Note to Readers: For all my efforts and time dedicated to a literary work that I don't get paid or recognition and exists for sole the purpose of bringing enjoyment, I don't ask for too much. So please if you read, leave me a review.

osvark: Well, demonic manifestations are not normal to the public in this verse, but to Sasuke… he's another story. He has an interesting background that you learn more about next chapter. Demon Naruto is starting to surface here, so I'm pretty sure you'll find your answer soon. Thanks for reviewing!

The Tattoo

T(hese) H(ollowed) R(emains) E(victed) E(ternity)

By: Lin West

v.

The skyline of the city was illuminated, but not from moon or starlight. In their absence the chaotic city lights painted the lower hemisphere a rustic maroon. It's late, and I knew I wasn't going to make the next train.

I purchased a ticket to a train arriving in an hour and sitting in the dirty plastic chair at the station with only the envelope in my hands. The thin package felt heavy in my palms as I opened it to review its information, notably it contained a card with Sasuke's neat penmanship: "Tomorrow, same time same place."

A scent so strong it eradicated all memory of the scent of pollen, grass, water, and cold fall air – leaving only the wretched stench of iron and death. Under the hum of the streetlights and framed by houses, familiar faces stretched with disbelief and fear into motionless bags of skin. In the end the only sound was the buzz of cicadas and the pumping of my own blood.

It had been six years since that series of events which seemed to me now more a dream than reality. A night under the Harvest Moon seeped in the spilling of lifeblood on gravel and asphalt; a nightmare which I relive every time I turn the lights and try to sleep. Am I to relive it once more?

I went all these years with no problems, not even this curse roused to an uncontrollable level. I suppose that silence was too much for one such of my self to ever hold, only to long for.

vi.

How could he do it? Sit, bustle, push papers, run numbers like he didn't ask me only last night to murder a man? Under his clinical and cold gaze I couldn't keep my nerves in check. I knew he's watching me, gauging me like an animal and finding the results unsatisfactory. Normally my anxiety did not get this bad, usually I'm able to contain and restrain. Cork it all in until my flat's lock was turned ninety degrees up and windows were all shaded.

A decade of running and hiding anywhere I could: forests, caves, homeless shelters, it didn't matter. It was elsewhere, far away. No matter how far I went, all the while I knew I could not ultimately escape my true fear of the monster inside me. In my dreams and sometimes when awake I see it, a horrid smiling beast soaked to bone in black blood. By my hands, even though unwilling, I killed them. All of them. And I could do it again that easily.

Goddamn it, he knew. I didn't know how much, but he knew what I have inside me. He had seen my tattoo.

Six retreats to the men's room. Four broken pencils. Seven empty styrofoam cups from black coffee. Fifty forms filled. An hour long lunch break eating nothing but my nails. Eight hours of torture.

I didn't feel relief as I left work, I felt too numb, too bewildered, and I knew I would see him again. In front of the turn style doors I'm nearly but a hand grasped my shoulder and I jerked.

"Uzumaki."

I did not turn. I did not answer.

"Come with me."

But I did follow.

We walked through the thunder of the metropolis in silence until we were at the center of everything and the middle of nowhere. Blood pulsed against my neck and I almost didn't notice when Mr. Takashiro, or rather Sasuke, began speaking, "What the hell is wrong with you? Let's make one thing clear: this will be as messy as you make it." Arms crossed, slightly leaning forward. Black eyes absorbing all, only to reflect it back.

"I'll kill you."

Clearly dissatisfied at not taking his threat seriously, "You should take a couple days to sort yourself out. You're going next weekend. And don't forget tonight."

He left. I crawled at my scalp, my teeth clenched as I growled low in my throat. I'll kill him, I'll rip him apart until there's nothing left of him left to identify. A mass of oozing pulp, yes, that would most certainly alleviate this. It seemed the appropriate vengeance on a man that clearly sought enjoyment in other's pain and an end with no justifiable means.

I could kill him. I could just reach out and crush him with my hands, arrest his lung's contractions with just a single hand. That would end my immediate problem, however not my long sighted ones. People have already seen me and Mr. Takashiro talk and leave the building together before. Most of all, despite myself and all his wrongs, the thought of killing anyone rose bile to my throat's back.

vii.

In an hour I would have to be there, but everything that once was round robin-ed in my head and I felt too lucid to move from my coach. All the lines of the room and the light from the city lights outside my window arranged in perfect harmony against the discord of my apartment flat. Memories I tried to forget of people, places, Mom, and Dad were still here; all as crisp and vivid as they were all those years ago. Of all these recollections, the emotions sang loudest.

Didn't they love me? They told me they did, but how could they when they did this to me? I loved them, I trusted them and I thought that it was okay for me to do that. They seemed to like me too, but I knew better – you do not cage demons in people you love. Even still I couldn't hate them, and never wanted to hurt them. I never wanted to hurt anybody.

But I did. Maybe not me directly, but by my hands it still happened.

viii.

I found the wedge in the door, the wall's mocking green, and Sasuke waiting in the doorframe. "Have you calmed down yet?"

"I won't let you unwork everything I've tried so hard for, for the past years. I can't let this thing inside me out ever again."

"You haven't calmed down." Blank, unmoved eyes.

"Didn't you hear a word I just said?"

"Maybe you've forgotten mine." His hands descended, heavy and tensed on my shoulders. "I don't care the cost to you or anyone else; I want him dead."

"No."

We would clearly reach no agreement with words alone. The room was still. Our eyes imprisoned on the other's. Then it began. His face raged as my thoughts and emotions were simmered into a boil.

He throttled my arm and I kicked him in the knees – we pulled away from the other, then started again. It started out controlled enough until we wound up on the floor in a sprawl on limbs choking, biting, and bruising. I caught his eyes mid strangle, they seemed to be spinning.

He held me by his eyes, "You want this messy? I can do messy."

Something hit me like morphine straight to the brain, all my muscles slackened. Arms slipped from his neck to his sides, head on his neck, legs pressed hard against his – I realized in humiliation I was on top of Sasuke, completely unable to support my own weight and my mouth refused operation. What the hell did he just do to me?

A rough snatch of my chin forced gelatin vertebrae to allow my eyes on his. "Now," Sasuke's mouth curled, "Just what should I do to you?"

No, no, you wouldn't.

"You'll be unable to move until I allow it. Completely paralyzed, aside from…" His eyes the entirety of my vision, the primordial chaos of everything trapped behind the dual lens. His hands grasped my pelvis' crook, "Your involuntary muscles."

With heart spinning I realized he might, and I couldn't do a damn about it.

Then he moved me, supported my neck and held my back as he laid me on the floor. His forearms on the floorboards, each supported his weight on both sides on my face; knees saddled my hips, and his eyes fastened on mine. "You're not the only special one. I've got a few tricks of my own, you see. Admittedly they come with a price, but don't all good things? For example, you're mobility. My request is your price for living a conventional life, that you would otherwise be denied, be paid. If not, I will take it all away, just as I am doing now."

Oh God.

"Your breath is shaking."

Are you really…

"I can control you, I can make anyone do what I want."

…going to do this?

His face lowered to mine, breaths apart. He only stared, his eyes clear but I could feel his heart beating thunderously as he pressed against me and took my mouth to his. I would've punched him if I had control but maybe its better I didn't. His lips are so soft and firmly working against mine I could forget for a moment that he's forcing himself on me. His tongue ran fire across my lips and his throated susurrus swept down my spine, "You're hard."

So are you.

His right hand went to my stomach, grasping for it…

Then in a current strong as desire and violent as lust, it stirred and broke. Anger, humiliation, and a whirl of ego-centricity screened my vision. To think for a moment I even contemplated letting him. Let him take and take and take from me until he'd gorged himself. Let his eyes suck me into their black hole and spit me out a wreck.

No. Never.

I'll kill him now. End this all now.

Now.

My hands at his throat and those black mirrors eyes spun wildly, "You're…"

"No one can control me, I will do what I want, and, pretty boy," A rush of pure red adrenaline, my hands grappled his throat pushing at muscle, veins, tendons, and bone, "I want you dead."

A snapping click and I felt cold against my temple. A handgun.

I didn't relinquish my palms from his bruised neck. "I'll snap your neck."

Gasped, "I'll blow your brains out."

No one moved. It was as still as it was when we started the fight. Vaguely in the background I could here the shouted words of people outside and screamed rumble of cars. In the mess of what had happened I found coherence and threw him off me, "Clean up your own damn mess. Leave me alone, Mr. Takashiro."

I picked up what I could find of myself and left.

ix.

Home. I was home and the edges of reality slurred pass me as I slammed the door. I had gone a little vulpine; I felt it pushing at my seams and radiate out. Even now torrents of barbaric, evil urges consumed me.

Such a handsome face, beautiful toned body pressed hard against mine, his blood pumped loud, pumped all over my hands, hands on his back over muscles, pressed deep and felt them to the bone, hallowed eyes ignited.

Make him scream, give him release, feel him move against me…but was it pain or pleasure?

On clenched eyelids it replayed with choking, mutilation, dismembering, castration, decapitation, fingers severed one by one, disembowelment, drink all his blood, suck it out the still pumping heart….Oh make it stop. Get out my head, I won't listen to you. I don't want to. Shut the fuck up and get out. I won't obey, these are my hands. You can't me. You can't have him. You can't have anyone.

For all my breaths and heartbeats to think I had not yet learned what I am-

I take what I want. So do you. Do not lie to me. You want him. Take him. He is still there. You can have him. It will be easy. Go back. He wants you. Kick down the door. You know you could. Just trick him. Lie to him. Take it all.

-that I am evil as much as it; I desired its whispered sins more than I wanted to be left alone.