Rating upped for maggots. Rating wasn't upped for chapter length.
A misconception about Ame that Sasuke didn't realise until his second visit: Ame did, in fact, know of the sun. Winds changed and blew the rain here and there, and for three months at a time the scorching breath of Kaze desert found a new home in Ame, and for a few days in a year it knew a drought such that it forgot an entire year of rain.
It was raining when they arrived at a town on Ame's western frontier. Once it had been the wealthiest in the country, before Hanzo decided to make an example of its lord. Even now it was struggling to regain half of its original size. Sasuke assumed that was why Orochimaru felt safe hijacking the lord's summer home, at the border, as the front of his base.
This time, they weren't the first to arrive. The ambusher dropped like a plank with a single application of Chidori Senbon, twitching but otherwise paralysed. Sasuke flipped him over with his toe. The forehead protector of Ishi, normally too far and too small to be on Konoha's notice. It was only a couple of days ago that they had exited Ishi, though Sasuke would have noticed if he'd been followed.
"You wanted him to catch us," Sasuke said.
Tsunade looked up from where she was fussing with the only decent table in the building. "Oh, is that a problem? I was so sure you could've handled it," she said. Just as he had known she would step back and… he hadn't known she would clean the table, but she had telegraphed her non-participation well in advance.
Tsunade came over and knelt, examining the man. "Only paralysed, eh," she hummed to herself, not so much surprised as approving. Sasuke pretended to not have listened. But he couldn't stop thinking that after all these years fighting alone – Naruto was one thing, but this infuriating stranger anticipated his moves too easily.
The Ishi-nin had stopped convulsing, laid down on a table. Tsunade uncovered the soaked and blackened bandages around his leg, revealing an old wound Sasuke hadn't caused.
"Your eye doesn't shoot miraculous healing rays, does it?" He couldn't see her face, bent on the patient. "Would've been useful, though heavens know it's too powerful as it is."
A tiny flame, he thought, she was the legendary healer, she would get over it. As though she'd sensed his thoughts, she looked up at him, the Godaime Hokage judging a rogue. Then she smirked and said, "Wanna learn medicine, Sasuke? We'll make history, you and I. You'll be the last Uchiha to study under a Senju. You won't ever be good at it, but –"
Sasuke snorted and went to secure the area, something he should have done first thing instead of horsing around with the former Hokage.
The mansion was painted with dried blood, likely from the time of Hanzo's culling, yet he didn't find a single body until he found the small chamber at the very back, near the kitchen. The servants' chamber, he'd guess. The smell drew him, quite literally; he would recognise the reek of rotting corpse anywhere. Though the Ishi-nin on the bed seemed technically alive, or at least breathing if shallowly. He was paler than gypsum, and didn't react at all to the cool kiss of Sasuke's sword on his neck. His torso was haphazardly dressed with pus-soaked bandages. Maggots crawled in and out the gaps – Sasuke squinted in mild horror – maggots living and happily eating on blackened and rotting flesh. The sliver of white he'd thought was bandage was actually his rib bone.
When he came to get her, Tsunade was still in the middle of her treatment. He waited until she acknowledged his presence with an impatient click of her tongue before saying, "Come with me."
Apart from one raised eyebrow she gave no indication of hearing him. She fussed with the new bandaging. Just as Sasuke opened his mouth she turned and said, "Remember what I said about courtesy –"
"Because you'd have left that one half-done."
She snorted. "Clever boy, I'll introduce you to the concept of triage one day. Though, the benefits of courtesy for an impatient person first, I think." She poked the patient's wound. Satisfied by his non-reaction, she said, "Lead the way, o rude boy."
Sasuke had left the body untouched, lest more maggots come out. Though they seemed to have multiplied while he wasn't looking anyway. Tsunade whistled and leaned closer to the body (Sasuke wondered if there was something wrong with the woman's nose).
"Well, I'll be. C'mere, Uchiha, come and see the only edge tiny Ishi ever held. Orochimaru used to so envious, vulgar though it is – hey, Uchiha," she said when he remained stolidly on the threshold, scanning the corridors for more Ishi-nin, rotting or otherwise. "My offer still stands. Come here and turn on your Sharingan if you can't do without it. Is it the maggots? Didn't peg you for the type."
"We're here to look for Orochimaru," he snapped, and left to do just that.
For all its grandeur and the finish on even the kitchen, the manor compensated with its toilet. The ground floor's combined ancient aesthetic of a hole in the ground with an indoor leaning, and maybe indoor plumbing. There was a spray bottle behind the door that likely used to house air freshener. He could have used that. Although he felt ridiculous for holding his breath in a long abandoned glorified outhouse. His nose had died from the maggots anyway.
It was a disappointment from the get go: the seal opened to his old key, and there was no evidence of use in the last three years. Like the other base, there was nothing.
Tsunade was elbow-deep, quite literally, in the patient's torso when he darkened the threshold. "This could stand to be incinerated," she said without looking up. He assumed she meant the pungent detritus near the entrance, not the half-dead shinobi. "Outside, Uchiha."
He tore curtains from the room's window – bloodied and savaged, but free of maggots – and somehow contrived to wrap it around the mess. Outside was raining cats and dogs, so back into the latrine lab he went, fortunately also located on the ground floor. He tossed the the hunk and left it smouldering in black flames, safely ensconced behind the lab's doors.
Next Sasuke went to patrol the perimeter with his left eye closed. Because Tsunade did have a point, however infuriatingly she'd made it. She could discover Orochimaru's lab for herself, if she truly cared. Anyway Sakura once said medic-nin were trained to appreciate second opinions.
With or without the Rinnegan, Sasuke still returned empty-handed. He found Tsunade sitting by the entrance, slumped on her knees.
"Is it your apparition come to avenge your clan, Uchiha?"
She didn't even raise her head. As far as straws went this one was petty, but Sasuke snapped the question that had weighed on him since the start of this 'mission'. "You don't need me to find Orochimaru. You were the Hokage, you could have the best trackers Konoha could offer. You were his old teammate, you'd know him better than anyone else. You don't need me to kill Orochimaru. What do you really want?"
Tsunade squinted and put a hand over her eyes. "The sun shining on your back doesn't make you more impressive. Come closer."
He obliged. Her nose flared as she looked up, his shadow looming over her. "Want, need, kill… simple boy, is that your latent protective instinct rearing its head?"
"I brought Orochimaru back; he's my responsibility."
"Fatherhood, huh?" Tsunade said approvingly. "All right, then. Having decided that I wanted Orochimaru dead, what'll you do?"
"He saved your life," Sasuke said. There was only so much nonsense he could take. "He hasn't done anything all this time."
Abruptly, she stood. Sasuke too had lost interest in the conversation. He clutched his sword. "Weren't you out patrolling?"
"Only as far as the hamlet's border," he admitted grudgingly. He hadn't thought to inspect the hamlet – too odious, too big for one man when his business was elsewhere, but he could see the loophole there. So maybe for whatever reason there were shinobi in the hamlet who were alerted to his presence, and followed him back. Sasuke had no illusions that the Rinnegan could see behind his head, or that there weren't superior hunters out there. It was still stupid.
Blood rushed through his veins, and in them fire into his eyes. The world came into a sharper focus; the masked shinobi twitched as the Sharingan spun lazily at them. There were four before him, with two more circling from the back. They wore the mask and uniform of Kusagakure's ANBU.
The leader, marked as such by the excess of lines on his mask and his stepping forward, said, "Stay out of our business and we'll let you go."
Tsunade hadn't made a move; Sasuke stayed his blade for now. She inclined her head, a greeting left unreciprocrated. "And the business that takes you all the way from Kusa and breaching the treaty of non-interference would be?"
Sasuke never had the urge to knock senses into her as great as he did now. Taking pity on weak hostiles was one thing, but getting mixed in the business of small villages was both stupid and unnecessary.
He felt all eyes on him, including Tsunade's, and understood. He unsheathed his blade, waiting for her reaction; the ANBU were small fries, but if the former Hokage, and Sakura's mentor besides turned on him –
"Uchiha Sasuke is a shinobi of Konoha," Tsunade said with the practiced impatience of ruling over unruly children and petty jounin. "Is Kusa truly desperate to start a war?"
The ground exploded under their feet as razor wind chased at their heads. Sasuke had just barely managed to evade both, flickering a step behind the captain. Then two ANBU were suddenly flanking him, swords drawn and whipping deadly wind.
They were aiming for his left. Always from his empty left. The swords halted a finger from his heart, lodged within the suddenly solidifying phantom fingerbone of Susanoo, the wielder flicked to the skies by the middle finger. One. The partner who had managed to escape fell to a short burst of lightning field. Two.
In the the reprieve he noted more earth-breaking actions out of sight, and the swamp greedily sucking his feet. Black flames consumed it, and if the combination somehow caused an explosion, Sasuke had flickered to safety. He stabbed the ground and, encouraged by a muffled pained grunt, poured raw lightning chakra with the sword as conduit. Three.
Then it was the captain himself, coming at him – if he'd had the time, Sasuke would have rolled his eyes – from the left. Only, as befit of his rank, it was not as straight forward as that. Sasuke was forced to parry with his sword, wobbling more than dancing between the captain and his phantom clone. Though he could track their movements, the lack of an arm was proving to be a disadvantage. At least until Susanoo rose again and swung his mighty blade at both.
Alert, the giant's sword still flickered by his side, but no more came at him. The sounds of fighting had died, and only when a familiar voice quietly called to him did he dismiss it.
"Not too bad for a one-armed man, eh Uchiha?" But the bite was missing from her voice, and it didn't take long for his eyes to compile a list of issues: the slight pinch between her eyes, the tremors at the edge of her lips, and finally the arms crossed under her breasts, where her fingers were angled just a bit too strangely to carry the haughty indifference she wanted.
Sasuke blurted, "You're injured."
"Why, Sasuke, are you worried? I'm touched."
"And you can't heal it."
Her sneer looked like a grimace to him. "Eh, give me time. Not all of us could be young demi-gods and semi-devils. But since you are, why don't you use that excess energy to prepare these impostors for picking up. We'll leave in a couple of hours at most."
Sasuke glared, but she stubbornly held his gaze. He relented. "Impostors?"
"From Ishi; I recognised their techniques. But what's this, is not the mighty Sharingan able to discern fake gears?"
Well, he thought, the jealousy was there. The bite wasn't. He let her disappear into the house as he dragged her victims together with his. They were all alive (unsurprising if he thought about it), only one was concussed. They were all in varying states of muddy. It was times like these that made him regret leaving before receiving his prosthetic arm. Then he reminded himself he hadn't deserved it – a small part of him was convinced he never would – and anyway he'd always been able to work around it.
He considered his options. Orochimaru's latrine lab had functional holding cells. He didn't trust them. The summoning technique,fortunately, was one of the few available to a one-handed shinobi. In short order six snakes materialised in a tangled heap, announced by a chorus of 'Sasuke-sama', all sibilants drawn out. Many of the smaller snakes seemed to have viewed him as a savior for killing Manda, however incidental the act had been. That, or snakes had a sense of humour. Sasuke didn't mind as long as they could follow instructions, in this case to bind, and bite at the first signs of an attempt to escape.
He summoned his fastest cattle-snatching hawk next. Somehow all six prisoners fit on the hawk, but the snakes complained, and would only shut up when he promised them food. Then the hawk shoved its beak in his hand, and Sasuke sighed and added a deer to his list of debts. Then he sent them off, a shadow soon disappearing into the rainy night.
As promised, Sasuke gave Tsunade a couple of hours. At some point the rain had stopped, and nothing else had move sinced then. He thought of leaving a clone for a guard, or a snake, but went inside without either. Tsunade was ensconsced in the only room left untouched by the carnage, or rather the only room whose door was left to age gracefully. He went right in, feeling vindicated when all he got was a weak glare. Her arms trembled as she tried to sit; she'd given up trying to hide her wounds, at least.
"You're staring, Uchiha. Never seen an old woman before?"
He had, actually. Had seen enough to know a contemporary of Orochimaru's shouldn't have looked so wasted. But more alarming was her injury. Recognised their technique indeed, and very intimately, at that.
He began, "Is there…"
A dozen maggots crawled out of the thin, blackened slit under her breast. Tsunade winced, cursing under her breath. Sasuke put down the hand he didn't realise he'd lifted, but she noticed, and grinned. A wounded predator, he thought, then berated himself. It was just Tsunade.
"Hey, now, don't look like I'm a corpse already. This juvenile shit–" Deft fingers snatched a handful of maggots with the speed of, well, a shinobi, and crushed them in her grip. Crunch, and more crawled out of the wound. Tsunade said, "–is born of chakra. Mine, specifically. Oh, there's a real, organic one in there somewhere, the queen. It burrows at the closest chakra node and eats and squeezes chakra into these lovely little lunks."
She sucked breath through gritted teeth. Pale, purple veins pulsed on her neck. Sasuke was no doctor, but he was rather sure her pallor, almost invisible, was not a good sign. Still, she insisted on explaining herself to him. "And squirts toxin that damages the physical and metaphysical chakra pathway for good measure… thereby ensuring its own death in the end, what a respectful pest. So you see, I've arrived at the point where I barely retain enough chakra to stay conscious."
Sure enough, the seal she'd shared with her apprentice was gone. "So get help. Or have you given up?"
"Is that a pep talk?" She flopped gracelessly on her back. " Now get out. Those prisoners aren't going to keep themselves under control."
The Rikudou Sennin had granted Naruto the power to heal and destroy. Uchiha that he was, Sasuke could only destroy. He closed his eyes, dredging up the glimpse of Tsunade's healing that he had caught. No hand seals, but he was getting good at manipulating chakra flow without them.
He kneeled by her side and tried. Still, medical ninjutsu turned out to be so much more complicated than combat ninjutsu. It just wouldn't cooperate. Eventually Tsunade could no longer ignore his pitiful attempts. "What are you doing?"
"No miraculous healing rays, but…" An idea came to him. "But you're out of chakra; if chakra's all you need, I have it. I don't need it."
Pale lips thinned dangerously; it was the first genuine smile he'd seen from her. "Oh, Sasuke, weren't you listening?" Her fingers curled around his wrist as though it was something fragile and precious, the cold of her touch made him still. "I can have the chakra of the nine bijuu and I would not be able to do anything with a damaged pathway. And I can't chance the poison infecting you, Sakura would resurrect me just to kill me herself. Won't you think of me?"
That was exactly the problem, he thought as he watched her weakly swatting at a maggot that crawled up her nose. "Yes, Sakura. What about her?" Tsunade looked away, but not before Sasuke saw a glimmer of shame in her eyes.
When push come to shove he could out-stubborn her – or maybe she'd slipped into delirium; but she agreed to at least try. It was simple: he pooled chakra in his palm to be siphoned, which she did, but then nothing happened.
"You're not even trying," Sasuke groused, to which she gave him the most insincere apologetic smile.
Cleaning, as it happened, was yet another thing an one-armed man could do. It didn't seem to do much – the maggots never ended, her breathing remained shallow and she was quiet, sleeping an insect-less dream, he hoped. Sasuke made a few more abortive attempts before giving up on medical ninjutsu as a lost cause, at least until he could get a proper instruction.
It was raining again. He hadn't noticed it, but now he couldn't stop listening to the pitter patter of water on burned clay, a different sound from the way it fell on gravel, on the once varnished wooden porch. So much water at such frequency on so many surfaces, it all became a low hiss fading to the back of his mind. The tortured rattle of Tsunade's lungs; how long before it faded like the Ishi-nin's they had found? And, oh, they still hosted Ishi-nin after all. What pests the lot from that one tiny village could be.
He thought of things with red eyes: dogs, night guards, Uchiha. Sasuke sat on the darkened porch, sword out and lying on his lap.