Little Rabbit knows the smell of wet wolf: dirty fur with dirtier breath. Hidden away inside the hollow log, Little Rabbit sees a black snout pressing in to sniff. Using his long, long feet, Little Rabbit bops its nose.

"Go away, wolf!" warns angry Little Rabbit. He thumps with his long feet. "Don't make me bop your nose again!"

"Little Rabbit," the wolf whimpers, "come out from that log. Don't you know who lives in there? I'm only trying to rescue you."

He stares at her for a long, quiet minute, mist slicking cold to his skin and swallowing up the forest's breath. Below them, past overlapping ripples of chakra, the clouds of silt and mud are beginning to settle like muddy snowfall. Eels entangle themselves beneath Imina's feet in a slow-writhing mass, ghostly, black streamers lazily knotting together. Sasuke wonders how long they've been acting as her shadow without him realizing. Expression stern, his sharingan illuminates Imina's face, the fog reflecting red. Warm fingers dig into his sleeves where she has purchase of him, anticipating something Sasuke isn't going to give her. A bird beats its wings somewhere in the ugly canopy above.

As the seconds of silence roll on, the corners of Imina's mouth slope downward. The flat between her brows forms a deep crease, cloudy eyes flickering back and forth, fast and violent and repulsed. Once in search of agreement, their intent now is to abhor. She shoves her hands off his shoulders.

"Why not," she hisses below her breath.

Turning on his heel, Sasuke begins his trek back to the village, ignoring how Imina springs forward to flank him. She's a sawed-off column of pinched nerves and frizzy hair, surely aware of the fact she's chosen to crowd his swordhand of all things. He feels it when her stomach meets the cold end of Totsuka's sheath. Sasuke doesn't waste time making a point of it. Violence is not enough of a threat for her, the one thing she has shown to validate his prior assumption: She is clearly a kunoichi, though her physique would say otherwise. Perhaps his passivity has been made too apparent and now he will suffer the consequences. Imina looms a mere breath away as she stalks his retreat.

Either way, this task is complete—however perplexingly it decided to end—and he must move on to the next. There will be another time for Imina's ninjutsu to be researched, with or without her cooperation. Her participation is not a requirement and neither is his in her hopeless insurgence. Surely there's some sort of archive in the bunker he can make use of, or something similar in purpose. Imina's attempt to stand in his way is ludicrously easy to sidestep, Sasuke decidedly reminding her now that he, too, is a shinobi. Only momentarily surprised by his responsiveness, she remains a she-devil on his right.

"Why not."

Their shoulders catch and Sasuke begrudgingly regards her. "It's done. Go home," he says.

"I can't believe you."

He whips his hand away when she strikes out for his wrist.

"He lies to you. Humiliates you." Imina stumbles and skips, walking backwards beside him. "He abandons you." She reaches out again but Sasuke is faster than her. "Treats you like a dog." The eels are a lurking mound beneath Imina's feet, their writhing growing frantic. "And you do nothing."

Casting his eyes down, Sasuke sees her face turn red under his harsh stare.

Imina shakes her head in disbelief. "You do nothing?" The anger in her voice cracks and the accusation comes out despairing and wounded. Sasuke feels the side of his mouth twitch. Imina shakes her head again, squinting. "Why?" It's neither a command nor a question. Right now, she is begging.

"Enough." Sasuke holds a hand up to stop her, voice thundering out in such a way he can't help but mistake it for his father's. A moment is taken to still his stammering heart. "Imina," he begins, softer this time, "enough." Lowering his hand, Sasuke gently holds her gaze, then he turns and leaves. Imina lets him go without another word.

When the canopy begins to thin and the river shoals, Sasuke bows his head with a frown, mulling over a mental map of the village. Its layout remains somewhat of an enigma, but tonight that will be rectified. Starting from the barn, Sasuke figures it should take less than an hour to have it fully memorized. Though he knows he shouldn't, Sasuke hopes to discover Orochimaru somewhere in the village to prove Imina wrong—prove himself wrong for thinking she may be right. He absentmindedly rubs at his curse mark. If you can hear me, Sasuke thinks, eyes narrow, I command you to show yourself. The next three seconds are thick with tension, red eyes scouring the white nothingness. Of course, Orochimaru does not appear. Sasuke digs his nails into his shoulder before he leaves it be. His curse mark doesn't even have the mercy to burn.

The ripples under his feet shimmer red, two hot coals staring back at him on the surface. Sasuke sighs and lets a shiver run up his left side. When he catches sight of an empty nest he knows he has almost made it out. The fog is thick enough to have him considering it isn't natural, though whoever could be causing it has had more than ample opportunity to attack. It's an annoyance more than an obstacle; he's navigated fog under far worse circumstances.

The hair on his arms stands up.

There is something coming toward him.

Unsheathing his blade, tomoes spinning, Sasuke homes in on the ghost of a squat chakra signature in the mist. The world creeps to halt, time becoming syrup, a splash of water caught jelly-like in the air. Birthing in slow motion out of the veil: a black nose, short whiskers, the length of a dark muzzle cracked open and filled with yellow teeth. Sasuke blinks. Everything speeds up and the dog tears forward in a flurry of pitched barks, entire back end wiggling with its tail as it comes to a messy halt. His sharingan recognizes every hair on its brindle hide.

"You?" mumbles Sasuke. The dog sniffs his leg curiously, paws plopping about. Poor thing is nearly up to its chest in the river. Reaching down, feeling its smooth jaw slip into his hand, Sasuke's mouth tickles at the rims. How'd you get out here? he thinks. The dog tilts its head back to receive a few scratches, then breaks away and continues its curious sniffing. Its ears perk.

"Imina?"

Red eyes swerve up to find another chakra signature, this time irrefutably human—a man, by the sound of it. Sasuke's sword is raised before the dog can let out a shrill bark.

"Imina?" the man repeats. He comes to a sudden stop, far enough from Sasuke that his features remain hidden. He's a villager, no doubt; perhaps another of Imina's family. Would explain why the dog is here. Sasuke notes his distance and catalogues it within the archive of his eyes. His sharingan moonlights as an even better deterrent than his sword. A shrill whistle has the dog heading deeper into the flooded woods, obviously in search of Imina. Sasuke's gaze chases it, hand flexing around his sword's grip. It's going to get gobbled up if it isn't careful. There's nothing he can do about it. Red eyes return forward.

Sasuke waits for the man to follow the dog, attempting to cut his vision through the mist but being blocked by his own eyes' reflection. The man leans sideways and spits. Sasuke all but flinches, sharingan flooding him with memories, stomach nauseatingly twisting. The cows in the barn are all staring at him in his mind's eye. He looks down at the man's legs and notices one is misshapen. There is sweat collecting on his upper lip for some reason. With a grunt, the man closes the gap between them and Sasuke balks. Bulged eyes acknowledging him only for a moment, he walks past Sasuke without a word, wide-brimmed hat settled on his back. Sasuke watches him with red spotlights, lips softly parted, eyebrows knitting together. He raises his sword back up once he realizes it's been lowered. The man does nothing but give him a wider berth. As peacefully as he appeared he vanishes into the mist, silent as a specter—which he most certainly is—must be. Sasuke is left stiff and alone within a sea of empty white. He can almost feel his synapses misfiring. Imina's low warning returns like fresh hell.

This is holy ground.

Sasuke flees the forest in an intimate panic. The ghosts of gods' teeth follow him back to the village and drive him down into the bunker where they vanish into cold, humid air. Sasuke hides behind flame-ravaged flowstones in the cave, among dripping limestone stalactites, curled tight upside down in the darkness; baby bat with his eyes blown wide in a world full of drooling, white teeth.

Here, hold my hand.

Sasuke spends his days searching the vastness of the bunker with newfound impunity, having come to the realization that Kabuto, too, has concluded his work within the village and gone on to accompany Orochimaru somewhere else. His leave is more than welcome. Without him around to disrupt his focus Sasuke can better memorize the layout of the base for whenever the two return. By then he will have the upper hand and they will have no choice but to confront him. Sasuke's dreams are, for once, hot and vicious and violent in all the ways he prefers. When he discovers food left behind by Kabuto it is eaten in silence, Sasuke perched on some gutted ceiling with his red eyes staring down a long, empty hallway. His bangs hang long as hares' ears.

What will Orochimaru's face look like when he arrives to see all the destruction that has precipitated from his absence? How Sasuke melted the steel doors off their hinges and blasted holes through the walls instead, tore apart every room that dared look important in search of information, revisited the collapsed staircase to remind himself of what his anger can truly do. The spitefulness of it all brings Sasuke more enjoyment than he's capable of articulating. Standing at the very bottom of the base, surrounded by yawning black so thick no creature or god can see him, Sasuke feels the edges of his mouth curl up in a ruthless smirk. Even the insulting kimono Orochimaru punished him with, when Sasuke finally circles back in his endless patrolling, is shredded and burnt down to nothing. He stomps the ashes into formless soot that stains the carpet of his room black, committing them to hell. Uchiha fire has a righteous purpose. Execution is but a tenet of righteousness. Judgment, Sasuke thinks when he dreams of sulfur-hued eyes, is yet another.

This will be the last time Orochimaru makes the mistake of offending him so gravely. This will be the last time Kabuto forgets the lengths Sasuke will go to make things fair between them.

When Sasuke falls asleep, he dreams: An uncoiling vortex of white heat devouring the vacuum of space, unable to be slowed or stopped, expanding until there is no thing or place or thought wherein it does not exist. There is no point that it is not. The alleyway of bodies stretches infinitely in both directions before it erupts white in the center, that unfurling cosmos burning and dragging and eating until the street is nothing more than a blinding absence. Sasuke drifts in a sea of milk. His hands are hooves. A body bobs to the surface.

He wakes up.

The bunker is a ravaged whore if Kabuto's ever seen one. Brutalized and mangled and abused, the flickering can lights he passes beneath on his way down are more resilient than he will ever be. The stairwell—if one could even describe it as such anymore—is collapsed, flooded with debris and dirt. Doesn't matter. Sasuke tore a hole to hell through each floor that serves the same purpose. Kabuto doesn't know whether to admire his chaos or covet it. The boy's conscientious approach to his outrage is admirable; not a hair out of place up in the village. Couldn't help but grin at that, Sasuke and that plush underbelly of his. Lurking at the bottom of the offshoot feeding into the cave, Sasuke's vengeance spread out on display, Kabuto decides on coveting.

His vision slowly reacclimates itself to the darkness. He's been living in these caskets long enough. It takes only minutes. The altar looks worse than when he last saw it, cracked by what appears to be heat exposure. Black discoloration is evidence of a fire, a fire Sasuke is certainly responsible for. And he didn't stop with the altar. The cave is scorched to hell and back; beautiful limestone formations desecrated by a petulant, little bastard. It reeks like a fetus in a fire pit. Kid's lucky he didn't suffocate himself. Kabuto can't stomach the mere thought of reviving his reckless ass a third time even if a portion of him knows that's unfair. It'll happen again, anyways. Orochimaru pretends he knows how to hold babies despite them sleeping dead in his arms. The ceiling drops a curtain of dust. Kabuto stills.

Look up.

There he is.

Baby bat is on the roof.

Kabuto can't see him, but he's there in the darkness. Sasuke's syrupy signature teases the rim of his senses like teeth. Something clicks. He swallows and his skin turns to gooseflesh. Sasuke's presence is nearly identical to that of Orochimaru's; humid chakra heralds something awful. So, Kabuto was wrong: the kid does share a likeness to his master after all. Orochimaru will—no, Orochimaru already knows. Always did. It's why he sent Kabuto down here in the first place: for him to witness it himself. Sent him straight into the lion's den knowing he was wholly unprepared. Kabuto's lips tremble in horrified delight, chakra dense in his hands. He rebukes himself for thinking so poorly of Orochimaru as of late. His Lord could be so gracious when he thought it deserved. Orochimaru knows what he likes. He knows he likes hurt, little babies.

Sasuke makes a noise similar to an inhale, hidden with darkness but unmistakably near. Baby bat is excited. More dust falls as he scuttles high above. A step forward from Kabuto is all it takes for Sasuke's chakra to abruptly coil, his pale figure darting across the ceiling fast as a lizard. Kabuto laces his right hand's fingers together in preparation to dispel genjutsu.

His chakra breathes to life, the ash-covered floor revealing itself with a green hue off his scalpels. It doesn't matter how dark it is, really. Been down here enough times to have the layout memorized. Been down here enough times to know exactly which fissure Sasuke is tucked into overhead. Hiding like the mollusk he is, the little bastard. The humming chakra around his hands reverberates off the cave's ribs in a low choir and casts emerald flames across pools of standing water. He keeps his eyes up on the bush of helictite far above. Sasuke's chakra signature beats a low war drum. Kabuto waits for him to lash out, but Sasuke is hesitating. Dust and rock taps the cave floor.

Baby bat can't hide from him.

"Hey," says Kabuto, confidence resounding, booming through the darkness before being swallowed up in the vacuum. Red eyes burst alight right where he figured him to be. The drum stutters and viciously pitches downward. Kabuto feels it beating against his eardrums, against the marrow in his joints. Sasuke can't possibly be scared, can he? "It's just me."

Sasuke crawls out from the fissure, dripping stalactites reflecting red as he threads himself between. Fine, little predator. Kabuto catches a glimpse of shining steel: the mighty Totsuka in his little lord's hand. Beyond bright eyes is the orange sear of his curse mark. Kabuto smirks. He must be feeling it by now.

Totsuka's tooth glimmers.

Baby bat unfurls his wings.

Sasuke's sword strikes the metal backs of his gloves and scrapes off, bare palms slapping wet rock on Kabuto's left. Totsuka whistles. Clanging steel floods the cave. Sasuke hacks away at him but Kabuto knows that sword better than he does. The ground becomes the wall, Kabuto's hair falling into his face as he's crowded backwards and up, grinning at Sasuke's red-glown expression. Kid's furious. He hears it in every whistle. Kabuto grabs the wall and plants the sole of his foot into Sasuke's chest. Sasuke springs right back off the floor, graceful as a doe, white as lightning. Glass shatters. Kabuto squeezes his bleeding eyes shut, the cold hilt of Totsuka connecting with his brow and sending him further up the wall. Small, thieving hands are groping for his weapon pouch. Kabuto's scalpel blindly cleaves skin. Sasuke retreats into the darkness with a metallic snap and the sound echoes into silence. Listening to glass patter against the cave floor, his skin purging as it heals, Kabuto scours the darkness for red. Two dots are on the ceiling. Little bastard. He lunges.

Metal wires bite into his body and enclose, Kabuto clasping his hands together before the trap can fully constrict. His flayed shoulder hits the ground and he rolls into a bleeding crouch, fingers aimed for the rock beneath. He's halfway through the seals by the time Sasuke retches out a plume of fire from the roof, the metal wires laced throughout the cave catching and guiding the flames. A devil's cobweb. Little bastard. Kabuto dives down through rock and meets open air, falling until there's a splash and bubbles swallow his sinking body. Cutting through hot wire with his scalpels, arms already healing, Kabuto feels his knuckle hit something and instinctively grabs it. A syringe, he deduces from the familiar shape. There's no needle. And there's more than one. They're raining down from the hole he left in the cave's floor.

The pressure shifts with a dull boom, the dark basin suddenly illuminated red. Sasuke's hands dart across his line of sight carrying bloody froth—and Totsuka. He's behind him. Kabuto curls in on himself, unfurling a kick that sends Sasuke shooting out of the water and taking the light with him. It's silent and black. He's diving back in no more than a second later with red heaven's light. Kabuto is ready this time. Metal wire seven-strands thick catches baby bat around the throat and begins to saw. Blood clouds the water, black in the blinking beam of Sasuke's eyes; a panicked strobe. Kabuto feels himself yanked forward as Sasuke curls into a tight ball before small feet drive up into his stomach. He exhales bubbles. Copy-catting, little bastard. Kabuto weaves bloody fingers right before his back crashes against the roof, stone becoming sand and allowing him painful passage.

He erupts into the steaming cave and catches on the ceiling, a chorus of popping metal filling his ears as he snaps through weakened wires. His lungs struggle around a mouthful of air—lack of air. The torches aren't lit but they should be. Seeing Sasuke's soaked frame crawl up through the sandy hole in the floor, Kabuto bares his teeth and coughs. Idiot is going to suffocate them at this rate. Shedding his white yukata, Sasuke forms seals and attempts an inhale, sputtering halfway around dying flames. His throat glistens down the front of his chest. Kabuto spites him with a torrent of water from his mouth and Sasuke sizzles out like a coal. He's wasting oxygen. Red eyes dart up the wall with blinding speed. Sasuke is hurrying toward the fissure. The steam is funneling up into it.

An airway.

That's why he was sticking close.

Little bastard wants to suffocate him.

Kabuto surges forward to beat him there. Something stabs through his cheek and tosses his head back, scraping to a stop. He yanks it out. A needle. From a syringe. Two more find his shoulder before he ducks behind a length of flowstones. By the time Kabuto makes it to the fissure it's already lighting up orange. Sasuke's fire tears down from the bunker, flushing him out in a roar. Coughing from the heat, cursing to himself, Kabuto carves another way through the rock with a thunderous rumble. The hallway is blinding upon reentry but its chill brings instant relief. Landing with a thud on the ceiling, Kabuto sees a blur of soot and blocks a swing from Totsuka. Even if he can't see clearly, Sasuke's mane is unmistakable—and he's wheezing like a fresh piglet. Kabuto fists into black hair and throws Sasuke against the wall. Catching himself with his feet, Sasuke retaliates by slamming him onto the floor. Kabuto's lungs deflate in a ragged gasp. The flickering light overhead pops with a deafening screech, raining sparks over them, static vibrating the air. Kabuto gathers chakra in his chest and rushes to aim himself for Sasuke's chidori. His left ear cries blood.

Orochimaru's presence breathes down the sweat of his spine.

Sasuke collapses off the wall, a gargled scream bubbling out his chopped throat. The electricity in his hand fizzles out but the static hangs. Kabuto lets out a breath he's been holding, shaking his head dog-like through a shudder. So he's finally deciding to step in. What a cheater. Relaxing his muscles, Kabuto watches Sasuke writhe and smear blood over the concrete. His yukata is twisted wet around his flexing abdomen, Totsuka abandoned, curse mark flaring between his fingers. He sees where his scalpel got him: a shallow gash over his pisiform bone. That's what he gets for breaking the weapons rule.

"You bastard," Kabuto exhales with a breathy laugh. Sasuke lets out another choked scream. It halfway catches in his sawed-open trachea, bubbling up gory phlegm, exasperated from his katon. Kabuto hums. Didn't realize he'd been sawing that hard, but the kid's got baby skin. He's covered in goosebumps like a fresh, little fetus. "Can't breathe?" Sasuke doesn't answer, of course, but he does shoot a hand out to stop him from picking up his sword. Kabuto stomps his bleeding wrist beneath the heel of his sandal and pries it away. Curling back into himself—tiny, bloody mollusk—Sasuke hides his face against the cool floor. He's gargling on a howl, desperately clawing his shoulder. What cheaters they are. Kabuto bends down and snags him by the throat. Spittle leaves Sasuke's mouth. "Here." Red eyes crack open to burn holes in his face, Sasuke baring pink teeth while Kabuto begins healing his windpipe. He splutters around bloody mucus on his first full breath and gags, body instinctively curling forward, spine bowing just like it had for Orochimaru. Kabuto nearly tries burping him. Not a real baby. "You can scream, now." He tightens his hold on Sasuke's neck. Baby bat struggles to gulp and screws his eyes shut.

Gory lips part, Kabuto fixated on the strings of saliva webbed between. His stomach gives a giddy kick. Sasuke doesn't make a sound. Kabuto whips his skull down hard on the cement, Sasuke bucking up with his hips and clubbing him with a knobby knee, tiny hand grasping his wrist. It's hilarious how powerful this feels; no wonder Orochimaru gets to have all the fun. Sasuke's pulse frantically thrums beneath his fingertips. Using both hands to strangle him now, the brief, soundless agony that flitters across Sasuke's face tickles his insides enough to make Kabuto spit a laugh. Baby bat is suffocating.

Be as rough as necessary. He isn't a weakling. Who knows when he will get another chance to hurt a little baby like this? And this one deserves it. Thieving, cheating runt. Gets everything he wants whenever he wants it. He leans his weight forward. Kabuto imagines hearing a wet crack.

"Beg for my forgiveness," he seethes in a shallow voice, excitement shaving his patience thin, warmth filling up his belly like milk. "I know you can."

Sasuke's eyes snap open, tomoes swirling around dilated pupils, gaping his mouth and baring his teeth and showing his tongue like a feral animal. There's a paper bomb stuck to it. Reeling, stunned, Kabuto leaps backwards. Screeching bursts his healed eardrums and he replaces the milk in his stomach with boiling chakra.

Little, mind-raping bastard.

The body on the floor flickers out as soon as the agony rips in, Sasuke's chidori spearing straight through his belly from back to button. He comes down hard on the cement with Sasuke flush against his spine, lodged up to his elbow in intestines; conjoined twins. Crouching, gently hugging his guts, he panics at the buzzing, bloody hand peeking out the mess of his stomach. He can die. This could kill him. Where is he? The wound is already sealing back up before Sasuke can retrieve his arm. A scream—a full one, this time—rings out beside his ear. Kabuto sees Sasuke's hand ball into a fist before it's yanked out. The pain is nothing compared to the feeling of his popped stomach stitching itself back together. There's bile mixing into everything. It fucking reeks.

"Kabuto."

He carefully looks over his shoulder when he's certain his insides won't slip out. Won't be able to find them in all the rubble. Not easily. Orochimaru looms overhead, eye shine flickering off a distant can light. Glancing down, Kabuto sees Sasuke shivering in a twisted heap.

"Has he managed to kill you?" asks Orochimaru with a grimace. His concern is flattering. Kabuto sucks in a trembling breath, continues hugging his stomach, wills his heart to slow the blood flow and stave off an attack. He shakes his head. Muscle is almost closed up on the outside. Inside will take a lot longer; he can feel the sloshing. Capillaries are luckily fried from the heat. He sees them branching out white-dead roots from the hole up toward his heart. Little bastard would've killed him if not for his efficiency.

There's a hum from above and Sasuke bleats out a sob. By the way he has collapsed—corkscrewed at the waist across the concrete with one arm looped around—Kabuto can tell he's unconscious. A feral animal put down. If he had a stomach right now, it would hop.

"Good."

Kabuto watches the muscles in Sasuke's back seize and convulse, fingers twitching, black eyes cracked open but looking nowhere. An intimate spectacle for an intimate spectator. Orochimaru bends down, regarding the boy much the same: a creature of interest. He reaches out to place a hand over Sasuke's curse seal and baby bat lets out a miserable whine.

"Well," Orochimaru sighs, "he managed to surprise us both. A loss, but we've only had one. I'll reassess him after handling his brother." He rubs Sasuke's sweaty back. Kabuto wishes he was under that palm. "I'm assuming the poison wasn't hindering him anymore. You would've overpowered him otherwise."

Kabuto confirms with a weak nod. He tongues the inside of his cheek where the needle passed through. If he could vomit, he probably would. His vision is so painfully blurry.

Orochimaru leans over Sasuke, yellow eyes on his abused throat. "I'll heal him myself," he assures. Kabuto doesn't waste energy nodding again. He gently lies down on his back with his hands over his stomach, closing his eyes, gritting his teeth until the sloshing inside him settles. If he could vomit. The floor is bumpy and disfigured against his spine. Try not to think about it. Be thankful Sasuke missed. "And your glasses?" Kabuto opens his eyes. Orochimaru is grinning at him. He brushes a white hand over Sasuke's forehead and combs his damp bangs back. "Brilliant boy," he muses.

Something like jealousy nibbles the underside of his tongue. He closes his eyes and hears Orochimaru's chakra droning. Cold fingers touch his face. Don't flinch away.

"You, too," says Orochimaru.

Kabuto smiles on the inside of his mouth.

He finds Imina out front of one of the sun-bleached complexes on the other side of the village hanging laundry, dressed in a red kimono that has Sasuke snarling out his breaths hard enough to choke him. The narrow alley he's passing through does something in his chest that pounds the backs of his eyes bloody. The sky is tinged pink behind crossing clothes lines, not red; daylight is finally breaking. He's been searching since the moon crowned its summit. Every minute has been hell. Two charley horses have the tendons in the backs of his thighs limiting the full extension of his legs. The beat of his footsteps is thunder, muscles straining to perform, exhaustion blinking his sharingan along a heartbeat. She turns to him when he stumbles, bruised kneecap thumping the dirt for the hundredth time since he crawled his way out of that fucking bunker. Her lips form his name. He doesn't hear it. The closer he draws the more she turns.

"Sasuke?"

"I'll do it," Sasuke seethes, voice cracking, throat scorched raw-dry. It feels like his windpipe is still sawed open. He hadn't bothered to check after quite literally peeling himself off the floor, but he knows he is getting air and that is enough. Imina's brow furrows as she looks him over, holding a hand up and signaling for Sasuke to calm himself. He ignores the command.

"Stop," orders Imina, palm meeting his bloody chest once he is close enough to loom over her laundry basket. Her upper lip curls in disgust, most likely at the stench. Sasuke is well aware. "What the hell is this? Have you killed someone?"

Sasuke heaves and balls his hands into shaking fists. I should have. That bastard is alive and well somewhere with a fresh reminder that those two things could easily be taken away from him. The ghost of Kabuto's rubbery intestines clings to the underside of his arm. The satisfaction of watching his chidori gore him—next time, he will aim higher and there will be no Orochimaru around to save him. Sasuke curses behind closed teeth. He didn't even see him before everything stopped.

"I'll do it," he repeats, coughing dryly. "Teach me." Imina doesn't say anything, taking a step back and looking him over. Sasuke lunges forward to close the distance. "Answer me."

"You look like a dead person," remarks Imina, clinical gaze flickering up curiously to his face the moment the words leave her mouth. Sasuke narrows his eyes. "He came back?"

"Yes."

"You're bleeding."

"Answer me," Sasuke spits as he rips his still-wet yukata out from his waistband, absentmindedly wrapping the wound on his wrist.

"Is—is this," she gestures to his body, "all yours?"

"No." Red eyes follow her as she examines him more closely, sharingan flickering out on a particularly difficult breath.

"What happened?" The question carries soft around the edges. Sasuke snarls. Her roughness returns. "What happened."

"Teach me."

Imina squints. "I don't—"

"You don't have a choice," barks Sasuke, earning him a stunned scowl. Her face reads disbelief but her hesitancy proves otherwise. Looking down, Imina moves her basket out from between their feet, setting it behind her. There's fresh blood dappling her laundry. They hadn't even bothered to heal him? Sasuke swipes a hand over his neck, finding no trace of a gash. They hadn't healed him entirely, then, but presumably enough for him to remain alive for however long he was unconscious—however long they let him lie down there in the dark like a fucking husk. It was either punishment or his chidori had done a number on Kabuto. He hopes for the latter.

"Then neither do you," Imina interrupts his thoughts. "Tell me what you did to make him do this." His refusal to answer is recognized quicker this time. "Speak, Uchi—"

Sasuke's sword tears from its sheath with a howl of steel. "Don't speak to me like I'm a dog." His blade is at her throat, peeking sun reflecting off the edge of its blood groove, dried gore flaking into his hand. He grips it so tight it shakes. They're both silent, the only noise coming from Sasuke's flaring nostrils as his lungs struggle to even themselves out, the back of his thigh dancing on a cramp. Imina carefully lifts a hand to guide the tip of his sword aside, milky eyes trained on him. It whips back to his hip with a sharp whistle but remains on display. She seems to relent after a moment of thought, revulsion marrying her brows at the center. Sasuke couldn't care less.

"Alright," she grunts. "Alright."

Sasuke loudly sheathes his sword, spitting blood as he turns away. "If you try to leave, I'll find you." His voice cracks on the threat. "Be here tomorrow."

"Have nowhere else to go," assures Imina with a hint of disdain. She lets him leave without another word.

AN: I cannot tell you how many times I have deleted and rewrote every single scene of this chapter. I have been extremely unhappy with how I've written the previous updates due to rushing myself, so I am taking my time to try and get back to how I really want this fic to come off. I apologize for the shorter chapter and the longer wait, but I hope seeing Sasuke get back at Kabuto (if only momentarily) is good peace offering. I spent a lot of time on that fight and I'm still shocked it isn't as long as it felt while writing it. I hope it's better than my first attempt, haha. I never write fight scenes because they're very difficult, but this one was actually really fun. Some more insight to Kabuto's fucked up characterization as well. If you're reading on AO3, it's why the rating has been bumped up to E to cover future bases. Probably unnecessary, but it's pretty perverse.

The upcoming chapters are going to pick up with plot pretty quickly and very heavily. I have a lot of worldbuilding I've been preparing to introduce and I'm going to have to take time exploring that without making things boring. I would've loved to stretch this chapter longer, but I'm holding off since it's already been a few months and it wouldn't have added anything but word count. I promise Imina is a strong plot device (we pray) the further things unravel. No funny business with her character. I promise.

I hope reading this helped some time pass easier for you. I forgot to say that last time and I've felt bad about it, ha.