Of the current four members of Atkatsuki, only Shikamaru and Jugo had been the closest to seeing their employer's face. It had come several months before, when they had travelled to Tokyo to rescue her from an underworld cartel. They had been standing together at the top floor of a tower. It was night and beyond the windows the city glowed with neon, a sea of colourful spires. On an LCD billboard, flashing green and pink, the giant face of an idol urged passerbys to drink Green Tea Ginger Ale. From this light a sheen of green outlined the silhouette of their employer, who stood in front of the windows, casually smoking a cigarette.

Littered around Shikamaru and Jugo's feet were the limp and unconscious bodies of ninja assassins, dressed in the traditional black garb. Shurikens and ninja blades stuck out of the carpet, out of the walls, out of the desk.

"Good stuff, gentlemen," their employer had said. She had tossed her hair and Shikamaru noted it was blonde. Otherwise he couldn't see her face.

He knew that he was somewhat in love with her. Not any sort of romantic love -- his boss was not in anyway obtainable -- but rather he loved her for the opportunities she gave him, the fact that Atkatsuki brought his life meaning.

"You ready?"

Shikamaru looked up over the highschool cafeteria table, saw Ino toss her pretty blonde hair, watched her smile at him. "Ready for what?"

"The dance tonight."

He looked down, down at the articles in the newspaper. Here an article about a school attacked in Lesovo, children cut down with machetes and AK-47s. Here a story about the ecological damages in South America. "Yeah," he said. "Sure."

He lived such a privileged life. It made him sick.

Orochimaru's castle door exploded from the impact of his sword slicing into it. The force shuddering up Shikamaru's arm made him smile. Here he was, doing something.

Kabuto's voice was shaky: "You guys-- you're going in there? You're going into the castle?"

"Course we are," Temari said, going up the stairs. "Naruto's in there."

"You tried to kill yourself once?"

Shikamaru looked up at the television screen. The leader of Atkatsuki stared back at him, her face swathed in shadow, looking back at him. Shikamaru, fresh from his deserting the military. Shikamaru, who lied about his age to get in. He glanced down at his wrists, at the scars trailing down his skin. How odd, he thought; I knew how to do it, but yet I didn't do it properly. Just a little bit lower and--

"Why?"

He looked up at her. "What?"

"Why did you try to kill yourself?"

"I just-- At the time--" He looked away, ashamed of himself. "At the time I couldn't live in a world where I knew I had so much and others had so little."

All he could see was her smile. "I'm glad you came to us then."

Into the castle. The shadows closed over their heads and Shikamaru closed his eyes, letting one open slowly, then letting the other, adjusting himself to the change in light. No sign of Naruto, not in this massive hall, not up the stairs, nor down any of the dark corridors.

"Where to?" Temari asked.

"He couldn't have gone far. Couldn't have gone up those stairs-- we'd have seen him by the time we got in. So he's down one of these corridors."

They spread out. Shikamaru glided forward along the tiles, stepping lightly. He didn't know what to expect from a haunted castle, but he held his sword behind him, rather to take out any animate suits of armour or anything this place threw at him.

"--Gaara?" he heard Temari say.

Shikamaru looked back, saw Temari framed by the light from outside, saw her stare in shock down one of the corridors. "What?"

"I saw Gaara."

"Who?"

"My brother."

"The one you think Sasuke killed?"

"Yeah."

"You saw the brief sight of a dead relative in a haunted castle? Um, trap?"

And goddammit, was he pissed when he saw her run off down the corridor. He called her name, running after her. He slid into the corridor, watched the stone wall come down, blocking him from Temari. "Oh for the love of god."

He stood there for a moment, staring at the wall, then turned back and looked at Kabuto. "Okay, if you let yourself get split up from the group by this castle, I'll hunt you down and slit your throat, got me?"

Kabuto stared at him blandly for a moment. "Oh," he said, "you don't have to worry about me."

ooo

A plan was formulating in Naruto's head. He ran down the corridor, passing tapestries and candlesticks, passing boudoirs and armouries. Skidding into the dining hall, he surveyed the wreckage of the table. Sasuke.

He kicked open one of the doors, went heading down the stairs there, and into the library. There was a statue here, made from gold, perched above the reading table in the center, a Cthulian monster. Look at all those tentacles, Naruto thought as he walked towards it. And all around him shelves of books, and above a round skylight, letting in the yellow light from the sunset.

There was a long telescope in one corner, and a massive compass near the other. The needle seemed to be plated with gems. Naruto reached for it, touched it, wondered how old it was.

It snapped off in his hand. Huh.

He went up the stairs towards the upper floor of the library. "Orochimaru!"

He had a plan. He just didn't know if he could pull it off. "Orochimaru!"

And then there he was. Orochimaru sat up the upper floor of the library, sitting back in an easy chair, reading a book. As Naruto stepped onto the floor, Orochimaru glanced up and smiled. "There you are. I was looking for you. You were expected for dinner, remember?"

"Where's Sasuke?"

"He's out and about somewhere." Orochimaru glanced back down at his book, flipped a page across. "There's a vampire loose in the castle, you know."

"Itachi? Here?"

"Is that his name?" Orochimaru set the book aside on the little reading table next to his chair and leaned back. "Now that I've found you, I think we should set about looking for Sasuke."

"First tell me why."

"What?"

"Why do you want Sasuke so badly?"

"Me?" The grin spread across his face, a snake-grin, a pumpkin-grin. "I just think he'd make for some interesting conversation. The castle, however, oh, it wants him. It wants him badly."

"Why?"

"It doesn't explain its proclivities to me. I just live here."

A hissing noise. Naruto glanced back, saw two massive boas slithering along the floor towards him. They were long, sleek, their scales shimmering in the light of the sunset.

"The castles wants both of you," Orochimaru said. "The raven-- and the fox."

"If I don't resist," Naruto said, keeping his eyes on the snakes, "I can see Sasuke? And you won't hurt him?"

"I've never wanted to-- hurt Sasuke, lover. Just wanted to have a nice chat with him. But the castle has its own plans. It once belonged to a pagan fertility cult, you know."

"Really?"

The boas began to slide up his thighs, caressing his waist, wrapping themselves around his arms. Their weight pulled him to his knees. They were heavy, very heavy.

"They trapped a cthonic beast once," Orochimaru said. "Under the castle. A pretty exotic thing for a sex cult to do, don't you think? But they thought that if they held the monster, it'd give them power."

"Did it?"

"Well, it drove them insane and took over the castle. Sounds like a good time to me."

"And now you want to release it?"

"Oh, I just live here remember? Thing is-- the way to release it in a fertility rite devoted to earth beasts like the one under this castle. And you know how fertility rites are. Lots of-- painting oneself with menstrual blood, weird stuff like that."

"I don't, uh-- I don't menstruate."

"No, but you do fuck, don't you?"

"What?"

"See, the rite in question requires the copulation of two demon entities." He pursed his lips, glanced down at his book. "Demons are hard to come by sometimes. Except when they're trapped in the bodies of young men."

Naruto couldn't believe his ears. "Sasuke is--"

"And so are you."

"And you want us to release this monster into the world?"

"Me? No, I just live here." He leaned back in the easy chair, smiled, watched as the snakes pressed their weight against Naruto further, pinning him to the ground. "The castle, however-- yeah, I guess you can say it wants to release that thing into the world."

Naruto glanced down a the lower floor of the library, saw the gold statue of the monster below, saw all those tentacles. Oh no, he thought.

Sasuke--

Why didn't you tell me--?

ooo

There was a ceremonial axe nailed to the wall. Ino figured it was better than nothing. She grabbed at it, tore it loose from the mount, hefted it. The weight was off. Ceremonial piece of shit. Still, it'd do. She swung it about, looked up at Sasuke, who stood staring into the shadows of another corridor. "Now what?"

"Now we look for Naruto," Sasuke said. "And I kill Orochimaru with my bare hands."

"Isn't he supposed to be a ghost?"

"Doesn't mean I can't try."

"You know, I'm jealous."

Sasuke looked back at her. She stepped back him, glanced down the corridor, saw the wind tossing up the curtains from the windows along the wall. "I had a bit of a crush of Naruto myself," she said. "He's good-natured, isn't he?"

"He is."

"Wish I had someone willing to take on a ghost for me."

"Why do you take so many martial art classes anyways?"

She looked back at him.

He stared at her. She hadn't realized how intensely he was staring at things until he directed his gaze onto her. "You don't have anyone you have to fight," he said. "So why?"

She looked away, shrugged. "I don't know." She hefted the axe again, liking how it fit in her hand. "Maybe I want to have someone to fight."

She took a step down the corridor. The hand burst from the side of the wall, clawed at her. She cried out, skidding to the side, swinging the axe, but the hand had already vanished back into the stone.

"Good lord!" she said, backing up towards the window. "Did you see that?"

Sasuke stepped back, went into a fighting stance. "Yeah."

It burst out from the floor, a hideous puppet on strings, slicing at Sasuke with scythe-hands. The knives cut the air and he gritted his teeth, sliding back, dodging and weaving. The thing was faceless, a mannequin-thing.

"Sasuke!" Ino shouted. She stepped forward and three of the puppet-things exploded out of the floor at her. One of them came at her with scissor-fingers, the blades coiling out. She parried it with the axe, ducked and swung.

Cermonial piece of crap. It buried itself into the puppet's body and got stuck. She tugged at it twice, but gave up as the puppets lunged at her. She leapt back, dodging and ducking. Out of the corner of her eye she saw four of them emerge from the wall, going for Sasuke. She cried out his name. "Behind you!"

Sasuke grabbed the wrists of the scythe-hand puppet and wrenched the blades into the body of a puppet behind him. He ducked, letting the sword of another puppet slice overhead. He jumped, burying both feet into the puppet's body, went vertical and came down, kicking into the head of another.

No good. These weren't humans. They felt no pain. They had no solar plexuses to drive one's knee into, no pain receptors to exploit, no muscles to kill. He landed, dodged a swipe from another blade.

"Ino!" he shouted. "We have to run!"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. He blocked a swing with his forearm, twisted, buried his elbow into the torso of a puppet, knocking it back. He spun and saw--

Deidara--?

Deidara stood in the doorframe of a corridor, staring blankly ahead. His eyes-- they had no pupils.

Oh no.

"Ino--" Sasuke snapped. "We're getting out of here!"

He jumped, kicked off the face of a puppet and leapt for the corridor with Ino as the first of the clay bombs struck the floor. He made it into the corridor when the explosions went off. He and Ino went flying, a ball of fire throwing them out of the corridor and down a flight of stairs. They twisted, gaining control of their bodies, touched off the steps, landed on their feet at the bottom of the landing.

"Puppets--" Ino breathed. "Goddamn puppets."

"They're not trying to kill us," Sasuke said, looking back up the stairs.

"They were trying to knife me."

"When they were fighting me, they were trying to incapacitate me, not kill me. Trying to slice my hamstrings, that sort of thing."

"You, maybe."

At the top of the stairs Deidara and Sasori appeared, staring down at them with blank eyes.

"They've been zombified," Sasuke said.

Sasori raised his right hand, flexed his fingers.

Three puppets exploded up from the stairs, fluttering towards Sasuke in loose frayed robes, slicing down with short knives. Sasuke grabbed the first one, hurled it off the steps, as Ino darted forward, slamming her foot into the stomach of the next. The third puppet shot up, sliced at Sasuke, grazed his shoulder, a stream of blood flying up into the dark air.

Sasuke grabbed Ino and leapt off the landing, falling down into the hall. The puppets followed.

ooo

"This is not my best day ever," Shikamaru said.

He stared at the painting on the wall, admired the painter's tones and colours, but wondered why an 18th century artist would depict a city getting destroyed by a crustacean of Cthulian proportions. "See, this is exactly why I don't like this gothic stuff," he said. He tapped the painting. "Some lonely Byronic vampire in his castle terrorizing a young blonde Petrarchan heroine is all well and good, but this crap, this end-of-the-world crap-- that's where I start to get uncomfortable."

Kabuto stood in the drawing room behind him, the light shining through the windows and reflecting off his glasses. He held a sharp scalpel behind him. Itachi's orders were very clear -- let him find Sasuke, and let Kabuto murder any of Sasuke's friends that came looking for Naruto. "Yeah," he said. "That is an odd painting."

"Otherwise, this room is rather comfortable," Shikamaru said. "Nice easy chairs, a fireplace, and pot for warming up water, some books. Must get dusty, though, especially with a carpet. Can you imagine what it must cost to carpet a castle?"

"Quite a bit, I would imagine," Kabuto said.

"I don't like the layout of this castle. A home should be easy to get around. I should be able to walk into a place and be able to navigate my way to the kitchen, no problem."

"Yeah."

Shikamaru glanced up. "You don't talk much, do you?"

"I do. Sometimes."

"I mean-- do you ever, like, banter about?"

"What?"

"Banter. Like, trade lines, back and forth. You know. A good conversation. A dialogue."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Never mind then."

Kabuto stepped behind him, and increased his grip on the scalpel.

"I like the colour choices, though," Shikamaru said. "They're very muted. Temari! Can you hear me?"

"Maybe she's farther into the castle."

"Goddamn that woman. Atkatsuki is dropping like flies, apparently."

"You're so right."

Kabuto struck.

ooo

No, Sasuke, the voice said. You're mine.

As the sand crashed down across the floor of the hall, bowling over the puppets and knocking Ino off her feet, leaving Sasuke in the eye of a tornado, Sasuke reflected that maybe it was time to cut down on the number of enemies he had.

Gaara stood in the center of the sand whorl, staring at him with glee in his hateful eyes.

"Where'd you learn how to do this?" Sasuke said. "I don't recall the highschool giving classes in powers like these."

"There's a lot you can learn from the spirit-world," Gaara said.

"Yeah, I bet."

"This is where you die."

"No."

The sand whipped upwards, struck the ceiling, and shot down at him, becoming a spear of glass.

That's where you're wrong, Sasuke thought; I can't die here. That's not what I've trained my whole life for.

He touched off the ground, leaping past the glass spear. He touched it briefly, as it exploded into the ground behind him, and shot forwards, driving his foot into Gaara's nose, crushing it under the sole of his foot, slamming the boy back into the ground.

The spear broke and pieces of glass flung into the air around Sasuke as he and Gaara landed, the latter rolling across the floor limply, trailing blood and mucus.

"Gaara," Sasuke said softly. "Where's Naruto?"

Gaara lay there, flakes of sand falling around him. He began to stir, making a noise and coming up to his elbow. "Urg..." he said. "Screw you--"

A voice: "Gaara?"

Gaara's head snapped up. He looked across the hall to the entrance of a corridor. A torch flickered above it, and in the orange light, he could see Temari standing there, eyes wide, staring at him.

"Oh geez," Gaara said, getting to his knees.

"Gaara!" Temari said, running across the hall towards him. "You're alive!"

"Get away from me!" Gaara shrieked.

The sand shot up from the floor, coiled about and slammed into Temari, throwing her back.

"Always--" Gaara muttered, getting to his feet. "-- always telling me what to do."

"Gaara-" Sasuke snarled.

"Yeah," Gaara said.

The sand crashed into Sasuke, crushing him against the floor, flying into him, crawling up his skin and obscuring his vision.

There were candlestick holders lodged into the wall along the north tapestry. Ino snatched one off the wall, ran towards Gaara and leapt into the air, swinging the candlestick holder towards his head.

"Hate!" Gaara shouted, swinging about and crashing the sand into Ino, flinging her back.

"Gaara--" Temari said, staggering to her feet. "Gaara, stop--"

"Don't tell me what to do!" Gaara shouted, sending sand at her.

She leapt to the side, rolling, the sand exploding against the floor.

"You're all dead," Gaara said.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sasuke saw Deidara working creating another clay bomb. Ino shouted Sasuke's name, threw him the candlestick holder. He caught it, swung it at Gaara, but another wave of sand struck him, knocking the wind from his lungs, throwing him against the ground.

"Dead," Gaara said.

Sasuke could see him, in bits and pieces, through the sand maelstrom, saw his hateful eyes.

Movement. Deidara threw the clay bomb. It shaped, became a bird. It soared down on clay wings towards Sasuke. Sasuke launched off the ground into the air, caught the bird, and hurled it at Gaara.

Gaara's eyes went wide. He coiled the sand around him--

-- and vanished in an explosion that sent Sasuke and Ino flying back into the wall.

ooo

The scalpel shimmered in the light coming through the windows. Kabuto's fist shook, clenching the knife. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he opened his mouth to gasp. Shikamaru was hurting his wrist.

The man held Kabuto's wrist and the scalpel inches away from his back. He had caught the wrist without looking. Shikamaru didn't look at him. He just sighed and said, "I'm really getting tired of this."

"You're hurting me," Kabuto said.

Shikamaru squeezed and Kabuto cried out, dropping the scalpel. He turned, faced Kabuto, looked him straight in the eye. "What do I have to do? I mean, really. What do I have to do? Should I just print up my CV, have it tacked to my clothing? Should I wear a karate gi and a black belt at all times just so people know? I work so hard for so long and everyone around me still thinks they can get the drop on me. I mean look at you. You were totally confident you could bury this thing into my back. Didn't even -- you didn't even consider the possibility of failure, did you? No, you just thought here's a guy, I'll stick a knife into him. I'm really getting sick of it."

Kabuto's mouth opened. He closed it. Opened it again. "Are you going to kill me now?"

"If I kill you you won't learn from your mistakes, will you?"

They heard the explosion several rooms away. Shikamaru glanced in its direction. "Huh," he said.

ooo

Death.

Death was not an option. Sasuke felt the rough stone against his palms, felt his own breath suck in, wrench out. His chest hurt. Sweat dripped from his forehead down onto the ground. No, he thought; not an option.

That's what they don't get, do they, Naruto? They don't get that we have so much ahead of us -- and to die here -- that's just-- that's just unacceptable. There are still things we haven't done. What do they care? There was sunlight ahead of us, the way the light plays through your hair. There was seeing you on the edge of a green field, looking back at me, smiling. There was highschool, university, our whole lives. We were supposed to fight. We haven't fought yet -- not really. We haven't had any petty differences, any screaming matches, any dark days spent pretending to hate each other.

"Sasuke--"

Gaara was laughing. The smoke was curling out along the floor around the boy, his shield of sand disintegrating rapidly around him. "Sasuke," he said. "You suck."

Sasuke said nothing. He got to his feet, stood in front of the boy, fists clenched. There was nothing to say: death just wasn't an option.

And there's you to think about, Naruto. The way the light streams through my bedroom windows and glances off your skin. The way you smile at me in the throes of it. The way you feel when you lie with your stomach against the bed gasping, my hips touching yours.The way you feel in my mouth. There's the very majesty you've swung into my life, you Narutard, you. You silly fuck. You beautiful, silly fuck. I'm not going to let these psychopaths destroy that. I'll let them destroy the world before letting them destroy us.

Gaara shifted to the side and ran along the ground at Sasuke, forming glass knives out of the sand, the blades sharp and brutal.

Sasuke closed his eyes.

Naruto--

He turned and spun, Gaara's knives slicing overhead. He went into the air, lancing out kicks into Gaara's throat and shoulder. He twisted, coming back around, saw Gaara at the side, falling back, blood shooting up in a gush. He landed, ducked, and got Gaara three times in the muscle between his shoulder and his right arm, killing the muscle at the source. Gaara made a horrible gurgling nose and felt to his knees, clutching his shoulder.

"Sasuke--" he snarled.

"Fuck you, Gaara," Sasuke said softly.

Behind him, Ino snatched up the long candlestick holder. She turned, brandishing it and screamed Deidara's name. The Zombie-Deidara looked at her and hurled another clay-bird, the beautiful thing unfolding its wings outwards along the dusty air. She baseball-batted it back at the two of them and they vanished in a swath of fire and noise.

Beneath the roar of the explosion, Sasuke heard Temari shout for Gaara.

But Gaara was chuckling, looking up at Temari with utter hate in his eyes. He seemed to be falling apart into sand, disappearing down into the floor as if he was sifting through the flagstone. Soon all that was left of him was a sheen of dust.

"Gaara-!" Temari said, falling to her knees on the flagstone, touching it. "Gaara-!"

ooo

Sasuke--

Naruto lay back against the stone, feeling the wind against his hair, feeling the soft scales of the boa constrictors as they pinned him to the floor. The tower room, the highest floor in the castle. The bell tower. The bell was massive, a monstrosity of iron, and Orochimaru stood beneath it, staring out over his forest.

Sasuke, l hope your safe. I have a plan, but--

I need you to be safe.

In his hand, hidden from the boas, hidden from Orochimaru, was the sharp needle he'd snapped off the compass in the library. He felt it in his hand. All he had to do was wait.

"Tell me, Naruto," Orochimaru said. "Do you like the Ramones?"

And all around them, they could feel the dark powers of the castle approaching.