'Memories fade for a reason, Sasuke. We aren't built not to forget. No, don't mistake this for me telling you not to use your eyes. No. Don't be absurd.
Let me explain what I mean in one sentence. Are you ready?
How did Wave make you feel?'
He remembered how Wave had made him feel perfectly.
Sick. Scared. Sad. Shocked. Angry .
If he closed his eyes and thought about it briefly, it was like he was still in the mist and the mud.
He could feel it, the sting of the needles in his flesh. Smell it, the grass turning to ashes from a missed fireball. Sasuke could even taste it, the blood filling his mouth from a bit tongue as Sakura's killing intent-
'My legs?'
Sasuke clapped his face twice, forcing himself to stop grinding his teeth and his eyes from watering as he turned back to his training dummy with clenched fists.
He refused to dwell on it any more than he already had.
He wasn't there, vomit on his shirt and blood on his face... He was here, training. Preparing for the next step in his life.
That time he kept returning to, every moment as clear as when it had happened, had been almost a month ago.
It was over.
They'd won that fight. Everyone was still here. And Kakashi had given him some good advice for once. Or as close to advice as he ever gave.
What did Sasuke want to remember whenever he closed his eyes? When he went to bed, what did he want to think about before it all went dark?
'We are the sum of our experiences, Sasuke. So, here. Don't think. Look. Feel. And hold this kitten.'
It had been a very soft and fluffy kitten; he would never admit it under pain of death…but its little mew had been cute.
Sasuke exhaled, tape-wrapped knuckles returning to the dummy to beat out a well-practiced kata. Nothing complicated. A 1-2-3 beat.
Punch-punch-kick…and sometimes he reversed it. Or he altered the beat, improvising in the moment.
Or he cut at it with a kunai. Wrapped it in wire. Set it on fire. Or all of those things at once. Anything and everything was on the table.
He did whatever felt right. Whatever stopped those thoughts from returning, crowded out by what was already in his head…it wasn't easy. It wasn't hard either. It just was.
He'd had a lot of practice at fending off unwelcome thoughts.
Sasuke exhaled.
And stalkers.
The dummy rocked to its side, the back of his hand clipping its cheek cleanly. The kick to its middle was hard enough to break someone's ribs even through the wire threading it as he spun around and forced it back upright.
Sasuke's spin for another cut ended when a kunai left his hand; the twist he added as he put his whole body into the motion sped it up.
The Rain nin watching Sasuke narrowly dodged sudden death as he jumped away from the puddle he'd been hiding in. The kunai exploded then, a remnant from chasing Nekomata finally put into use, pushing that nin up and away on the shockwave instead of killing him outright.
Good.
And it had been a good throw—good enough to open the enemy up to another, a second length of iron trailing wire from its ring, the other end attached to his fingers. Sasuke moved to close the distance, low to the ground. His lips were set in a firm line as he stepped and weaved through the hail of kunai that came his way from an open umbrella, fingers trailing in the dirt as he scooped several up for his use.
Someone had invaded his home. They were on his land, in his Clan's compound, and watching him. He could do anything right now, anything at all, and no one could tell him 'no.' Not even after the fact.
Sasuke had some - things - to work out. But first…
' You can gloat when you win. '
Clearing the razor-sharp metal field under the smoke and dirt still in the air, Sasuke leaped forward to meet the enemy just as he touched the ground, a spark leaving his teeth as he clicked them together with an added breath to set wire alight… And the tags between his fingers that he'd just loosed, riding the hot air of that fire.
"What the hell are you-" The other nin swiped at him with his umbrella with blank and widened eyes instead of finishing what he was going to say, the whoosh of a lead core in metal sheathing threatening to scatter Sasuke's brains across the property as it arced towards him. "Back off!"
Kawarimi.
That was the plan. And that was what the Rain nin discovered: instead of Sasuke's brains, he had straw. Straw and several more tags, hidden in his dummy and lit before he'd even begun this fight.
Then, the feeling of steel wire wrapping around his legs as the dummy lost its balance, and the pressure of the base that kept it together and prevented it from lashing out was lost.
"What the hell, kid!?"
That was the last thing Sasuke heard from him. What was left of the dummy's head jerked forward and exposed the other nin's face to the full force of three explosions, even as the body came forward to stick him with several kunai Sasuke had left in it. At the same time, the tags in the air that Sasuke had dispersed to hem him in if he could escape went off… Sasuke backed off to avoid the shrapnel. And any weapons that had gotten caught in the blast.
Including the wire that was still fitfully burning in his yard.
It had been a good distraction.
'Make the poor fucks on the other side second guess themselves. Force them to react. In a fight, a second is for fucking ever. And if they're spending that second putting out a fire that doesn't matter; that's a second they aren't keeping you from throwing shit in their eyes. Easy shit.'
Sasuke scowled, his eyes missing nothing as the smoke began to clear and his grip on his stolen kunai tightened.
Yes. He had some things to work through.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Iruka, quietly drinking his tea in a booth at the farthest corner of the room from his last target, blinked as his shadow clone popped. And he blinked again, face twisting in bafflement as he went through what had just happened in less than thirty seconds. "Well, damn."
As long as Sasuke kept - whatever just happened - up, he'd have no problems. He was ready. That was as far as the clone's panicked observations had gone before it was destroyed, and Iruka had no reason to disagree.
After Sakura, who he hadn't had the chance to test before, had figured out who he was and why he was there and - tried to make sure he didn't feel bad about it (that had just made it worse), that was two for three. He was almost done with Team Seven. Almost.
"So you're saying you put the Demon of the Bloody Mist out of commission? Really? You're the reason no one has seen him lately?" Naruto's date leaned over the low table, arms over her chest and interest in her eyes. "You expect me to believe that?"
No one would.
"Hah! No, I wish. That was a team effort." Naruto scratched his cheek with a laugh, the marks on his cheeks stretching as the blonde smiled and exhaled through her nose amusedly. "But I got some hits in for sure."
Better.
"Those must have been some moves."
"I know how to handle myself."
"I can see that." Her smile grew as she lifted her chest slightly, making Naruto's vision flick down before returning to her eyes. "What else can you handle?"
Iruka grumbled to himself, rubbing the scar on his nose with a thumb.
He didn't have the heart to interrupt right now...and, damn.
When did Naruto grow up?
When did he lose his edge?
Why were kids he taught not even a year ago better at being a ninja than he was?
And why did he feel so old ?
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Nothing was more troublesome than Ino when she was on a tear—absolutely nothing.
When Ino got an idea in her head, she couldn't be stopped. She couldn't be talked around or reasoned with. She'd yell. She'd scream. She'd punch and kick and flail and threaten and bribe until she got her way, and gods help you if, after all that, she didn't.
Ino held a grudge harder than anyone Shikamaru knew. And his mom woke him up every morning by threatening him with a frying pan.
It was easier to go along with it. Less troublesome.
"Do you want to die!?"
Shikamaru didn't get a chance to say anything one way or another before Ino had buried her fist in his solar plexus so deep she'd lifted him off his feet. He dodged the open-hand slap coming toward his face as he allowed himself to fold over her arm, a wheeze leaving his mouth along with what felt like his soul.
The elbow he took to the ear instead on the rebound, which had it ringing, and his lying in the dirt, as he fought back the black at the edges of his vision had him rethinking how troublesome this was.
This sucked.
Shikamaru forced himself to roll over. First, before Ino got the idea to try to stomp on him as a parting gift. Second, Choji had nearly run them over, bouncing over rocks and what was left of any tree that got in his way while Ino slid away on pads of chakra.
Again.
Pads that gave off light at a moment's notice, as he'd found out earlier - just now. When he'd finally caught her in his shadow and tried to make her kick a rock with a bare foot until she gave up.
That had just happened; he needed to breathe.
Why was he thinking?
Breathe.
He forced himself to take a breath before he fainted and got up on his feet with another roll. And he'd done it just in time, as Ino proved when she jumped back in to do a double-heeled, ground-breaking stomp where he'd been.
It would have cracked his sternum. At least.
Whatever Sakura had told her (Shikamaru knew damn well who had done this to him, and he would have his revenge), she was bringing out all the stops. She wasn't just mad. She was pissed . And the next time Ino told him that people were trying to kill him and he needed to shape up, he'd take his chances.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Hinata hated fighting.
She hated it. She hated the very idea of it. She hated hurting people. She hated being hurt. She hated that she had no choice in the life she'd been born into and what it meant.
She was Hyuuga.
People wanted to hurt her. They wanted to hurt her friends. Why? For any reason. For no reason. For food, for money, just because they could - because they wanted to tear her eyes out and keep her in a dark room and…
And she couldn't just - let it happen. Her feelings didn't change the truth.
That Hinata hated changed nothing. It was action that brought about change. The world cared about what you could do with your own two hands. What you could reach, and what you could see.
Hinata hated fighting.
"I'm glad you're finally taking this seriously," Hanabi said snootily…as snooty as a twelve-year-old could manage. It wasn't undeserved. Hinata was here for a reason, after all. "Don't forget. Even if the goal is to hit the tenketsu, hitting a muscle in the right place is almost as good."
Hanabi shook her arm out, blinking a tear from the corner of her eye. Hinata hated that she had caused that.
"Keep going."
Hinata bit her lip and nodded as she attacked her sister again. She hated fighting.
But she thought she might hate the people who forced her to fight to keep the people she loved safe more.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Day. Night. So on and so forth, with every waking moment spent pushing myself to new limits. Then, past them. Then, past even those when I refused any possible distraction from my goal of becoming - more challenging to kill.
Yes. Challenging.
So much so that it wasn't worth the effort for most to try. I was not of political importance. I was not in a bingo book. There was no gain to be found in ending my life other than personal satisfaction, a motivation all its own.
The calculus changed when personal risk was involved. When enjoyment made way for alarm—or annoyance and exasperation, that was when it wasn't worth it.
That was my goal.
Legs crossed, palms open in my lap, I exhaled. I inhaled; I took the first complete, unbroken breath in days as I allowed myself to ramp down from the Fifth Breath to the First—my limit to my base.
Bones cracked as pressure was released, tendons relaxed, muscles deflated, and veins vanished to the naked eye—gradually, carefully.
Pain.
I shuddered, the grass beneath me rustling as I clamped down on the signals.
The birds, now accustomed to this after having seen it happen over fifty different times, continued to chirp.
It was never pleasant to feel…and Gai and Lee were monsters. Truly. Even if their methods were different, somehow, I didn't think the comedown was that much so.
How Lee wasn't dead, or crippled, I didn't know.
I'd popped more lungs than was needed to fill a bucket in the almost week I'd been out here in these woods. Hunting. Living off the land, being the quintessential hermit, as it were…and filling metaphorical buckets with lungs.
Metaphorical. Because I'd recycled everything. Waste not, want not. And meat is meat. Calories were calories.
…I was unsure why I was so stuck on that gruesome imagery anyway, but I was. I supposed it was evocative enough, in a macabre sort of way. And, I suppose, it may be because no one would ever take it seriously hearing it. Not when it came to someone like me, just out of the Academy…or maybe they would.
No. Not maybe.
A 'prodigy' could get away with quite a bit with some hand waving. I'd been gone for a week, so of course, I'd found a solution to the tyranny of the inflatable bladders in everyone's chest. Of course, I'd decided to become a dental care pioneer while at it, seeing as I had so much free time. Of course.
After all, I'd taken a week off—more than enough time to upend the field until next week, when someone had the perfect counter to anything I'd just done.
My left arm smoothly snapped back into place as my hair held it still and pulled.
I didn't know what I was thinking… Whatever. It didn't matter. I was stalling.
It was time to get back before someone seriously came looking for me...and I needed a shower. And a sandwich.
And, for sure, a change of clothes. And Ino.
My parents, who were returning to see me compete.
I needed a hug.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
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