(A/N)
This is the start of the story proper, the messy beginning of our heroes' tale. Also, my descriptions of the characters are going to attribute them more to real people than their drawn form. For instance, I will describe Sakura below as having light brown brown hair with a hint of red, as opposed to the pink that is usually depicted. I'm doing this because I think it makes the story more tangible, if you don't want to picture the characters as I describe them, that is your prerogative.
The Place Where Hell and Earth Meet / Part I
"The Mountainous Lyethumper was one of my sensei's favorite animals. Its tail can extend over the top of its head faster than most other species can react, and carries with it a venom strong enough to kill a full-grown man."
"Taichou, please for the love of the Nine, let us walk in silence." Sakura was not happy. Her head was pounding with remembrance at the myriad hits it had suffered the night before. But as she was rapidly discovering, their sensei was not an empathetic man.
"What makes them such successful predators, is that they have hidden their venom from their prey since before man walked the earth. When they get into scuffles with other Mountainous Lyethumpers, they purposefully don't use their tails. In fact, they will only use their tails when they are one-hundred-percent sure that they can kill their prey."
"We get it," Naruto said, voice pleading. "Can you just go back to quoting that perverted book? At least that was interesting?"
Naruto's face made as satisfying 'thunk' as Sakura's fist reunited him with the earth.
"Naruto, be respectful!" Sakura chided.
"But Sakura-chan you were complaining too!"
"It's not the same!"
Kakashi smiled as he listened to the banter. He was glad that his team could still joke around like this—though Sakura still wouldn't meet his eyes; all of his genin were still rattled from the genjutsu he had used on them the other morning. Sakura, even know, was wrapping herself in her arms; an unconscious attempt to protect her naval. Naruto wouldn't sleep for more than a few hours before waking in a panic. Sasuke's fingers hadn't left his kunai holster since the night of their impromptu spar. They managed to avoid breaking down—somehow—but Kakashi could see that they were all still on edge, and even the crows flying overhead sent them into a state of near panic.
The lesson Kakashi had been attempting to teach his adorable students was the importance of gleaning information from a subject. Often times the valuable information was in the mundane. A noble might mention in passing that his cousin had been distant lately, and what a genin would take at face value, a chūnin would know to look underneath the underneath and question that distance. Was the noble making a political decision that would alienate their cousin? What kind of decisions was the noble in a position to make? How could this affect Konoha? Maybe the cousin is distancing himself because he feels ashamed of his recent actions. What kind of actions would he be in a position to make? In time, ninja would naturally learn to question everything they were told, but Team Maggot didn't have time. Not enough anyway.
"Once, I saw a Mountainous Lyethumper getting attacked by a giant tiger in the River country. The tiger was toying with it, poor little thing, knocking it back and forth and bringing it to the very brink of death with its claws—the whole time the Lyethumper just tried to curl itself into a ball to avoid taking a fatal swipe. The tiger kept it at a range with its claws, but eventually, it figured that the Mountainous Lyethumper was all worn out, and would just give in to death. In that moment, just as the tiger was going in to bite its throat for the kill, the Lyethumper struck. Fast as lightning, just in that single moment of overextension, it struck the tiger right between the eyes with its tail. The neurotoxins killed the beast in less than ten seconds."
"Who cares?" Naruto grumbled, hands locked behind his head as he stared at the clouds.
"It's an analogy dobe." Sasuke's eyes were trained on the city of Otafuku Gai ahead.
"What's that mean?"
"Did you not pay any attention in school, Naruto you idiot." Sakura chastised; irritation—the fickle breeze picking up her chestnut tresses, tugging them playfully towards oblivion. Framed against the radiance of the morning sun they almost looked pink.
"Hehe," Naruto trailed off for a moment, his face souring as if recalling a particularly unsettling scent. "I never much liked Mizuki-sensei."
"It's like, he's saying one thing, but he's really talking about something else." Sakura said, trying to get her teammate back on track.
"I don't get it."
"He's using Mountainous Lyethumpers as an example of how we should act as ninja. He's saying that its important to save our trump cards, or our enemies will be able to react to them, and we could die."
"Oh, that makes sense. Why didn't he just say that from the beginning?"
"Because he's a jackass." Sakura sniped. Naruto and Sasuke looked at her in a joint state of mild shock. Sakura paid them no mind and just continued walking with her chin a touch higher than it had been the day before. Her arms were still wrapped around her stomach though, as if guarding a pregnant secret, growing there with the trauma replaying itself endlessly in her mindscape.
"Oh, there's one more story I'm supposed to tell you before we enter the city," the ANBU officer stopped in his tracks as he turned to address Team Maggot. "Sometimes, ninja will be sent on infiltration missions with no knowledge of the nature of their assignment. This is to protect any information they might be tortured for, and also to allow them to act completely naturally in an environment that might unnerve them under normal conditions."
Sasuke stared at the man in disbelief. "You promised you would train us. Now you're telling us that we have to take part in some infiltration mission for the Sage-of-Six-Paths-knows how long?"
"No, of course not. My mission is to prepare you to the best of my abilities, I wouldn't waste our time with something as pointless as that. Besides, there's nothing here but whorehouses and a prospering drug trade."
"Then why are we here?" Naruto asked, exasperated with his sensei's nonchalance.
"I have some business to take care of. Don't worry, I'll be all finished by morning. You kids just relax and have a good time." Kakashi waved at his team—oh, if only they could see the look on their faces!—he Body Flickered towards the outskirts of town, where his informant was waiting with what he hoped would be good news. Well, Jiraiya's informant. But the Great Frog Sage was in the land to the east of the Great Sea, if word on the street was to be believed.
"How are we supposed to relax in a town full of brothels and drugs?" Sakura asked the empty space her taichou had been occupying just a moment before. "That jackass didn't even leave us any money."
A wicked smile snaked up Naruto's countenance. "I guess we'll just have to make some then."
"Hn."
—
"Remind me again how you talked me into this?" Sakura sulked as she followed Naruto through the streets of the city, Sasuke trailing a few yards behind them.
"It's simple really, Sakura-chan, the servants—those are dot 1 through dot 6, remember?—they all have a count of plus one point, now the warrior class—dot 7 through dot 9—those aren't worth anything at all. The noble class, the silly looking faces, are worth negative one point. Now the Emperor, that's where the real trick of it is. Wha—"
"Stop. I remember, it's the wildcard right? Every other Emperor drawn reverses the count. I always call the ante, but only start betting big once the count hits plus three.
"My point was, why are we doing this? Couldn't we just steal the money we need for a tavern room?"
"But Sakura-chan, stealing is wrong." Naruto admonished with a frown. He was a little offput by the notion of his seraphic Sakura-chan stealing.
"And counting cards is any better?"
"It's totally different! Back me up on this Sasuke-teme."
Sasuke remained silent, just watching his teammates antics with a detached bemusement. He had told them from the very beginning that he had more than enough money on him to buy two rooms for the night—but the idiots had refused his 'charity'. Well, ever the hypocrite, Naruto had then begged Sasuke to 'loan' him 500 ryo. And here they were, in one of Otafuku Gai's countless red light districts, trying to find a gambling house that was 'just the right amount of shady' as Naruto had put it.
Sasuke was loath to admit that, despite their turbulent beginnings, he was actually having fun. Sort of. Not that he'd ever admit it anyone. He was still a little wary of Sakura's apparent personality shift, or to be more accurate, her lack of fangirling since the first night. He knew it probably had something to do with the genjutsu, though he had no intention of looking a gift horse in the mouth, he didn't need any distractions on his journey towards vengeance. He was an avenger after all, he couldn't afford to start getting sentimental about his teammate's mental well being, all distractions were anathema to him. And Sakura, she was distracting.
Sasuke had almost told her his secret—once. But it was too much of a risk, and the consequences too grave, even for him, but maybe the look on her face would be worth it. Naruto knew, he had known since Sasuke's eleventh year. And their taichou knew too, though Sasuke figured that the Hokage had probably told him. How many people did that make? Seven total, maybe, who knew the truth about Uchiha Sasuke.
"This is it." Naruto said. His voice was firm with a confidence Sasuke had come to expect from Naruto when dealing with all things pertaining to the underworld (with which the blond boy seemed all too familiar).
They entered a small building at the end of a trail of red lanterns that festooned the street. Immediately Sasuke was assaulted by the pungent smell of blue cheese, only he knew that was not the source of the scent.
Naruto pushed the hanging curtains aside languidly, as if he had been frequenting the place for years. Sakura followed him closely, keeping her eyes downcast as she took a seat beside the blue-eyed enigma. Truly, in academics the boy was a lost cause—he religiously refused to pay attention to any of their teachers (even to Iruka-sensei, with whom Sasuke guessed, the boy had a closer relationship than any of the other students), and seemed unable to absorb information from textbooks or scrolls—but the boy had a natural charisma, and an uncanny level of street-smarts that seemed to more than compensate for his shortcomings in the classroom. Sasuke would begrudgingly admit that he was rather glad to have been teamed up with Naruto, because of all of their graduating class, Sasuke felt he was the only genin who could actually teach him something useful. And this was just such an opportunity.
Sasuke sat across from his teammates, taking the only open seat left at the table, which was alive with the raucous cries of drunken men and called bluffs. He would watch how Naruto ran this table; as Sasuke was sure he would, taking in every movement and calculation he could assume the boy was making. Sasuke thought of a proverb he had been told often as a child, "If you give a man a fish, you will feed him for a day. If you teach him to catch his own fish, you will feed him for a lifetime." Sasuke figured the 500 ryo he might lose here today would be well worth the lesson he was about to receive.
Sasuke was not disappointed. Through the thick wisps of tobacco and opium smoke lazing about the room he watched the boy triple his 500 ryo in under an hour. It was a little bit scary. He kept Sakura supplied with chips whenever she ran out—which was rather often, and at a rapid pace. Still, they were about 800 ryo up, and despite Sakura's inadequacies at the game, Sasuke could see the value in having her at the table. Everyone's eyes were on her. She was playfully clumsy when calling a bet, purposefully revealing one or more of her cards, as well as plenty of cleavage. Wait. When had she changed into that kimino? When had she grown breasts? Sasuke was surprised to find that he hadn't noticed her apply the henge, having spent the majority of his attention on the blond boy across from him, who was taking advantage of Sakura's flauntery to call a bet unnoticed by the mass of leering stares. The room was so cluttered with a cacophony of inebriated shouts that Sasuke found it difficult to keep focus. And the crowd, the ever shifting phalanx of perverts and lechers, their attention gravitated around his Sakura. Not that he'd ever refer to her as such. Even within the safety of his own mindscape.
Their eyes were stuck on her like flies to a lamp. It was almost disgusting to watch, the way these men undressed her, ravaged her with their gaze. Sasuke was want for a moment to burn the place to the ground, and all of the men here with it. And that idiot Naruto too, for using her like this.
"Sake! We need to get this young lady some sake!" One of the younger patrons called out, his hair tied in a ceremonial bun and his eyes sunken from the opium still burning in his pipe.
The gambling room was alive with a feverish energy, Sasuke felt perspiration running down his neck, and his lungs were starting to ache with the tendrils of smoke following his every inhale.
"Sake," a voice echoed from somewhere in the room.
"Sake," called a third voice. A chorus of cries and cheers resounded against the walls of the small gambling room and before Sasuke could discern any actual movement, a bottle of rice wine was slammed on the table in front of Sakura. The racket dulled as the sight of their goddess-for-the-evening reaching for the alcohol sobered all thoughts in the crowd save those of unbridled lust.
Sakura took the ceramic bottle and poured herself a glass of sake with a coy smile. Sasuke felt his own breath catch as she pulled the liquid to her lips. She hesitated. Her opal eyes caught his. The unnatural heat of the room had flushed her cheeks slightly. She blinked once, the glass of sake still pressed to her delicate lips. When her eyes reopened Sasuke noticed a faint amber ring around her pupils, tendrils of gold spreading into her iris, dissipating in a sea of aquamarine.
Sakura lowered the glass, still full, and handed it to Sasuke across the table, her fingers grazing every so slightly against his own. Then she poured another, handing it to Naruto. Finally, a glass for herself; she raised her cup in cheers to her teammates, who mirrored the gesture, downing the contents in unison.
Cries of celebration erupted from every direction, the gambling table all but forgotten. A toast was made, and Sasuke's cup was once again filled with the bitter liquid. He paused for a second, remembering the foul taste and the burning sting in the back of his throat. 'Nothing compared to the burn of a fireball though,' he consoled himself.
The pit of Sasuke's stomach started twisting in protest, but Sasuke didn't mind it. His own cheeks flushed and he found his eyes once again locking on Sakura's. He had to tell her. The thought, where it came from he didn't know. But it pounded in his ears, even louder than the world around him, ablaze with laughter and jeers, breaking glass. He had to tell her. She would hate Sasuke probably, even more so if she realized why he was telling her. 'I'm disgusting,' he thought, raising his chin to allow a third shot to fall down his throat.
A man, Daisuke, if Sasuke remembered correctly, was patting him on the shoulder now. His face was obscured, even just a foot from Sasuke's own, by the smoke which permeated the room. His voice drowned in the sea of laughter around them, and something more, the rhythmic beating of feet against the wooden flooring. A bard had begun to pluck the strings of his tonkori, and many of the patrons here had taken to dancing. Or as close to dancing as their drunken forms could come, more like a slathering of bodies upon one another.
Daisuke was pointing Sasuke towards the entrance to the gambling house, where his teammates were waiting, regarding him with shifting glances. But Sasuke didn't want to leave, his tongue felt too big for his mouth and his cheeks were tingling and pounding with heat. The thick weave of smoke dancing about the room weighed heavily on his eyelids and he wanted nothing more than to lie against the table and nap. Just for a minute.
A hand grabbed his elbow and lifted him from the table. He turned to see Naruto, pulling him towards the exit. Sasuke tried to focus on the boy's blond hair, but his vision waned, always pulled by the music towards some invisible fascination, inexorably just out of sight. He couldn't focus on anything. Even his thoughts waned promiscuously. His hands felt like a thousand stars were popping just under the skin. His eyelids dragged as he stumbled after Naruto, vaguely aware of bumping shoulders and stepping on the toes of a plethora of angry, nameless faces as they exited the gambling house.
The frigid night air hit Sasuke like a ton of bricks. He seethed, but as it passed through him it seemed to take with it much of the drunken haze that had settled over him. His mind felt clearer, his cheeks, though still burning, felt the chill of the evening breeze, and Sasuke was reminded of his own mortality. He found himself finally able to focus, eyes trained on Sakura's hand on his shoulder. She was using him to stay upright, a husky giggle escaping her lips.
She was still using the genjutsu he realized. Her body was not that of the thirteen year old Sakura he had spent the last seven years of his life ignoring, but that of a young woman, full of curves and a sultry disposition that made his skin crawl with dread and yearning. Daisuke was with them, laughing amiably with Naruto, arm around the younger boy's shoulder. Sasuke overheard Daisuke promising to lodge them for the night, but the words were jumbled and his own attention was quickly refocused on the older version of Sakura who had just latched her arm through Sasuke's.
'You're sick,' Sasuke thought. 'This is a distraction, stop it. You don't have time for this, you need to kill Itachi, and then you need to rebuild your clan.' The latter thought left a lump in Sasuke's throat, his stumbling footsteps pairing perfectly with Sakura's in a sickening dance. Sasuke was an avenger. He had no time for love, he had no room for friends. Sasuke was six years old when duty bound him to unhappiness for the rest of his life. Trapped in a prison of flesh and fear, Sasuke felt ever the connection with the Jester, a card he had drawn many times over the course of the night.
Then they were being ushered into a squat building. Up a flight of stairs and into a room three doors down on the left. Eighty-five steps total to the room, which had two small futons separated by an oak table. Daisuke ushered them in and had them sit, returning less than a minute later with four cups of steaming tea.
"Here, drink this," he said. "Trust me, it will help a lot with the hangover in the morning. Trust me." He smiled easily at the three genin sitting about the table, grabbing one of the ceramic mugs for himself and taking a long swig. Naruto and Sasuke followed him immediately, Sasuke quite eager to dampen the poison wreaking havoc on his body. Sakura took her own cup a moment later, cooling the steaming liquid with gentle kisses, before taking a tentative sip. She looked at Sasuke, then Naruto, then down at her 'breasts', on the verge of bursting out of the tight kimono she wore.
"Perverts." She said before dispelling the henge. A tension Sasuke hadn't noticed building in the room dissipated immediately, and before he could stop it, laughter bubbled from his throat. All four of them burst into a chorus of uncontrollable squawks, pounding fists on the ground as the events of the day sunk in. They had spent the entire day in one of the most dangerous cities in Fire Country, gambling, winning, and getting drunk while their sensei did whatever it is ANBU officers do. The laughter was for the genjutsu too, for the trauma they had all felt but had no way of venting, the laughter did it for them. It healed them.
As the laughter died, Sasuke felt the seductive pull of sleep. Every blink left his eyelids heavier and heavier, until he could open them no more. The last image he saw, clouded by drowsiness and his every-closing eyelashes, was the smiling visage of Daisuke and the gentle coo of his voice as he wished them sweet dreams.
Who is going to take first sentry?
Sasuke tried to ask, but he had fallen too far into sleep's grasp and darkness consumed him before he could voice the thought.
—
Sasuke was woken by a smell so foul that he vomited before his eyes opened. His body knew the scent before his mind could conceive it, and only when he managed to convince himself that there was no way he was back in his six year-year-old body at the sight of the Uchiha Massacre, was he able to open his eyes and stop his body from convulsing. The second thing he noticed was that his wrists were tied behind his back, the rope thick and chafing his sensitive flesh. His hands had been tied around small steel bars to prevent him from forming any hand seals. 'They know I'm a ninja,' he thought, his adrenaline fueled mind managing to stay rational. 'They probably know I'm from Konoha, how did foreign ninja manage to get this close the Hidden Leaf unmolested?'
'How did they manage to capture us?' Sasuke took in his surroundings. Naruto and Sakura were beside him, along with four other prisoners. They were all naked, save for a cloth loincloth, and in Sakura's case, a small belt of leather wrapped around her undeveloped breasts. They were in a small cage with thick steel bars. The cage was on the left wall of what Sasuke could tell was a massive chamber, all around them were other cages, from which the source of burning flesh came. The only light in the room came from a torch in what Sasuke assumed was the epicenter of a circular chamber, and although the light barely touched their cage more than fifty meters from the torchlight, Sasuke's could make out similar cages lining every inch of the room's perimeter.
Memories from the night before began to seep back into his conscience. The alcohol, the gambling, Naruto's winnings, Sakura's breath, coming in warm puffs against his neck in the cool night. A smiling Daisuke cooing them to sleep. Daisuke. The tea. The tea had been poisoned, they had been drugged. It was the only explanation.
The sound of footsteps resonated throughout the massive room. Three people entered the room, Sasuke could make them apart by the sound of their footfalls. One was considerably taller than the others, judging by the length of his gait, and Sasuke's speculation was soon confirmed as they entered the radius of illumination the torch offered. The tall man—at least two heads taller than either of his companions—was wearing an expensive civilian suit. The dim light caught gloriously in the leather of his shoes, which were obviously well-polished; the man's posture spoke to an extreme confidence, though his sharp, owl-like visage and crooked smile hinted at an eccentric disposition. Sasuke couldn't quite make out the sounds, but he could tell the tall man was talking to his two companions, his arms flowing from one animated gesture to the next with practiced grace. This man was a salesman, and his stock was slaves. Them.
The sickening truth of their situation sunk in. They were being sold.
True enough, the three did come to a stop in front of their cage. Their bodies were outlined by the torchlight, faces obscured in shadow, but Sasuke thought he could make out the tall man's wicked smile.
"We have quite the stock here," he said, his voice controlled and soothing to the ears. "Ninjas from the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Genin, all three."
The shorter, much fatter man to his left whispered in the tall man's ear.
"Oh, yes, you're quite right, it does look like one of them has woken up. How peculiar." His tone didn't suggest any perturbation, only mild curiosity.
"That surely speaks well of their strength. They will do splendidly in the Pits, don't you think?"
"What about the girl, she's quite to my liking." The third companion spoke for the first time Sasuke could discern. He was the shortest of the bunch, and his gravel voice revealed him to be a man well past his sixties.
"Ah, quite a shame really," the tall man clicked his tongue. "Her hymen was not intact when we found her."
"Damn. The good ones always go fast, huh?"
"Her teammates should make for great entertainment in the Pits though. The people always love watching ninja die. She could still fetch you quite a lot of income in the pleasure houses, or you could take her to the Unhouse, they'd pay quite a penny for her."
"No," Sasuke's voice was weak, barely above a whisper, and cracked with the effort. "She is...the strongest...of us. She is our...leader. The strongest." His throat was so dry that by the end of his speech only a whimpered imitation of the words would leave his lips.
"Oh, really now?" the man in the middle asked, even through the darkness Sasuke could see the glint of madness in the man's eyes. He wore a massive beard woven in the fine patterns that were common in the land east of the Great Sea. "Goddess Vaable would love to see her blood. She tells me this. And so it will be done! I'll buy your ninja."
He spat the word as if it were a curse. Ninja.
"Wonderful! You have made the wise decision, as always, Master," the tall man gave a slight bow as he spoke, motioning his two companions from the room. As they turned to leave he whispered, so quietly the silence in the air claimed it as its own, "Get some sleep, young warrior. You will need your strength for the 'morrow."
Sasuke swore he heard a trace of sympathy in the call.
Still he would not sleep. Not until one of his teammates woke up to take watch. Always have a sentry.
Sasuke rested himself in the back corner of the cell, watching Naruto and Sakura out of the corner of his eyes, keeping his attention on the other inhabitants of the cell, also sleeping away whatever drugs had landed them here.
Sasuke fell into a deep sleep as soon as he had passed on everything relevant he had learned to Naruto when the boy awoke from his slumber. When he awoke again they were being moved from their cage. Several large men came in and attached collars to their necks, tying them to one another. Naruto was in the front, followed by Sasuke, with Sakura taking up the rear.
The other inhabitants of the cell never moved. Sasuke saw, as they were being led from the cage, the man who was lying closest to them; his one visible eye was open but unseeing, mouth open ever so slightly. There was no blood on him, but Sasuke had no doubt that the man was a corpse. The other three bodies were in similar states, if not already dead, they would join their gods soon.
"Sasuke-kun, what's happening?" Sakura asked.
'Her hymen was not intact when we found her.' The thought sent a chill down Sasuke's spine, though it might have just been her shaky breath.
"We were sold."
"What the hell do you mean we were sold?" Naruto spoke up. They were being led down a corridor lined with electric lanterns. The idiot kept looking around, not realizing that the turns of his head were pulling the rope around his teammates' necks quite uncomfortably.
"They know we're ninja." Sasuke said. He didn't want to spell it out, what was about to happen. He had heard horror stories of this happening to stray genin in the major cities in Rain Country, but never would he have imagined for there to be a death pit in a place so close to Konoha.
"Oh, fuck." Naruto said. Sasuke saw the shift in the way the boy held himself, his shoulders tensing, hands weaving almost playfully, testing his binds. Sasuke suddenly had an idea; what if the dobe's neck movements earlier were just him testing how the rope would affect his teammates? He doubted it. But part of him—a very small part—felt a new surge of possible respect for the boy.
There was one guard in front of them, and a second behind. They were both large, well conditioned even by ninja standards. They walked with a confidence that gave Sasuke pause—normally civilians would be more cautious around ninja. A sickening thought began to develop.
"Oi!" Naruto called to the guard in front of him. "Do you think I could get a neck rub anytime soon, mine's really sore from sleeping in that gross cell."
The guard didn't stop walking, just turned to look over his shoulder to look at the idiot. He had a scar running across his face in a nasty arc. His eye, the one Naruto and Sasuke could see, was distant and piercing. It wasn't dread, but Sasuke could feel cold acceptance flood his lungs, they would not be escaping these men. Not without being able to form hand seals, and much less without weapons. 'Shit.'
They reached the end of the hall and walked through a set of industrial doors onto a massive platform. The doors shut automatically as soon as they were all inside. A second later, the world lurched, and the entire floor began to sink. Sasuke would have been worried if not for the calm demeanor of their guards, who were acting as if this were a normal occurrence.
"It's a lift." Sakura said. Sasuke swore he could hear a hint of awe in her voice.
After a minute of silent descent, the room came to a halt. The guard with the scar on his face pressed a button next to the door to the room, and an intercom buzzed like countless flies in his ear.
"We've got fresh meat in here. We're going to take them to their pens."
"Negative on that." A voice roared through speakers in the ventilation docks. The sound reverberated in the lift, echoing with an annoying screech. "We're full."
The second guard tapped his foot impatiently. "What do you want us to do with them? They're ninja. Master Otaz payed good coin for them."
The intercom went silent for several moments, then spoke. "How many?"
"Three. Two boys and a girl. Apparently the female is the most dangerous."
Again there was silence.
"Send them down to the pits."
"Now?" The second guard asked incredulously into the intercom.
"Yes. Hold on," the mic went silent for several minutes, only the incessant buzzing remaining in the lift. "Yeah, okay. Send them down, we'll introduce them in the games tonight. If they want a spot to sleep, they'll have to make some room."
"The Owl's Tryst is still in their systems. It won't be much of a show if we have them fight now."
"Don't care. Plus the crowd loves watching ninja die. If they want a place to sleep, someone's gotta go."
The scarred guard gave them an almost pitying look, then sighed.
"Alright, we'll bring them down now. Which gate?"
"Gate Three. Hurry up, the games start in twenty minutes."
Sasuke, noticing his teammate's odd silence, sent Naruto a questioning look. From his angle, he could barely make out the boy's closed eyes and the slow, rhythmic opening and closing of his nostrils. He was meditating. Sasuke looked to Sakura next, craning his neck over his shoulder. Her eyes were fixed on the speakers, wide and scared. Her whole body was quivering and Sasuke was sure she was going to wet herself soon.
After a few seconds she caught his eye, and mouthed, eye's tearing. 'I'm going to die.'
Sasuke leaned backwards, so that his shoulderblades rested on her chest, he leaned his head back—the pressure pulling Naruto back as well, snapping the boy from his trance.
"Stay calm, you fool," Sasuke whispered towards her face. "You're going to get us all killed if you panic."
She nodded, still shaking.
"I won't die here. I can't. Neither will you."
Again she nodded.
The capacious room descended once again. They fell in silence. Even when the doors opened and they walked through a winding passage of damp caves, somehow visible even without any source of light, they did not make a sound. Sakura was resting her forehead on the back of Sasuke's neck as they walked, her tears wetting the avenger's shirt, though for once, he did not mind.
How far underground they were, Sasuke could not tell, but he was aware of the groundwater seeping through the jagged black rock walls, and a cool breeze, almost imperceptible, guiding them towards their destination.
Sound began to leak into the underground corridor, a low rumble, growing ever louder as they closed in on wherever it was they were going. The pathway forked in several places, and though Sasuke was pretty sure he could find his way back eventually, there was quite a good chance he would get lost once or twice along the way. These caverns surely held myriad corpses, remnants of people who had strayed from whatever path their guards were now following, and had starved to death in this endless maze.
They finally reached their destination; an elephantine mechanical gate, though there were no electric lamps anywhere to be seen, Sasuke was able to make out 'Gate 3' written in yellow paint adorning the otherwise plane contraption. Just beyond the gate he could make out a thundering of voices, strangely reminiscent of the gambling house they had visited the night before. This whole experience felt surreal, Sasuke could almost convince himself it was a dream. Almost. But it was not, because Itachi was not here, to stab his heart, to behead their mother in front of Sasuke, and make him re-watch the massacre until his eyes bled. This place was miserable, sure, but Sasuke's dreams were where hell and earth met, slavery was just a cheap imitation.
The guard with the scar cut the rope from Naruto's metallic collar.
"You're up first, brat." He checked his watch and shifted uncomfortably.
"We've got three minutes 'till ya go." Sasuke's heart was pounding. The gravity of their situation finally sinking in. 'These are the gladiator pits.' Gelid hands seemed to climb up his spine, one vertebrae at a time until they found his neck and tightened their grip.
"Any advice?" The blond boy threw their captor his carefree smile, rolling his neck. The scarred man was taken aback for a second, then he composed himself. His wooden eyes softened as he spoke.
"Yah, actually," the more he spoke the more salient his accent became. "Have you ever heard of the Mountanous Lyethumper?"
Naruto laughed until tears pooled in his eyes. "Our sensei was talking about it yesterday actually!" Naruto's smile too bright. How did he do that? "Save the poison, right?"
"No. Dat's what they say, but no. You know how dey die? Dey underestimate the eagles, whose claws be sharp 'nough ta kill dem in a single dive. Maybe dey catch one bird o' ten with deir tails, and both creaturrs die. But if the eagles knew of the danger, maybe they don't strike so often. Yah?"
"How should I interpret that?" Naruto asked, somehow remaining calm.
"In dis place," the guard said. Voice solemn and barely a whisper, as if divulging some great secret. "Sometimes fear be da greatest weapon a man c'n be holding. In da pits, you're not a creaturr o' no God, ya'r becoming the Gods demselves."
Naruto matched the man's serious expression. His eyes hardening into the blue of the deep ocean, into which soldiers set sail once and never returned. "I see," he said. "I just have to become a God of this place, then."
"It be time."
—
The first thing Naruto noticed about the Pit was the puerile joy of the crowd, a mass of faceless screams and boisterous laughter emanating from the ink black stadium. It was a closed oval of considerable size, every surface seemed to absorb the poor illumination offered by the several electric lamps strewn about at random invervals.
The second thing he noticed was the smell, the nauseating combination of roasted meat and human excrement.
Still, Naruto was calm. The meditation he had done in the elevator had settled him into a state of serene apprehension. The madness in his stomach was ecstatic, it screamed, much louder than the mass of onlookers, for blood. It consumed Naruto, excited him.
Normally, Naruto would repress the madness. But in this situation, it seemed much more advantageous to go into a fight bloodthirsty than scared and helpless. He thought back to the guard's advice as he walked to the center of the arena. 'I need them to fear me.'
There was a voice, hypnotizing the spectators, coming from the heart of the arena (though where that was, Naruto did not know), "...from the Village Hidden in Leaves. Ladies and gentlemen, lovers of carnage, livers of life, I give to you 'Ba-Tri', son of Opellius himself!"
Deafening cheers erupted around the stadium. Naruto would have covered his ears if not for his binds. As the thought formed in his mind he felt the scarred guard cut the rope wound around his wrist.
He turned to thank the man, but he was already back to the gate by the time Naruto's eyes found him.
"And fighting today's challenger, from the Land of Demons from across the Great Sea, I present to you today, the 'Demon Brothers! Blessed by Arius and the beautiful Yaja, these two have claimed the heads of over one-hundred people!"
Again, the crowd's lustful roars slammed against Naruto's eardrums. The young ninja felt as if he had been physically hit. He watched as a gate across the stadium slid open and two men walked into the Pit.
They must have been twins, Naruto analyzed. They were both somewhere in their mid twenties judging from their developing beards and broad shoulders. The one on the left was missing an eye, but other than that, they were identical in every way. They wore matching black outfits, complete with sandals. Naruto felt naked in comparison. At least they were also unarmed.
They each stood at least three heads taller than the boy, and Naruto couldn't help the flourish of dread in his gut and the sudden knot in his throat.
"Let the combat begin!" The voice called seductively.
Before Naruto could process the words, the two men were upon him. They grabbed at him, trying to hold him down for a finishing blow right of the bat. Naruto ducked under the extended hands and tried to put some distance between him and the two men.
He was given no reprieve though, as the Demon Brothers—as the mysterious announcer had claimed them—followed him doggedly. 'Shit,' the boy thought. 'I need to get some space so I can think of a plan, this is bad.' As Naruto ducked under grabs and dodged various strikes, he began to recognize that his opponents were trying to corner him against the wall of the arena, and they were succeeding.
Panic was consuming him, he knew what would happen to him if they caught him. He would be lucky for a quick death. He needed to start fighting back somehow. He needed at least two seconds of separation to form the hand seal and concentrate his chakra properly to create some Shadow Clones, but these two seemed intent on not giving the boy any time to collect himself.
It was a solid plan, Naruto documented, keep your opponent constantly on edge, never let them establish themselves. A relentless assault.
A kick caught him in the side of the head and he was thrown to the ground. The pain hardly registered through his adrenaline, but his world wavered when he flipped himself upright—the movement catching one of the Demon Brothers by surprise as he dove for where the blond boy had been a second ago. Naruto capitalized on the mistake by going on the offensive himself. He side-slipped a jab from the still standing brother and landed a solid left hook to the man's rib cage. The man brought his guard down in response, trying to avoid another body blow. Naruto, expecting this after years of taijutsu practice in the academy, threw a haymaker at the unsuspecting man's head.
Unfortunately for the genin, the Demon Brother was so much taller than him that the man only had to lean back slightly to avoid the blow. Naruto, mimicking the man's fighting style, gave him no time to compose himself, and kicked viciously at the man's knee. The blow landed and the man's knee buckled, pulling a chorus of pained screams from the man supposedly blessed by Yaja, the Goddess of Blood. Naruto leapt back, attempting to get some space between him and the now writhing man, only for his momentum to be reversed by a powerful blow to the back of his neck.
The second Demon Brother had snuck around behind the boy and shoulder-checked him when he tried to retreat. The force of the hit knocked Naruto to ground for the second time, his head slamming into the hard rock floor of the arena. Pain flooded his nervous system and for a second his mind went blank. Then the pain returned, and he felt sticky blood pooling from the fresh gash above his eye. He struggled to rise to his knees, only to be kicked hard in the gut. 'Shit.' He thought, falling back to the ground and curling instinctively into the fetal position. A second kick followed soon, and then a third. Then a heel slammed into the back of his head. He could taste the copper blood trickling down his face and into his mouth.
'What am I doing?' Naruto thought. The pain in his skull had caused his whole body to freeze up. 'I'm going to die like this. Think Naruto. Move.' He flailed with his arms, as the lifewater pouring from his wound blinded him, and was satisfied when he felt the sandalled foot of the second Demon Brother crash into his solar plexus. Despite the shock of having the wind knocked out of him, Naruto managed to wrap his arms around the leg and clutched it to his chest in a death grip. He was vaguely aware of the first Demon Brother crawling towards him, his now useless left leg hindering his movement.
Naruto rolled onto his side, still holding the man's leg, forcing his knee to bend until the Demon Brother dropped the leg to the floor. Naruto blindly grabbed at the man's shirt, catching the fabric near his neck and balling it up in his fist—Naruto roughly shoved the man in the direction of his dropped leg, forcing him onto his back. Naruto pivoted his hips, barely able to see through the blood weighing down on his eyelashes.
Naruto tried to climb farther up the man's body, but the Demon Brother's hand had found its way into Naruto's hair and was pulling his head back savagely. Naruto's own were on the man's face, his thumbs on the man's eyeballs, and he was pressing as hard as he could into the man's skull.
Naruto wasn't aware that the depraved screams of the crowd were, in fact, his own battlecry. The Demon Brother had ripped a chunk of hair from Naruto's scalp, though the boy payed no mind, as his thumbs had penetrated the man's eye socket. He could feel the Demon Brother's brain. Naruto's roar came to its crescendo as he pulled apart with his arms, pumping more chakra into his muscles than he had ever before. They popped with the strain, tendons tearing; but they served their brutal purpose as the man's skull was split in two. How delicious.
Naruto stood over the body. He beat on his own bare chest, his bruised fists splashing a map of dark red liquid across his flesh. Naruto howled, becoming one with the horde of cries and calls.
His naked body was painted in sludge and blood. He wore it like armor.
At some point his eyes had rid themselves of the blood hindering his vision.
At some point he heard the calls.
"Son of Opellius! Son of Yaja!"
"Son of Opellius! Son of Yaja!"
"Son of Opellius! Son of Yaja!"
"Son of Yaja."
{ Son of Yaja, the Goddess of Blood. Yaja fell in love with a human male, and birthed him a child. This was considered a grave sin, even by the God's standards. While copulating with humans was allowed, to sire a child was unheard of. Hamatama, God of Justice, kidnapped the child in the hopes of restoring balance to the world, however this infuriated Yaja, who tracked Hamatama down and killed him. This was the second time in eternity that a God had been killed, and for five hundred years afterwards the world fell into chaos—with no justice to guide them, anarchy bathed the human world in hellfire. Yaja's son, being born of both human and God, gained some of their essence, and was granted with a mystical, inhuman power; chakra. The son and his subsequent children, rose to power through the centuries of darkness, using their celestial strength to rape and pillage the world's people. At the end of those 500 years, Hamatama was reborn and justice returned to the world. However, the legacy of Yaja's son remained, as most of the human population now had access to chakra—the birthright of the Gods. }
'What am I doing?'
The crowd felt miles away, just a diluted roar from some other life caught on the wind.
Naruto turned back and saw the corpse on the ground. His face ripped in half, thick gooping blood spilled from the fatal wound. Naruto could make out the man's cerebellum, barely visible through the cracked bone and empty eye sockets.
Naruto dropped to his knees and gagged on nothing—his stomach painfully empty.
'What the fuck have I done?'
But he knew. He could feel the madness in his naval. He could taste its mirth, finally satiated after so many years without the taste of blood.
"You bastard!"
Naruto turned to see the first Demon Brother, limping towards him. The large man was crying, tear tracks catching the dim lamplight as they trickled through his beard.
5 meters. The man's sobbs retched at Naruto's throat.
3 meters. His left leg was completely useless, Naruto's earlier kick must have done more damage than he thought.
The first Demon Brother towered over Naruto. The genin just stared, horrified at the broken man.
"You killed him." The man threw a haymaker will all of his weight. Naruto sidestepped the blow and let the man collapse to the earth with the momentum of his strike.
"You monster," he wailed. "Y-you monster." The broken man choked on his own saliva.
"Surrender." Naruto's eyes were cold metal.
"K—" the man broke into a fit of pained coughs. "Kill me."
"No, I won't do that." Naruto said, ridden with guilt.
"Please." The man's beg was so sincere that Naruto fumbled for a moment.
"No, I will never kill a defenseless man. This match is over!" Naruto yelled. He stood over the fallen Demon Brother in a show of complete dominance, making no move to hurt the man further.
There was dead silence. The crowd seemed unable to compute what was happening. 'Have they never seen sympathy before?' Naruto thought with disgust. After what seemed a lifetime of uncomfortable silence, broken only by the desperate sobbs of the still living Demon Brother, the intercom buzzed. Then that mysterious voice rang once more through the stadium.
"Ba-Tri, Son of Opellius, son of Yaja. Truly, your cruelty knows no bounds." there was a pregnant pause, then the voice returned. "TO YOU, THE SPOILS!"
The stadium trembled with the noise of the screams. Naruto almost thought there was an earthquake.
The gate from which the Demon Brother's had entered opened and several guards ran out. Two of them grabbed the crying Demon Brother and dragged him to a second gate Naruto hadn't seen before. Naruto saw another guard out of the corner of his eye use a fire jutsu to burn the corpse. 'Holy shit.' Naruto thought, realizing for the first time that escaping from this place might be impossible, or at the very least much harder than he had originally thought. 'That's a chūnin level technique.' Sasuke could perform it as well, but it was her family's signature jutsu, and she had been practicing it since her 6th year. Naruto wasn't able to watch the technique for very long before a pair of strong hands forced his arms behind his back and bound him. Then he was led through the open gate, on the opposite side of the Pit from where his teammates were currently waiting.
"Wait. What about my teammates, can I watch them fight?" Naruto flashed the guard—a tall and impossibly thin man with hands too large for the rest of his body—his trademark lackadaisical grin. It was a sharp contrast from the self-disgust and horror he felt, but no one knew the importance of keeping a poker face better than the number one prankster of the Village Hidden in the Leaves.
The guard seemed surprised by the request. "Yeah, there's a monitor in the prep chamber, you'll see. Come on."
Naruto nodded easily, trudging towards the open gate. Sasuke would be fine, Naruto was sure. If he could survive this ordeal, than the last Uchiha would be fine as well—as much as he was loath to admit it, the avenger was strong. Sakura on the other hand… Naruto almost wished he wasn't able to watch her fight. He couldn't bare to see her die. 'Sakura-chan, survive.'
—
"Did he win?"
"Aye, he win. Dem be the screams 'o promise. Dey like your boy."
Sasuke nodded, before turning to face Sakura. "Sakura, I'm going to leave you a weapon."
"You have a weapon?" she whispered, eyeing the scarred guard.
"Not yet. You can't afford to be squeamish here. Just use it."
"What are you talking about, Sasuke-kun?"
"Just take it, and use it. I'll try to leave it near your gate."
"It be time."
Sasuke prowled through the gate as it slid open with a mechanical hiss. The scarred guard cut his binds as soon as he was through the door. He kept to the sides of the massive pit, they were so black it was relatively easy to stay hidden.
The Pit was a rough oval shape, with a closed roof, and stadium seating on the sides. The lights were all positioned down towards the jagged rocky floor of the arena, preventing Sasuke from actually seeing the crowd, though he could hear them well enough.
"Born and raised in the Gutter City of Aike in the Country of Rain, the bastard child of the Emperor's Head Guard—ladies and gentlemen, lovers of carnage, livers of life, please allow me to introduce you to, the one, the only, 'Ju-ha'!"
'Is that supposed to be me?' Sasuke thought dryly.
He saw a gate on the far side of the Pit begin to slide open and he began to skulk along the pitch black edges of the stadium towards it. A second later, he took off in as close to a run as he could, keeping himself low and pressed to the wall.
"And our returning favorite! The man to whom all other men bow, the champion of Astraeus, king of the shadow, please join me in welcoming to the Pits, the great…"
Sasuke was at the gate now. It was fully open and he could make out a form entering the arena. He dove from his spot by the wall, his knee connecting violently with the man's temple, killing him instantly. Sasuke wasted no time, straightening his fingers and reinforcing them with chakra, he reached into the mans flesh and ripped one of his ribs free from his rib cage. Then he went in for a second. Then a third. He threw the ribs behind him as he went, purposefully throwing the two sharpest bones he found in front of Gate Three, where he knew Sakura was still waiting.
When Sasuke finished his task he became aware of the hushed whispers of the crowd, though they quickly grew into a thundering applause. The voice returned to the intercom and proclaimed him the winner of the match, and the new champion of Astraeus. Sasuke didn't say a word as several attendants ran out into the arena to collect the corpse and re-tie his bonds.
"That was really something, never seen anything like it." The guard behind him said, a giddiness in his eyes that Sasuke had gotten use to during his days in the Academy (though he didn't like it any better now than he had then).
"Hn."
"Come on, I'll take you to your teammate." The man said with a hopeful smile on his face.
Sasuke one of the attendants running around and picking up the bones scattered about the arena. He had to stop him.
"Stop that," Sasuke called to the man, running from one bone to the next, trying to finish his clean-up as quickly as possible. "Those are my trophies. Leave them."
"That's right!" The guard beside him shouted. "Leave the trophies, it's not every day you see a fight like that! Must of been the fastest ever in the Pits."
The attendant looked unsure for a moment, stuck with the eyes of a cornered dear. Then he made up his mind, dropping the bones he had collected where he was and running back out through the open gate where the man Sasuke had killed had entered the Pit.
Sasuke left the arena as easily as he had entered, only a slight pant marring his perfect form.
"That was really something, where are you from again?"
"Hn."
He had done all he could for his teammate, he convinced himself. A small part of him hoped for her death, that along with her, Sasuke's perversion would be buried, deep within the earth. But he knew that she was not the impetus for his cravings, just the most attractive outlet at the moment—and even if she were to die, the Uchiha heir would soon find another.
—
"Is that good or bad?" Sakura asked the scarred guard, who seemed to have taken a liking to them.
"I don't know, but the boy seemed pretty confident."
"Y-yeah, he's always like that." Sakura, despite her fear, despite her looming death, felt a touch of heat on her cheeks. 'Might as well die happy,' she thought.
"It be time," he said, his voice grave.
"Yeah," Sakura agreed.
Her stomach clenched when she saw the bones lying on the ground, Sasuke's words coming back to her. 'Don't be squeamish. That asshole.' She hesitated for only a second before picking them up, holding them parallel to her arms in an attempt to hide them from whatever enemies she would be facing.
"...And her opponent, our very own champion! That's right folks, you are witnessing the final fight of the only man to have won three-hundred matches! Tonight, he will win his freedom, or he will die a glorious death!" The voice grew deeper and more enticing as it continued. Sakura almost felt herself caught up as it wove the crowd into a state of frantic excitement that seemed to parallel her growing despair.
"Please welcome, your favorite, Son of Vaable, Queen of the Gods, I PRESENT TO YOU 'KU-MO-RA!'" Sakura had to cover her ears when the horde of onlookers ruptured into screams of almost-panic.
But when she saw him, her mind froze, unable to compute the mad countenance of a slave so close to freedom. She did not freeze because of the rapacious look in his eyes, or the lopsided grin, she froze because it was the face of a man she knew and trusted with her life.
"Mizuki-sensei?"
—
(A/N)
I'm currently writing all of this on google docs, which makes for a really shitty text-editor. As such, if anyone wants to volunteer to Beta Read for me, it'd be greatly appreciated.