A/N: YO!
Does this darkness have a name? This cruelty, this hatred, how did it find us? Did it steal into our lives or did we seek it out and embrace it? What happened to us that we now send our children into the world like we send young men to war, hoping for their safe return, but knowing that some would be lost along the way. When did we lose our way? Consumed by the shadows. Swallowed whole by the darkness. Does this darkness have a name? Is it your name? – One Tree Hill
I've never actually seen the show, but I really liked this quote.
Interludes
Ichiraku, Naruto, Hidan, Sasuke
Ichiraku sat at one of his stall's tables, carefully whittling away at his latest carving. It hadn't taken a form yet that anyone other than he would be able to recognize, but he knew that given time it would take the shape of a small dog. Life was funny that way. Give something enough time and it'll make something of itself.
The lights to his restaurant stall flickered and he cast a glance upwards. His daughter was out with her friends and Ichiraku was father-bound to stay up until she returned home. He couldn't sleep knowing she was out in the world and unsafe. He felt guilty that he couldn't provide a better living for her than what he did. But she was a good girl and understood that he couldn't turn away a person in need, no matter his own financial circumstances.
He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning his body without changing his posture, he turned to see a small blond boy standing in the doorway to his shop, the moonlight streaming in behind him through the open door. The boy's face, hair and clothes were dirtied by mud. He regarded Ichiraku distrustfully with brilliant blue eyes that contrasted with his attire violently.
"Come in, my friend." Ichiraku said, pinching his spectacles as he looked at the boy. They were such a wonderful inventions, spectacles. To live was to be a fragment of the cosmos that was experiencing itself. How could he properly experience it if he couldn't see?
The child shied back.
"No need to fear." Ichiraku said, settling back down on his stool. "Come in. Let me get a look at you."
The dirty young urchin moved forward reluctantly. He wore only a pair of ragged trousers, no shirt, though that was common here in the lower sections of Konoha where the days and nights were usually warm.
"They say you don't charge nothing." The boy said, stopping a few paces away from Ichiraku. His posture was tense as though he were ready to run at the slightest hint of danger.
"They are quite wrong." Ichiraku said, standing slowly and walking towards the kitchen at the back of his stall and began warming a pot of water. "But I think you'll find my cost bearable."
"Don't have any money."
"No money is needed. Your payment will be your story, your experiences. I would hear them."
"They said you were strange."
"They were right." Ichiraku said, gesturing to the table he'd been sitting at previously.
The urchin stepped up timidly to the stool. The ten-year-old boy was fairly well known to him. Though the grim darkened his skin and hair, the blond spikes gave him away in a village where that particular shade was rare. You needed the light to see it right, but it stood out in the dim moon nonetheless.
"So," Ichiraku said, pulling a few ingredients from the cupboard and placing them on the chopping block, setting to work on them with a knife he'd pulled from the wrack just above the stove. "Your story?"
"You're old." The boy said. "Grandpa old. You must know everything already. What do you want to hear from me?"
"It is one of my quirks." Ichiraku said. "Come now, let's hear it."
The boy huffed, but talked. Briefly. That wasn't uncommon. He wanted to hold his story to himself. Slowly, with careful questions, Ichiraku pried the story free. The boy had never met his parents. He lived at an orphanage until he was five and had been kicked out as soon as he could fend for himself. That had been a few years ago, the boy thought. The blond mentioned that he occasionally went to see an old man in a cool hat. That was when he got dressed up in his good clothes he kept back at where he slept.
As he listened, Ichiraku added his chopped goods into the pot, setting the noodles in the fry to begin softening up. It was an art he practiced, one not viewed as such by many. But that was probably why he practiced it. So the cosmere could experience the delights.
I need more vegetables. He thought. The children on the streets rarely get the basic vitamins that they need to grow.
"You're really going to give me food?" The boy said, "for nothin?"
"Nothing but your story." Ichiraku said, dropping a few zucchini into the pot. He'd given up on trying to convince Urchins to try and eat healthier. They got what provided the most calories at the lowest cost. It was harsh on their body and often made them short if they survived into adulthood, but it kept them alive.
"Why?"
"Because," Ichiraku said, "You and I are one."
"One what?"
"One being." Ichiraku said, setting aside his knives, stepping back to monitor the boiling ramen. "Long ago, there was only one. One knew everything, but it experienced nothing. And so the One became many. Us. People. The one, who is both male and female, did so to experience all things."
"One? You mean the Sage who gave the world chakra?"
"If you wish to say it that way." Ichiraku said. "But it is not completely true. Each experience is different. It brings completeness. Eventually, all will be gathered back in when the experience is complete and we will once again become One."
"So you and me…" The Urchin said, "Are the same?"
"Yes. Two minds of a single being experiencing different lives."
"That's stupid."
"It is simply a matter of perspective." Ichiraku said, pulling a bowl from a shelf and expertly pouring the contents of the pot into it. With a deft movement, he slid the bowl across the counter and next to the boy's table. "Please enjoy."
The boy gave him a strange look but obeyed, picking the bowl and slurping at its contents.
"Perspective," Ichiraku said, lifting his hands up and wiggling his fingers, "the fingers on my hand might seem individual and alone. Indeed, a thumb might think it have very little to do with the pinky. What the fingers don't realize is that they are part of something much larger. That, indeed, they are one."
The urchin frowned. Some of that had probably been beyond him.
I need to speak more plainly. Ichiraku thought.
"Why do you get to be the finger with the expensive ring?" The boy said, leaping from his seat and started pacing, "while I gotta be the pinky with the broken fingernail?"
Ichiraku smiled.
"I know it sounds unfair, but there can be no unfairness as we are all the same, in the end. Besides, I didn't always have this shop."
"You didn't?"
"No. I think you'd be surprised at where I came from. Please sit back down."
The boy settled down.
"That food's really good. Really, really good."
Ichiraku stepped around the counter, feeling a sense of satisfaction when the boy didn't flinch away from his approach. He collected the bowl and returned to the kitchen, setting to work on cleaning the dishes. Ayame should be home soon and he didn't want her coming back to a dirty mess.
"The things you're talking about." The boy said. "They sound dumb to me. I mean, if we are all the same person, shouldn't everyone know this already?"
"As one, we knew truth." Ichiraku said, "But as many, we need ignorance. We exist in variety to experience all kinds of thought. That means some must know and some must not. Just like some must be rich and others must be poor." He began drying the cleaned dishes. "Long ago, people knew this once. It's not talked about as much as it should be. You're life might be unpleasant."
"Unpleasant?"
"Alright, downright awful. But it will get better, young one. I promise it."
"I thought." The boy said, stepping out of the table and dropping to his hands and knees only to crawl under the same table he just left. "That you were going to tell me that life is awful but it don't matter in the end because we are all going the same place."
"That's true." Ichiraku said. "But it isn't very comforting right now, is it?"
"Nope."
Ichiraku replaced the bowls in the cabinet and checked to make sure the frier was off.
"If we're all the same person and going to the same place in the end, you don't need to give out free food. It doesn't matter."
"You wouldn't hit yourself in the face, would ya? If I make your life better, I make my own life better."
"That's crazy talk." The boy said, "I think you're just a nice person."
The flaps rustled and a shadow entered the stall.
"Ah, I'm afraid we're close right now." Ichiraku said. "We'll be open in the morning though. Feel free to come back then."
The shadow separated itself from the darkness to reveal a tall man with black hair and unblemished features, except for a pale scar running down his left cheek. He wore black and silver, a suit, though not one Ichiraku was familiar with.
"I had to look very hard," the man said, "to discover your indiscretion."
"I… just… the morning." Ichiraku stammered.
"You have lived a clean life since your youth as a carouser." The man said, his voice even. "A young man of money who drank and partied away what his parents left him. That is not illegal. Murder, however, is."
Ichiraku sank down onto a stool.
"I didn't know. I didn't know it would kill her."
"Poison delivered in the form of a bottle of wine."
"They said the vintage was good." Ichiraku said. "They told me that she'd love it. They said she'd know it was from them. I was desperate for money, too eat, you see."
"You are an accomplice to murder." The man said, pulling his gloves on tighter, first one hand and then the other. He spoke with such a stark lack of emotion; he could have been talking about the weather.
"I didn't know." Ichiraku pled.
"You are guilty nonetheless." The man drew a sword from the sheath to his side and leveled at Ichiraku's chest.
A sword? What kind of constable of the law was this? Ichiraku stared at the cold steel pointed at him. The stranger was a dark shade in the night, his weapon a shaft of the moon itself.
"It was twenty years ago." Ichiraku said.
"Justice does not expire."
The man shoved the sword through Ichiraku's chest. Experience ended.
Line Break
Naruto stared transfixed as the kindly old man's body hit the ground. The man who killed him didn't even glance back as he sheathed his sword and turned to leave the stall. The echo of the shop's flaps seemed to echo forever in the silence as the man vanished back into the night.
"Old man?"
No answer. The kind shop owner's sightless eyes gazed up at the ceiling with an intensity only the dead could muster. Naruto wasn't unfamiliar with death. He'd spent enough nights huddled in a gutter listening to the hacking cough of some other misfortunate that rattled out his last breath in the middle of the night, only to find the corpse in the morning. This was his first time actually seeing someone die.
Naruto's eyes widened in horror as he heard someone approaching, humming a light tune. The flaps sounded again and a girl with brown hair dressed in a red shirt and light blue skirt. She froze, the bags she was carrying clattering the ground as she saw the corpse. Naruto watched the horror dawn on her face as her mind caught up to what her eyes were telling her.
The girl's scream rent the evening air as cleanly as the sword had penetrated her father's body. Tears streamed down her face as she crumpled to her knees. She remained sobbing on the floor, not even acknowledging Naruto's presence as he crawled out from under the table and snuck out.
He couldn't think. Naruto stumbled from the stall and wobbled his way down the street, eventually collapsing in an alleyway. The man had been so nice. Crazy. But nice. Nice was so rare in these parts where people were so mean. What had the ramen maker done to deserve the tall man's anger? The man had such beautiful clothes, when he'd first seen him Naruto had thought the man one of the great noble families come to acknowledge the nice man's nobility. Only he'd stabbed him instead. Why?
It was all wrong- all terribly, terribly wrong. Naruto clutched his head and sank to the ground, pressing his back up against the wall for some form of stability in a world that had lost all justice. The nobles were supposed to protect everyone. They were supposed to be the good guys who upheld good deeds and battled against Konoha's enemies. They were supposed to care.
It was just one noble. Naruto thought, seizing onto the thought. He must be one of the bad ones that the other nobles don't like. They will find him and bring him to justice for the honor of the great clans.
Honor was dead. And it had been forgotten long ago.
Line Break
They thought him insane, but their understanding didn't matter to him, nor was it required. The evening was cold and a thin layer of mist clung to the air as the temperature continued to drop. Hidan made his way through the small village, his black Akatsuki robe fluttering as he walked, the chest of the tunic undone and exposing his bare chest to elements. He didn't need to worry about catching a cold. Death didn't concern him.
Hidan's eyes shifted from side to side as he spotted a few villagers peek out at him from their homes, timid eyes uncertain about the silver haired man who strode so confidently though their home.
Kill them. God whispered in Hidan's mind.
Hidan smirked, resisting the urge to obey the command. Lord Jashin required sacrifices and it had been several days since he'd last preformed a ritual in honor of his god. It wasn't a wonder that he was getting testy.
Getting to Mist had taken longer than he thought it would. Akatsuki didn't receive too many missions here and so he hadn't been presented with an excuse to slip away. He could now complete a promise he'd made his God a long time ago, when he'd first been blessed. There would be blood, of course. A wild grin split Hidan's face, his heart rate increasing in anticipation at the prospect.
Rounding a corner and passing out of the vision, Hidan spotted the house he was interested in. It was a small building that hadn't seen a good scrubbing in a few years, nestled under an outcropping of rock that overlooked the village, the top of which was a plateau that they used to grow crops. The amount of food that garden produced would be small and limp because of the limited amount of sunlight that managed to pierce the mist veil that shrouded the country. Not that Hidan cared, he was only interested in one thing.
Hidan hummed to himself as the strolled up the stone pathway, nobody raising an alarm as he approached. He was actually able to walk right up to the front doors. Smiling to himself, he knocked. A maidservant opened to doors. She froze when she saw Hidan, taking in his slicked back silver hair, his tall stature, his dark robes and the enormous tri-bladed red scythe that hung on his back. She began to tremble.
Hidan cut her down before she had the time to breath in and scream. Stepping over the body, he stepped into the house. The interior
Hidan killed two more servants in his exploration of the house. Eventually, he found the man he wanted on the second floor of the building. Old and spindly, dressed in a brown shirt and trousers, the man sat behind a desk. Beside him was a young boy no older than fourteen dressed in a similar fashion to the old man. The old man's eyes widened when he saw the pendant that hung around Hidan's neck, the symbol of his God, a simple metal spike driven through a skull.
"Kishimoto, would you please excuse me and my guest?" The man said in a raspy voice the creaked with an age that outstripped anything Hidan had heard before, his eyes never leaving Hidan's pendant.
The boy looked up at the man and nodded, eyeing Hidan warily as stepped forward and made to pass him by. Hidan's hand snapped out and with a sharp crack broke the boy's neck with a crushing grip, the body falling limp in his hand. It was a shame that the boy died this way, improperly sacrificed. The ritual was pointless to preform on a corpse. Once dead, they no longer possessed a soul or energy to send to his god.
"End of the line, gramps." Hidan said, his loud voice booming in the confined space. The man gazed mournfully at the body still clutched in Hidan's right hand, hanging limply at his side, brown hair covering his face.
"I would ask if that was necessary, but we both already know the answer to that."
"Damn straight." Hidan hooted, raising his bloodstained scythe in his left hand, dropping the boy's body to the ground. "Lord Jashin wants you dead, and so do I."
The man leaned back in his chair, his eyes and countenance adopting a weary resignation to them. That was no fun; it was always better when they screamed, the look of terror in their eyes before the end was better than any drug. Hidan briefly considered breaking a few of the grandpa's bones to get what he wanted, but God wanted this done quickly.
"I find both you and your god to be rather poor examples of the One."
Kill him now! God roared in Hidan's head causing his eyes to roll to the back of his head as the ecstasy of his god's presence crashed over him. Spill his blood and preform the ritual.
Snapping back to the moment, Hidan moved forward, his sandaled footsteps clacking against the wooden floor with each step.
"I guess it's my time. May the One find my experiences pleasing."
Hidan swung, spraying the man's blood against the wall as his blade cut the man and the chair cleanly in two. Stepping forward once more, into a the pool of blood and viscera, he bent down and began to draw, humming as he worked, his steadily moving finger leaving lines in the crimson liquid that was soaking into his robe. He didn't mind. Robes were easily replaceable when the blood went sour, though Kakazu would give him hell for the expense.
"The One died." Hidan said to the corpse, the same humming he had just been making continuing from his god in Hidan's head. "My god killed yours long ago."
Line Break
Sasuke knelt on the tatami mat before his father, head down, arms respectfully resting on his thighs. It wasn't often he got to see the clan head, despite being the man's son. He had dressed up for the occasion. Rich silks spun from the finest worms Konoha had to offer, buttons and clasps made from import silver all the way from Iron, Sasuke had selected the design himself with the aid of one of the clan's tailors. All for this moment.
Fugaku knelt behind a small desk, pulled in from the storeroom so that he may continue to work while simultaneously retaining guests and company. Only the sound of the pen's nib broke the silence between father and soon, a silence that had been stretching on for almost an hour.
Sasuke's neck was rapidly developing a crick, but he wouldn't spoil the moment by raising his head and dishonoring his father. He had worked so hard to earn this moment. The tips of his fingers were still slightly blackened from practicing his fireball technique. The healers assured him that he'd make a full recovering in a week's time, but for the moment he still could hardly move them.
"Sasuke," Sasuke almost jumped slightly, his father saying his name was so unexpected. The voice, however, was Valium to Sasuke's ears. The slow and deliberate, yet strong and unyielding way his father spoke in was so different from the animated tones Sasuke usually used. It made him slightly jealous of Itachi, who'd perfected his patience and spoke in the same manner their father did. Sasuke hoped that one day he'd be able to speak like that as well, if he practiced enough.
Fugaku set down his quill and look Sasuke square in the eyes. A thrill of excitement coursed through him, electrifying him so that all he wanted to do was leap up from the mat and give his father a hug. At last, his efforts were going to be rewarded.
"I am disappointed." And with three words, the world around Sasuke came crashing down. "I understand that you are not as talented as your brother, and I have made allowances for that. It is not often a child such as he is born, even into the Uchiha clan."
Sasuke had to resist pulling a face, a difficult task for a six year old. He had worked so hard so that his father would recognize him. The last person he wanted to hear about at the moment was Itachi, no matter how awesome his big brother was.
"Regardless," Fugaku continued. "A week to master what took Itachi a few hours seems a poor showing on your part, don't you agree?"
Sasuke nodded, which he should have realized wouldn't be enough for his father. Fugaku was the head of the police, an organization that managed the law for the entirety of Konoha. He was used to being addressed in a certain way.
"Speak when you are spoken too." Fugaku ordered, his voice acquiring the hint of steel usually reserved for criminal suspects.
Sasuke started as though struck, but recovered quickly and replied with a stiff and formal, "Yes, sir."
Fugaku nodded, folding his arms into the wide sleeves of his blue and white kimono. Sasuke fought down the urge to squirm slightly under his father's judging eyes, but didn't move - because he knew that if he did, he'd be found wanting.
"Good," Fugaku finally said. "Now, what are you moving on to next?"
Sasuke's mind scrambled to come up with an answer that would meet with his father's approval. In truth, he'd fallen behind in his classes in the clan in his attempt to master the Gōkakyū. He didn't really understand how the technique worked, and had pounded himself into the ground and burnt up his body using trial and error to get the feel of the jutsu right. A jutsu that was required for the coming of age ceremony for an Uchiha. He'd 'mastered' the technique three years early, which had earned him the audience with his father.
His father took the prolonged silence caused by Sasuke's mental gymnastics as an answer. "I have received reports that your grades in the Uchiha's early program have faltered. It goes without saying; but I shall anyway, that I am sure no son of mine is foolish enough to damage his body like some common ninja in some superfluous attempt to impress me."
Sasuke's head drooped, a red tinge of embarrassment and shame blossoming on his cheeks. It would be pointless to deny the accusation. His fingers and a quick inquiry with the clan's quartermaster would hardly put Fugaku's position as chief of police to the test.
"I had thought as much." Fugaku said, voice saturated with disappointment. "It was too much for me to hope that I had breed two prodigies. You are dismissed."
Slowly, Sasuke rose from where he knelt. His hands and legs felt numb and sluggish to respond, and he couldn't dispel the pricking sensation at his eyes. He managed to hold back the tears until he got out the door. They hit the ground as he ran, shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs.
He wouldn't cry. He was an Uchiha.
Shinobi didn't feel emotion. They were above them.
Nobles didn't have fathers. They had role models.
Uchiha didn't cry. Nobles were beneath them.
Sasuke didn't cry. He didn't need to.
End of Interludes
A/N: This one is short, I know. But they're not meant so much as a chapter as it is more of a bit of back story. A flashback without the annoyance of a flashback, if you will.
