I do not own Naruto. Also, 'falling into the black' is a phrase from Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine describing Nara training accidents.
"The Devil asked me how I knew my way around the halls of hell. I told him I did not need a map for the darkness I knew so well."
-t.m.t.
"I hate war." Chobee's voice sounds over the radio headpiece in Nara Ensui's ear. They are crouching in the tall grass on the Kusa side of the Kusa-Iwa border, waiting for Kiho to return from recon. If I had to guess, it's because potato chips make too much noise and he's not used to not eating for this long.
"Don't we all?" Kaito murmurs, and Ensui can almost see the sarcastically arched blond eyebrow.
Kiho giggles. "Let's just remember our focus." She's in the body of her favorite swallow summons, looking over the land below, speaking directly to his mind. No one else can hear her.
"Yeah." Ensui breaths, and closes his eyes. We're facing the Explosion Corps, and they've been brutal since the start of the war. "We need to take out that squad on the other side of the border. That's our mission."
"You got a plan, En-kun?" Chobee shifts, and a slight wind blows through the grass, masking his movement.
"Where are they, Vicious Hag?" He asks for the benefit of the rest of his team.
"Making camp just over the border." Her mind's back in the body beside him. She switches into civilian clothes, and rubs mud and grime over her face, arms, and hands. Her legs are mud-splattered; her dress is hemp. "I'm going to flee across the border. They'll capture me, and I'll poison their water supply while I'm in their camp. Don't lose your nerve, Waste of Space."
"Ensui." Kaito's voice cracks over the radio. "You ought to veto that decision. It's a really bad idea."
"I second that." Chobee mutters. "Kiho-chan, that's an awful idea."
"Does anyone else have a better plan?" Kiho frowns and Ensui feels a headache coming on. Oh Kami. They've just poked the sleeping bear. "There are only the four of us. There's nine of them."
Ensui sighs. His headache comes back in full force. "I've got nothing guys."
"See?" Kiho asks their gathered team. "My idea is the best one so far." It's the only one we've got so far, Vicious Hag.
"It's not a good idea." And his head is pounding, and he feels kind of sick. Really shouldn't've been trying to stretch my shadow yesterday. It's killing me now. "But I've got nothing else." He has to trust his team. If I can't trust them, then I can't trust anyone. "Kiho can go in, and we'll come in by sunset as backup." Sunset is his strongest time of day, where the shadows lengthen to their longest, and of course, he's worried as hell about this decision, but kami. Why isn't Shikaku here to make a plan? I'm no good at long term plans.
"I've got it." She runs her fingers through his high tail, and kisses him on the cheek. "Good luck with the wait, boys." She disappears into the tall grass.
And there she goes, by the grace of Kami, my heart. But he has to trust that he'll see her again, through the pounded clenching of his heart, through the dull roar in his ears. And I'll see you again, in three hours time. That's a vow, Vicious Hag. Wait for us.
They are still crowded in the grasses as the sun slides to a hair's breadth above the horizon. The camp across the river has been eerily silent all afternoon. "Let's move in." He murmurs. "This has gone on long enough."
They rise from the grasslands, three shadowy men. He sends up a quick prayer, and pulls his battle face back on. Let's roll.
Then, as one, they rush the camp on the other side of the river.
And that's when everything goes straight to hell.
Kiho's crouched over the water supply. Four guards raise the alarm as they move in. Five men gathered around the cooking fire pull out their weapons, as if they've been waiting for the call. And eight other agents burst from the ground.
An ambush. Shit. He makes one hand sign, splits his shadow into four parts, and catches four of the ambushers in his long shadow.
"Partial Multisize Jutsu!" Chobee shrieks, and punches another three with his enlarged fist. He disappears into a brawl of moving limbs and muffled groans.
And then Kaito's going in, long knives slashing each frozen man over the throat, working with Ensui like they were born to do it, ducking under the incoming hail of kunai.
Kiho spins, shuriken flashing through the air. But she hasn't got enough weapons.
"Ensui! Behind you!" He sees Kaito's shocked expression, and ducks, rolling forward as he loses his grip on the rat sign.
The air behind him explodes, setting his ears ringing. Shit. He thinks. That would've been my head.
Kaito slashes his knife towards their attacker, lightning crackling at his fingertips. Ensui slams his shaking hands together for another sign.
The man grabs the knife and tears it from Kaito's hand. Another three men mob them.
His hands are still shaking too hard. The chakra's not coming.
Kaito's still moving, his hand catches their attacker across the face-
Bone, flesh, and brain matter rains down over the two of them as a deafening sound shakes the earth beneath their feet. The Hell?
There's no time to think though. He pulls himself together. Kaito's hand lands against another face, another shower blood. We must look like something that's crawled out of the depths of Hell by now. The two remaining men finally freeze, his shadow finally listening to his commands once more.
"Kaito" He gasps. "Finish them." Are you alright? What the hell is going on? He doesn't have the breath or the energy to vocalize his concerns.
His friend does as asked, with the single knife still left in his hand. Two slashed throats. All goes still.
And then Kaito's falling to his knees, bloody hands raking through his hair, red streaking pale blond, madness in his eyes. "No. No. NO!" We can't stop like this.
A dark shape rises behind Kaito, who's still so far gone.
And Ensui cannot possibly make it across the clearing in time. He sees the glint of a kunai in the dying light. His hands are in the Rat sign. His shadow's stretching. Stretching. The light is dying. Thread thin now, and it's not far enough.
He calls the last vestiges of his chakra and pushes-
And it snaps, spinning lazily across the clearing, lifting into the air, spearing the woman through the throat. What the actual-
Blood sprays, raining over Kaito as the woman drops. His friends vacant eyes remain as they are. Ensui's not even certain that Kaito knows anything is going on at all.
But he doesn't have a shadow anymore. It's literally ten feet away from him.
He climbs to his feet, every muscle screaming.
"Ensui?" The voices come from very far away as he staggers towards Kaito. "Ensui?" Another step. "Ensui!" Hands on his shoulders, gently shaking him back and forth. Chobee. Dear old dependable Chobee, with blood and mud splattered in his hair, looking winded, but alright.
"Kiho?" Ensui rasps. "Where's Kibo?"
Kaito's shuddering before them, Chobee's cloak over him, and Chobee's here, mostly unharmed, but he can't see Kiho. She'd disappeared in the fray earlier. He hasn't seen her since.
"She's..." Chobee pauses just a moment too long. "She's fine!"
A wide fake smile. Don't worry about it, Ensui. He thinks disgust filling his mouth. I'm not an invalid. So tell me what's going on.
"Where's Kiho." He snarls as he falls to his knees before Kaito.
Chobee heaves him up. "She's healing herself right now." So that's what this is. Ensui thinks, and reaches out to help Kaito up.
"No!" The blond man shrieks, all vacant blue eyes, terror, slack muscles, and harsh breathing. "Don't touch me." A hand lashes out.
Ensui throws himself over Chobee. "Out of the way!" There's lightning sparking across Kaito's hands. We'll all be killed if we touch that. It passes over his high tail, and he smells his hair burning, but it doesn't touch Chobee.
"Waste of Space?" He sees Kiho crawling over the them on her hand and knees, her other hand glowing green and pressed over her abdomen. "What's going on? She's too close to Kaito. He's unstable.
"Don't move." Ensui croaks. The fact that his shadow is lost means much less now. It rises over Kiho.
"Nara Ensui." It says. The situation is unreal. His shadow bows to them. "My benefactor." Ensui coughs and tastes blood. What is this?
"Would you get back here?" Since it is so terrifyingly unreal, he might as well demand and be angry.
"I live to please." The Shadow ripples over the ground through Kaito-what did you think? That your shadow was a solid like a person?- and comes to a stop before him. The situation is terrible, but they could all be dead. He'd take it. "I could help you." The Shadow says, and it's a terrible idea to want to say yes, a Nara knows all the warning signs, all the horror stories. I've broken the clan jutsu.
"What are you talking about?" He can't help it. He has to ask. Call it natural curiosity.
"Don't, Ensui." Kiho's pushing herself up with both hands; he sees the fresh blood mixing with mud over her slashed dress, and he can't listen to her.
"Your friends are injured." The Shadow observes. And isn't it strange, isn't it odd that a shadow can speak.
"Ensui." And that's Chobee. "You don't have to do this for us." Before them, Kaito shudders, a string of intelligible words, staring at his bloodied hands. He runs them through his pale hair and laughs. Kaito's gone mad.
"Can you help with that?" Ensui jerks his chin in Kaito's direction. Kiho's got a glowing green hand over her stomach and she's not dead or insane yet so he'd take it, and Chobee very obviously seems fine.
"Of course, I can." The Shadow sounds offended. If I'm making a deal with the Devil, I might as well as for what I need.
"I want whatever's breaking his mind muted or gone." He grits out, the taste of his own blood on his tongue getting worse. I don't know what part of today broke him-I'm assuming it's the heads exploding part-so I'm going to ask for everything.
The Shadow wiggles as if it had shrugged its shoulders. "As my master commands." It wiggles over towards Kaito's shadow, and pulls a piece of it off, holds the piece in its hand for a moment, and then swallows it.
The wave of pain has him hacking up blood. It feels like he's being torn apart, stretched and reshaped, like his chakra network is trying to rip its way out of his skin, like he's a piece of canvas stretched over a bumpy rock filled landscape. A convulsive scream rises into the shattered air. He does not realize that it is his throat doing the screaming.
Nara Ensui finds himself again in a flower garden, roses of every color blooming and budding in a profusion of scent and taste. My mind palace. The thought is quickly followed by another. Why am I here?
He turns to the throne in the center of the garden. Normally, normally his avatar when he visited, would begin sitting on the throne, or if he chose to begin in some other part of the garden, the throne would be empty. His negative image is sitting there now.
"Who are you?" He demands, though he suspects that he knows. Negative inverse. That's what a shadow is.
"I'm you." It replies. "Every dark part of you."
"So I made a deal with the Devil then." He looks around at all the frail blooming flowers, and then at the dark and seething shape on his throne wearing his form.
"Only if you are a devil, Nara Ensui. Do you consider yourself a devil?" It asks. How am I supposed to answer that? He thinks to himself, halfway hysterical. What about me is any different than any one of my cousins?
"Ah." The Shadow breaths deeply and it seems smugly content. "You among all your peers, you're vindictive, Nara Ensui."
"So's Sembei." He snaps back. If we are halves of each other, I refuse to be the lesser half.
"Who," The Shadow continues on undeterred. "Seeks knowledge as relentlessly as you do?" Plenty" He thinks. But not-
"Yes." The Shadow agrees. "But not among the Nara, ancient gate keepers of the night. You don't even pretend to be lazy." It examines its cuticles. "It's a critical failing of yours, you know."
"What do you want?" He shouts at it. "Is it so wrong to want to save people?"
"Oh, Ensui." It murmurs, patronizingly. "I want to go back to sleep. But I can't do that now, can I? You've set me free."
That doesn't sound good.
"No, it really isn't." The Shadow uncrosses its legs and stands up. "We've split in two."
"You're telling me?" Ensui feels a laugh bubble up from the depths of him.
"If you hadn't stretched so far we won't be in this state. If you hadn't wanted to know so Kami-damned much what would happen then-" The Shadow pulls its smoky form together, and he sees his own dark eyes reflected back in its face. "We'll have to learn to get along now." A small cloud of smoke escapes the main body, and a branch like hand snakes out impossibly far and snatches it back.
The Shadow opens its mouth-too wide. That's not even remotely human-and swallows it whole.
"What's that?"
The Shadow looks guilty, if a black shape could look guilty. "Your friend's negative energy. He shouldn't be crazy anymore."
Kaito. He thinks, and sighs with relief. "So what's the problem?" Because that doesn't seem like something to be guilty about.
"Well..." The Shadow shifts backwards. "We-"
"Ensui!" And he feels strong arms wrap around his middle. "Thank Kami. You're still here."
"What?" He drawls, despite the unease moving somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach. "Vicious Hag, don't tell me that you're worried about me." This is an uncharacteristic-
"Worried?" There's a hysterical note to her voice. "Your heart stopped five times on our way back to the main camp. You're lucky the medics were able to revive you!" That sounds...He doesn't want to contemplate it.
"How long have we been down here?" He asks his shadow.
It cowers like a beaten dog. "Two days. Give or take."
"Do we have any other problems?" Dark half of me indeed. I wouldn't have waited to tell myself that we've been down here for two whole days. Give or take. He ignores that this is exactly what he's done.
"We've burned our chakra system?" It offers.
"You mean." Kiho's voice has gotten dangerously low. "You burned Ensui's chakra system." She advances on it, spiritual energy glowing blue-white.
It shies away from her avatar like any smart sentient being. It might be a part of me after all. Ensui muses. We're afraid of the same things.
"I'm sorry?" It offers and draws itself up. "I love you? Don't kill me?"
The words knock the air from his lungs. Did you just-He stands, slack jawed, and petrified. The first time Kiho was ever supposed to know that-he can't even think it properly. He won't ever be able to think properly again. She wasn't supposed to know that yet.
"You love me?" She sets a hand on her hip, sarcastic anger in every line of her frame. "Whatever makes you think that I care about a good for nothing piece of trash like you?" And she's said this before, calls him a 'waste of space' as an endearment quite often, and loudly at that, but this is not the same.
His shadow slumps. "We were afraid that you were going to say that."
"No. You were afraid that she was going to say that." Ensui steps forward and wraps his arm around his teammate's waist. "Come on, we should go back."
She looks up at him, impossibly, exasperatedly fondy. "And you!" There's something like a tidal pool in her teal eyes, furious but worried. "Don't you think that I'm done with you!"
"Yeah, yeah." He drawls, and sticks his hands in his pockets. "Lemee write that down so I don't forget it, yeah, Vicious Hag?"
"Ooo..." She scrunches up her nose the way she always does when she's frustrated and shakes a finger at him. "I'll never get over how much I hate you, you waste of space!" You're even worse than a trash can."
"Vicious." He sighs. "And ugly." He adds, pulling on a stray lock of her hair.
"Vindictive." She lobbies back, turning up her nose. They walk out into the light, her giggles trailing behind them.
Ensui comes back to himself in pieces, a finger here, breathing there. And when he finally cracks open his eyes, he thanks every deity there ever was that he's still alive. He's burning up inside, but he's most certainly alive, because hell doesn't feel this bad.
Chobee's in the hospital bed opposite his, munching on some food source or other, and the sound is constant and soothing.
There's a head of pale blond hair pillowed on his bedside table and for one moment he thinks that it's Kiho, but she's pushing open the door which has to mean-This is Kaito.-He realizes, somewhat belatedly. Kai-kun.
"Oh good." Kiho murmurs. "You're awake."
Her statement jolts their mutual friend from his slumber. "Wah?" Iwa no-Inuzuka Kaito now-He reminds himself, is the most ungraceful bed head that Ensui has ever had the dubious pleasure of meeting.
Kaito's gaze lands on his face. "Oh Kami." He smiles, soft and small. It looks normal. Oh praise Kami that I lived to see it. "You survived!" The blond man runs his hands through his hair, eerily reminiscent of the time he went insane, but he doesn't seem to notice. "Do you know how worried we were?" Yes. Be alive and sane enough to lecture me about my bad choices. Be the den mother. "One moment we were finishing the fight, and the next you were on the ground screaming and just-" Kaito turns to him, bereaved worry in those blue gray eyes. "Shit. I never want to see that again. Please don't ever do that again."
And the most surreal thing about the week is that mild mannered Kaito just swore.
"Yeah." Ensui's lips curl up in a smile despite how his veins still feel like they're being held to a molten flame. "I'll try not to."
"Damaged people are dangerous. They know how to make hell feel like home."
-Quotes n' Notes
A.N. And so here we have it, Nara-sensei's beginning explorations into the thing that's plaguing him now in Bloodless. That and some team love. More before and after this time period will be covered, but I felt that this scene was too long to include in Teahouse off the Main Road as it is three thousand or so words, so here it is.
The response to last chapter was tremendous. Thank you so much to rickrossed (Naruto will not be lefty out.), AnimeFreak71777 (:P), Sazaleli, LittleMissSugarLess (They will. Eventually.), OddShadow, samusbot, lanternenfisch, mercurae, CasJeanne (This takes place concurrent of the Kakunodate Arc, so Hana's not in the village for her to meet Ino again.), DuxTell, NightsBlackRose13 (I feel like it's the other way around. Kiba's rubbed off on Hana. Kiba is brighter and much more spontaneous than Hana even though they are siblings, and thus share a degree of similarity.), UnbiasedBias (Well, he is five years old, and probably sweeter than him at twelve.), libraryrockerr, Real Exter (I feel that Ino, being herself at five, is simply more vain. Shikamaru and Choji are best friends with each other, and they do a lot of boring things like eat and watch clouds, in her opinion. She hasn't grown up enough to appreciate them yet, or understand less showy personalities, and whatever else Kiba is, he's very much showy. She's a little in awe, but she won't forget her older friends.), Cooked Ghost (Surviving Fuga-tou...not many. And yes, Inoichi is worried because Hana has reminded him, and unfortunately Kiba is her little brother. He's a little guilty.), Guest, and helenGet for reviewing!
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~Tavina