"What do you see in him exactly?
Temari looked up, surprised by the question. She said nothing, watching Shikamaru hack away more vines, letting the two of them move forward through the ankle-deep murky water.
Stepping into Hinata's witch-circle had dumped them into a swamp -- and what a swamp it was: twisting, curling trees, bowing down towards the opaque waters, vines dropping like curtains. The water reflected the golden light from the sky.
"Well?" he said, looking back at her.
"Well what?"
"What do you see in him? In Naruto, I mean. You said you were in love with him."
He hacked away more vines. They splashed into the water. She looked up at him, saw the smile on his face. "Why are you so happy?"
"What?"
"Happy. Why're you so happy? You've been smiling ever since we -- since we -- dropped in here."
"Look around you."
"What?"
"Look around you?"
"Okay?"
"What do you see?"
"I see a disgusting swamp."
"And what don't you see?"
"What?"
"What's absent from this otherwise inauspicious scenery?"
"I don't--"
"No Jugo! Nowhere! He's nowhere in sight! He's been obliterated or redirected or lost or something, but he's gone and I can have these sweet minutes to myself and enjoy my life's current lack of him."
"Oh."
"So--"
"Yes?"
More vines fell, splattering into the water, revealing a small pool covered in rose petals. Beyond were hedges, rose bushes, statues, and the forbidding face of the castle.
"Ah," Shikamaru said. "Now we're getting somewhere." He paused, looked back at her. "Are you going to answer my question?"
"What question?"
"The one about Naruto. About why you're in love with him."
"I thought-- I thought I answered that question."
"Erm, I don't think you did."
"Oh. Think Naruto's in that castle?"
"God, I hope so. The bigger problem will be figuring out how to get back to Earth."
"I know."
"Think Jugo's dead?"
"What?"
"I don't know. I don't want him dead. Just-- the guy needs to-- I don't know. He needs some comeuppance from the universe. Him dying would just be fitting somehow. You know I walked into his room and caught him kicking puppies? He bought this box of puppies for the express purpose of--"
The rose pools burst, water crashing into the air. Temari cried out, falling back. The water was suddenly deeper now, some force dragging her down beneath it.
Shikamaru was a torpedo, splitting the water with his dive towards her. Even as his hand closed on hers, she wanted to scream No! No, I'm no one's damsel in distress! Let go of me!
She didn't scream that, however, because her mind had gone numb with horror. Rising behind Shikamaru was a gigantic snake with four heads. Each head looked exactly like her father's.
Huh, she thought.
ooo
There were creatures hiding in the corner of their sight. That was the worst part, coming to the slow realization that Orochimaru was not actually entirely alone in this place.
One of the walls of the dining hall was a mirror, reflecting the fire, reflecting the long banquet table, reflecting Sasuke and Ino, shrouded in silhouette. Orochimaru cast no reflection.
"Sit," Orochimaru growled, standing before the fire.
A great expectancy; Sasuke looked at the mirror, but there was no one but the two of them in that long reflective surface. There was something menacing about this room, the way the shadows warped and moved at the edge of the their vision. The statues here were of a darker mold, hideous Anti-Christs with wolfen features, claws extending from the darkness. No one in the mirror, but Sasuke could feel expectancy. They weren't alone in this room. When he and Ino pulled out chairs and sat, a climactic rush of relief descended on the things lurking out there. Slender hands emerged from the dark mottled rock of the chair and held Sasuke's wrists down. They grabbed his ankles, pinned him to the chair. Sasuke didn't resist; he'd expected this. He heard Ino crying out in surprise, heard her struggling.
"Glad you could make it, guys," Orochimaru said.
He slid towards the table, running a long pale hand along the surface.
"Where are we, exactly?" Ino asked. "An alternate dimension?"
"Good question," Orochimaru said, reaching her. He glanced at the table, plucked out a grape from the spread of food.
"He's a ghost," Sasuke snarled. "When really powerful ghosts manifest, they can manipulate their spatial surroundings. So he made himself a world."
Orochimaru turned to look at him.
"So this castle and everything," Ino said, "it's basically entirely him."
Orochimaru looked at her. He smiled. "Not exactly."
He pulled a switch underneath the table, and the chair holding Ino lunged onto its back. A hole opened in the floor and Ino vanished into it from sight.
"Ino!" Sasuke shouted. Now he struggled, wrenching against the pale hands holding him down.
The panel in the floor replaced itself and the chair lurched up onto its legs.
"Wonderful," Orochimaru said. "Now we're alone."
The hands holding Sasuke released him. The moment he did he was out, onto his feet, running to the floor, searching it, trying to found the catches of the panel.
"Someone doesn't know what an oubliette is," Orochimaru said, chuckling. "Nothing but death down there, Saskuke."
"Bastard," Sasuke growled. He spun and leapt, landed on the table, grabbed at a knife, went into the air.
"What-"
The knife buried itself in Orochimaru's heart up to the hilt. The man looked down at it, tapped at it. "- do you think you're doing, Sasuke?"
He began to laugh, and laugh heartily, laugh loudly. He pulled the knife out, threw it into the fire, where it hit with a shower of sparks. "What a little foolish boy." He grabbed Sasuke by the neck, slammed him against the surface of the table. "Having fun yet, Sasuke?" he growled.
"Why bother with this?" Sasuke said, sweat beading on his forehead. "You're this entire goddamn castle, aren't you? Just bring it down on me and have it over with."
Orochimaru grinned, lips pulling back, showing rows of sharp teeth. "Because I'm not the castle. And the castle wants you, more or less, functional."
Above him, the firelight flickered against the ceiling. On it, Sasuke could see a painting of an orgy, a series of twisting limbs, animals, and a knife held high by a man with a deer's skull for a head. Fertility cult.
"I'll go fetch Naruto," Orochimaru said, grinning. "You wait here."
He shoved Sasuke through the table, the table molding around Sasuke limbs, grabbing hold. His face stuck out from the dark mottle rock, one arm held fast, the other waving useless in the air, one leg kicking. "Oh god," he said.
"Bee-are-bee," Orochimaru said. He turned, laughing, and disappeared into the shadows.
"Oh god," Sasuke said again.
ooo
This is bad, Naruto thought.
He clung to the ivy on the side of the castle outside his balcony. The snake had tried to bite him on his way over the side, but Naruto was nothing if not quick. But the ivy seemed a living, moving thing under his hand, twisting beneath his fingers. The entire castle seemed to groan, seemed to be coming to life.
When Naruto was fourteen, Mizuki had pursued him across a series of rooftops in lower Manhattan. Naruto had had to clamber up a massive exhaust pipe and make the sixteen foot jump to the next roof. He hadn't -- instead he had crashed into the fire escape and had nearly broken his arm.
The edge of the turret across from his vision wasn't sixteen feet. He eyeballed it, aware that the ivy would soon try to grab hold of him and pin him to the castle. Ten feet, maybe eleven. He kicked off the wall, arched his back.
As he flew over, he wondered what his life would have been like without the lifetime of evading those shadow-things. He wouldn't nearly be athletic, that was for sure. And he probably wouldn't have met Sasuke. It was a trade-off, perhaps.
He'd misjudged his leap. His fingers touched the edges of the turret, but slipped. He fell two feet before he grabbed hold of a windowsill beneath him. Above, a gargoyle, a deer-figure with menacing brow and large antlers, peered at him. Gargoyle, Naruto thought, from the word gorgon.
Gorgons, Iruka had once told him, had not always been the snake-haired, iron-clawed Medusas we know and loved. They used to be statues and images and proffered protection to the owner. Which is what gargoyles did, of course.
He heard splashing behind him. He looked across the garden and saw--
Kabuto?
Yes, Kabuto was splashing along the reflecting pool, looking absolutely miserable.
Why would Kabuto be here?
The gargoyle above him began to move, shifting its head, reaching down towards Naruto with its claws. Naruto cried out, released his grip.
He began to fall.
ooo
Sasuke heard someone enter the room. He tried to shift, tried to get his one workable hand over to one of the dishes, maybe use it as a weapon. He couldn't reach, the table clutching his forearm. He was barely able to breathe.
"Sasuke," the voice said.
"Oh shit," Sasuke said.
The castle seemed to feel the same way. There was a murmuring from the shadows, a general anger in the air. The darkness almost seemed to retreat from the silhouette approaching the table.
"What have you gotten yourself into, Sasuke?" Itachi said, looking down at him.
"Oh no," Sasuke said.