Chapter 26: Way of Life

"Fantasy abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of arts and the origin of marvels."

~Francisco de Goya

Naruto was sure he was dying. His head throbbed, his mouth and throat were parched and every square inch of him ached. Even his eyes hurt when he moved them. He kept them closed and tried to ignore the metallic clinking as Kabuto shifted instruments around the lab. However, he was unable to ignore his eyelid being pulled open and a bright torch being shone into his pupil. He tried to jerk his head away from the intrusive light, but the straps around his head were firmly in place, and he was utterly immobile on the gurney.

"Responses are normal." muttered Kabuto to himself.

He shone the light in the other eye. Naruto snapped both lids shut as soon as the man took his fingers away.

Kabuto did not move away from the gurney though. Naruto could feel the man's body heat radiating next to the bed. His mere presence made Naruto's skin hum. It was then Naruto realized the cold was biting at him like a snake. He shivered.

"What is your name?" asked Kabuto.

"'S'Narucho."

The words came out slurred.

"How old are you, Naruto?"

Naruto sighed. He was exhausted. He didn't want to answer these questions.

A hand curled its grip around his throat then and squeezed, crushing his larynx under intense pressure. Naruto gasped for air, his eyes shooting open. He struggled to raise his arms and pull the hand away, but the bindings stopped him.

"How old are you, Naruto?" repeated Kabuto, releasing the tight grip.

"S-sixteen." Naruto choked out.

"Good. Good. That's very good." said Kabuto, scribbling something on a clipboard.

"What day is it?" the man said. "Can you tell me the date?"

Naruto closed his eyes again and shook his head.

"What about the month? What month is it?"

"I dunno." said Naruto. His throat hurt with the effort of each word. "May?"

He heard the sound of the pen scribbling.

"This is perfect." murmured Kabuto. "Just perfect. Orochimaru will be pleased."

Naruto frowned. The words dragged through his foggy brain as it churned at an achingly slow pace. Orochimaru?

Footsteps sounded as several people entered the lab. A woman with cropped, black hair and a sour expression pushed Pain's wheelchair into the room, followed closely by Obito and Zetsu, whose calculating gaze was fixed on Kabuto.

"How is he doing?" asked Obito, examining Naruto.

"His vitals are fine." answered Kabuto. "It seems there are no side effects aside from grogginess, disorientation and a few aches and pains, at least, according to preliminary tests."

Obito nodded approvingly. Pain pressed a button on the arm of his chair. There was a whirring sound as the gears and electronics buzzed into life and rolled the wheelchair forward to the side of Naruto's bed.

The man's gaunt face and deadened, pale eyes stared unblinkingly into Naruto's own.

"What…was it like?" asked Pain in his papery voice. His gaze was unwavering, searching. Naruto squinted at him.

"Don't you know?"

His own voice came out weak, the pain passing through a parched, painful throat. He was thankful for the bag of fluids that was attached to his arm through a plastic tube. It felt like he had been without water for days.

"I've never tried it. No one has tried it…" Pain wheezed. "…and come back."

"Please...Tell me what you saw."

Naruto had no reason to help the Akatsuki, to answer their questions, but something about the desperation in this man's eyes made him unable to stay silent.

"I saw…" he began, forcing out the words that were locked in his heart. "I saw my parents. They were alive."

The man's face pulled into a small smile, his dry lips cracking as they were stretched.

"You found…your paradise."

Obito stepped forward and placed a hand on Pain's thin shoulder.

"We've done it, my friend." He said and turned to Naruto. "You've done what no one ever has, Naruto. You've come back from Paradise."

Naruto frowned as the man continued.

"It's the name of our drug. Bliss 2.0 if you will. The user builds their very own virtual reality…within their own mind, like a waking dream."

He tapped his head and shot Naruto his Hollywood smile.

"Until it fades away and they want more, I assume." replied Naruto.

Obito picked up an empty syringe and looked at the remains of the pale, pink contents.

"That's the beauty of it, Naruto. You don't need to take it again. It's a virus. It self-replicates in the system until the user and virus are completely symbiotic. It works similarly to the Kyuubi virus in your own system. In fact, it's all thanks to Kyuubi that we were able to create Paradise."

He walked over to Kabuto and reached out his right hand. "You have truly worked wonders, Kabuto. I don't know how you did it, but you did it. I see now what Orochimaru saw in you."

Kabuto hesitated for only a second before reciprocating the gesture with a pleasant smile, and the two men shook hands.

"It was my pleasure, Obito."

Little of this made sense to Naruto's aching head, and his mind buzzed with questions. He tried to sit up, but the straps stopped him.

"Why?" he croaked. "Why would you make a drug that no one needs again? You won't make anything."

"It was never…about the money." wheezed Pain.

Obito nodded.

"Pain's right, Uzumaki." He said. "My father had a dream to rule Konoha. He wanted power, but that was never my dream."

Obito lifted his hand to his face, his fingers ghosting over his waxy, damaged skin.

"My dream was to change the world for the better, to create heaven on earth." He smiled. "And now, I know for certain that I can."

"But…it's not real." said Naruto in disbelief. "You're creating a lie."

"Reality is what our minds perceive." replied Obito. "It's our experiences that shape it, and thanks to me, everyone will be able to experience 'Paradise'. Well, everyone except you."

He shot Naruto an apologetic smile. "Unfortunately, there's no room for rebels in this world, and since you're already infected with Kyuubi I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to help you. It fights against our own virus, and as we have now found out, it wins."

Obito turned to Kabuto. "You can put him down when you're ready."

Naruto tensed, but Kabuto only picked up a cloth and proceeded to clean his glasses.

"I will still need his blood samples to replicate the Kyuubi antivirus. It may take 24 hours or more for his system to be clear of the current effects."

Obito frowned. "You didn't take a sample before?"

"Naruto still had traces of the sedative in his system that your men used." replied Kabuto.

Obit sighed with impatience.

"Fine. Wait until Paradise is completely out of his system, and then take everything you need from him. I want you to start work on a replicated cure as soon as possible."

"Obito." breathed Pain. "Perhaps it would be wise…to keep the boy around…in case of problems."

"No." replied Obito without hesitation. "While he lives it is possible for others to get their hands on him. He's a vulnerability and too difficult to keep hidden. Besides, we won't need him as a failsafe as long as we have the blood and Kabuto does his job. I'll leave it in your hands, Kabuto. Don't let me down."

Kabuto inclined his head as Obito strode from the room.

The woman behind Pain took hold of the handles and began to turn his wheelchair, but the man lifted a hand.

"No." he said quietly. "I'd like to speak to, Naruto."

She paused.

"…alone." added Pain.

The woman straightened up and nodded, walking briskly from the room. Pain looked at first Kabuto, then Zetsu. Kabuto's eyes narrowed, but he left the room.

"Sir, I would advise against being alone with-" Zetsu stopped speaking at a mere glance from Pain. He straightened his tie and followed Kabuto out of the room, closing the door behind him.

The room fell into silence apart from Pain's respirator and the sound of rustling every time Naruto shifted. He wasn't as groggy anymore, his headache was slowly fading, and his curiosity kept his exhaustion at bay.

The man's gaze was somewhat unnerving. Those white, clouded eyes already looked as though they were staring from somewhere beyond the grave.

"So did you want to talk or just admire me?" asked Naruto, kind of impressed with his own sass.

Pain pressed a button on his chair and moved closer until the wheels hit against the metal frame of the gurney.

"I want to know more…about Paradise."

Naruto's breathing quickened under the man's intense gaze.

"You saw…your parents."

Naruto nodded, the tiniest hint of movement in his restraints.

"It felt…real?" asked Pain.

Naruto flicked his gaze away, staring up at the white ceiling, the ceiling that looked so similar to the one in the hospital he'd slept in inside of his own delirium.

"As real as all of this." He answered. "Even more so maybe, because I wanted it to be real…it was way better than this sucky reality."

There was a harsh, guttural noise like a pipe backing up or an engine cutting out. Naruto stared at the man in alarm and realized, he was laughing. The man was laughing. His ghost-like face was split into a grin and his eyes were closed as he wheezed out odd bursts of air.

He soon stopped, the smile disappearing, and the man's face fell into a deadened expression.

"Life is pain, Naruto Uzumaki" he said in a quiet voice. "…it's all it has ever been."

Naruto let out a huff of air.

"Maybe you're right. But it's my life, my real life. It's why I came back."

Pain frowned. "You mean…you had a choice?"

"Well, yeah. Kyuubi helps me, but in the end, I have to decide whether or not to give in. It was the same with Bliss."

"Why?" asked Pain immediately. He raised his bony hands and grasped the side of the gurney. The already pale knuckles turned white as the metal creaked under his grip. "Why would you come back?...You knew...what you were coming back to...and your reality was…perfect."

Naruto almost felt sorry for this shell of a man. A desperation shone in those deadened eyes, a look that Naruto recognized. It was the look of someone who had endured suffering, and was desperately trying to find meaning within it all – to find hope. It was a look Naruto had seen staring back at him in the mirror every excruciating day only a little over a year ago.

Despite what Pain was doing, all that he had most likely done, Naruto could only imagine the life that had led him to become all but a living corpse, completely reliant on those around him, relying on a machine to take something as simple as a breath.

Naruto sighed and gazed up at the gray ceiling. It was smooth and featureless, drawing Naruto's attention to the twirling spots of light that danced across his vision.

"Even if you call it a reality, it's not." He said finally. "No matter what you say, my parents are dead, and nothing will bring them back."

Naruto blinked back the tears stinging at his eyes as he pictured holding his mum's hand in the hospital room, his dad smiling at them both.

He smiled at the memory. "And you know what, although I wish with all my heart that they were still alive, I wouldn't change my life. They wouldn't want me to. Besides, if they hadn't died, I wouldn't be the person I am today. I wouldn't have met Iruka, or my friends…or Sasuke. We wouldn't have understood each other."

"You want a life filled with pain…for love?" said Pain in a skeptical tone. "You could have had that…in Paradise."

Naruto shook his head slightly in the restraints and frowned.

"No. If losing my parents taught me one thing, it's how precious family is, how precious being loved is. I've made a lot of mistakes with it, but I'm learning. And you know, loss is pain, but without it we don't grow."

He let out a small, bitter laugh. "Besides, in case you haven't noticed, humans are selfish. We're spoiled brats. You give us everything and we just want more, but threaten to take it away and we'll cling onto it like our lives depend on it."

He turned his gaze towards Pain. "I don't want to be a person who has everything and takes it all for granted. I'd rather know loss and know just how precious each and every person in my life is. I want to know and experience all their imperfections, to learn from them, you know?"

Naruto's gaze hardened then, fire burning in his eyes as he glared at the man in front of him, this less-than-human-creature who had given up on life, who wanted to take away and destroy everything real in Naruto's life. To take away everyone.

"I won't live in your so-called perfect world of fake happiness." He bit out. "I want my real world of imperfect happiness. And noo matter what, I won't run away from my pain like a coward...like you. I'll use it to become a stronger and better person, to change this world for the better. That's my way of living, and you, with all your fancy philosophical bullshit about fake realities, could never change my mind."

Naruto's throat ached in protest at so much talking. He swallowed with difficulty and waited for the persuasion, the speech that would tell him how wrong he was, but it never came. Pain said nothing, only staring at him, his expression blank.

He pressed a few buttons on the chair and maneuvered himself from the room, leaving Naruto alone in the silence.

AN: Was talk no jutsu a success? Find out in the chapters ahead! ;P