Red Storm

Chapter 18: Men of Darkness

"Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness."
~Yousuf Karsh

Naruto's kneecaps jarred with the impact on the unforgiving concrete floor as he was shoved down, and he let out a yelp of pain, quickly sucking in his breath to stop any further sound.

Rough cloth scraped his skin as the hood was yanked off his head, and for a moment he was blinded, blinking and shaking his head in the intense light. As his eyes adjusted, it was only to see several bright lamps on a desk aimed his way, preventing him from seeing anything beyond but darkness. He tried to look up at the captors holding him, but one of them grabbed his hair and forced his gaze forward towards the lights.

A voice spoke from the black beyond, hushed and crackling like fine paper.

"Naruto Uzumaki." There was a pause, and what sounded like a respirator cut through the silence, gasping out a keen puff of air. Naruto shuddered as he remembered the first time he'd heard that noise in Kabuto's lab so long ago. Dread crawled like a poisonous spider up his back.

"It's a pleasure to meet you at last." finished the voice, and Naruto could finally make out a pair of white, glittering eyes…not a drop of colour in them. No yellow.

Naruto's shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, and he licked his dry lips. "You're not Orochimaru."

There was a murmur of chuckles around the room, and it was only then Naruto realized that there were many others - figures he could not see in the darkness.

The papery voice gave out a soft, wheezing laugh. "No, I'm not, nor am I associated with him."

"Then who are you?"

"We are," The respirator hissed as the man drew a breath, "…we are the Akatsuki."

Naruto's entire body went stiff as the words sank in. For a moment he didn't speak, couldn't speak. Only the respirator's gasps aspirated throughout the room in a mechanical rhythm.

"That's impossible." He said finally. "The Akatsuki, they were disbanded years ago – they're gone."

A derisive snort sounded from the man to his left, gripping his hair. "Does it look like we're gone?"

Naruto recognized Hisao's voice immediately. He yanked his hair out of the man's hand and glared up at him, struggling to stand up.

"You asshole fucking scumbucket! You're Akatsuki? I should claw your lying fucking tongue out of its cesspit of a dick hea-"

A large hand covered his mouth and he writhed against it, still screaming muffled profanities.

"Wow." said another voice in the shadows. "This kid has quite a mouth on him."

A man stepped forward into the light. He looked ready to go either to a funeral or a fancy art gallery party decked out as he was in a full black suit and red tie. His black, spiky hair was carefully arranged and filled with shiny gel that gleamed in the light. It was similar to Sasuke's in texture and shade, but shorter, and his eyes were unlike anything Naruto had ever seen on a human. One was deep, blood red as if every blood vessel had burst in it – the other fully white with an odd spiraling shape in its center.

Weirdly, this was not the most outstanding feature of the man. Rather, it was the fact that the entire left side of his face was brutally deformed, the flesh drooping from his cheekbone like melted candle wax. He smiled widely although it could be nothing but a crooked grin due to the skin that hung over the corner of his lip on one side. Were it not for that, he would have been a handsome man. The features on the right side of his face were plain but strong and well-set with a straight nose and well-defined square jawline.

"His real name is Hidan by the way." He said, nodding his head towards 'Hisao' and flashing Naruto a Hollywood smile of straight, white teeth.

The man leaned back against a desk that was just beyond the light. Standing there comfortably with his arms folded, he regarded the teen before him with a half-smile that spoke of absolute confidence He might have looked comfortable down at your local car dealership, were it not for the Freddy Krueger decor accenting the side of his face.

The teen jerked his head away from the hand over his mouth.

"What do you want?"

"A little information." said the man with a nonchalant shrug.

Naruto shifted his knees on the concrete floor, the hands on his shoulders tightened. He sighed and relaxed his body a little.

"And what could the almighty Akatsuki possibly need from me? Are you telling me you guys have become so pathetic and desperate you're recruiting high school students? Sorry, but I don't fancy joining your gay little club–aaah!"

The hand in his hair had tightened its grip suddenly, pulling every follicle at their roots.

"Relax, Hidan." said a deep voice to his right Hidan snorted, but loosened his grip slightly. Naruto glared ahead, his eyes watering slightly from the pain.

The Freddy Kreuger car salesman nodded towards someone unseen. There was a shuffling, and one of the dark figures by the wall came forward, half of his face bathed in light by the strong lamps, while the rest was cast in dark shadow. His expression was blank and emotionless, making it seem like he was looking right through Naruto to somewhere else beyond. In his hands, he held a thick file. When he spoke, his voice was just as expressionless, a flat monotone.

"Naruto Uzumaki, you worked as a drug carrier for Orochimaru, correct?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" asked Naruto.

"Correct?" The man simply repeated the question, his tone unchanging.

Naruto scowled. "So what? That's common knowledge. It's not like I wanted to."

The man continued, ignoring the question. "This is your case file."

Naruto couldn't resist eyeing the manila folder curiously.

"In it," the man continued, "we have all the details of your case. We've been keeping an eye on you for quite some time. You handled the drugs, sold them to customers, encountered test subjects..."

Nausea circled in Naruto's stomach as he remembered the man he had found half-dead on the gurney, the sound of the respirator wheezing with every weak breath just as it did somewhere beyond the light of this shadowed room. His gaze flicked towards the white eyes glittering in the dark– the man who had first spoken with his papery voice. The respirator was somewhere over there…with those eyes.

The man in front of him crouched down and gave a half smile, the dark silhouette cast across his face turning his features into night and day, and for the first time the semblance of an expression crept into his eyes. Naruto couldn't decide if it was curiosity or something more malevolent, desperate even.

"Tell me, did you see the effects of the drugs for yourself?"

Naruto moved his head back slightly. The man's eyes followed his movement like a cat watching its prey.

"I…never saw anyone taking them. Only buying or half-dead." he said carefully, glancing at the file in the man's hands. "It's all in the report if that's what you really have there."

The man nodded. "Yes, we have that. We have that. But you know, there's this rumour we've heard whispers of." His gaze didn't flicker for a second from Naruto's eyes. "What we'd like to know is, did you take them?"

Naruto swallowed. Of course, that wasn't in the report. Both Naruto and Sasuke had failed to mention it in any of their statements that Naruto had been jacked up on drugs for so long. The lawyer had recommended omitting it too, stating that it would only hurt Naruto as a witness if it were mentioned, particularly when the drugs were supposed to be completely impossible to get off. Naruto had spent the entire trial waiting with bated breath for the moment when Orochimaru would bring it up on the stand, crushing that last shred of credibility into the ground, but the man hadn't.

Sasuke had said it was because it would simply hurt Orochimaru's case more if he admitted to plying a high school student with drugs, but Naruto hadn't been so sure. There were moments during the trial when Orochimaru had had chances where he could bring it up, when Naruto practically saw it on the man's lips. That was when the teacher would turn and look straight at him, an odd look in the yellow eyes, and the hint of a smile. It had made him race to the bathrooms and lean over the sinks during recess, bile in his throat trying to wipe his mind clean.

Naruto looked up beyond those lights again. Why would the Akatsuki care if he took the drugs? What did any of this have to do with them?

"Tell us, Naruto." said the man with the blood red eye. "Did he give them to you?"

Naruto's mind raced as he tried to figure out what the hell this was all about. Why hadn't Orochimaru mentioned it? Why did the Akatsuki want to know? What was he missing that was so important? Why was he so important? He willed himself to calm down and met the eyes of the silhouetted man in front of him.

"Tell me why you want to know, and perhaps I'll answer your question."

The man gave him another quirky half-smile. Then the hand in shadow came streaking into the light before hitting Naruto full across the face.

Naruto gasped with pain, his head jerking to the side from the force. He blinked as stars leapt into his vision, and for a split second the hands on his shoulders were the only thing keeping him upright.

"That's not how it works." the man said in his monotone voice, the half-smile still fixed firmly on his face as he swung again.

Sasuke threw the dishtowel onto the counter and glared at the clock. If the clock became miraculously sentient it would have shuddered in fear at the hate-filled stare it was receiving. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and keyed in a few digits. It speed-dialled the most familiar number in his contacts and the name "Naruto" flashed up on the screen, blinking on and off several times. No answer. Sasuke waited for two minutes, listening to that monotonous ringing before hanging up. He sighed and gnawed his lip.

Where was that idiot?