.15.
"Most in your position would be falling over themselves trying to offer me what they cannot give. They would be a blubbering mess," Kabuto trailed a finger over Masaki's arm. Seeking a vein to inflict a needle upon it. "But you're not, Masaki-kun. And I can tell it's not because of my bedside manner."
"Mm," Masaki sighed. Head lolling on the cool metal slab he had woken up on. Slowly, drearily, his eyes sought out Kabuto. The familiar older teen, ash gray hair pulled into a bun. Circular eyes glinting now and then in the luminescent ceiling lights, all of it magnified to a hundred.
Masaki watched him steadily sink the oddly coloured needle into his arm.
Blue liquid swirled, forcing its way into his veins. Washing away the whispers that were hiding behind his ears, scuttling like cockroaches in the dark.
"Oh," he had forgotten how empty his mind was. A voice. Skittling and louder than others and oh so desperate, disappeared into the blue liquid. "Happy birthday."
Kabuto's genial smile stretched. Pressing a cotton ball on his vein and taping it down. "Thank you, Masaki-kun. But it isn't my birthday."
"It isn't?" the blue hue was filling him up. Everything was muffled. Even his thoughts. Lost amongst the others - he couldn't focus. "But. It is, isn't it? I know it is."
"Well, I wouldn't know Masaki-kun. I was an orphan," Kabuto reached under Masaki's head and helped him to sit up. Masaki followed, body heavy and…confused. "But, maybe. You are correct," he cupped his hands under his jaw, forcing Masaki's head to turn to look up and into a penlight. "You know things you shouldn't. That's why you're so interesting, Masaki-kun."
"Where's Sasuke?"
"Training," the penlight vanished and so did the hands. Masaki's head dropped back and up. Room spinning around him. Kabuto's face dropped in and out of focus.
"I don't…feel right." He blinked, trying to rid the blue blue blue bleeding into focus. "They're…this is wrong."
"They?" Kabuto turned, clip-board dropped beside. "And who are they, Masaki-kun?"
"Ha-happy birthday, to you," he giggled. Harder and harder. Trying to hear his own voice. Maybe if he laughed loud enough, their muffled pleas would die down. Maybe his hearing was wrong. Maybe the blue was dripping into his ears.
" Masaki - kun ," Kabuto gripped his hands to the slab. Buckling them into cuffs. Trying to keep him from scrubbing away the blue.
The blue was in his ears! Kabuto. He needed to know. This was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Why couldn't he hear himself? Was he mute?
Luna remembered the Death Eaters silencing muggles. Not letting them pray to their God in their final moments.
He shouted. Screamed. Laughed.
Finally, the blue sunk into the background. Masaki's ears were ringing, throat raw. Rough like sandpaper. Lungs hurting.
Masaki took deep breaths, one after another. Regaining his focus enough to see Kabuto at his desk near the door. Observing him. Head tilted and -
Whispers whispers whispers. Back. Loud. Angry.
"She hated you, y'know..." Masaki said. Coughing at the effort to put vowels on his dead tongue.
Kabuto remained silent.
. 12 .
Shikamaru will forever hold contempt towards those who choose to overlook Masaki's precognitions. Clear as day prophecies that old Shinobi Legends leer to in Clan scrolls and bedtime stories.
Somehow, Shikamaru's friend is the strongest of them all and nobody saw it.
Instead they choose to focus more on his unconventional hairstyles and speech patterns. A natural aversion to their otherworldliness.
Looniness , some whisper.
They were wary of his 'oddities', pitying and sympathetic to those who Masaki chose to be around.
Anger heats his bones whenever Shikamaru thinks about their blatant cruelty.
They never stop to listen to what Masaki has to say.
So at his graduation party, when Shikamaru is in the middle of opening Masaki's gift and his friend's eyes glaze over. He listens to the whispery words. Clutching the talisman Masaki had handwoven with bottle corks.
Shikamaru is not the only one listening. Out the corner of his eye, his father tenses. Inoichi's hand on Masaki's shoulder gripping.
Winces and soft mutterings could be heard echoing around his home. Old and future comrades seeing nothing Shikamaru did. Elders upping their noses and audibly wondering what the little Yamanaka was talking about.
He wanted to glare at the lot of them.
So he pays attention when his friend starts muttering under his breath.
"Masaki," Inoichi Yamanaka says, voice and fingers trailing taught lines over small braids and pinned pistachio shells.
Shikamaru hates the way his friend - gaze smashing back to the forefront, clamps up. Omens silenced and knowledge buried. His friend knew more than anyone in this room did. Foresaw a war to come and nobody was listening.
They treated him as a liar. A schizophrenic .
He turned back to his present. Lips pressed and thought of the old lying man. Hokage . Something dirty was happening behind the scenes of his village.
| "When…the leaders speak of peace, the common folk know that war is coming. When the
| leaders curse war, the mobilization order is already written ou -"
Shikamaru was listening. Maybe it won't be enough, but it would have to do.
.
*16 *
.
Mind walking.
A technique to view an individual's memories and mental state. Invasive in all ways possible. They splay a person out. All ugly corners ironed out. All secrets on view. They see your birth, your lies, your firsts, everything. It was settling into a person and feeling them out. Touching. Listening. Watching and judging.
Depending on the length of it being cast, the subject's mind can start to erode. Fight back and bruise.
Victims of such brutal, prolonged mind walking experience paranoia, hearing voices and seeing people who aren't there. They become untreatable. Lost cases and, for a village that needed resources spent efficiently, better off dead.
"Ibiki!" Inoichi burst into the room. Hair, uniform - unkempt and unlike the Yamanaka Leader. An immovable object in storms. A kind and easy-tempered authority figure.
Ibiki did not shame himself by staring at the fallen strands of hair. Framing his comrade's face. This was the man who had never raised his voice or put a toe out of line. He was good people. A brilliant Shinobi.
He was a man who had already lost one child.
Ibiki - he wanted to help him. For the child in the other room and his own selfishly thin morality.
But.
It is what it is in this job.
"Mind Walking is my profession ."
"Same goes for Yuuichi," Ibiki said. "You're too close to this, Inoichi. You're the boy's father. I can't let you into the investigation, you know as well as I do it's against protocol."
"You know Masaki's diagnosis," Inoichi's eyes slipped to the two-way mirror. His son. Thin and sickly looking, bound to a steel chair. Opposite and awaiting for the go-ahead was Yuuichi Yamanaka. Doing his best to look anywhere but his Clan Head's son.
The dingy interrogation room looked wrong with Masaki in there.
"If he's in there too long Masaki won't wake up. You know the hospital's protocol for vegetative people."
Ibiki stilled his heart. "If I let you in there and you mess up, whatever screwed-ass jutstu or seal Orochimaru may have planted inside the kid's head could trigger. The Hokage wants a firm hand on this. I'm sorry, Inoichi-san. You have to leave."
.
Through a one-way mirror, the Last Uchiha thrashed in his chains.
"That bastard didn't do anything to Masaki," Sasuke shouted. He wouldn't. "He was drugged. Studied. Because he's a fucking seer you idiots!"
12
"You know, there was this city called Pompeii."
Kakashi tilted his head in query. Sakura glanced between the anemic-looking boy sitting beside her sensei, braiding a flower crown and appearing utterly unconcerned at intruding a Genin training session.
She wondered where she had seen him before.
"Pompeii," Naruto echoed. Words jagged. "Hey, Sakura-chan have you ever heard of a place?"
"Pompeii isn't around anymore," the boy said. He was awfully familiar. Sakura just…couldn't place it.
Whoever the boy was, he must be important if Kakashi was indulging him. Maybe a relative? But, those eyes. They were almost Yamanaka in their lilac gaze.
"What happened to it?" Kakashi asked, then turned back to Sakura. "And I don't remember telling you lot to stop sparring, did I?"
"Sorry, sensei," Sakura turned back to Naruto and whack him over the head. Her teammate yelped.
"The city lived too close to a volcano. It got covered in ash before the eruption began."
"What'sa volcano?" Naruto ducked under Sakura's swipe.
"I sometimes think about that," the boy told Kakashi. "A whole city wiped out. Trapped in time. If only they knew the ash was a warning."
"Sensei," Sasuke finally snapped up from his stretching. Peeved in a manner Sakura only rarely saw outside his interactions with Naruto. "Why are we listening to this civillian - you're supposed to be training us."
"I'll answer if you can tell me how and when this kid managed to get onto Training Ground Seven."
They all bit their tongues. Sakura eyed the boy, happily braiding away, and wrangled her brain into working gear.
"I don't…he was just there," She answered.
"Mmm," Kakashi hummed. "He can do that."
"So like," Naruto cocked his head. Reconsidering the peculiar boy. "Is he a shinobi too?"
"Idiot. He doesn't have a Hitai-ate," said Sasuke. Sakura pursed her lips at the ridiculing tone. "Hey, how did you get here?"
"I walked," the boy answered. Looking up to meet Sasuke's gaze, and colour Sakura impressed. The kid didn't blush. If Sasuke looked at her so intensely, she might have collapsed.
"I," Sasuke blinked first. What . "You-" Huh ?!
"My my. Has he made you tongue-tied, Sasuke-kun? In a single glance?"
"Hey!" Naruto jump-started Sakura out of her perplexed staring by running to the boy. "Hey! I remember you!"
"Mm?" the boy turned his placid attention to Naruto. Out of her peripheral, Sasuke turned away. Before he did however, Sakura caught his expression. Was it shock? Confusion? Sakura reconsidered the boy once again.
Why. Why was he so familiar?
"You helped me, when I was a kid. Don't you remember?" Naruto fell into a crouch before the boy. Hands waving about. "It was raining and I was sick. You helped me inside."
"I remember," the boy said. "Your stomach was upset."
"Ye-yeah," Naruto coughed. "Yeah. It. Um. Heh, yeah I guess it really was upset huh?"
Why did it feel as though she was missing something there?
"Hey, hey. What about this Pompeii though? What about the ash?"
"Before lava erupts from a volcano, ash pours into the sky and falls," Kakashi took to explain.
"Oh," Naruto nodded. "So you're saying that the city didn't know that, and like, died because of it?"
"They ignored the warning," the boy sighed. "And now they're dead."