Summary:
The eyes of the Hyuuga are as cold and glittering as the iced-over snowflakes. Are their minds, their hearts, their souls any different? [AU] [Non-Chronological Linked Drabbles]
General Disclaimer For The Entire Story:
I don't own Naruto. If I did, I'd have given Deidara more screentime, because he is awesome and a pyromaniac and thus doubly awesome. In fact, he's 120% awesomer, you could say. Oh, and the cover picture isn't mine, either. Should I change it? (Does anybody actually read this disclaimer?)
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(smoke surely smothers souls, somehow)
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[Age 12]
The first time Sasuke kills someone, it is by immolation.
They are walking along a typical forest path, Sakura sneaking glances at him but mostly by Tazuna's side, Naruto closing his eyes but not missing a single step, himself periodically sweeping along their surroundings but focusing on the road ahead, and Kakashi covering their backs but nonchalantly reading his book with a chakra trick to flip his pages for him.
(Sakura, someone he very distantly recalls to be one of his most die-hard fangirls, is apparently being slowly weaned off of that habit. Point in case: her surprisingly professional team introduction, and her acceptable conduct so far.)
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The first time Sasuke kills someone, it is on his first C-Rank mission.
Nobody really expects much on a C-Rank, except maybe the clients themselves, but there is only so much of a reasonable effort to expend on vetting the 98% typically average commissions, and to be fair, that remaining 2% is religiously hushed up by the hawkishly observing higher-ups.
(And there is always somebody higher-up than you are, always to the edge of eternity and tripled-back-sideways, always, always watching. Point in case: who else tells the teachers what to say to the impressionable, eager young minds in their tentative care, and more importantly, who else makes sure the teachers say what they're told in the end?)
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The first time Sasuke kills someone, it is not the glorious or the vengeful or the detached (or, secretly, the uneasy) action he dreams it to be.
There are therapists for Genin who made first kills, mandatory therapy sessions for the continued wellbeing and reputation of a kinder Hidden Village, although admittedly, as a result of the lack of any sane therapists willingly choosing to be ninja therapists, those therapists are generally whatever Intelligence, Torture and Interrogation, and medical ninja that can be scrounged up with good reviews for human interaction.
(Academy instructors hold a brief, one-day lesson on mission kills, lightly touching on the psychological effects they need to keep an eye and an ear for, dressing the entire thing up in breezy euphemisms to avoid offending the civilian and expected-drop-out students' gentler sensibilities, then mention the subject in only passing notice for the rest of the school years.)
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The first time Sasuke kills someone, it is the movement of a second that lasts for several minutes.
They're in a triangle formation, a classic guard formation, he and Naruto taking point to spring traps and clear the path, right for him and left for he, the greater experienced member of the team drawing up the back, as it was the more vulnerable direction for the majority of greenhorn Genin, leaving the most defensible position, the inside of the triangle, for the weak client and the close-quarters bodyguard.
(When the already-highly-suspicious puddle, for, after going through several of Hinata's Suiton traps, any body of water where there should be none automatically warrants suspicion, springs up a shinobi with spiked chains swinging towards them, he doesn't think, not really, he just reacts and moves-
Fwooooooosssshhhhhhh!)
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The first time Sasuke kills someone, it is taking too long for them to finally die.
Fire is an 100% offensive element, one which can only destroy, not defend, and which has no real weight or mass to it, as it is literally just heat made hot enough to shimmer and spark into visibility; most think it to be a very impractical attack, therefore, because unless you concentrate fire into a condensed beam or a similarly pressured shape, it is far faster to crush someone under water or electrocute someone through lightning or rip someone apart with wind or even, simply, impale someone over earthen spikes, than it is to stand there awkwardly and wait for someone to die slowly by fire.
(Dry hair burns first and burns out first, then smooth skin and slimy guts and sloppy miscellaneous insides, hard nails and teeth and bones going on and on and on and on last, though of course the entire time soft fleshy bits like eyeballs and tongues are baking and cracking and leaking juices all over the place, and all of these entirely irrationally rational thoughts have never seemed so relevant as they are when they blitz around his emptily rattling skull and a viciously bright flower of flame blooms out of his scorched draconic mouth.)
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The first time Sasuke kills someone, it is a pale, vivid, simple, terrible, contradicting event that smells too strongly of smog.
He can't help hearing the scream of surprise and shock and, later, sentience-consuming agony-pain-hot-hot-hot that claws out of the shinobi's throat and keeps on clawing continuously, the dark hazy silhouette in the bonfire of blood jerking around in an unbearable parody of a tribal dance, arms half-raised to clutch at his face but falling limp and twitchy before they reach.
(There is smoke rising out of the fire, smoke and screams, which are the only way he can track if the burning form is still alive or just a charred corpse.)
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The first time Sasuke kills someone, it is the most personally impersonal experience he has.
"Killing is a very personal thing," Kakashi says, Icha-Icha lowered and smile-folds thinned flat, gazing down at him in a way that makes him feel quite, quite small through the persistent numbness, arms crossed and back blocking the view of his undoubtedly curious and apprehensive teammates and client, branches around them in the small forest-space he'd pulled them into.
("It is very easy to kill, as a ninja. A simple throw of a senbon, a simple slice or slit from a shuriken. We carve with kunai and stab with knives, we play with poisons of both the metaphysical and physical sort daily. It is very easy, therefore, to make killing impersonal. That's usually what most ninja aim for, so as to lessen the impact on their mental health. Another train of thought, one that my own sensei subscribed to, is that every death we incur is a life ended before it's time, which means that every life cut short by our actions is a death that's our responsibility. You don't have to mourn everyone you kill, you don't have to feel guilty. But you cannot, you can never, not feel something. Sanity is basically a choice as a ninja. Choose nicely, hm?")
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The first time Sasuke kills someone, he wants to throw up but can't, so he just watches and makes sure he remembers every single sensation of it.
Every single horrible writhing pulse of flesh, like the shinobi is trying to wriggle right out of his burning skin, every single blackened patch of skin flaking off into soft charcoal bits, their cracking ugly scabs already crumbling ash in the wind, every single scent of fire and smoke and pure wavering heat, soaking his sooty eyelashes then slithering anything-but-smoothly-slickly-sinuously down his mouth-throat-lungs-heart, every single tangled string of powerful merciful fearful weakness, entwining ever closer through his mind.
(What makes it worse-better-okay-fine[?] is how Kakashi unconcernedly returns to his book cheerfully humming a vaguely off-key tune, Naruto doesn't look at or speak to him any differently after seeing him roast a man alive, how Sakura gives him the same tremulously unsure smile that still holds no wariness of what he could do.
Because what those gestures convey, sure and soft and certain, is, "We know what you can do, and we trust you won't do that to us."
Is it fine having matters like that? Does it make what he did okay?
Maybe is it better, the knowledge of a team who supports him?
Or is it worse, the knowledge of a team who supports him supporting him 'til the very end, 'til he loses control and burns them to the blazing afterlife as well?
Some part of him feels worn and dirty and stained, and Sasuke just really, really wants a shower right now.
It looks like he's not getting one until they reach Wave, though, so he grimly hurries on and listens to Kakashi's lilting comment about the second shinobi who'd apparently gotten away.)
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Finishing another unfinished document on my account...
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-Review, please.-
