CHAPTER 9
TW| DOV: Dead Dove do not Eat
Akari looks around in a daze, eyes flickering around to assess her surroundings. It is dark, clouds of smokes drifting lazily through the air as she stands on a path, a cliff even, so high up she can not see the bottom.
"Stella."
The name makes her blink, and suddenly, there she is again, golden locks and nibbled on pink lips. Her breath catches in her throat.
Jean is standing there, looking handsome as always, a crooked grin that makes his blue eyes crinkle.
Gone is the kunoichi with fire on her fingertips.
It is like she is twelve again, so desperately falling in love.
Jean smiles softly, the kind of smile that died as time passed and that Stella only remembers by half. A curve of the lips, gentle only for her, and that seems so loving.
It is a lie, StellaAkari knows it well.
She averts her eyes from it, from the smile that made butterflies flutter in her stomach, as her chest tightens at the pain of having him so closer to her when she knows that he is so far away.
"What do you want?" She doesn't dare to call his name lest her voice still kisses it as lovingly as she once did. She doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve now. right
Jean chuckles. He's always known how to read her well, how to see her pain and replace it with tenderness. He doesn't quite answer her question, though. "Miss me?" he asks instead.
Stella smiles, fanged and sharp. "Never."
"Aww, Stella, no need to lie. I know you do."
It seems that lying to each other is a recurring thing now.
A far cry from their fond memories, before lines were drawn and she had run out of her usefulness.
"Takes a liar to find one," she retorts, and his smile sharpens.
He takes a step forward.
She takes a step back. The edge of the cliff seems closer now.
"I missed you too, y'know?" There's grief in his eyes. Don't look at me like that. You're the one who never tried for us. "A lot." Jean whispers.
Stella keens, a choked out sound that pleads for mercy because he almost looks like the one she has loved so much. The knife twists in the old wound, blood splashes.
Just once, she thinks. Just once.
Stella takes a hesitant step towards him, reaching out a hand to cup Jean's cheek. It is warm, not yet too sharp from adulthood. He nuzzles in her palm, smiling at her through lidded eyes.
Like that, Stella thinks, it is almost like time and reality haven't touched them.
When everything was simple: just the two of them existing in a world that no one could enter.
He takes her other hand, kissing her knuckles with a gentleness she has never seen on him.
It had always weirded out the others, to see such a close bond that held neither the label of lovers nor the label of something more.
The question slips from her. "Why?"
Jean lifts his gaze, almost as if regretful, as he lets her go.
He's always been like this, as constant as waves that retreated to its own whims. Stella nearly reaches out, but she stops herself in time.
Why would you leave?
Why would you abandon me?
Why would you betray me? Why would you give me so much love only to rip it all away?
"Why would you do that?" The teenager repeats, a bit more firmly this time. After a moment of hesitation, she parts her lips, "I love you."
Why would you give up on us?
Jean nods, averting his blue eyes from her. "I know," he says.
There are thousands of words she can hear, crueler than even in her own memories of her past life.
She sharply inhales. She can feel a piercing ache in her chest, tears pricking at her eyes, but she swallows them back.
Denial can hold no candle to reality.
Pain doesn't make lies any truer.
"But you don't love me," she breathes, voice trembling from unshed tears.
Please say you do, Stella thinks desperately. Please tell me I did not fall in love alone, not after everything.
Jean looks cold, his features no longer soft, no longer loving. A simple, neutral mask fit for the man he became, more concerned with drinks than school, more interested parties and girls than his childhood friend.
Growth and age looks different on everyone.
Perhaps it is her personal biais, but she cannot help but think it looks good on him. Anything does frankly, but somehow, it feels foreign for Stella not to see his smile, to see a coldness instead of tenderness.
Blue meets blue.
Maybe he thought it would lessen the hurt.
"Never had."
It doesn't.
Stella flinches, her hand clutching at her outfit.
Don't crumble.
Don't you dare look weak in front of him.
He never minded, before.
He's not your ally, anymore.
Her chest aches, her heart, stabbed by an iron hot knife.
She laughs bitterly. " Right… But you know, it hurts. Loving you hurts so much." She admits. Much to her frustration and anguish, a tear escapes from her eyes and rolls down her cheek.
Jean takes a step forward, but this time, Stella doesn't take a step back in turn. He wipes away the stray tear, ignoring how she tenses. The brunette pats her head, just like how he used to.
He smiles.
Ah, she thinks. That's a heartbreaker's smile.
"Then, let me go," he breathes.
And he pushes her back.
Stella gasps. She falls. The wind rushes in her ears. She stretches her hand upward.
help me
help me
Jean turns his back.
And Akari wakes up.
(She wishes she didn't)
The sun hits her eyes, the curtains hadn't been drawn closed.
Akari wonders if it was her turn to make sure they were closed before going to sleep or if it was her brother's. Things get muddled sometimes, dreams slipping into reality till she can not make sense of it. Whether the taste of copper in her mouth is real and the ache in her chest is a memory of her dreams, she cannot say.
After all, it is harder to draw the line when the voices do not quieten as her eyes open.
"Sasuke?" she asks, stretching her arms over her head like a cat lazily waking up. She blinks slowly. "What time is it?"
'Why didn't you wake me up' is what Akari wishes to ask yet she does not have the occasion to because thick silence, the kind that makes the air clog your throat till you cannot draw breath anymore, answers her.
"Sasuke?"
There's a tremble in her voice, a plea to be answered.
It goes ignored like thousands of hers had before. She doesn't know quite what makes her chest ache more, the silence or the memory, but Akari flinches nevertheless.
He left.
Don't you remember?
n o
Sasuke wouldn't just leave.
But he did.
He didn't want to leave.
It does not change the fact that he left you behind. He could have fought for you, you know.
please-please
He just couldn't be bothered.
Akari's breath is short, hurried like someone who has just drowned and got saved well despite herself. She wouldn't say it hurts.
Hurting is trivial.
A hurt is akin to a wound that bleeds but ultimately does not kill her.
Her brother's absence doesn't hurt.
Truly.
It cannot hurt, not when the word is too short, too soft for it even to brush the kind of agony that lingers inside.
It doesn't hurt her.
Not when she feels as if her soul has been shattered, shards of stained glass that were crushed into something that could never be remade, something so useless there isn't much else to do.
It doesn't hurt.
It just burns.
Burns though there is no warmth, no sun to warm her and make the shadows lingering around softer than what they appear to her, faceless monsters that linger around the corpses surrounding her.
It is like holding a blade with a tight grip, knuckles white and unable, unwilling to let go even as crimson drips from its bite, a mellower one than the memories have.
look at your shame, at your mistakes.
If you hadn't been so weak, so useless, this wouldn't have happened
There is a new corpse added to her collection: people she has failed, people who saw her as she was, without the glamors and the lies, who saw the failure before StellaAkari even heard of the word.
E
She looks at him, stumbling with clumsy feet as she tries to catch hold of his body, his last breath still echoing in her ears like bells.
He slips from her finger.
Like mist.
Like a dream.
He was never yours to hold.
There's a whimper that tears itself out of her throat, a keen that scrapes her lungs raw because he promised, but he isn't there
Come back
Why would he?
Sasuke
I need you
Yet he doesn't need you in turn.
He never did.
My worst sin is that I have destroyed and betrayed myself for nothing, bits and pieces who crumbled at my smallest touch.
To whom do I owe the biggest apology? No one's been crueler than I've been to me.
It's been a few days, weeks perhaps, that Akari wakes up to a cold bed and a colder heart. There's blood in her mouth too, chewed on cheeks and chapped lips, as the whispers grow louder, more audacious without her twin to keep them at bay with his mere touch.
It does not help that for the first time since their birth, Team Seven has fractured. Well, not fractured as one might think though it feels like it as the others steps take them places further than what Akari can reach, but the feeling remains the same nevertheless.
The feeling of running after them in vain.
Wait for me
Look back
Don't leave me
Kakashi-sensei is gone with her twin brother in tow.
His sole eye had been soft, pitying yet so well self-assured as he patted her head, promising empty sweetnesses as if everything would be better.
"We'll be back in no time," he tries to assure her.
Akari has already heard something similar and the ending remains the same.
They left.
They didn't come back.
For training, Kakashi-sensei claimed as though Akari does not deserve to join them. It shouldn't gall her, cut her so yet perhaps Akari has thought herself strong too, worthy of staying by her brother's side.
Kakashi-sensei lets her down gently, gentler than the world would have yet the wound stings all the same.
She hates it, she thinks. To be left alone with shadows that like to claw at her as they drip with venom.
But this is the price of weakness, isn't it?
of not dying when her brother's heart had stopped.
Once, I wanted to feel loved without feeling like I was begging for it.
Even now, that wish escapes me.
And I have found that when it comes to love, I am the greatest beggar of them all.
Akari thinks that Shikamaru tries to enter the compound once, maybe twice before abandoning, content to only see her when their usual time comes. Akari hears him once, lingering at the compound's doorsteps, and she wants to answer, but she falters as she reaches the door.
There's a voice in her head, kinder than the usual ones, shyer too.
It begs.
'Don't hurt me. I can't go through this again'
pitiful, pitiful child
Consequently, Akari only stares at the gates door with dull eyes, unable to move from where she seems to be rooted into place. Even as her fiancé knocks on the door once more. don't get hurt. Even as she hears Shikamaru sigh and leave, muttering a troublesome.
Troublesome.
That is what she is at the end of the day.
that is all you'll amount to.
She thought it a kindness not to open the door and show Shikamaru the splinters that is her soul without her brother.
Yet the ache does not leave her.
You are a cruel girl yet your favorite victim will always be yourself
Sasuke wouldn't do that, she cannot help but think. He wouldn't just mutter a curse and walk away.
But Shikamaru isn't Sasuke.
They still spend time together, as per their friendship and betrothal dictate.
Promised to each other through duty, a love that is promised with the kind of youth that will eventually run off, her fiancé tries to hold her close. As if sensing there is something wrong, but he can never figure it out truly, never can fathom the cracks that are hidden behind porcelain smiles.
It goes as usual, a script on their lips that rings true a lifetime ago.
"I missed you." if he truly missed her, he would have tried
And he didn't.
Stella had learned to read between the lines.
"I missed you too," Akari smiles.
But her smile feels brittle, an ugly curve of the lips that fills her mouth with copper even as he kisses the crown of her head. She picks at her fingers, nails digging into the stained flesh.
A golden general moves up on the board as another crack deepens in her mind.
"How's life without Sasuke?" he asks nonchalantly as they sit before their shogi game.
nothing
as if her heart had been ripped out of her chest
a reality she does not want to live
"Different." It feels as though she speaks through a mirror, a glass wall that she has neither the strength nor the will to touch, much less try to breach. His smile is gentle as he takes her hand. He holds it with great care.
"You'll get used to it," Shikamaru tries to placate.
"This will pass, and you'll be normal in no time"
Stella tries to smile, but the word normal again feels like a brand, seared into her flesh.
Shikamaru then frowns as he releases her hand did he see? throwing her a quilt. "Your hands are cold," he justifies as Akari throws him a confused glance.
"Maybe it's just you who's too warm."
Sasuke had been cold too, cold in death.
You killed him.
Akari cannot remember whether her brother had warmed up afterward. Perhaps it is a twin thing, the shell reminded of the soul that holds Death's touch. The Uchiha heiress glances down again, delicate fingers unfurling under her gaze, unstiffen, undead.
"Why do you keep looking at your hands?" the Nara heir asks.
Akari blinks, slowly as though she does not understand, and perhaps she doesn't. "Don't you see it?" she asks softly, bafflement lingering in her voice, a whisper of grief clinging to it.
"See what?" Shikamaru tilts her head.
the blood
Akari glances down once more. Her eyelids flutter, onyx never leaving the hands that failed to save her brother. The hands that are stained crimson.
The scarlet doesn't waver. The dark-haired girl looks up and Shikamaru looks so very lost, concerned and confused that it makes her breath hitches.
"Never mind." She says as she straightens as if it is nothing, as if she is normal because she does not think she can bear him looking at her with pity the way Jean had looked at Stella.
But the blood-
The blood never truly leaves her hands.
I hate and cannot forget.
Like a taste acquired, a taste I have learned to love, a thirst for revenge that had never been answered.
I am haunted by feelings of things.
Skeletons from ghosts I have made
Look in my shadow and see,
the person that was lost between hatred and revenge.
Suffering, death internalized has come to Akari in the form of an old man – more bandaged than fleshed – when she is left alone. She sees him and thinks of a spider, a danger lurking underneath the injured persona, his presence making her skin crawl.
Stella has seen monsters wear the skin of humans. She has seen humans flay themselves in search of power.
Danzo is a bit like that, she thinks.
Old, greedy.
"Akari-hime."
"Danzo-sama" Akari bows. Though she inclines her head, the perfect demure heiress that she is, there is no respect, no care in her mind. Wrong, wrong, wrong. He looks at her the way she likes to look at herself. Cutting, never satisfied. But Danzo is a prized friend to the Hokage, an old man that sits at the head of a military tyranny, and there were worst people Akari bit her tongue around. "How may I help you?"
His entire stature slightly softens in grandfatherly affection or whatever it is supposed to be.
He thinks you gullible, weak.
A blight to Sasuke's legacy.
Danzo's apparent gentlessness, however, suits him like an ill-fitted glove, the way that beggars could dress in the finest silks, but one could still see his truth. It is a recurring thing, she thinks, for adults to pretend, to so readily praise her yet just as easily eager to see her fail.
"At ease, child. I believe I may be of help to you." At Akari's questioning, tilted head, Danzo continues. "It has come to my attention you lack proper guidance till the next Chuunin phase. I have a liberated spot in my foundation program if you are interested."
He says it as if it is a great honor for her to hear of it.
An honor underserved, yet he gives it to you all the same.
"The foundation?"
"A program I hold for talented shinobi for them to train to better serve the village."
Talented.
Akari thinks that once, she had worn that title too.
"I haven't heard of it," her words are careful, as if deathly bidding if she isn't wary enough.
"It is exclusive, " he answers.
The you weren't worthy then goes unsaid, but it cuts her all the same.
Would he offer her such thing if he knew of her shames?
Of her crimes?
to be born.
to have killed Sasuke
Akari nods because she knows of private groups who cuts corners and easily trample on everyone else. Stella has been part of it too though so many had tried to see her kicked out of it. The little girl has had a front seat row at how cut-throat and cruel the group is, cannibalizing itself till only the best – and most wicked – remain. No wonder Coral has remained, too.
"How would it help me?"
Danzo gestures for her to slip into his office, his guards with blank porcelain faces closing the door softly.
Little fly flying in the spider's web
But if he promises strength, should it not be her duty to accept?
Akari waits till he gestures for her to sit before sitting in seiza on the guest cushion, etiquette still nestled within her bones alongside her ghosts.
It is a bland room, traditional yes, but mostly never truly lived in. The kind of picture-perfect study that Anne's godfather would have too, a blanket to conceal the rot. But, should she be surprised at this point?
This world is cruel.
Akari wonders about Danzo's journey.
It is rare to live to his age.
What lines has he crossed to survive?
How much did the Hokage and his administration stray from their humanity in the name of Konoha and greed?
How much more will you need to lose to realize that no matter what you do, you jinx everything?
Danzo sips his teacup, casually as he says, "I have noticed your skill level has somehow stagnated –" Akari's eyes sharpen at his words and she has to stop herself from tightening her jaw. She hates acknowledging her weaknesses, preferring to sweep them under the rug, far away from prying eyes. "It is a shame such an asset to our village is unable to bloom at her best. The foundation will push you through this phase, sharpen your skills and make you a better shinobi."
"Am I not the strongest kunoichi of my generation?" Her words are light, yet he sneers. Father, the Uchiha Head before he was anything else, used to curl his lips the same when Akari preferred cuddles with her brothers over tea ceremonies.
"We both know that title means nothing." Danzo's answer slaps her, derision in his tongue with the same ease her dad had, too.
And the worst thing is that it's true.
What good is the title of "Best kunoichi of her generation" worth when she is so weak? It only highlights her failure to rise to the title that so many have risen before her.
"And I told them," Robert tells her, gesturing to his own kids with a pointed finger. "See that girl over there? She will go far. She is good, prodigious."
Livia, three years Stella's senior, gives a tight lipped smile as she rolls her eyes. "We know, dad. You said that five times already."
Robert shakes his head. "Obviously, I have to say it again if it didn't motivate you enough." He tuts, patting eleven years old Stella on the head. "I'm telling you, Stella will be the star."
Only she didn't. She wasn't the star.
More so of a fraud.
She didn't manage to rise to the glowing praises people kept showering her with, too busy running from a shadow her own name cast like a curse.
There's nothing more despicable than someone who couldn't even have the decency to use her potential?
despicable little girl who could never outrun the ghost of who she should have been.
Do you still feel its grip around your throat?
"Then, why me, esteemed elder?"
He pauses, looking at her over his teacup. "You are talented, yes, there is no denying it." Akari braces herself for the knife hidden behind the casual compliment, poisoned and sharp. "But your talent has dulled. You are becoming irrelevant."
Perhaps Danzo has expected her to flinch, to cry at his words that, though sharp and cutting, are truthful. But Akari doesn't. Why would she when she tells herself so every day too?
He smiles, a blade to his lips. "But you already knew that." He sounds satisfied, pleased in knowing that Akari knows her place, her failures.
She hums, the kind of empty sound that only serves to fill out the silence, an empty show of stregth that the elder is kind enough to ignore.
"And what would you get out of this deal, Danzo-sama? Assuming I agree."
Something almost like concealed delight and cunningness flash in his sole eye, foreboding in a man that dresses himself in lies and deceit. "A talented shinobi like yourself can then better serve the Leaf," he starts. "Of course, it will be expected that you become jounin within the next year and fully integrate the Black Ops under me till your wedding to the Nara heir. You will also be expected to continue providing seals to the foundation as a repayment even past that date."
Expect.
Expectations.
How Akari hates those words. And how Danzo expects her to dance to his tune makes her wary of the elder. However, it doesn't surprise her. Manipulation is bred into that man.
Just like how madness is bred into her.
The Uchiha never deal well with the world's cruelty.
Akari knows her history.
"I do not mean to spit on your generous offer, Danzo-sama." lies, Stell- Akari can recognize extorsion when she sees it, she has much experience in it after all . She thinks of Sasuke who left her act for their clan's best interests and how she cannot fail him. "However, does a month under the foundation really equivalate to a continued commitment to the Black Ops for decades to come? It seems a bit –" she pauses briefly before flashing a sweet, demure smile with a bit too many teeth "- like an unfair exchange. What else can the foundation give me?"
Danzo neither flinches nor falters, his wrinkled face but a marble stone, polished till its edges become as sharp as his knives.
"Ancient Uzumaki sealing scrolls, access to specialized, ranked shinobis in any field you wish, and training is more than enough, Akari-hime. Greed is not a flattering color on you."
There's a scolding there.
"No, it is not indeed," Akari hums. "But a shinobi does not care how he looks, all that matters is that the mission is completed in the name of the Leaf. So, additionally, I would like access to every archive available, even those that are jounin and A-ranked clearance level."
Sasuke would need them.
Do you think it will make him forgive you?
Danzo gives a dry chuckle like sound. "Then you will swear on your clan honor and name that you will uphold this, while also signing a contract."
Akari nods. It is not like she cares for her name and clan honor. What good is clan's pride if said clan has ceased to exist in the first place? And it will not be the first oath she breaks. Stella's grandmother herself has shown how little words really mean in oaths.
Humans lie as easily as they breathe.
"I love you." Liar.
"You're my best friend, I really care about you." Liar.
"If you succeed, you'll never be alone." Liar.
"I'll always stand by your side." LIAR.
Deceit has become an acquired taste, one that Akari cannot forget. She has been constantly fed lies, is it so strange for it to be the only language she knows?
"Of course, Danzo-sama. I believe I will also have a copy of that contract for safekeeping?"
Danzo nods too, takes another sip of his teacup. He hasn't offered her any tea – a slight she has recognized yet left alone – not that she would have accepted the drink anyway. "And what of your brother?" he asks casually.
Sasuke limp in her arms.
His last exhale, soft and agonized.
Akari smiles, and copper fills her mouth. "What of him?" Her question is cautious, each word measuring.
"It is no secret the Uchiha heir is more interested in killing missing nin Uchiha Itachi than serving Konoha. Are you the same Akari-hime? Do you follow him, support this insubordination?"
Always.
As long as he will need her.
To the end of the world, she will always follow him.
But though the village preaches loyalty, Akari knows that they only wish for a leash that they alone hold.
"It is not my duty nor place to seek revenge. Sasuke is the clan heir and will avenge our clan, one of Konoha's founding clan, as his honor and duty demands. Once it is done, his name will be widely known as the avenger capable of killing the S-ranked Uchiha traitor, forever eradicating the stain that is Itachi to Konoha's name. I don't see how it is an issue. Sasuke will fight for the Leaf's future. I fight for it's present." Akari folds her hands demurely on her laps and lowers her gaze respectfully.
There is a pause, the silence tense and stretching. If Stella had never lived through worse silence, suffocating in disappointment as it snatches her breath away, makes her tremble and makes her mind plead for her to leave and survive, well, she would have said something.
But you still are that girl, aren't you?
The same pathetic girl who wasn't worth anything.
Danzo smiles. It is a scary thing, though in a different way than when Gaara smiles. Somehow, it is crueler in its softness, something in his eyes glinting that betrays that the elder has played her like a fiddle.
She wonders what will be the price for this opportunity.
"Well said, Akari-hime." Danzo gives her a blank, porcelain mask and there is something ironically mean that plays at his chapped lips. "Welcome to ROOT, Weasel. May you serve Konoha at your best abilities."
Akari gets up, smoothing out the edge of her deep blue kimono, bowing from the waist till she is almost folded in half. "Thank you for this opportunity, esteemed leader."
Danzo gestures for the door to open, his masked operatives following his will silently. "Of course, it is my duty. However, you must know that if you do not meet expectations, there will be consequences."
Akari takes the blank mask with delicate fingers, with the kind of grace that her clan training afforded her. "When are there no consequences in life? But it is all for the greater good of the village, right Danzo-sama?" Akari says, her own, answering smile fanged. She slips the mask onto her face, and perhaps, at the same time, sheds the persona she upheld for so long.
"Indeed. For the Leaf." Danzo repeats.
Little little fly, struck in the spider's web -
Danzo is not a kind master.
But in a twisted, convoluted way, he is a kinder master than Stella's father ever was. If only for the fact that the elder does not threaten the things and people she cherishes when her failures pile into themselves.
On nights in which her father would have anger clouding his mind and hardening his fists, Stella would fall asleep fearing to wake up to her dog's corpse. It was a threat and a lesson, he would say, taunting her, daring her to push his patience till he had no choice but to show her how serious he was.
Your failures have consequences
Danzo, however, doesn't threaten her. He doesn't need to, not when ghosts whisper in her ears and draw blood with their reminders.
The elder is not a kind master. But he gifts her strength regardless.
"Again."
Akari heaves, breath heavy as she tears herself off the floor. Her lungs are burning and she absently wipes away the blood that drips from her lip, wincing at the sharp sting. The operative, his face painfully neutral and pale, watches her. His gaze feels judging, like he can not even fathom her weakness. Akari, too, is taken aback.
There is blue on her cheek.
Yellow on her collarbone.
A canvas of pretending: better be painted in colors than wallow in nothingness, right?
She did not expect such a thing.
To be grasping at a rope, dangling in the emptiness, a castle built on mountains of sand. Akari is the Uchiha heiress.
Yet-
"Is that all the Uchiha have to give to the Leaf? Get up. I refuse to have a pathetic asset." Danzo asks from his seat, voice dripping in disdain and a sneer at his lips.
"I refuse to have a useless daughter."
he sees you for what you are
isn't that all you wanted?
to be seen without the shine, without the glamor?
But Akari want him to need her-
She-
She doesn't want to be abandoned.
Akari grits her teeth. "Yes sir." She straightens herself, shifting her weight through her stance, hands relatively high to guard her face, knuckles bruised. "Sorry sir." She nods at the operative who is her opponent, and readies herself.
Akari goes home with a broken ankle, and cracked ribs.
Useless.
"Useless."
"Are you not ashamed of yourself?"
Akari purses her lips as Danzo-sama rips her newest seal with a fervor and frustration that betrays his greediness. His eye snaps towards her, cruel and disapointed, the way her coaches would look at those who could not keep up, could not stay and oh, no, Akari does not want to leave, please-
"Did I not tell you to use the Uzumaki templates?" he asks, something heavy in his voice, lethal.
"Yes, but Danzo-sama, it is-"
"I do not need your excuses, Weasel." He does not need to hear her explanation, poor and pathetic, before he shakes his head, words cold and as sharp as a whip. "This is subpar to what I wish for. This is not a kunoichi's work."
What will be your next excuse?
What will be your next mistake?
Don't you dare breathe.
You do not deserve it.
"My apologies," she bows her head, waves of ebony silk draping over her bruised cheeks.
"I do not care for your apologies, I care for results. Which I expected by now."
Akari bites her lips, gnaws on them till copper stains her tongue.
"Do you think people care about you?" Coral laughs a sweet laugh that can only be poison, with a demure smile that hides treason and loathing in its subtle curve of the lips. "They only care about what they can use." She steps closer to Stella, her voice lowering into but a whisper, but the venom is as strong as ever. "You don't need to be a genius to know what happens when there's nothing left to use anymore."
"Are you a bad investment, Weasel?"
The Uchiha heiress shakes her head.
Daringly.
"Then, prove it."
Stella's teachers had praised her talents and quickness as something almost god-given, a birtright that is written in her blood.
Is is ironic that Akari fails in that regard.
Though she is able to apply an explosion seal by touch only, it is the only thing she is able to. Her seals somehow work, but she cannot push their capacity too far. Akari is good at drawing them, at a respectable level even, yet it is impossible for her to attain full mastery of the art.
Every seal she manages to make is the result of gruelling hours of work, blood, sweats and scorched fingers.
It should have been easy for you, no?
Danzo-sama in particular holds little patience for her seals fueled by her fire, useless to anyone but her. His contempt for her 'subpar' sealing as he calls it thickens everyday as the tags he wishes for lag behind and do not hold the same power as a pureblooded Uzumaki.
Fuinjutsu genius, the mass praise her.
Fraud, she thinks bitterly.
(Danzo agrees with it)
The rest is out of her reach, the art in need of a natural talent she does not possess, and the very realization is a hard pill to swallow. After all, most of her seals only function as she tweaks around their bases, adding and mixing English words. If she really was that genius they so eagerly praise, she wouldn't be struggling this much.
'Another failure' Danzo-sama would notice, his sneer growing crueler by every mistake.
Akari flinches now, when he says so.
Did you not know?
You learn to fear the word failure.
When your world starts burning because of it.
Her sparring partner does not have a face.
At least, not one that Akari knows of.
Objectively, she is aware that he is a human, a being with something more that lingers in him, though it is easy to forget when he snaps her leg, or when his guts are cut open and there is no sound passing through his lips.
What a show they must be: two corpses trying a hand in living.
A circus act, made to entertain.
They like to go at each other like animals, too, as if fighting with their dying deaths.
Akari would have died a thousand times at his hands.
You should have.
Koi, that is his name, wears a blank mask, the same one she had received. He used to wear one that would slip on his face, as if he had inherited it and it ill-fitted him, like a child playing dress up.
He grew into it the same way that Akari grew into her bruises, her hurts.
Koi's hand twitches.
Akari smiles grimly.
And they throw themselves in the fight, kicking and punching as they paint each other's skin black and blue. Akari swallows back a hiss as Koi twists her wrist and knees her in the stomach.
"Don't make me laugh."
She takes her revenge by striking his face, hand slithering to his neck and tightening like a noose. She's thrown off him before she can even attempt to asphyxiate the ROOT member. A shame, truly.
"I can't believe I thought you were worth it."
She dodges his kick and blocks his swing with her forearm.
"You shouldn't even speak, you're embarrassing yourself."
Akari can still feel the weight of Danzo's gaze as he watches her fifth evaluation since she joined the foundation. While her taijutsu has improved, it is still not up to standards.
it never is
Still not good enough.
But it's fine, Akari is used to not being enough. She will just have to make do, just like she always does.
Her left arm is grappled, twisted painfully behind till it dislocates itself as Koi kicks her harshly in the back.
"Seems like you aren't as good as you thought you were-"
shut up
The arm hangs uselessly by her side and even the adrenaline that courses through her vein is not enough to lessen much of the pain. Akari grunts, stumbles towards the wall as she pops the shoulder back. It doesn't feel good, hurts even but if there is one thing she will always remember is to never show nor acknowledge your weaknesses. Alone yes, but not in company. Not in front of Danzo-sama who waits for any sign of falter to pounce, to shred her, and rebuild her to his image.
But can you break what's already broken?
Can you shatter what has already been shattered and twisted?
Koi kicks her in the side.
FIGHT GODAMNIT.
Akari's head hit the wall harshly and her vision wavers briefly. She has to finish this sparring match. Now. Her body falls onto one of her clan's katas, mixed with the martial art trainings Stella's family insisted on, like a well-oiled machine. She hits and kicks and defends, her mind stopping as a haze settle before her eyelids, tracking Koi's injuries and aiming at them. Fatal spots, where the body is at its weakest, are struck as her second uncle's voice, more a trainer than family, drills onto her.
"Left, right, watch the feet. Eyes, ears, change and aim for the weakest point. Twist, bend the arm, snap it."
Stella had loved him. Loved him even as he beats her stances into her and allowed his mother – her grandmother that doted on her when Stella had still been the golden, perfect child – to twist the cousins into monsters and traitors.
Because at the end, rare it is that love prevails over ourselves.
Stella hadn't understood it. It had been her greatest mistake.
"Enough."
Akari's thoughts halt themselves, her body too, it redresses itself straight as her attention snaps towards Danzo that stood from his seat. She is panting slightly, muscles burning and blood drips methodically from her knuckles.
Koi is on the floor. Twitching.
Better him than you.
He does not stand up at Danzo-sama's command, perhaps not as well trained as Akari, perhaps too bruised to.
Get up, she thinks, eyes stuck on the heaving form that is Koi.
Danzo-sama nods to one of his guards.
Get up, she pleads silently.
Boar, his mask as blank as theirs, though there is a single tear-like mark on his, approaches, a kunai in hand.
He smoothly slashes Koi's throat open.
Koi had always been fierce in their fights, a fire that burned through his every movement, a life that shined through his punches.
Yet he does not flail or even struggle as the blade kisses the skin beneath his mask, a stillness and heaviness to his limbs that Akari has never seen in her sparring partner.
He doesn't ask why.
Koi simply - dies.
Silently.
With acceptance.
Danzo-sama sighs from his seat, more adorned than even the Hokage's one in the office. "That is the price of weakness." He says. He then turns to Akari, whose eyes have not left Koi's bleeding body. Her fingers flash mint green in vain. "I do not want you to pay it."
You will pay it.
You always pay that price
The mint glow of her fingers flickers away, like an ember suffocated.
Koi's strangled gurgles stop, and Akari can only hear her own heart beating. There is steel in her spine, ice in her limbs and she doesn't cannot move.
"As you say, Danzo-sama."
I think a part of me has always seen the most jaded parts of myself with a quiet disgust.
I have loved and loved yet from those times,
I learned to react to cruelty with cruelty.
It is a stain that even now, my heart cannot erase.
"Shit."
Akari hisses, in both frustration and pain, as her fingers sting. They are slightly burnt – chakra burns something that Akari has much experience in – and the digits twitch for a few seconds as if lightning had coursed through them. Overall, it is a serious consequence of another seal gone wary. Again.
Useless.
The paper is a mess of ink, matrixes drawn with a careful, delicate hand before being ruined by those very same that so carefully birthed them. It fizzes sadly, a thin trail of smoke in place of an explosion.
Her attempt looks pitiful, Akari knows it, almost as much as she looks with cheeks darkened by the failed explosions, and scratches from setbacks.
Can you not embarrass yourself for once?
Akari grips her hair with claw like fingers. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," she mutters hoarsely, thoughts circling in her mind like tsunamis because she had promised herself to be useful, to not be a burden, and how can she not even succeed in this?
Fucking Uzumakis, she thinks with a vicious bite.
Fuck their matrixes that seem to hold no logic, no sense, and she envies the Yellow Flash for his brilliance because he understood, so why can't she?
Failure taste awfully on her tongue, yet it is all Akari experienced in the last two weeks.
There is no, there shouldn't be any reason why she failed in fuinjutsu.
Do not lie to yourself.
You knew well that you will never rise to where people wish you to go.
That your successes are lies. Cleverly disguised, but lies all the same.
Shut up.
"Why did you do that mistake? Why is your performance so bad?"
"I- I didn't understand that part and –"
'"THAT'S A FUCKING EXCUSE NOT THE REASON! TELL ME!"
"… I don't know… I …"
"WHY DID YOU DO SO MANY STUPID MISTAKES? ARE YOU STUPID?"
She probably is.
Oh, sweet child. Was that even in doubt?
Akari grits her teeth, a hand coming to slap her cheek, a pawn reenacting the play she knows so well, when her mistakes become almost lethal and her father's voice raises, making her freeze as if a gun was pressed to her temple.
She's in the green room and there's a sting to her cheek and a crumbled exam paper at her feet, so torn apart she can only see the red that she tastes in her mouth-
"Akari!"
A voice makes her snap back. It is Sasuke, but a day new, having only just arrived from his training trip with sparkling eyes and an ease that betrays confidence in his every move.
The twins have never looked so different, though it is only Akari that sees it.
A hand tucks away a few locks away from her scarlet eyes, gently, with a tender touch that Akari thinks she has dreamed of till she grew sick in the stomach.
"Are you hurt?" he asks, a furrow to his brows that betrays his anguish at seeing her so distraught.
Akari's jaw tighten. She doesn't feel as if she deserved being around him, her, the leech sucking away at him. She failed, failed again and she doesn't want him to see it.
That fractured, ugly truth.
She wants to pretend a bit more.
"Go away" she mumbles, but Sasuke only scowls at her words, lifting her chin for their eyes to meet.
"I'm not leaving you," he almost sneers, his fingers growing more insistent, harsher on her pale skin.
Odd that it is all she has ever wanted to hear, in both life, yet now, she recoils from it. Akari shakes her head, though the movement is limited with how insistently her twin brother grips her face so she cannot look away from him.
"Please," her voice quivers. "Go away." Tears prick at her eyes and everything is almost blurry, everything except Sasuke's eyes. He stares at her, his gaze loving even though it is as if he is looking at her soul before he nods slowly.
Something heavy presses into her chest, a weight that crushes her lungs.
She does not deserve him. To be by his side.
Not now when the sting of defeat and disappointment and her father's voice are still so recent that it burns.
She's sorry. She will do better.
So please. Please don't hate her.
Her twin quickly presses a kiss to her forehead, a peck Akari doesn't want to flinch away from, but she still does, bringing another frown to Sasuke's face. She never wanted to hurt him, to make him frown.
Another mistake.
Is it all she can do?
"I love you, Akari," he tells her quietly with a softness that the world has seen fit to steal away from him, yet Sasuke still holds it for her.
'I love you' have always been a lie before.
Akari struggles to believe it.
But, never when it is her twin brother.
Sasuke lifts himself up, pressing another kiss to the crown of her head as if incapable of leaving her. As if incapable not to shower her with his love.
Akari almost calls him back to her, her hand already reaching out to her brother before dropping limply to her side from where she is still kneeling.
She loves him too. Very much.
And that is why she cannot bear to present herself before him as failures cling to her every steps, like the stench of rot that can never go away.
Akari closes her eyes as she inhales deeply.
Fuck me.
Akari slips into her bed when the moonlight is hung high in the sky.
Sasuke's eyes open, onyx snapping open to look at her, though there is sleep lingering in the fluttering of his eyelashes.
"Finally done?" he asks softly.
Akari hums, slipping off her socks. "Yeah," she gives him a soft look. "You look exhausted. Get some sleep."
Sasuke groans, shifting till he is half-seated in their bed. "Too late for that."
Her brows furrow. "Did I wake you up?"
Sasuke shakes his head, stiffling a yawn that Akari politely pretends not to see. "No, I was waiting for you. How did it go?"
Horribly.
Of course, Akari does not say it with as shame clogs her throat.
She doesn't mention her chakra burns, how her forearms are littered in shallow cuts and she probably has some nasty bruises all over her back from today alone.
She never mentions them, those crosses that are hers alone to bear.
"Alright."
The thing with juggling a mask, to love so deeply is that sometimes, lies become obvious. Not the ones who matter the most, but bits of truth slip in and Sasuke's eyes grow dimmer at every little piece.
"You don't have to pretend with me."
It isn't that she ever stopped pretending, but she missed him so much and tears start rolling down on her cheek. It is like the damn has opened, and she feels herself wilt, shoulders hunching into themselves as she sniffles.
"I-I'm sorry," she cries out, eyes so blurry yet she can see her brother's agony as clear as day.
"Shhh," he whispers as he takes her into his arms. "You don't have anything to be sorry for."
But that is untrue.
There are so many failings she must atone for.
So many faults that should have never been allowed to see the light of day.
There's a pressure building in her head, pounding and closing in, she feels the chakra building up behind her eyes, her Sharingans desperate to be activated, to save her from any threats even though there are none – she is safe, in her house.
"I'll be better," there is fervor in her voice, desperate. "I promise" she repeats, like a broken record. Like it is all she can think and do, promise to be better, promise to be worthy of being loved.
So, don't leave me.
Sasuke grabs her shoulders, his touch both gentle and firm as he steadies her and locks gazes. He leans in till their forehead touches, still staring at her with adoring eyes, and she feels her breath hitch at such raw love.
It is like breathing after drowning for so long.
"I know you will." He assures her, a confidence to his voice that Akari doesn't share. "You'll be better in no time like always. Because you are Uchiha Akari, my other half." He swipes away a stray tear with a gentle touch. "I love you, Akari. My twin sister, my jewel."
Mine, his eyes proclaim to the world, though Akari is its only witness.
His.
It feels right.
"That is the price of weakness." Koi flashes before her eyes, laying in a pool of his own blood as if he had never beaten Akari black and blue, had never taught her shinobi skills.
If he was weak, then what is she?
"What if I don't get better? What if I fall behind?"
Sasuke's voice is firm. "I won't let you."
But the world doesn't listen.
The world isn't kind.
"But the others," Akari remembers the sneers in the hospital, the gleefulness the medics shared in knowing that even Uchihas could not excel at everything, could not measure up to the ghost of their precious Tsunade. "They would turn on you –"
"They won't"
He sounds so sure.
"No!" Akari does not remember the last time she challenged her brother so, but the fear that tears her from within doesn't quite manage to leash her tongue. "They will! As soon as we appear weak, they'll all turn on us!" she turns almost hysterical, "I refuse to be the one to bring you down. I won't do it."
She would sooner die.
Sasuke grows fierce, hysteric too. His grip tightens on her, almost like a snake that coils itself tightly around his prey. "Let them try!" there is a challenge and loathing in his words. Something lethal and dangerous. "They don't matter, none of them do. Fuck them, fuck everyone who isn't us. Let them try and mock you and try to call you worthless. You're not. I'll protect you, kill anyone that dares say otherwise."
But what about him?
What about his dreams?
don't you dare be a burden.
Akari huffs, a hand to her hair and her teeth bared.
"But you shouldn't have to!" she claws at her twin brother's shirt with knuckle white fingers. The fabric crinkles and blackens at her touch. "I can't become a burden again! Not to you!"
He pauses, wildfire suddenly but an ember. "Even if you were one, it wouldn't change a thing"
Akari scoffs, ugly tears escaping her eyes. "It would." Stella has learned it. Akari too. "You wouldn't love me anymore, you would leave me behind, leave like everyone else, stop loving me –"
"I love you." Sasuke interrupts. "Even if you become blind, I would still love you."
Her brother has always been sweet. Kind.
Akari knows its taste, a sickly kind of sweetness that makes your teeth rot.
careful
What is she doing?
She should have kept quiet, bitten her tongue as it was her way. Yet, now, the line has already been crossed.
"You wouldn't."
"Do you think my love so fickle?"
But isn't that the very definition of love? Isn't that what love is? Alike fire, blazing one minute and the next, barely a spark. Forever changing, harmful yet beautiful.
Akari tries to protest but the words cannot leave her throat, choked and burning her airways and god she wants to breathe. Why is he asking her this? Poking at her biggest fear, the one that keeps her awake at night, the one that drain the colors, drains life out of her. She knows he loves her, but will that love be enough? Did she ensnare Sasuke, enough to make it impossible for him to leave? She cannot fathom a life without him please, just love her. It doesn't matter whether he loves her for who she truly is – the broken girl hidden behind thousands of masks – or the one she shows to the world like a perfect, porcelain armor. Just love her.
Sasuke tilts her head upwards, his face looming over her, sharingan activated from his emotions, chakra in turmoil. "I love you."
If that was gospel, Akari would fall to her knees in worship.
Sasuke continues. "Even if the entire world turns against you, even if the entire world hates you, I'll always love you. You're my everything, you're mine."
His promise sounds like heaven. Almost too good to be true.
Akari's breath hitches and though her cheeks dust themselves pink, a strangled sob escapes her because while she had heard promises of eternal love already, none had the smoldering heat, passion that Sasuke possesses. That dangerous, obsessive glint in his eyes, claiming her for his own, so alike of her love.
'Mine' she thinks.
A small part of Akari, the one raised shackled and yearning for independence, bristles. But it fits. Uchiha Akari was never supposed to exist. But here she is, his and only his because she would accept no other reason why she is alive.
"Yours." She repeats. "You have me. Until every last star in the galaxy dies and hell freezes over, you have me."
Akari didn't think she could see her brother's features soften as much as they do. His gaze, raw and worshipping, tastes of whiskey and she instantly crave for more.
More more more more.
Then, before completely distancing himself from her, after a small hesitation, Sasuke kisses her. He kisses her at the corner of her lips, barely grazing her lips with his own, and Akari blushes, cheeks dusting themselves red. Her heart beats rapidly, thumping in her chest and she feels alive. Somehow, the dark whispers who used to demand blood, crave destruction soften and instead, bask in the warmth the almost kiss (can it even be considered one?) gave her.
SasukeSasukeSasukeSasuke
His name is all she can think about, 6 letters strung together, laced together with golden threads. Sasuke. Her brother. Sasuke. Her other half. His touch, his eyes are all she feels and sees and again, she feels herself overwhelmed by the love, the warmth.
She's no longer cold, no longer alone…
Sasuke.
It's been around 3 or 4 years or so that Akari has activated her Sharingan and thus opened the gate to her past self memories. 4 years of knowing how horrible the world is, of seeing the monsters not in the shadows, but in broad daylight, wearing human skin and smiling through sharpened teeth.
Akari. Stella.
Both girls – or are they the same, it is all very confusing once in a while – hate the world, hate everything surrounding them, it's the only constant in both of their lives. Hate because loving had only brought forth pain and she is sick of loving too much when everyone hates her. Why do they hate her? She doesn't know but if that's all there is, she will hate too.
Akari glances at her brother who is still very close to her, ears dusting a light pink as he averts his eyes from her, muscles coiled as if ready to go away. His hands, fisted on his knees so tightly his knuckles turn white, are shaking.
He looks guarded, almost scared. And that won't do, all Akari wants is to see him smile, to see him happy.
Is he scared of being turned away? Turned away for stepping a bit too close of the line between familial love and something else? Akari isn't sure, but she doesn't care either way.
Something dark, possessive, curls into her belly, like a beast raging.
The voices have quieten down, their cruelty but old wounds that remain unopened to their taunts.
SASUKE
Akari surges forward.
And as their lips touch once more, fireworks in her mind and in their touch, Akari smiles against Sasuke's mouth.
This.
This feels like home.
And you're whispering, you're begging
"Save me, save me, save me,"
into skin that isn't quite yours.
as if there had ever been enough of anything in you left to save.