Itachi. Not 73."
"I'm 54," said the person. "But you can call me Hajime. I think that's what my mother used to call me." The eyes closed. "I don't remember. I can't remember. It's hard to think."
Sometime later, a half-mutated beast entered the corridor of cells, and removed Hajime from his prison. He was but a small boy, probably only Daichi's age, perhaps a little older. The way Hajime's eyes practically lit up had alarm bells ringing in Itachi's head.
"Thank you, God," Hajime said hoarsely. He turned to Itachi, no longer languid, but excited. "It's finally over. I can go now. No more pain. No more Kabuto-san." He smiled. It was watery. "I can go home. My mother's waiting. Maybe my father's back from fighting in the war!"
Itachi couldn't quite place it, but there was a... dread building up inside him. Whatever illusions Hajime had of his freedom, he wasn't very sure if it would even remotely coincide with what reality had in store.
Fixated on Hajime, Itachi watched him be escorted out of the prison. The heavy iron door closed behind them with a resounding boom.
Itachi didn't think he was ever going to see Hajime again.
Then a scream echoed from the opposite end of the corridor, and Itachi cringed, curling up within himself. His heart thudded rapidly in his chest, threatening to burst.
The woman, 45, started laughing maniacally in her raspy, hoarse voice, gripping the sides of her head and almost swaying rhythmically from side to side. She sang, "72, 72, from ten fingers to only two!"
Deidara screamed in pain, a red fog of agony suddenly clouding her vision.
It hurt so much.
Everything hurt so much.
She wanted to die. Surely, death would be a kinder option. She tried to bite her own tongue off, and maybe bleed to death, but her body would not obey her. She lurched upward from the table in which she was strapped to by cruel binds, her shoulders wracking from the pain.
Tears and snot dribbled down her face, mixing with blood. She wasn't sure where the blood came from. She only knew that her entire head felt like it was on fire, and she was sure that the tips of her ears had been carved to a point. At least her eyes had been touched yet.
Hovering above her, half-hidden in the dark, Kabuto smiled widely, black, lizard-like tongue emerging from between his lips. "Did I hurt you, 72? Did that hurt? I thought I was going slow."
Through the haze of pain was the desire to curse him to hell and back. She sobbed and she thrashed, her chest and torso heaving as she greedily gasped for air. He'd started slow. Very slow. Agonizingly slow.
He had a preference for doing things diagonally, and leaving them unfinished.
Kabuto held something between tweezers in front of her face, and she had to blink away a multitude of fluids before she could get a proper look at it.
It was a tongue. Or, more notably, the tongue from her right hand. He lifted it further from her, eyebrow cocked as he inspected the quality of it. Or something. She couldn't tell. She didn't care.
Just let me die. Just kill me.
Those two thoughts repeatedly circled her head, refusing to leave.
The throbbing on her right hand got even worse, and she suspected that she was starting to pluck out the remaining teeth in that tauntingly slow way of his. First, he'd smashed the hand-mouth with a hammer, breaking her fingers while at it, and probably her wrist as well. Then, as she had seen, he'd removed her the tongue from that mouth.
For a moment, something else more innate that her yearning for death struck her. Her art. Her beautiful, fleeting art. How could he—how could this damn fucking bastard ruin her like this—ruin her art, what was a very integral part of her identity—!
He wrenched another tooth from its place and Deidara hissed, biting down on the tongue in her mouth.
He was ruining her and she was just accepting it. She was bending to his will. This was what he wanted—to destroy her before finally utilizing her. She would become mindless, nothing but a tool to serve her master.
Deidara howled when he skipped a row of teeth and went for one at the far back, an animalistic noise mixed with rage, indignation, and torment. She writhed, fighting against her bonds, but without her chakra, there was no escape.
He lashed out then, scalpel in hand, cutting deeply into Deidara's face. A deep, clean-cut wound appeared beneath her left eye, blood blooming from the new laceration.
"SHUT UP!" Kabuto screeched, his anger holding an underlying layer of paranoia. "BE SILENT, 72!" He grabbed her face, forcing her to look him in the eye. "I'm the good guy here. I'm the one that's saving us all. From that thing. That monstrosity. He lays dormant above ground in this very camp, waiting to devour us all!"
Deidara spat in his face. Grinning through bloody teeth, she hardly made a sound when a vine burst from his back and wrapped around her neck, squeezing. There would be more bruises in the morning, but the pain was nothing. Not when everything else told her that she was being baptized in fire.
The urge to die, to make herself bleed dry, was still there, but greatly suppressed. First, she wanted to see this son of a bitch suffer for destroying her ability to create art, to make her mark on the world. Nothing else mattered at this point. She had nothing else to live for except for her art, except for—
Her rapid thought process screeched to a halt. More pain settled in, but not before she saw his face again.
Sasori?
"Be safe."
She clamped down on her tongue, squeezing her eyes shut as her rage simmered, replaced by the feeling of her entire body skinned and then boiled.
"Finally shutting up," Kabuto spat. "You worthless bitch. I haven't even started the improvements yet... Good grief, this is going to be a tedious process. 71 was so much more well-behaved than you, you damn hellion."
She was barely conscious at this point, but a small, triumphant smile remained on her ragged face. Just to keep herself awake for a little longer, she went over the damage in her head.
She conjured up the image of the missing toes on her left leg, the ribs broken in a zig-zag pattern, her smashed, decimated right hand. Kabuto did indeed like doing things diagonally. Deidara wasn't sure how badly her face was marred, or what exactly her ears looked like now, but it didn't matter.
She continued to smile weakly as she was unchained. Chakra began to fill up her pathways again before being interrupted by Kabuto slamming cuffs on her wrists, then her feet. Her bones feeling like jelly, Deidara slid off the slab of stone that she had been bound to, landing in a messy heap on the floor.
Danna...
Something heavy was thrown on her. The thing irritated the wounds on her body even more.
"Get dressed," Kabuto said coldly.
For now, she obliged him, wincing as she struggled to put on the heavy brown gown. It was the same one Kabuto was wearing, complete with a hood and all. Disgusting. Her entire malnourished body was trembling with the effort, the fire still burning strong and hard in her veins, and she felt faint, but she eventually managed.
The urge to stay alive now overpowered the desire to be dead. She would have to live. For her art, for Sasori.
She did not like depending on others. But she wanted him to come for her. But if they wanted to make an impact, it would have to be a partnership, not just him coming to the rescue.
Deidara would have to do her part.
She noticed, with another guileless smile, that Kabuto had not thought to dispose of the clay pouch she kept strapped around her gi, which was still in her cell. Probably thought it harmless, the fool.
When she got back into her cell, she used her remaining mouths (except for the one on her chest) to chew clay relentlessly. The artist in her turned them all into abstract animals of some sort, all of them tiny enough to not be noticed. They would not move, not with her chakra almost completely drained, but that was fine. As she crafted her art, she distracted herself with visions of glorious explosions, and the man that would be waiting for her at the end of it all.
Deidara, while impatient, would just have to wait. She itched for freedom, after spending what seemed to be an eternity in this hellhole, but what she knew had only been a few hours at best. Certainly, though, she had more patience in one of her broken fingers than Sasori had in every fibre of his being.
Kabuto had fractured her mind, but she'd be damned if she wasn't going to struggle to repair the cracks.
Kabuto was just a variable, Deidara told herself. Her worst enemy here was her own mind.
The woman in the next cell looked over at her curiously with wide, mad eyes. Her matted hair clung to her face with sweat, and she let loose a feverish groan.
Eventually, Deidara collapsed with clay creations scattered all around her like a flower garden from hell. She chuckled hoarsely, brokenly, and finally wept unabashedly as her exhaustion and pain overtook her, passing out only moments later. Her blood pooled beneath some of her harsher wounds, staining her clay animals partly red.
Oh... Itachi. There... There you are.
Izumi reached up to cup her husband's face, her eyes half-lidded in domestic bliss. In the background, she could hear her baby crying for attention. She would tend to Izuna later. For now, all she wanted to do was kiss her husband and hold him in her arms.
"I love you," she whispered as her husband's face melted away into darkness. "What? What... What's going on?!"
Then she was falling, falling so fast—
Izumi's eyes snapped open and she took a deep breath in, gasping and choking for air. Tears bloomed in the corners of her eyes, and she began to sob as she dry retched.
Itachi?
The area around her eyes feeling sticky, she rolled her eyes up to see a shadowed face peering down at her. Then the person crouched over her leaned back, and Izumi could hear chains being rankled as they sat clumsily.
"You're awake," a familiar voice sounded croakily. "That's great."
"Yu... Yukari?" Izumi gasped quietly. A flood of memories invaded her mind and she winced, clutching her head. It was all coming back to her now—the outpost, the trees, Yukari ambushing them—
The girl's head bobbed up and down as Izumi lunged forward and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her violently. "You damn bitch!"
Yukari had sold them out. Had sold herself to... to that grey-haired, pale-faced abomination!
Yukari allowed Izumi to abuse her, not even reacting when the Uchiha woman slapped her across the face in a fit of rage.
"I didn't mean to," Yukari whispered once Izumi had calmed down enough. "But I wasn't strong enough. I needed power." Sadly, a vine snaked out from her brown cloak and flopped onto the floor between the two females. "If I'd been stronger, maybe Sawako wouldn't have died." Izumi startled back when the teenager suddenly erupted in a coughing fit, droplets of black sludge flying from her parted lips.
She's dying, Izumi realized with no small amount of horror.
"I don't know how he found me," continued Yukari, her throat raw from coughing so violently. "Maybe it was me who found him. I don't know." Feverishly, she drew her legs to her chest, resting her forehead on her bony knees. "He said I needed to be improved. I am nothing now. I am 71, and a tool of his." She choked on a sob. "That's what he said. And he's right."
Izumi couldn't bring herself to say anything.
"When I wouldn't listen to him the first time, he made sure to punish me."
Looking at Yukari's nasal cavity, her empty eye socket, and the blood patch of hair around what once was her left ear, Izumi caught the implication.
It stirred her stomach.
Yukari made no comment when the Uchiha woman turned her head to the side and vomited as far as possible from where they were sitting. She had had little food intake, so it was mostly a clear fluid with chunks of something floating around.
"That sick bastard," Izumi wheezed. "What's his game? What's he getting from this?" She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember good memories. Her tomato garden, her days spent with the man that was now her husband—
"Survival. In the end, he's like the rest of us. He'll do anything to live. To survive the monster that he himself engineered." Yukari sniffled. "He told me all about it, since I'm not gonna live long. "The Zetsu camp is right above where we are right now. This place used to be a research facility belonging to Tsukigakure, and it was where Zetsu was created..."
Kawai's scream was abruptly cut off as Zetsu stabbed her brain through her eyes. Then, hungrily, the creature gripped her head with its jaws, its powerful incisors crushing her skull. It yanked and yanked, feeling the pop of Kawai's vertebrae before her head was completely severed, a good portion of her spine coming out along with the head.
Watching through the security cameras, Kabuto shivered in his wheel-y chair.
Too strong. This... I've made a monster.
He could not let Zetsu escape from this facility. Grabbing a microphone and pulling it toward his mouth, he frantically ordered, "ALL UNITS TO THE BASEMENT! ALL UNITS TO THE BASEMENT! EXPERIMENT 1 HAS BREACHED SECURITY! I REPEAT, EXPERIMENT 1 HAS BREACHED SECURITY!"
Zetsu had been intentionally designed to be able to take down entire armies, guaranteeing Tsuki's success in the war. But it seemed that somewhere, the coding had went wrong, and Zetsu was undoubtedly hostile to... everything with a pulse.
Soldiers flooded the basement, and Kabuto watched them all be torn apart, no match for Zetsu's prowess. But then Zetsu started getting less aggressive, turning the soldiers into his own brethren instead of outright killing them.
"No...!" Kabuto hissed. "This can't end like this!"
In a rage, vines snapped out from his body, lashing around the room. He had engineered himself to have the same abilities as Zetsu, but he inherently knew that he would never be a match for the monster. After all, it was his own brilliant mind that designed Zetsu to be the apex predator as well as the ultimate warrior.
But Zetsu did have a weakness.
Biting his lip, Kabuto smashed a button.
In an instant, the entire basement was flooded with the hottest chakra-based flame in the world.
It was not enough.
Zetsu screamed in pain, a plant-like cocoon starting to form about its body. It shot upward into a higher level that was still underground, and the security cameras on that level suddenly fried.
But—
Kabuto gasped as one of Zetsu's little monsters which had narrowly escaped the fire turned the remaining forces into more monsters in Zetsu's image. He slumped in his seat.
One day, Zetsu would undoubtedly awake from its slumber with its injuries fully healed. With the monster's running amok above ground, there was no way he was going to be able to effectively leave and come back with more fire or explosives through the escape holes connecting the base to the outside wilderness. He wasn't even sure if there were any explosives around.
There was only one thing left to do for him.
He had to build an army that would listen to his command.
"But there were!" Izumi exclaimed. "Our mission was to collect the TNT in the outpost. How could Kabuto not have known about it?"
"He probably did..." Yukari lifted her face, staring eerily at Izumi with her single eye. "But with all those monsters surrounding the outpost, he wouldn't dare have tried, even if an escape hole was so nearby. The men that were in that outpost fought tooth and nail against the beasts for weeks, using the bunker as a fortress... It was sheer coincidence that we met you there. Kabuto is first and foremost a scientist... He saw greater value in you guys than the TNT."
For the second time in that hour, Izumi emptied her stomach.
"Turn around," Yukari said softly, when Izumi was done wiping her mouth. "Let me see what number he made you."
Numbly, Izumi did just that, a chill crawling up her spine. She could feel Yukari's frail, cold hand ghost her nape for a moment before her hair, which was still tied up in a bun, was pushed some way up.
There was a confused silence on Yukari's end.
"What is it?" Izumi asked, dreading the answer.
"You... You're not numbered."
This did not ease her. If it was the norm to be numbered, then why—?
Suddenly, Yukari gasped, scrambling away from the front of the cell, where shadowy figures now loomed.
Then the cell door slid open, and two guards marched in. One of them had an odd flower on his back while the other was wholly nondescript other than his white hair and purple eyes.
They hauled Izumi up by the arms, and the woman's legs shook from standing up after a long time.
"No," Yukari whispered, "Don't go."
There was no use fighting, so Izumi let herself be roughly handled by the guards—members of Kabuto's growing army—mindless minions—
"What's your name?" the guard with the flower asked, his voice almost gentle.
The white-haired one snorted. "Don't talk to the prisoner, Juugo." He sighed, the noise exasperated and accepting at the same time. "S'not good to get too attached..."
"It's Izumi," she muttered out of spite. "Uchiha Izumi."
"You look like 73," Juugo said. "We go by 62 and 65, or Juugo and Suigetsu."
"73? Itachi?"
"Sure, why not," said 65, or Suigetsu. "We're taking you to see him right now."
What? This sounded too good to be true. So Izumi set her features in stone, not willing to grow any false hope in her heart.
That heart leaped straight to her throat when she laid eyes on him for the first time since they'd been captured.
Immediately, she tried to run to where he was kneeling, eyes wide.
"ITACHI!"
"Izumi?" Itachi clutched his head, his clouded eyes suddenly becoming clear. "Izumi!"
"Hold her," Kabuto, who was standing over Itachi, drawled lazily.
Izumi cried out when she was grabbed by the shoulders and had her knees slammed into the hard floor. Desperate, she looked up at her handlers, but found that they were completely void of human expression, even Juugo, who had seemed almost compassionate and shy.
"Yes," Kabuto muttered to himself, "perfect." He looked down at Itachi. "You're a tough nut to crack, perhaps even tougher than 72. I can see it in your eyes." He licked his lips, his pupils dilating. "You will not defy me when this is over, 73."
"What are you doing?!" Itachi roared as Kabuto stalked over to where Izumi was knelt, a chakra scalpel similar to the one Sasori used forming around his hand.
"This is for your own good 73. A reminder that you have nothing else in this world but me. Perhaps she could have made a fine 74, but her breeding is worthless. She is worthless to me. But her worth... is wholly subjective."
Screaming, Itachi lunged forward, his exhaustion momentarily forgotten. He was going to kill Kabuto. But the chains held him back, clanking with each movement. Still, he fought, but to no avail. "IZUMI!"
Her face fell with horror as she realized her fate.
Kabuto smiled. "Bye-bye, Izumi-chan."
"Explosions!" Izumi blurted as Kabuto raised his chakra scalpel over her neck, tears freely streaming down her face. For a split second, her eyes bled into the red of the Sharingan for the first time from powerful fear, despite the chakra-suppressing wristbands she had on. "Explosions will kill Zetsu! He's somewhere in the camp—take care of Izuna, I loveyouIloveyouanata—"
Kabuto's blade sliced through her neck neatly, and her head tumbled forward, landing on the floor with a wet thud right in front of Itachi.
A flicker of guilt shadowed Suigetsu's eyes. He and Juugo released Izumi's body, letting it topple in a heap as Itachi wept uncontrollably, crawling forward to wrap his arms around Izumi's severed head and pull it close to his chest. Blood bloomed on the front of his shirt, the stain growing bigger and bigger with each passing second.
Kabuto walked out. "Come, 60s. We're done here."
Suigetsu took one last glance at the sad sight behind him before following Juugo and Kabuto out. The cell door closed shut with a metallic whine behind him, leaving Itachi to grieve on his own.
In Sakura's arms, Izuna began to cry.
A/N: What a happy chapter this is. Next up, we'll have more blood and trauma! And then some comas and courtroom drama...
Note: the outfit Deidara is wearing now is the one in the cover. Basically, what the Akatsuki wore when they were brought back to life in canon.