Attraction: Enter the Dragon (pt 1/2)
Okay. Next chapter of Attraction written and posted. I am tired.
Warnings: Violence. Shukaku. More violence.
Attraction
By gelfling
gelfling8604@yahoo.com
//Thoughts//
::Invading thoughts::
***
Splice: To unite or combine ends.
--Merriam Webster Dictionary
Ninja: a person trained in ancient Japanese martial arts and employed especially for espionage and assassinations
--Merriam Webster Dictionary
Veni Vidi Vici
-I Came, I Saw, I Conquered
--Jingo, Terry Pratchett
***
In a rather picturesque setting, a young lady sat. The sky was thick and gray like dirty cotton, rain threatening. Against the cold she wore a dark blue parka, seated on a blanket in a forest that had gone brown and damp with winter. Sparrows, jays, and small brown tits hopped and fluttered on the ground where she had littered fruit and sprinkled seeds.
At her side lay another young woman, pale, still, and beginning to look blue as the evening chill came closer.
From the cover of tree roots and the cover of shadows, eyes watched her for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, before coming out gently, slowly…
A brown bird landed in her open hand and began to peck at the seeds in her palm. From behind her, a hunched creature came up, sniffed at the fruit, paused, and then bit the sleeping woman’s fingers quite hard.
Ino’s eyes flew open, wavered, and shut close again with a groan-she was too pained to even swear. The birds skipped off a distance while she curled up wincing. Hinata patted her shoulder while she held the jack rabbit, imported and docile in human hands. She let Ino relax a bit longer, before putting an arm across her shoulders and walking her back. It took half an hour to get to the road where the battered and rusty green truck was parked in the foliage.
Hinata slid into the driver’s seat, and unsteadily started the engine. She was a better driver than Ino, but only because she drove slower, so that when she hit things, it didn’t create the same level of damage.
“Did you see anything?” she asked quietly, sure they were alone.
Ino nodded, still rubbing her temples. “It’s underground…along the canyon about seven…maybe 10 miles down. Can’t be sure-pretty far though, but it’s hell to keep track of distance in that body. He only thinks about one thing...”
Hinata nodded understandably. “Carrots. He was very hungry when you came back.”
Ino paused for a moment, and then decided she didn’t care. Hinata had been married two years now-go figure. It was probably a Hyuuga thing. Neji couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her for too long, even though he no longer seemed to hate her. It was just…weird. She didn’t care much right then though-she was too busy cursing Kakashi in her head.
She had said, the minute restriction on the Mind-Body Switch jutsu wouldn’t allow her to move long enough in another’s body to gather enough information. Besides, the jutsu only worked on humans-anything else lacked the necessary compartments to stick her mind in. It just wouldn’t work--at the best she would get an awesome headache and at worst she’d lose her mind. Literally. She hadn’t been joking either.
Kakashi had said, that was interesting, but she was going to have to break the restriction. And to make friends with Floppy-they’d be working together a lot.
Ino had always had some respect for Kakashi-sensei, but that had never stopped her from hating him. The man was impossible!
What was worse, though, was when he was right.
It wasn’t that the man pushed--he didn’t push or force. He just asked, then waited until you did it. Ino sometimes wondered what happened when you didn’t do what he wanted you to--Sakura had never really said. Supposedly, if he didn’t see ambition in you, he simply stopped asking. She wasn’t sure how that worked, but it must’ve somewhere, because he even had Shikamaru up and about sometimes, and that took talent.
“Yeah… Anyway, there’s about eight of them…or maybe twelve. It’s hard to keep track…and I won’t try switching with one of them…”
Hinata shook her head in agreement, the tires skidding as she turned too sharply and sped up just a little. “Did they know you were there?”
Ino scowled and scratched her ears. It felt like she had ticks…she couldn’t twitch her nose properly either. “Don’t think so. I wouldn’t have found ‘em if I hadn’t heard them. I didn’t get close. Um. Do you want me to drive?”
“No!” Hinata said quickly. “I mean, no, I’ve got it, we’re fine.”
“Only we’re going kinda slow…”
“We’ll get there.”
Ino looked at her suspiciously. “I can drive you know.”
“I know,” Hinata remembered the last time Ino had driven with her. Her hands still hurt when she thought of it. “I know. We’ll get there.”
//In one piece.//
***
Gaara starred at the empty space between his knees. He didn’t…prevent the older man from getting on the subway car, or acknowledge him even though he felt his stare, could feel the first stirrings of fear in the air.
The man was clean cut in his perfectly margin life, regulated like the headlines of the newspaper carried under his arm, articles concerning the irregular fires down south in Grass, brief case a perfectly polite brown and gray city suit. His hair was tinted black in vanity, sparse make-up covering the insomnia exhaustion under his eyes from working all night at the office because he didn’t want to go home to his wife.
He hadn’t been rejected in a long time. Not since his father.
It was sinking in.
He…didn’t want to fight it. That would show consideration, pain on his part. He wanted to murder. That would show honor. Anger.
…Something.
He was rarely so disappointed in himself.
There was no fury. No where. Pain without fury: What the hell was he becoming? When had he started to change?
He stared at the space between his knees, seated on peeling plastic seats with bright white electronic light overhead, reflecting off the black glass windows.
He blinked, and began to vomit onto the scuffed plastic floor, making hoarse rough animal sounds. The bloody miasma of loose meat and tubes splashed with an ‘fllwuupp’ sound. He continued to hack, spitting out a clear, honey-thick strand of fluid that tangled in his fingers as he reached into his throat, hacking more and jabbing his hand’s side along the front esophagus hard.
As the minutes and wet sounds progressed, a thin line of blood ran down his naked chest. The hacking continued with dogged stubbornness.
Eventually, Gaara held a sharp fragment of glass in his fingers. It glinted a pleasant pale salmon in the light, cheery in the cold sterilized subway car with its business man and newspaper.
He eyed it.
So.
He was finally trying to kill him. Finally. Not seriously yet-he was still alive. He would play with him first.
The car stopped, and the business man left.
Still bent over, his hand closed hard over the shard. He took off the sunglasses. He straightened up slowly, tilting his head back until it touched the windows. His breathing was slow and shallow, tired, and he opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. He had never seen it before. He had not been the first to see it; he would not be the last. It didn’t belong to him.
He tilted his head forward slowly and saw his reflection in the dark window across.
His skin was pale, and he was losing his musculature. There was blood across his throat and arms, vomit spattered on his shoes and someone else’s shorts.
His eyes disturbed him.
They looked angry, supercilious. Disinterested, but still angry. Still angry.
The one who had commanded an army. Who had blood at leisure and disposal. Who had a lover that never loved him.
Pain without fury.
Gaara stared at himself.
“I’m not happy.”
***
The bathroom was painted a faint green, almost pea soup color for whatever reason. In a stall, a brown haired girl pulled her underwear up under her skirt, and turned to flush the toilet with her foot. She balanced badly on one foot and walking stick, her free foot fumbling on the flusher. Something caught her eye: she turned her head to the side, and saw another girl looking at her over the top of the short stall, with black hair and black lipstick, looking quite young and bedraggled. She smiled. Her eyes looked like she had been crying, but that was the style now.
“Hi,” lipstick said. “What’s your name?”
“Uh. Migami?” the other girl said. She still hadn’t flushed the toilet-how long had she been there? Watching her? Was it polite to flush while someone was watching you? Wasn’t that just a little past perversion and just plain sick? She seemed relieved to be able to put her foot down though-her balance improved. “What’re you doing?”
From the other side of her, a voice said, “That’s a nice name.”
Migami turned her head-there was an almost exact replica of the girl on her left to the one on her right-they were dressed very similarly, but the girl on her right didn’t smile and was a little taller. Something caught Migami’s eye-she turned around completely, and saw three more girls standing in front of the stalls, another by the sink, and another by the door. All seven of the girls were looking at her attentively. The light green room had flooded with black robes and girls.
She turned back to look at the first girl-she was still smiling at her, over the wall. Migami was keenly aware of the girl at her back, in her blind spot-she had completely forgotten about the toilet. But she couldn’t stop staring at her eyes. There was…something missing in them. Something compelling.
The first girl reached a pale manicured hand, gently, slowly, over the stall wall, and laid it gently on Migami’s shoulder. She didn’t even shudder or twitch, and allowed herself to be pulled slowly closer to the wall, to the smile, and to eyes that never left hers.
For a moment, it seemed the girl was going to kiss her as her hand slid up to her neck and skull, and Migami said, quite softly, “Nara.”
Then, through the hollow metal stall wall, Migami slid a knife into the first girl’s heart as if it were butter. The first girl blinked at her, surprised, and looked down at her chest, and looked back up to find Migami gone, her hand holding air.
Gray-blue smoke filled the room-not from any one source, but from every atom of oxygen, equally spread and thick. No one screamed-they started coughing repressed spasms, and moved slowly through the room eyes closed and hands in front of them. By where the mirrors and sinks were, there was a choked cry, followed by a pause and a great sensation of complicated air twisting.
There was a noticeable pause, then a hiss and a collective squeal.
***
Outside hall of the girl’s bathroom, Shikamaru leaned on his crutch and the wall, his hands occupied with a lighter and a cigar. He seemed to be having trouble standing up straight and lighting the cigar at the same time-the flame kept on flicking on and off, his hands fumbling awkwardly. There was more artificial lighting in the hall-a slim bit of his shadow slid under the bathroom door.
A man walked past him, giving him an odd look, before walking on. Shikamaru barely acknowledged it. Water began to seep from under the bathroom door-it got the soles of his sandals damp. He gave it sour look before fiddling with his lighter again.
The door opened unsteadily, and Kakashi limped out, wet and tired looking. He was bleeding slightly from one arm-he didn’t look as tall as he was when he stood like that. Shikamaru threw him a sideways glance. “So…”
“It went…?” he continued when Kakashi ignored him in favor of stretching his neck. Shikamaru eyed him thoroughly.
“It went.”
“They get you?”
“A little,” Kakashi admitted, before walking off slowly. Shikamaru threw a glance inside the small bathroom before following him. The linoleum floor was wet, blackened from fire, and very bloody. The toilets and sinks were still pumping up water, and the mirrors were shattered, large pieces of shrapnel embedded in one body, more on the floor.
Most of them were drowned, a few had been strangled (a la Shikamaru, who had been working blind), and a couple stabbed and decapitated. All six were slowly, reluctantly, burning: the smoke stank, a faint green edge to the flame hinting it was a chemical fire. Shikamaru felt panic, “How many?” There was an edge to his voice.
Kakashi stopped dead and muttered, “Damn it.” He turned around, “Are you serious?”
“There’s six.” Shikamaru walked closer to him, passing the bathroom and his shadow on the wall. He threw one hand up as he continued sarcastically, “And no I’m making it up to annoy you because that’s fun…you think I’d joke about it?”
Kakashi didn’t even reply-he was thinking. His one gray was unfocused-the other was covered, and finally he said, “She’s injured. Bleeding from her left kidney and looking for shelter-she’d have hit the streets.”
Shikamaru’s shadow’s hand had already gripped Kakashi’s against the wall to steady him--he was wobbling faintly. “Thanks,” Kakashi said dryly, “But not this time.”
Shikamaru frowned, before the lights went out. He flicked his lighter on immediately, and kept talking; the light already made him a target. “You know, I really hate it when you do that. Really. It gets on my nerves, and it’s not exactly like this is a walk in the park.” For a few seconds, he was keenly aware of everything--his breathing the shadows the light his heartbeat and sound of cloth rustling and twinge in Kakashi’s left leg as he moved to the…
He let go of the crutch and allowed himself to fall (dodge), hand swiping out and squeezing.
He heard a gurgle, then another wet sound before he hit the ground with a hiss, favoring his left leg and swearing colorfully. “Oh you bastard…”
“You realize I’m your superior, right?”
“Really! I hate it so much-I thought you Jounnin were supposed to be effective and stuff, not,” he took Kakashi’s hand and let him pull him up, “so damn reckless and stupid. That was stupid.”
“Gave you wider range.”
“It was a risk! It was a huge risk! I might’ve gotten you on accident. I could’ve lost the lighter-then what? We would’ve been screwed.”
“Didn’t happen. Stop panicking over it.”
Shikamaru got to his feet awkwardly, holding his crutch defensively and the lit flame. “I hate it. It wasn’t necessary and you know it.”
Kakashi let go of him and faded back into the dark, hands fluttering like wings; a foot away from his feet, Shikamaru saw wet flames hinted with blue sprout up from the seventh body, illuminating the corridor a little more. Kakashi was wiping a kunai on his vest.
“So we’re done, right?”
“Still have two more jobs before we get back,” Kakashi watched the bodies as the flames ate them quickly, unnaturally, before trudging away with the light at his back. Shikamaru followed.
“Not tonight though-no way tonight. I want decent, proper sleep. On a bed with sheets and pillows, and running water that’s warm.”
“And a slave on the side to see to your every whim?”
“Of course,” Shikamaru answered without pause. “I like blondes-over 18.”
“I noticed. I guess Ino didn’t take very well…?”
“What? The genius ‘chatting’ idea? That was stupid-you don’t talk to that girl, you get talked at.”
“You could try doing her hair.”
“A girl’s hair?” Shikamaru sounded stunned. “Why?”
Kakashi shrugged, “They like it. Usually by each other, but what the hell? Might work for you too.”
“Lot of work to get laid…” Shikamaru complained under his breath. Kakashi shrugged again, “It’s worth it though.”
“Is it? Is it? It’d better be…I’ve never done this much work for anything before my neck is killing me…”
***
On the bed, the young man growled low in the back of his throat, a near-purring sound that came from immediate satisfaction and luxury. Humans were generally the target of choice, clean if possible and strong as possible, but sometimes…sometimes it was nice to just come back to something a bit more…relative.
There was blood smeared along his body with other, darker bodily fluids, the satin sheets extremely pleasant under his wet palms, silk robe keeping his back warm. The room was cool and dry-a little like a cave with blood now splattering the walls and congealing on the floor, but much more refined, unfortunately.
If the setting wasn’t so damn artificial, so obviously created and planned and not natural at all, he would have been very happy here. As it was, he had no claim to it. He just a visitor.
Something of his caliber. Someone of his renown.
And he was only one more damn visitor.
The brat had been a fool to decline his claim over the land--it had the been the perfect moment, the perfect opportunity to pluck it and drain the place dry to another desert, another home and kingdom, and the idiot had let it slip through his fingers because he was in love.
Thinking of that had put him in a really pissy mood. And when he was unhappy, everyone knew about it--he liked to share it with everybody.
He hadn’t eaten. He had just destroyed. It was like tearing the wrapping off and throwing the gift inside away.
Behind the sunglasses, eyes turned to see the double doors open slightly and the owner (of the room and bed and establishment and of the now-dead two girls and man, each of them only a little human in a very select sense) glide inside carefully, closing the door behind him. The owner had the same pale, slightly anorexic look of his living property, only better combed and less showy in very simple black robes that gave him freedom of movement.
Times had changed.
Now it wasn’t the leader who screamed to the world-the leader was calm and quiet, a calculating bastard who would smile to your face and stab you in the back. It hadn’t always been like that. Before it used to be the leader who wore red and bronze, who challenged you in your home, violating anything he could lay paws on and cut you down where the world could see, because he wanted the world to see, for the world to know what he was and what was damn well going to be happening to them and for them to know that there was nothing they could do to stop it.
There had been pleasure in that. He could remember doing that, years and years ago.
There hadn’t been this skulking in shadows business, like they were something to be ashamed of. They came from the night, they were created in the night, it was theirs, always, but before, before, in the times the eyes behind the glasses could remember; they came out of the night to rape the daylight and murder it in the street and drag the body home and nail it to the door. They had screamed, This is mine. I am my own. You will be mine. And I cannot be stopped.
He had done that.
They didn’t do that anymore. Now they simply skulked, and aped the humans.
The man on the bed smiled at the owner.
The man by the door simply stared. He didn’t look at the bodies, which was his way of acknowledging him. It was, technically, an offense. A rather blatant one. It lacked style.
His blood was cold and heart dead-he didn’t get angry simply because the glands used to create anger were so very rusty in him. Still, he was annoyed. Offended. But this wasn’t the time.
He could sense power. He could smell it. The thing on the bed smelled…somehow human. It had a regular pulse and never spoke-perhaps couldn’t speak. But he reeked of power-old and potent. If he valued anything, the owner valued his person. He had not survived as long as he had by tempting fate. And this was not something to tempt. Not yet.
“I trust everything is to your pleasure, sir?” He had a voice like metal-cold and inanimate.
The smile continued.
“Should you desire anything else, I, and my people, are at your disposal. You need only ask, and-”
He wasn’t sure when, exactly, the younger man had left the bed. It seemed he had only begun to prop himself up on an elbow before he was stalking across the suddenly short distance that separated them. And it was a real stalk-his shoulders moved in rhythm with his hips and legs, like an animal. He grinned lopsidedly with incredible bloody charisma--knowing what he was doing and glad to be doing it. The blood smell became stronger, mixed with fear and sex and desire and pain, making his jaw ache and face feel warm-deep inside something dead pawed at its collar. The reaction surprised him.
“Sir…”
The deep warning growl started again right under his chin, like a space-age engine humming with power. He hadn’t even seen him move…he was right there…he could feel his body heat…power...
Power. Heat. Blood.
Unnaturally, he felt his skin begin to moisten, the cold blood continually leached of ATP energy and proteins begin to hurry in his veins. He resisted the urge to close his eyes. It was the smell. It was the goddamned smell.
A reminder of times long past. When things had been simple, straightforward. A hint ways, very physical, sensual…wet ways they could still be so very damn simple and straightforward now.
If the desire was there. If the daring was there.
Living flesh. Hot, powerful, living flesh.
The owner felt that, in many ways, his survival was in danger. It made muscles in his face itch-like a rash that will not leave and cannot be scratched. The owner felt, simultaneously, that he was being offered a chance in a lifetime. He wouldn’t be what he was if he didn’t have the bone-deep magnet for power, a lust for blood that sustained him through the iron nails hammered through his bones and fires that had burned his skin and muscle forever. He was being teased. He was being mocked. Seduced. His mouth watered. He couldn’t speak. It was hard to breathe the small amount of air he needed.
The purring continued, right there under his jaw. The room was getting smaller, revolving around the Smell and heat and steady powerful heartbeat. All he would have to do was to just reach forward…just touch him…
Just once. Then he could say no. Then he could stop.
He dug his nails into his palms, hard, and bit the inside of his cheek.
He had never considered that it was possible to live too long. Even so, he recognized a trap when he smelled it. And this stank.
He swallowed loudly, too loudly, it seemed. He knew it was visible. The sweat continued down his neck. “…I will see to your needs. Personally.”
There was breath against his neck, against the old faded marks that were still a little sensitive, that prickled now against something warm and wet and living and so damn strong…
The space in front of him vacated as quickly as it had been occupied-he could feel eyes on his back, and turned gently to see the red-headed figure standing by the double doors, still grinning softly. Waiting. Laughing at him. The contempt was written all over his smirking lips, with the sunglasses hiding his eyes.
He felt like something had been ripped from his spine. His jaw ached.
He followed him out, and led him conscientiously down to the lower sub-divisions. The cellars, as it were. All really odd bits were kept in the cellars in universes everywhere.
The figure padded at his side, barefoot and apparently completely at his ease. Nothing in his stance indicated, in any way, that he was afraid or discomforted. He made a point, however, to walk nearly at his side, only half a pace behind.
The owner’s eyes didn’t even flicker. So…he wanted it to seem that they were equals. And as much as that rankled him, a part of him realized that even freaks could feel pride-and pride could be a handy weakness. Pride, and vanity. Besides, the owner, by that time, was aware that he was not in control.
The stairs he led them down turned into unlit stone corridors, the air rank from sweat and shit and stillness from the many cells that lined either side. The owner stopped at the bottom of the stairs-his companion’s flesh shivering and rippling in the chill. It laughed softly, amused by its own body.
The figure left his side, still wearing the borrowed silk robe, blood dried and walked softly from one cell to another, occasionally stopping to pause and stare, sometimes the smile widening and cocking his head.
The owner remained where he was.
The cells were…attuned to his guest. Whatever he had picked up, whatever he had smelled or sensed on him, they sensed too. And it excited them. He excited them. The blood wasn’t completely dry on his hands, but nothing came close to the bars, either for fear or…respect perhaps. Something. Something that had never happened before…
He was beginning to regret the child ever coming in, but not so much. It was done now. The figure itself sniffed, sometimes touching the bars, the stone inquisitively, searching for something.
What he was searching for and what purpose was anyone’s guess.
The owner watched the smile fade somewhat for the first time--still there like a scratch, but without the spirit backing it. The figure stared into the depths of an empty cell, into the shadows, past the wall. The owner had an excellent view of his profile, the dip in his throat and reddish smudge on his jaw.
A long silence went by, everything watching the figure’s every move.
The owner continued to watch his face, the faint scent of lust and power still wafting off in the still air. He narrowed his eyes when the smile split in two, teeth still cheerfully pink. And felt the rush of power, like a rush of blood, come not from the figure but up from the stone floor and walls.
Anything could be turned into sand. Wood, plastic, steel-the difference lay, always, in the atomic and chemical bonds. How strong they were, how dense, how weak. It was merely a matter of splicing the bonds that say, held 50 square feet cubed of stone together, and allying them with something a bit more useful.
The floor shook. The bars rattled. Dust sprinkled down from the ceiling. Then there was the thunder of very thick stone cracking into a million pieces in every direction in a place made entirely of stone.
The red-haired young man seemed very pleased with himself.
The owner leaped for his face-spurred on by desire or fear or irrationality that was humanity-and he had the divine pleasure of gripping his head and crushing his skull. Shouts and clatters as things hit the bars raised the noise to a cacophony, the rumble underneath the earth providing a nice bass background as the acoustics of shouts and screams went frantic…
When the dust cleared, the steel bars had been worn down to many large well polished rocks-or very large grains of sand. Size was relative. Material was negligible.
Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
Everything returned to the desert bowl in its time.
The now-earth was still hot to the touch, from the spinning friction and sudden change that had leaped upon it like a cat, and appeared as a rather hurried, ugly crater.
The figure did not stand in the exact center, but off to one side. In the exact center, chained to the last remaining complete bit of bedrock stone, lay a scaled creature of uncertain color-maybe blue and maybe green and maybe black. Where the steel touched, the scales were gray, near white. Dust had settled over it, had settled over everything save the figure itself. There were old twin scars on either side of the spine, a bit of bone still showing through. The back legs were intact, taloned-many curved fangs lined the half-open mouth, chained to the floor just under the chin.
Liquid black sockets stared at him. Not afraid, but not in challenge either. Sockets that had been hit so many times by life that they weren’t going to stand up. Not even if they could. Not even the perfect opportunity came along.
The zeal was gone. The interest. It simply wasn’t worth the effort.
He had seen it before-he was usually the cause. He never cared about things like that.
It must have cost a fortune. And for what purpose? Food? Pleasure?
Probably pleasure. It’s what he would have done.
Humans had overrun the world. Vampires were made from humans. So were witches, wizards, werewolves, zombies, and the elves and wild folk had descended and interbred with humans enough to become a branch species. Most monsters were merely humans with the all the brakes off and a sharper pair of teeth and glowing eyes. Nothing more, nothing less.
Possession was not assimilation.
Unlike the Fox, the Nine Tails of the Green, Shukaku had not been the victim, the loser of a fight-merely bored, a little stupid, and easily amused by his human victim’s whims and tragedies. But he had never been caged, never been completely powerless-lazy, yes, disinterested, yes, but never…never changed.
He was a creature of Hell. Of magic wild and bloody.
He wasn’t even angry. He was, however, a little thoughtful as he stared. He paced closer.
The mind behind the black eyes had the potential to be as cruel and devious and arrogant as his own, had the potential to be a Problem, perhaps even a Rival in favorable circumstances. But here it was, chained, blind, and neutered by something far too human to have any sort of power.
The demons were cruel-animal spirits were vicious, would kill when it pleased and took what it wanted.
The significant difference, the bottom line that ultimately separated humans from demons was very, very simple.
Monsters never claimed to be better than they were. Illusions of that nature were neither affordable nor beneficial. They had never even tried. Humans liked to believe in things that were not there, for whatever reason, good and evil. They lived for them and worshipped them, and then they died. They always died.
The Demon of Earth came to a conclusion, and placed his bare foot on the draclings neck, below the collar, and stepped down. The body spasmed once, shoulder muscles arching and twitching though the wings were long gone. And it was done.
There were good eating there-rare meat and blood so rich it was like chocolate weighed down with gold. Good eating.
He had been away a long time. The world had changed. Just not very much.
He kept his hands clasped behind his back pensively, the arrow shot in warning exploding into a cloud several yards from his head. He wasn’t in the mood, and there were no more interruptions.
He stretched his jaw and moved his thumb-opposable thumb. The best things since wholesale murder. Or before. Something. Useful, anyway.
He put the joint between his teeth and began to bite down, right under the knuckle. The bone would give, and so would the flesh, and while his blood would heal it couldn’t regrow.
Protests banged against his skull like a fly against glass.
The body was human. He was not. It belonged to him in a very select, specific way, that meant he could drive it and trash it and crash it whenever he fucking felt like it. His power, his blood was the only thing still keeping it alive, really. It was worn, battered, and no longer worth the effort of maintaining.
He had never cared for anything else before in his life. He didn’t start now.
***
And somehow, you know, you’ve reached the end of your journey.
When you were a kid you used to think that life as a ninja would be something dashing and cool; even if it wasn’t, it seemed the only job for you. The only job that actually wanted your ‘tendencies’ and abilities, gave you the opportunity to grow. You could’ve become a billion things, but what you are now is what you knew, even as a kid, what you were cut out to be.
You should feel lucky-most people never find out what they were cut out to be or even who they were. You’re not sure about the other stuff-but you’re sure that a ninja is what you were cut out to be. It fits.
It’s not the life you thought it would be. It’s never that neat, never that perfect. A lot of times, it downright unfair. Inhumane, horrific, and cruel. Nobody really cares who you are because no one actually knows who you are-you make sure that they don’t. Security mechanism. Everything is about combat: defense, security, offense, arsenal. Everything is a fight, and you get tired. You’re at the end of your journey. And you’re the only one who knows it.
You feel old.
It feels terrible.
Pointless violence done for fake monetary value, and when you’re really down you start to think there is no such thing as a point-ful violence, but you don’t talk about that. Not much point, really.
The point is, that after everything is said and done, after the pieces have been picked up and put backed together, greased and polished until Ino’s smile can blind the unwary, that there’s nowhere to put them. There’s no real place to go. You’re in another territory. You’re still, as far as politics are concerned, in a state of war. So while you can maybe request amnesty and shelter of another village, there’s the possibility you’ll be refused as spies. Or that you’ll be received, and either drafted as one of their soldiers, or killed for the knowledge and abilities your bodies know.
Probably the latter. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect.
Ninja have never, ever, had a good reputation for showing mercy to their own, especially of other clans. Tolerance, yes, because that was polite in modern times, but not mercy. Besides, everyone thought Konoha would be the ones to win the Big Battle: No one’s wants fallen heroes. It makes you somewhat of a target, actually, as if it’s your fault you weren’t good enough to stave off something you still can’t see anyone defeating.
It’s not worth the risk. It’s just not.
You’re safer here on the fringe, dangling, and that’s something only Shikamaru and Hinata understand. You’ve got nowhere to go back to. You’ve got nowhere to go. You’ve can’t afford to move, not with the way Shikamaru and Lee are. You’re not the only group that survived the Fire, but contact is dangerous.
You survived, and you’re at the end of your journey. After everything you’ve seen, everything you’ve done, and everything you know and everyone you’ve ever loved from a distance and farther than that, this is it. This is the end.
It feels empty.
It feels cold.
…
It really, really feels half-baked.
Most of all, it feels quiet. Too quiet. There’s only the sound of your own mind and that of the former rookies: current chuunin and former gennin. Kids still. You find yourself wishing, sometimes, that Gai was there. Would’ve livened things up a bit. Would’ve understood what you meant when you didn‘t say what you mean.
It’s nothing they need to know. It doesn’t concern them. They’re young, and still thinking on tomorrow and five months and a couple years from now, still young enough to think like that. They can still think of a future. They can still imagine a future that’s better.
They’re young. It can’t be helped.
You’re old enough now to know that change isn’t impossible, but it isn’t that simple either. A million little things attack every effort at once like a plague of fleas, and they can’t all be scratched at once.
It’s not impossible, but it’s not simple.
Everyday that you wake up, eyes snapping open so quickly it hurts and the artificial Sharingan overwhelms your mind with information with a blinding smear of painful orange light and a gasp as your lungs struggle to clear themselves from the smoke, you remember that it’s not that simple. You thought you were over nightmares, a long time ago, and you were. They’re getting infrequent now. They aren’t nightmares: they’re memories. Memories of things you survived.
They wake you up, but they don’t frighten you. They only wake you up and make you remember.
What really bothers you though, is what you never talk about. You’ve already looked around, mindful, checked out the scenery and nearly everything seems too barren or too urban or too off. Nothing seems…accurate. Not for you.
You’re only 33, 34 years old.
But you know how things go. Ninja aren’t quite as human as everyone else, a little like police, a lot like samurai, hired out and not in complete control of destiny or choices and keenly aware of it. Biologically, you’re vastly different from the rest of society-the Byakugan is only one example of a zillion bloodline abilities.
You look around, feeling old and out of place and tired, but you can’t find any place good enough. This wasn’t where you planned to die. These weren’t the people you planned to die with-not when you were a kid and just starting out. Many of the people you wanted to die with are already dead though.
This is where your journey ends.
This is where you die.
This wasn’t what you had in mind.
***
Picture:
From an aerial view, a kid in his late teens was standing very still, looking dazed, while ribbons of dark brown circled his feet like vultures. There was a haze of beige dust hanging low over the woods, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He looked surprised, a little stupid, and didn’t look up-he kept his eyes forward.
A little while ago he had been attacked and caught off guard-unbelievable, but very clearly possible.
Black strips streaked through the air from different directions and for a second they seem to be only imaginary shadows, but then they slow down in the dust. Seven shuriken hung in midair like fruit in jelly, two feet from their target who still hadn’t moved, eyes forward and unfocused.
Then he vanished.
He didn’t run or dart away: he just wasn’t there anymore. There wasn’t a poof of smoke or even an afterimage of where he had been. There was a vague impression in the ground of his feet, but it was as if the boy simply stopped existing. The strands of dirt settled on the ground, and to the far left, out of view, was a thump and quick crackle of dry wood. There was a thud-metal embedding in wood-and another thump. There was a sound like paper shuffling, and then silence.
But by that time, Kakashi was already running.
***
He had to give them credit.
The Rain Ninja had always been clever-cunning secretive bastards, not necessarily powerful but deadly where they couldn’t be seen, and they were incredibly good at not being seen.
They had the wrong sort of attributes to be fighting something of a demon’s energy, even with a human mind driving the power. It was a mistake from the beginning-they hadn’t even waited to make sure the rain jutsu would support them.
Kakashi had heard about the offer, a single assassination for quite a sum of money. It wasn’t the money but the specifications that had caught his attention.
//So…found where the other one went.//
Sasuke had gone to Grass, and from the sound of things, was still there. There had been fires in Grass, unusual for the time of year, considering the weather and cold. Kakashi had surprised himself-he was actually a little hurt. He had knew it would come to that-even as kids, it was impossible to keep those two apart and impossible to keep the peace as well. But…you’d think Sasuke would’ve learned something by now. But apparently not.
And now there was the second one.
He had only really come to watch. Maybe learn something new, something useful, see if maybe the demon had some weakness to be exploited. He hadn’t come to fight-the Rain ninja would kill him if they found him. He had hidden himself a good distance off, where he couldn’t even see them properly and downwind. It was team of five-a good number, though for something this volatile Kakashi would have preferred something smaller. Three made up the main attack, the other two hung back as back-up and to retreat if the situation got too heated.
From his rough information, Kakashi assumed that perhaps one had gotten away, although now he was starting to rethink that theory for a very unsettling reason. Perhaps this time he had been too reckless.
As fast and silently as he was going, even with his bad leg, he was being followed. He couldn’t hear it, couldn’t be sure of it, but still…
***
Gaara tapped his finger against his arm irritably, twitching gently. He was haphazardly dressed in a stained shirt advertising a restaurant and loose jeans. He still had a full-blown battle going on with his hair. His eyes had changed the most though. Before they had just been hateful and insane-now they were hateful and insane and empty. He looked up at the tree, disappointed.
“This is what they send for me? It’s old…” he said the word with distaste.
He had been expecting Sasuke. He had wanted Sasuke.
He had not gotten what he wanted.
He had not shown mercy, but neither had he shown interest. He had other problems to worry about, and it wasn’t even Sasuke.
“Fucking hell…” he growled softly. “Well…you’ll do.”
“Will I?”
“You’ll have to.”
“Uh, what is it exactly I’m going to be doing for?”
“I need your blood. You’re old, but you’re big enough.”
“Well, that’s…nice. You’re going to drink it?”
“No, not me. But yes.”
“Vampires?”
“No. A wall.”
“Wall?”
“What? …It’s a wall,” Gaara stated, sounding almost sane if impatient. He had been feeling…jumpy lately. Perhaps he was getting nervous about dying, suddenly. Dying had never bothered him before, but now that it was about to happen he couldn’t wrap his mind about it. It was rather unsettling. He just felt skittish now; he had been blackly depressed before-maybe he was just getting used to being blackly depressed. “It eats blood.”
“Are you sure it doesn’t just dry?”
“No. It doesn’t dry; the wall eats it.” Gaara looked thoughtful suddenly. “Besides, you piss me off.”
Kakashi felt his blood pressure pound inside his veins as the sand began to squeeze…
“All right, all right. Fine…all right?” Kakashi called out annoyed but defeated.
//…defeated? You’re…surrendering? This is new. This hasn’t happened in a long while.//
Gaara was curious. He was tired. He was hungry. He had been hoping it would’ve been Temari…
He wasn’t sure why. He felt a little disappointed.
He wanted…he didn’t exactly want to see her but for some reason he’d…he’d just…thought maybe that she…
But then he had always been alone. He knew that.
The pressure eased off Kakashi‘s ribs--they felt like a soda can being stepped on. “I want to look at it. Let me down from here, I’ll look at it, and then we’ll come right back to where we were, okay?”
Gaara blinked. Everyone was screwing with him lately. That bastard actually dared to insult him now? Him? What the fuck? He stopped feeling like himself for a couple days and suddenly people thought he wasn’t him? He stopped feeling skittish. Now he just felt angry.
The sand snapped like a cat on his ribs.
Kakashi made a sound in his throat, and his mismatched eyes bulging slightly before closing. Blood dripped slowly from his mask. He coughed.
“Ow. Well. Can I at least see the wall?”
“Noooo… You’ll run away.” Gaara shifted his weight and rubbed his arms--when was the last time he had eaten? Real food, not stuff that somehow wound up in his stomach that he vomited up later on? When, exactly?
Kakashi seemed to find the prospect amusing--perhaps he laughed, or perhaps he only choked on bodily fluids. “If you really want to kill me, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. You being you and all…And your mind is obviously made up.”
Gaara blinked, slowly, like a lizard. He shifted his weight, deliberately, from one foot to the other. He was still hungry. Kakashi refused to perspire.
“Why should I?”
“Because you‘re bored?”
Gaara tilted his head. He didn’t even smile. Moved his hand gently and Kakashi gasped out on his last breath. The blood dripped from the mask rapidly now.
It was what he gasped that made Gaara hesitate. He had heard plenty of pleas for mercy in his time, more threats on his life and even more curses that were often accurate and truthful. But he hadn’t heard that word that Kakashi gasped out in a while. Not even he said it anymore. There was no point, no reason. Naruto hadn’t said it real often…only when he felt like it or forgot.
No one else knew it.
It was a bit like the ceiling-he could see it, but it didn’t belong to him. He had no claim over it but it defined the space around him. It defined him but he didn’t own it or even have influence over it. It wasn’t…
It wasn’t fair.
A lot of things weren’t fair.
He felt his heart spasm through the sand, the vibrations tapping against his chakra that was laced in the sand. Thoughtlessly, Gaara loosened the pressure. Kakashi coughed, and inhaled wetly.
Strange green eyes filmed over with blue and rimmed thickly with black stared at the older figure now breathing quicker but easier now, his strangely matched eyes staring down at him tiredly. He sounded bored.
“You…trained him, didn’t you?”
Kakashi didn’t hesitate--he wasn’t sure which him Gaara was talking about, since he had only ever had one team under him, but that was no excuse to hesitate--when in doubt, lie, lie, lie and do it _well_.
“…I taught him some. Not everything…. I never taught him to kill.” And that applied to all three of his former students. Not that. He had taught them to fight and survive, but not to kill.
“And Sasuke…and the other one. The dead one.”
Kakashi was old, Gaara realized. Not old as in years, but old as in experience. He had seen Naruto grow up, and Gaara vaguely remembered him bringing in Sasuke to the Chuunin exams incredibly late. He hadn’t paid too much attention to him; he was more interested in the Uchiha’s blood. He still was. He got stuck with the old guy instead.
“I killed her. He didn’t tell you that.”
To Gaara’s surprise, Kakashi’s eyes didn’t reflect emotion. None. He looked tired with bruised bones and nearly broken leg. But no emotion. Perhaps he had known. Perhaps he didn’t care. Gaara wouldn’t have cared if it had been him. But he had expected something. Whatever. It didn’t matter. Few things really mattered, because few things really lasted.
In fact, Gaara was starting to think that nothing mattered, because nothing lasted. The sand lasted-the bones and bodies of things broken down to smaller matter. Small, small tiny matter that did big things when grouped together. Nothing mattered.
“I could kill you.”
“You could,” Kakashi admitted. “But why? Really. What good is would it do? One more among millions…”
“It’ll shut the wall up. It’ll shut your mouth. You would kill me.”
Kakashi didn‘t deny it--what would be the point? Not even he was that good a liar. “I won’t try--what would be the point? You can sense my chakra and you know what you’ve done to my body--I’m no threat to you.”
And…it was something of a gamble, but Kakashi stated deliberately, “Not like this.”
“You’re stalling.” //And still talking. That hurts; your lungs should hurt.//
“Yes,” Kakashi answered honestly only after hesitating a little.
Gaara sniffed. “Don’t tell me, let me guess: You don’t want to die.”
“That’s absolutely right! I don’t. It’s this sort of thing.”
Gaara allowed tiny hints of a scowl develop around his eyes and mouth. “If you aren‘t ready to die, you have no right to kill. You‘re no warrior. You‘re nothing.”
“No--I’m a ninja. It’s not fair. It’s stupid, in fact.” Gaara said nothing. He didn’t even move or remove the very faint traces of the scowl. He waited, and watched. Kakashi did not disappoint. “Shinobi have our own code--I never claimed to be a warrior. Killing is human--what should and shouldn‘t be done isn‘t always what happens.”
Gaara said nothing. He should kill him. By rights, he really should. Because he _could_. Because he was preaching at him, and that was irritating, and not his place. It would shut him up--he had trained him and Sasuke. He deserved it. He wasn‘t a threat, not even remotely (and that was not exactly true but Gaara was not thinking logically and Kakashi knew that) but he was annoying. Extremely. Because. He knew…he had known Naruto when he was young and still him. But he…he still knew that word. That single word. It was dangerous and tempting and dangerous because it was tempting.
“You’re lying.”
Kakashi shrugged even though his arms were squished. “No, but I can’t make you believe me.” He looked away briefly, squinting at the early afternoon sun. “I won’t hurt you.”
“You couldn’t anyway.”
“Well, yeah, but I’m surrendering is what I mean to say. I won’t try.”
“Why should I care?”
Despite himself, despite his training, Kakashi did hesitate momentarily. “Because I want to talk to you.”
“You just want to live.”
“Well, that too. But I can‘t kill you, so we should talk instead.”
“Why?”
“Because violence doesn’t solve everything.”
“Yes it does.”
“It solves most things. But not everything.”
“What if I don’t want to talk to you?”
“I’d say you were lying.”
The sand tightened around his ribs, a heavy ugly weight on his stomach and hurt his elbows so badly Kakashi was sure they were being dislocated out of their joints. They weren’t, because he knew how that felt and even though this was damn painful it wasn’t that. Still, his gaze didn’t waver.
He was looking for reactions. It was a test. It would have an end, but it all depended on how he passed.
Kakashi said that word again, the one that had made Gaara spare his life. The special word. The old one.
“Gaara…”
The sand dropped him distressingly fast, so fast that he barely had time to register his free arms and legs because the ground was rushing up alarmingly quick. He landed on his feet and cursed his ankles when the pain lanced up his legs, accumulating at his knees and his left hip, his breathing seeming too much for his lungs to accommodate, crumpling a little on the ground.
From the moment he touched ground, even before that, he kept his eyes on the red sneakers. He hadn’t moved from where Kakashi left him, and the pain thankfully kept him for automatically going for a weapon. That would be a mistake. The pain was actually so intense that he suspected he had some internal bleeding. Fairly certain.
When he did manage to stand up gingerly, muscles and bones and other assorted organs screaming in protest because his body really wanted to pass out unconscious right then, he found Gaara ignoring him effectively as he inspected one of his knives. The sand was banked in a wide circle around them inoffensively. Kakashi eyed it as one eyes a wolf. Slowly, painfully, he managed to make his way over to the redhead who was examining his knife entranced.
Gaara ignored him pointedly until he was a foot away, the sound of his breathing more-than-comfortably loud. Green eyes blinked innocently, almost childlike and unsuspecting as he looked up at him, and without a word he extended the knife, holding it out handle-first.
Kakashi was free, the sand was at a distance, and now he was going to be armed. Behind the pale mask, something in Gaara grinned expectantly. The shinobi was old, true, but he was fast. If he went in to stab him, Gaara would see it, but maybe he wouldn’t able to dodge out of the way or call the sand fast enough. The good thing was that whatever he did to him wouldn’t be enough to kill him. But maybe it’d be enough to hurt him…
Gaara smiled invisibly. Not widely, but a small half-dead smile at the corner of his lips.
Long bruised fingers grabbed the handle after looking from it to Gaara, and he felt the blade run between his finger pads like silk. If Kakashi had been looking up, he would have seen eyes widen with surprise when he shoved the weapon into its holster without a thought. He pulled his headband down over his left eye, warding the Sharingan. He hid the wince--one day, the eye would kill him.
He straightened and looked him in the eye without blinking, rotating one aching shoulder in its joint absently. “So…”
Alarmingly bright but strangely empty green eyes stared at him, as if waiting for the next attack, the next trick. Kakashi popped some chewing gum into his mouth, and then offered the packet-doing it without removing his mask. He was faster than he looked.
Gaara turned around and started walking without a second thought, Kakashi following a few steps behind and the sand trailing alongside of them and behind through the bushes and grass with a faint rustling sound, like a million of ants out on parade.
And thus they proceeded to the wall.
***
It should have come as no surprise that Gaara walked too quickly on purpose. Kakashi was straining for breath when he dropped from the tree, walked with a slight limp on his left side at the best of times, and currently felt like a lawnmower had run over his legs and just about everything else. He had bone fractures in his legs, at least two of them below the knee in his right leg. Regardless, he kept pace. The sand was right behind him.
He had slipped in a few painkillers in along with the bubblegum, but whatever they were doing he was barely feeling. If he dropped, Gaara would kill him. If he suddenly became uninteresting or incoherent, Gaara would kill him. If he strayed too close to the red sneakers or strayed too far away, Gaara would kill him.
He was walking with a known killer-not just a murderer, not just a criminal, because they did what they did with some reason, be it temporary insanity or stupid hate or simple greed-but someone who’d kill him simply because he was alive and not yet dead. He’d do it simply because the opportunity was there.
A very simple character to understand, Gaara seemed.
Chapter Continued Here
Warnings: Violence. Shukaku. More violence.
Attraction
By gelfling
gelfling8604@yahoo.com
//Thoughts//
::Invading thoughts::
***
Splice: To unite or combine ends.
--Merriam Webster Dictionary
Ninja: a person trained in ancient Japanese martial arts and employed especially for espionage and assassinations
--Merriam Webster Dictionary
Veni Vidi Vici
-I Came, I Saw, I Conquered
--Jingo, Terry Pratchett
***
In a rather picturesque setting, a young lady sat. The sky was thick and gray like dirty cotton, rain threatening. Against the cold she wore a dark blue parka, seated on a blanket in a forest that had gone brown and damp with winter. Sparrows, jays, and small brown tits hopped and fluttered on the ground where she had littered fruit and sprinkled seeds.
At her side lay another young woman, pale, still, and beginning to look blue as the evening chill came closer.
From the cover of tree roots and the cover of shadows, eyes watched her for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, before coming out gently, slowly…
A brown bird landed in her open hand and began to peck at the seeds in her palm. From behind her, a hunched creature came up, sniffed at the fruit, paused, and then bit the sleeping woman’s fingers quite hard.
Ino’s eyes flew open, wavered, and shut close again with a groan-she was too pained to even swear. The birds skipped off a distance while she curled up wincing. Hinata patted her shoulder while she held the jack rabbit, imported and docile in human hands. She let Ino relax a bit longer, before putting an arm across her shoulders and walking her back. It took half an hour to get to the road where the battered and rusty green truck was parked in the foliage.
Hinata slid into the driver’s seat, and unsteadily started the engine. She was a better driver than Ino, but only because she drove slower, so that when she hit things, it didn’t create the same level of damage.
“Did you see anything?” she asked quietly, sure they were alone.
Ino nodded, still rubbing her temples. “It’s underground…along the canyon about seven…maybe 10 miles down. Can’t be sure-pretty far though, but it’s hell to keep track of distance in that body. He only thinks about one thing...”
Hinata nodded understandably. “Carrots. He was very hungry when you came back.”
Ino paused for a moment, and then decided she didn’t care. Hinata had been married two years now-go figure. It was probably a Hyuuga thing. Neji couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her for too long, even though he no longer seemed to hate her. It was just…weird. She didn’t care much right then though-she was too busy cursing Kakashi in her head.
She had said, the minute restriction on the Mind-Body Switch jutsu wouldn’t allow her to move long enough in another’s body to gather enough information. Besides, the jutsu only worked on humans-anything else lacked the necessary compartments to stick her mind in. It just wouldn’t work--at the best she would get an awesome headache and at worst she’d lose her mind. Literally. She hadn’t been joking either.
Kakashi had said, that was interesting, but she was going to have to break the restriction. And to make friends with Floppy-they’d be working together a lot.
Ino had always had some respect for Kakashi-sensei, but that had never stopped her from hating him. The man was impossible!
What was worse, though, was when he was right.
It wasn’t that the man pushed--he didn’t push or force. He just asked, then waited until you did it. Ino sometimes wondered what happened when you didn’t do what he wanted you to--Sakura had never really said. Supposedly, if he didn’t see ambition in you, he simply stopped asking. She wasn’t sure how that worked, but it must’ve somewhere, because he even had Shikamaru up and about sometimes, and that took talent.
“Yeah… Anyway, there’s about eight of them…or maybe twelve. It’s hard to keep track…and I won’t try switching with one of them…”
Hinata shook her head in agreement, the tires skidding as she turned too sharply and sped up just a little. “Did they know you were there?”
Ino scowled and scratched her ears. It felt like she had ticks…she couldn’t twitch her nose properly either. “Don’t think so. I wouldn’t have found ‘em if I hadn’t heard them. I didn’t get close. Um. Do you want me to drive?”
“No!” Hinata said quickly. “I mean, no, I’ve got it, we’re fine.”
“Only we’re going kinda slow…”
“We’ll get there.”
Ino looked at her suspiciously. “I can drive you know.”
“I know,” Hinata remembered the last time Ino had driven with her. Her hands still hurt when she thought of it. “I know. We’ll get there.”
//In one piece.//
***
Gaara starred at the empty space between his knees. He didn’t…prevent the older man from getting on the subway car, or acknowledge him even though he felt his stare, could feel the first stirrings of fear in the air.
The man was clean cut in his perfectly margin life, regulated like the headlines of the newspaper carried under his arm, articles concerning the irregular fires down south in Grass, brief case a perfectly polite brown and gray city suit. His hair was tinted black in vanity, sparse make-up covering the insomnia exhaustion under his eyes from working all night at the office because he didn’t want to go home to his wife.
He hadn’t been rejected in a long time. Not since his father.
It was sinking in.
He…didn’t want to fight it. That would show consideration, pain on his part. He wanted to murder. That would show honor. Anger.
…Something.
He was rarely so disappointed in himself.
There was no fury. No where. Pain without fury: What the hell was he becoming? When had he started to change?
He stared at the space between his knees, seated on peeling plastic seats with bright white electronic light overhead, reflecting off the black glass windows.
He blinked, and began to vomit onto the scuffed plastic floor, making hoarse rough animal sounds. The bloody miasma of loose meat and tubes splashed with an ‘fllwuupp’ sound. He continued to hack, spitting out a clear, honey-thick strand of fluid that tangled in his fingers as he reached into his throat, hacking more and jabbing his hand’s side along the front esophagus hard.
As the minutes and wet sounds progressed, a thin line of blood ran down his naked chest. The hacking continued with dogged stubbornness.
Eventually, Gaara held a sharp fragment of glass in his fingers. It glinted a pleasant pale salmon in the light, cheery in the cold sterilized subway car with its business man and newspaper.
He eyed it.
So.
He was finally trying to kill him. Finally. Not seriously yet-he was still alive. He would play with him first.
The car stopped, and the business man left.
Still bent over, his hand closed hard over the shard. He took off the sunglasses. He straightened up slowly, tilting his head back until it touched the windows. His breathing was slow and shallow, tired, and he opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. He had never seen it before. He had not been the first to see it; he would not be the last. It didn’t belong to him.
He tilted his head forward slowly and saw his reflection in the dark window across.
His skin was pale, and he was losing his musculature. There was blood across his throat and arms, vomit spattered on his shoes and someone else’s shorts.
His eyes disturbed him.
They looked angry, supercilious. Disinterested, but still angry. Still angry.
The one who had commanded an army. Who had blood at leisure and disposal. Who had a lover that never loved him.
Pain without fury.
Gaara stared at himself.
“I’m not happy.”
***
The bathroom was painted a faint green, almost pea soup color for whatever reason. In a stall, a brown haired girl pulled her underwear up under her skirt, and turned to flush the toilet with her foot. She balanced badly on one foot and walking stick, her free foot fumbling on the flusher. Something caught her eye: she turned her head to the side, and saw another girl looking at her over the top of the short stall, with black hair and black lipstick, looking quite young and bedraggled. She smiled. Her eyes looked like she had been crying, but that was the style now.
“Hi,” lipstick said. “What’s your name?”
“Uh. Migami?” the other girl said. She still hadn’t flushed the toilet-how long had she been there? Watching her? Was it polite to flush while someone was watching you? Wasn’t that just a little past perversion and just plain sick? She seemed relieved to be able to put her foot down though-her balance improved. “What’re you doing?”
From the other side of her, a voice said, “That’s a nice name.”
Migami turned her head-there was an almost exact replica of the girl on her left to the one on her right-they were dressed very similarly, but the girl on her right didn’t smile and was a little taller. Something caught Migami’s eye-she turned around completely, and saw three more girls standing in front of the stalls, another by the sink, and another by the door. All seven of the girls were looking at her attentively. The light green room had flooded with black robes and girls.
She turned back to look at the first girl-she was still smiling at her, over the wall. Migami was keenly aware of the girl at her back, in her blind spot-she had completely forgotten about the toilet. But she couldn’t stop staring at her eyes. There was…something missing in them. Something compelling.
The first girl reached a pale manicured hand, gently, slowly, over the stall wall, and laid it gently on Migami’s shoulder. She didn’t even shudder or twitch, and allowed herself to be pulled slowly closer to the wall, to the smile, and to eyes that never left hers.
For a moment, it seemed the girl was going to kiss her as her hand slid up to her neck and skull, and Migami said, quite softly, “Nara.”
Then, through the hollow metal stall wall, Migami slid a knife into the first girl’s heart as if it were butter. The first girl blinked at her, surprised, and looked down at her chest, and looked back up to find Migami gone, her hand holding air.
Gray-blue smoke filled the room-not from any one source, but from every atom of oxygen, equally spread and thick. No one screamed-they started coughing repressed spasms, and moved slowly through the room eyes closed and hands in front of them. By where the mirrors and sinks were, there was a choked cry, followed by a pause and a great sensation of complicated air twisting.
There was a noticeable pause, then a hiss and a collective squeal.
***
Outside hall of the girl’s bathroom, Shikamaru leaned on his crutch and the wall, his hands occupied with a lighter and a cigar. He seemed to be having trouble standing up straight and lighting the cigar at the same time-the flame kept on flicking on and off, his hands fumbling awkwardly. There was more artificial lighting in the hall-a slim bit of his shadow slid under the bathroom door.
A man walked past him, giving him an odd look, before walking on. Shikamaru barely acknowledged it. Water began to seep from under the bathroom door-it got the soles of his sandals damp. He gave it sour look before fiddling with his lighter again.
The door opened unsteadily, and Kakashi limped out, wet and tired looking. He was bleeding slightly from one arm-he didn’t look as tall as he was when he stood like that. Shikamaru threw him a sideways glance. “So…”
“It went…?” he continued when Kakashi ignored him in favor of stretching his neck. Shikamaru eyed him thoroughly.
“It went.”
“They get you?”
“A little,” Kakashi admitted, before walking off slowly. Shikamaru threw a glance inside the small bathroom before following him. The linoleum floor was wet, blackened from fire, and very bloody. The toilets and sinks were still pumping up water, and the mirrors were shattered, large pieces of shrapnel embedded in one body, more on the floor.
Most of them were drowned, a few had been strangled (a la Shikamaru, who had been working blind), and a couple stabbed and decapitated. All six were slowly, reluctantly, burning: the smoke stank, a faint green edge to the flame hinting it was a chemical fire. Shikamaru felt panic, “How many?” There was an edge to his voice.
Kakashi stopped dead and muttered, “Damn it.” He turned around, “Are you serious?”
“There’s six.” Shikamaru walked closer to him, passing the bathroom and his shadow on the wall. He threw one hand up as he continued sarcastically, “And no I’m making it up to annoy you because that’s fun…you think I’d joke about it?”
Kakashi didn’t even reply-he was thinking. His one gray was unfocused-the other was covered, and finally he said, “She’s injured. Bleeding from her left kidney and looking for shelter-she’d have hit the streets.”
Shikamaru’s shadow’s hand had already gripped Kakashi’s against the wall to steady him--he was wobbling faintly. “Thanks,” Kakashi said dryly, “But not this time.”
Shikamaru frowned, before the lights went out. He flicked his lighter on immediately, and kept talking; the light already made him a target. “You know, I really hate it when you do that. Really. It gets on my nerves, and it’s not exactly like this is a walk in the park.” For a few seconds, he was keenly aware of everything--his breathing the shadows the light his heartbeat and sound of cloth rustling and twinge in Kakashi’s left leg as he moved to the…
He let go of the crutch and allowed himself to fall (dodge), hand swiping out and squeezing.
He heard a gurgle, then another wet sound before he hit the ground with a hiss, favoring his left leg and swearing colorfully. “Oh you bastard…”
“You realize I’m your superior, right?”
“Really! I hate it so much-I thought you Jounnin were supposed to be effective and stuff, not,” he took Kakashi’s hand and let him pull him up, “so damn reckless and stupid. That was stupid.”
“Gave you wider range.”
“It was a risk! It was a huge risk! I might’ve gotten you on accident. I could’ve lost the lighter-then what? We would’ve been screwed.”
“Didn’t happen. Stop panicking over it.”
Shikamaru got to his feet awkwardly, holding his crutch defensively and the lit flame. “I hate it. It wasn’t necessary and you know it.”
Kakashi let go of him and faded back into the dark, hands fluttering like wings; a foot away from his feet, Shikamaru saw wet flames hinted with blue sprout up from the seventh body, illuminating the corridor a little more. Kakashi was wiping a kunai on his vest.
“So we’re done, right?”
“Still have two more jobs before we get back,” Kakashi watched the bodies as the flames ate them quickly, unnaturally, before trudging away with the light at his back. Shikamaru followed.
“Not tonight though-no way tonight. I want decent, proper sleep. On a bed with sheets and pillows, and running water that’s warm.”
“And a slave on the side to see to your every whim?”
“Of course,” Shikamaru answered without pause. “I like blondes-over 18.”
“I noticed. I guess Ino didn’t take very well…?”
“What? The genius ‘chatting’ idea? That was stupid-you don’t talk to that girl, you get talked at.”
“You could try doing her hair.”
“A girl’s hair?” Shikamaru sounded stunned. “Why?”
Kakashi shrugged, “They like it. Usually by each other, but what the hell? Might work for you too.”
“Lot of work to get laid…” Shikamaru complained under his breath. Kakashi shrugged again, “It’s worth it though.”
“Is it? Is it? It’d better be…I’ve never done this much work for anything before my neck is killing me…”
***
On the bed, the young man growled low in the back of his throat, a near-purring sound that came from immediate satisfaction and luxury. Humans were generally the target of choice, clean if possible and strong as possible, but sometimes…sometimes it was nice to just come back to something a bit more…relative.
There was blood smeared along his body with other, darker bodily fluids, the satin sheets extremely pleasant under his wet palms, silk robe keeping his back warm. The room was cool and dry-a little like a cave with blood now splattering the walls and congealing on the floor, but much more refined, unfortunately.
If the setting wasn’t so damn artificial, so obviously created and planned and not natural at all, he would have been very happy here. As it was, he had no claim to it. He just a visitor.
Something of his caliber. Someone of his renown.
And he was only one more damn visitor.
The brat had been a fool to decline his claim over the land--it had the been the perfect moment, the perfect opportunity to pluck it and drain the place dry to another desert, another home and kingdom, and the idiot had let it slip through his fingers because he was in love.
Thinking of that had put him in a really pissy mood. And when he was unhappy, everyone knew about it--he liked to share it with everybody.
He hadn’t eaten. He had just destroyed. It was like tearing the wrapping off and throwing the gift inside away.
Behind the sunglasses, eyes turned to see the double doors open slightly and the owner (of the room and bed and establishment and of the now-dead two girls and man, each of them only a little human in a very select sense) glide inside carefully, closing the door behind him. The owner had the same pale, slightly anorexic look of his living property, only better combed and less showy in very simple black robes that gave him freedom of movement.
Times had changed.
Now it wasn’t the leader who screamed to the world-the leader was calm and quiet, a calculating bastard who would smile to your face and stab you in the back. It hadn’t always been like that. Before it used to be the leader who wore red and bronze, who challenged you in your home, violating anything he could lay paws on and cut you down where the world could see, because he wanted the world to see, for the world to know what he was and what was damn well going to be happening to them and for them to know that there was nothing they could do to stop it.
There had been pleasure in that. He could remember doing that, years and years ago.
There hadn’t been this skulking in shadows business, like they were something to be ashamed of. They came from the night, they were created in the night, it was theirs, always, but before, before, in the times the eyes behind the glasses could remember; they came out of the night to rape the daylight and murder it in the street and drag the body home and nail it to the door. They had screamed, This is mine. I am my own. You will be mine. And I cannot be stopped.
He had done that.
They didn’t do that anymore. Now they simply skulked, and aped the humans.
The man on the bed smiled at the owner.
The man by the door simply stared. He didn’t look at the bodies, which was his way of acknowledging him. It was, technically, an offense. A rather blatant one. It lacked style.
His blood was cold and heart dead-he didn’t get angry simply because the glands used to create anger were so very rusty in him. Still, he was annoyed. Offended. But this wasn’t the time.
He could sense power. He could smell it. The thing on the bed smelled…somehow human. It had a regular pulse and never spoke-perhaps couldn’t speak. But he reeked of power-old and potent. If he valued anything, the owner valued his person. He had not survived as long as he had by tempting fate. And this was not something to tempt. Not yet.
“I trust everything is to your pleasure, sir?” He had a voice like metal-cold and inanimate.
The smile continued.
“Should you desire anything else, I, and my people, are at your disposal. You need only ask, and-”
He wasn’t sure when, exactly, the younger man had left the bed. It seemed he had only begun to prop himself up on an elbow before he was stalking across the suddenly short distance that separated them. And it was a real stalk-his shoulders moved in rhythm with his hips and legs, like an animal. He grinned lopsidedly with incredible bloody charisma--knowing what he was doing and glad to be doing it. The blood smell became stronger, mixed with fear and sex and desire and pain, making his jaw ache and face feel warm-deep inside something dead pawed at its collar. The reaction surprised him.
“Sir…”
The deep warning growl started again right under his chin, like a space-age engine humming with power. He hadn’t even seen him move…he was right there…he could feel his body heat…power...
Power. Heat. Blood.
Unnaturally, he felt his skin begin to moisten, the cold blood continually leached of ATP energy and proteins begin to hurry in his veins. He resisted the urge to close his eyes. It was the smell. It was the goddamned smell.
A reminder of times long past. When things had been simple, straightforward. A hint ways, very physical, sensual…wet ways they could still be so very damn simple and straightforward now.
If the desire was there. If the daring was there.
Living flesh. Hot, powerful, living flesh.
The owner felt that, in many ways, his survival was in danger. It made muscles in his face itch-like a rash that will not leave and cannot be scratched. The owner felt, simultaneously, that he was being offered a chance in a lifetime. He wouldn’t be what he was if he didn’t have the bone-deep magnet for power, a lust for blood that sustained him through the iron nails hammered through his bones and fires that had burned his skin and muscle forever. He was being teased. He was being mocked. Seduced. His mouth watered. He couldn’t speak. It was hard to breathe the small amount of air he needed.
The purring continued, right there under his jaw. The room was getting smaller, revolving around the Smell and heat and steady powerful heartbeat. All he would have to do was to just reach forward…just touch him…
Just once. Then he could say no. Then he could stop.
He dug his nails into his palms, hard, and bit the inside of his cheek.
He had never considered that it was possible to live too long. Even so, he recognized a trap when he smelled it. And this stank.
He swallowed loudly, too loudly, it seemed. He knew it was visible. The sweat continued down his neck. “…I will see to your needs. Personally.”
There was breath against his neck, against the old faded marks that were still a little sensitive, that prickled now against something warm and wet and living and so damn strong…
The space in front of him vacated as quickly as it had been occupied-he could feel eyes on his back, and turned gently to see the red-headed figure standing by the double doors, still grinning softly. Waiting. Laughing at him. The contempt was written all over his smirking lips, with the sunglasses hiding his eyes.
He felt like something had been ripped from his spine. His jaw ached.
He followed him out, and led him conscientiously down to the lower sub-divisions. The cellars, as it were. All really odd bits were kept in the cellars in universes everywhere.
The figure padded at his side, barefoot and apparently completely at his ease. Nothing in his stance indicated, in any way, that he was afraid or discomforted. He made a point, however, to walk nearly at his side, only half a pace behind.
The owner’s eyes didn’t even flicker. So…he wanted it to seem that they were equals. And as much as that rankled him, a part of him realized that even freaks could feel pride-and pride could be a handy weakness. Pride, and vanity. Besides, the owner, by that time, was aware that he was not in control.
The stairs he led them down turned into unlit stone corridors, the air rank from sweat and shit and stillness from the many cells that lined either side. The owner stopped at the bottom of the stairs-his companion’s flesh shivering and rippling in the chill. It laughed softly, amused by its own body.
The figure left his side, still wearing the borrowed silk robe, blood dried and walked softly from one cell to another, occasionally stopping to pause and stare, sometimes the smile widening and cocking his head.
The owner remained where he was.
The cells were…attuned to his guest. Whatever he had picked up, whatever he had smelled or sensed on him, they sensed too. And it excited them. He excited them. The blood wasn’t completely dry on his hands, but nothing came close to the bars, either for fear or…respect perhaps. Something. Something that had never happened before…
He was beginning to regret the child ever coming in, but not so much. It was done now. The figure itself sniffed, sometimes touching the bars, the stone inquisitively, searching for something.
What he was searching for and what purpose was anyone’s guess.
The owner watched the smile fade somewhat for the first time--still there like a scratch, but without the spirit backing it. The figure stared into the depths of an empty cell, into the shadows, past the wall. The owner had an excellent view of his profile, the dip in his throat and reddish smudge on his jaw.
A long silence went by, everything watching the figure’s every move.
The owner continued to watch his face, the faint scent of lust and power still wafting off in the still air. He narrowed his eyes when the smile split in two, teeth still cheerfully pink. And felt the rush of power, like a rush of blood, come not from the figure but up from the stone floor and walls.
Anything could be turned into sand. Wood, plastic, steel-the difference lay, always, in the atomic and chemical bonds. How strong they were, how dense, how weak. It was merely a matter of splicing the bonds that say, held 50 square feet cubed of stone together, and allying them with something a bit more useful.
The floor shook. The bars rattled. Dust sprinkled down from the ceiling. Then there was the thunder of very thick stone cracking into a million pieces in every direction in a place made entirely of stone.
The red-haired young man seemed very pleased with himself.
The owner leaped for his face-spurred on by desire or fear or irrationality that was humanity-and he had the divine pleasure of gripping his head and crushing his skull. Shouts and clatters as things hit the bars raised the noise to a cacophony, the rumble underneath the earth providing a nice bass background as the acoustics of shouts and screams went frantic…
When the dust cleared, the steel bars had been worn down to many large well polished rocks-or very large grains of sand. Size was relative. Material was negligible.
Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
Everything returned to the desert bowl in its time.
The now-earth was still hot to the touch, from the spinning friction and sudden change that had leaped upon it like a cat, and appeared as a rather hurried, ugly crater.
The figure did not stand in the exact center, but off to one side. In the exact center, chained to the last remaining complete bit of bedrock stone, lay a scaled creature of uncertain color-maybe blue and maybe green and maybe black. Where the steel touched, the scales were gray, near white. Dust had settled over it, had settled over everything save the figure itself. There were old twin scars on either side of the spine, a bit of bone still showing through. The back legs were intact, taloned-many curved fangs lined the half-open mouth, chained to the floor just under the chin.
Liquid black sockets stared at him. Not afraid, but not in challenge either. Sockets that had been hit so many times by life that they weren’t going to stand up. Not even if they could. Not even the perfect opportunity came along.
The zeal was gone. The interest. It simply wasn’t worth the effort.
He had seen it before-he was usually the cause. He never cared about things like that.
It must have cost a fortune. And for what purpose? Food? Pleasure?
Probably pleasure. It’s what he would have done.
Humans had overrun the world. Vampires were made from humans. So were witches, wizards, werewolves, zombies, and the elves and wild folk had descended and interbred with humans enough to become a branch species. Most monsters were merely humans with the all the brakes off and a sharper pair of teeth and glowing eyes. Nothing more, nothing less.
Possession was not assimilation.
Unlike the Fox, the Nine Tails of the Green, Shukaku had not been the victim, the loser of a fight-merely bored, a little stupid, and easily amused by his human victim’s whims and tragedies. But he had never been caged, never been completely powerless-lazy, yes, disinterested, yes, but never…never changed.
He was a creature of Hell. Of magic wild and bloody.
He wasn’t even angry. He was, however, a little thoughtful as he stared. He paced closer.
The mind behind the black eyes had the potential to be as cruel and devious and arrogant as his own, had the potential to be a Problem, perhaps even a Rival in favorable circumstances. But here it was, chained, blind, and neutered by something far too human to have any sort of power.
The demons were cruel-animal spirits were vicious, would kill when it pleased and took what it wanted.
The significant difference, the bottom line that ultimately separated humans from demons was very, very simple.
Monsters never claimed to be better than they were. Illusions of that nature were neither affordable nor beneficial. They had never even tried. Humans liked to believe in things that were not there, for whatever reason, good and evil. They lived for them and worshipped them, and then they died. They always died.
The Demon of Earth came to a conclusion, and placed his bare foot on the draclings neck, below the collar, and stepped down. The body spasmed once, shoulder muscles arching and twitching though the wings were long gone. And it was done.
There were good eating there-rare meat and blood so rich it was like chocolate weighed down with gold. Good eating.
He had been away a long time. The world had changed. Just not very much.
He kept his hands clasped behind his back pensively, the arrow shot in warning exploding into a cloud several yards from his head. He wasn’t in the mood, and there were no more interruptions.
He stretched his jaw and moved his thumb-opposable thumb. The best things since wholesale murder. Or before. Something. Useful, anyway.
He put the joint between his teeth and began to bite down, right under the knuckle. The bone would give, and so would the flesh, and while his blood would heal it couldn’t regrow.
Protests banged against his skull like a fly against glass.
The body was human. He was not. It belonged to him in a very select, specific way, that meant he could drive it and trash it and crash it whenever he fucking felt like it. His power, his blood was the only thing still keeping it alive, really. It was worn, battered, and no longer worth the effort of maintaining.
He had never cared for anything else before in his life. He didn’t start now.
***
And somehow, you know, you’ve reached the end of your journey.
When you were a kid you used to think that life as a ninja would be something dashing and cool; even if it wasn’t, it seemed the only job for you. The only job that actually wanted your ‘tendencies’ and abilities, gave you the opportunity to grow. You could’ve become a billion things, but what you are now is what you knew, even as a kid, what you were cut out to be.
You should feel lucky-most people never find out what they were cut out to be or even who they were. You’re not sure about the other stuff-but you’re sure that a ninja is what you were cut out to be. It fits.
It’s not the life you thought it would be. It’s never that neat, never that perfect. A lot of times, it downright unfair. Inhumane, horrific, and cruel. Nobody really cares who you are because no one actually knows who you are-you make sure that they don’t. Security mechanism. Everything is about combat: defense, security, offense, arsenal. Everything is a fight, and you get tired. You’re at the end of your journey. And you’re the only one who knows it.
You feel old.
It feels terrible.
Pointless violence done for fake monetary value, and when you’re really down you start to think there is no such thing as a point-ful violence, but you don’t talk about that. Not much point, really.
The point is, that after everything is said and done, after the pieces have been picked up and put backed together, greased and polished until Ino’s smile can blind the unwary, that there’s nowhere to put them. There’s no real place to go. You’re in another territory. You’re still, as far as politics are concerned, in a state of war. So while you can maybe request amnesty and shelter of another village, there’s the possibility you’ll be refused as spies. Or that you’ll be received, and either drafted as one of their soldiers, or killed for the knowledge and abilities your bodies know.
Probably the latter. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect.
Ninja have never, ever, had a good reputation for showing mercy to their own, especially of other clans. Tolerance, yes, because that was polite in modern times, but not mercy. Besides, everyone thought Konoha would be the ones to win the Big Battle: No one’s wants fallen heroes. It makes you somewhat of a target, actually, as if it’s your fault you weren’t good enough to stave off something you still can’t see anyone defeating.
It’s not worth the risk. It’s just not.
You’re safer here on the fringe, dangling, and that’s something only Shikamaru and Hinata understand. You’ve got nowhere to go back to. You’ve got nowhere to go. You’ve can’t afford to move, not with the way Shikamaru and Lee are. You’re not the only group that survived the Fire, but contact is dangerous.
You survived, and you’re at the end of your journey. After everything you’ve seen, everything you’ve done, and everything you know and everyone you’ve ever loved from a distance and farther than that, this is it. This is the end.
It feels empty.
It feels cold.
…
It really, really feels half-baked.
Most of all, it feels quiet. Too quiet. There’s only the sound of your own mind and that of the former rookies: current chuunin and former gennin. Kids still. You find yourself wishing, sometimes, that Gai was there. Would’ve livened things up a bit. Would’ve understood what you meant when you didn‘t say what you mean.
It’s nothing they need to know. It doesn’t concern them. They’re young, and still thinking on tomorrow and five months and a couple years from now, still young enough to think like that. They can still think of a future. They can still imagine a future that’s better.
They’re young. It can’t be helped.
You’re old enough now to know that change isn’t impossible, but it isn’t that simple either. A million little things attack every effort at once like a plague of fleas, and they can’t all be scratched at once.
It’s not impossible, but it’s not simple.
Everyday that you wake up, eyes snapping open so quickly it hurts and the artificial Sharingan overwhelms your mind with information with a blinding smear of painful orange light and a gasp as your lungs struggle to clear themselves from the smoke, you remember that it’s not that simple. You thought you were over nightmares, a long time ago, and you were. They’re getting infrequent now. They aren’t nightmares: they’re memories. Memories of things you survived.
They wake you up, but they don’t frighten you. They only wake you up and make you remember.
What really bothers you though, is what you never talk about. You’ve already looked around, mindful, checked out the scenery and nearly everything seems too barren or too urban or too off. Nothing seems…accurate. Not for you.
You’re only 33, 34 years old.
But you know how things go. Ninja aren’t quite as human as everyone else, a little like police, a lot like samurai, hired out and not in complete control of destiny or choices and keenly aware of it. Biologically, you’re vastly different from the rest of society-the Byakugan is only one example of a zillion bloodline abilities.
You look around, feeling old and out of place and tired, but you can’t find any place good enough. This wasn’t where you planned to die. These weren’t the people you planned to die with-not when you were a kid and just starting out. Many of the people you wanted to die with are already dead though.
This is where your journey ends.
This is where you die.
This wasn’t what you had in mind.
***
Picture:
From an aerial view, a kid in his late teens was standing very still, looking dazed, while ribbons of dark brown circled his feet like vultures. There was a haze of beige dust hanging low over the woods, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He looked surprised, a little stupid, and didn’t look up-he kept his eyes forward.
A little while ago he had been attacked and caught off guard-unbelievable, but very clearly possible.
Black strips streaked through the air from different directions and for a second they seem to be only imaginary shadows, but then they slow down in the dust. Seven shuriken hung in midair like fruit in jelly, two feet from their target who still hadn’t moved, eyes forward and unfocused.
Then he vanished.
He didn’t run or dart away: he just wasn’t there anymore. There wasn’t a poof of smoke or even an afterimage of where he had been. There was a vague impression in the ground of his feet, but it was as if the boy simply stopped existing. The strands of dirt settled on the ground, and to the far left, out of view, was a thump and quick crackle of dry wood. There was a thud-metal embedding in wood-and another thump. There was a sound like paper shuffling, and then silence.
But by that time, Kakashi was already running.
***
He had to give them credit.
The Rain Ninja had always been clever-cunning secretive bastards, not necessarily powerful but deadly where they couldn’t be seen, and they were incredibly good at not being seen.
They had the wrong sort of attributes to be fighting something of a demon’s energy, even with a human mind driving the power. It was a mistake from the beginning-they hadn’t even waited to make sure the rain jutsu would support them.
Kakashi had heard about the offer, a single assassination for quite a sum of money. It wasn’t the money but the specifications that had caught his attention.
//So…found where the other one went.//
Sasuke had gone to Grass, and from the sound of things, was still there. There had been fires in Grass, unusual for the time of year, considering the weather and cold. Kakashi had surprised himself-he was actually a little hurt. He had knew it would come to that-even as kids, it was impossible to keep those two apart and impossible to keep the peace as well. But…you’d think Sasuke would’ve learned something by now. But apparently not.
And now there was the second one.
He had only really come to watch. Maybe learn something new, something useful, see if maybe the demon had some weakness to be exploited. He hadn’t come to fight-the Rain ninja would kill him if they found him. He had hidden himself a good distance off, where he couldn’t even see them properly and downwind. It was team of five-a good number, though for something this volatile Kakashi would have preferred something smaller. Three made up the main attack, the other two hung back as back-up and to retreat if the situation got too heated.
From his rough information, Kakashi assumed that perhaps one had gotten away, although now he was starting to rethink that theory for a very unsettling reason. Perhaps this time he had been too reckless.
As fast and silently as he was going, even with his bad leg, he was being followed. He couldn’t hear it, couldn’t be sure of it, but still…
***
Gaara tapped his finger against his arm irritably, twitching gently. He was haphazardly dressed in a stained shirt advertising a restaurant and loose jeans. He still had a full-blown battle going on with his hair. His eyes had changed the most though. Before they had just been hateful and insane-now they were hateful and insane and empty. He looked up at the tree, disappointed.
“This is what they send for me? It’s old…” he said the word with distaste.
He had been expecting Sasuke. He had wanted Sasuke.
He had not gotten what he wanted.
He had not shown mercy, but neither had he shown interest. He had other problems to worry about, and it wasn’t even Sasuke.
“Fucking hell…” he growled softly. “Well…you’ll do.”
“Will I?”
“You’ll have to.”
“Uh, what is it exactly I’m going to be doing for?”
“I need your blood. You’re old, but you’re big enough.”
“Well, that’s…nice. You’re going to drink it?”
“No, not me. But yes.”
“Vampires?”
“No. A wall.”
“Wall?”
“What? …It’s a wall,” Gaara stated, sounding almost sane if impatient. He had been feeling…jumpy lately. Perhaps he was getting nervous about dying, suddenly. Dying had never bothered him before, but now that it was about to happen he couldn’t wrap his mind about it. It was rather unsettling. He just felt skittish now; he had been blackly depressed before-maybe he was just getting used to being blackly depressed. “It eats blood.”
“Are you sure it doesn’t just dry?”
“No. It doesn’t dry; the wall eats it.” Gaara looked thoughtful suddenly. “Besides, you piss me off.”
Kakashi felt his blood pressure pound inside his veins as the sand began to squeeze…
“All right, all right. Fine…all right?” Kakashi called out annoyed but defeated.
//…defeated? You’re…surrendering? This is new. This hasn’t happened in a long while.//
Gaara was curious. He was tired. He was hungry. He had been hoping it would’ve been Temari…
He wasn’t sure why. He felt a little disappointed.
He wanted…he didn’t exactly want to see her but for some reason he’d…he’d just…thought maybe that she…
But then he had always been alone. He knew that.
The pressure eased off Kakashi‘s ribs--they felt like a soda can being stepped on. “I want to look at it. Let me down from here, I’ll look at it, and then we’ll come right back to where we were, okay?”
Gaara blinked. Everyone was screwing with him lately. That bastard actually dared to insult him now? Him? What the fuck? He stopped feeling like himself for a couple days and suddenly people thought he wasn’t him? He stopped feeling skittish. Now he just felt angry.
The sand snapped like a cat on his ribs.
Kakashi made a sound in his throat, and his mismatched eyes bulging slightly before closing. Blood dripped slowly from his mask. He coughed.
“Ow. Well. Can I at least see the wall?”
“Noooo… You’ll run away.” Gaara shifted his weight and rubbed his arms--when was the last time he had eaten? Real food, not stuff that somehow wound up in his stomach that he vomited up later on? When, exactly?
Kakashi seemed to find the prospect amusing--perhaps he laughed, or perhaps he only choked on bodily fluids. “If you really want to kill me, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. You being you and all…And your mind is obviously made up.”
Gaara blinked, slowly, like a lizard. He shifted his weight, deliberately, from one foot to the other. He was still hungry. Kakashi refused to perspire.
“Why should I?”
“Because you‘re bored?”
Gaara tilted his head. He didn’t even smile. Moved his hand gently and Kakashi gasped out on his last breath. The blood dripped from the mask rapidly now.
It was what he gasped that made Gaara hesitate. He had heard plenty of pleas for mercy in his time, more threats on his life and even more curses that were often accurate and truthful. But he hadn’t heard that word that Kakashi gasped out in a while. Not even he said it anymore. There was no point, no reason. Naruto hadn’t said it real often…only when he felt like it or forgot.
No one else knew it.
It was a bit like the ceiling-he could see it, but it didn’t belong to him. He had no claim over it but it defined the space around him. It defined him but he didn’t own it or even have influence over it. It wasn’t…
It wasn’t fair.
A lot of things weren’t fair.
He felt his heart spasm through the sand, the vibrations tapping against his chakra that was laced in the sand. Thoughtlessly, Gaara loosened the pressure. Kakashi coughed, and inhaled wetly.
Strange green eyes filmed over with blue and rimmed thickly with black stared at the older figure now breathing quicker but easier now, his strangely matched eyes staring down at him tiredly. He sounded bored.
“You…trained him, didn’t you?”
Kakashi didn’t hesitate--he wasn’t sure which him Gaara was talking about, since he had only ever had one team under him, but that was no excuse to hesitate--when in doubt, lie, lie, lie and do it _well_.
“…I taught him some. Not everything…. I never taught him to kill.” And that applied to all three of his former students. Not that. He had taught them to fight and survive, but not to kill.
“And Sasuke…and the other one. The dead one.”
Kakashi was old, Gaara realized. Not old as in years, but old as in experience. He had seen Naruto grow up, and Gaara vaguely remembered him bringing in Sasuke to the Chuunin exams incredibly late. He hadn’t paid too much attention to him; he was more interested in the Uchiha’s blood. He still was. He got stuck with the old guy instead.
“I killed her. He didn’t tell you that.”
To Gaara’s surprise, Kakashi’s eyes didn’t reflect emotion. None. He looked tired with bruised bones and nearly broken leg. But no emotion. Perhaps he had known. Perhaps he didn’t care. Gaara wouldn’t have cared if it had been him. But he had expected something. Whatever. It didn’t matter. Few things really mattered, because few things really lasted.
In fact, Gaara was starting to think that nothing mattered, because nothing lasted. The sand lasted-the bones and bodies of things broken down to smaller matter. Small, small tiny matter that did big things when grouped together. Nothing mattered.
“I could kill you.”
“You could,” Kakashi admitted. “But why? Really. What good is would it do? One more among millions…”
“It’ll shut the wall up. It’ll shut your mouth. You would kill me.”
Kakashi didn‘t deny it--what would be the point? Not even he was that good a liar. “I won’t try--what would be the point? You can sense my chakra and you know what you’ve done to my body--I’m no threat to you.”
And…it was something of a gamble, but Kakashi stated deliberately, “Not like this.”
“You’re stalling.” //And still talking. That hurts; your lungs should hurt.//
“Yes,” Kakashi answered honestly only after hesitating a little.
Gaara sniffed. “Don’t tell me, let me guess: You don’t want to die.”
“That’s absolutely right! I don’t. It’s this sort of thing.”
Gaara allowed tiny hints of a scowl develop around his eyes and mouth. “If you aren‘t ready to die, you have no right to kill. You‘re no warrior. You‘re nothing.”
“No--I’m a ninja. It’s not fair. It’s stupid, in fact.” Gaara said nothing. He didn’t even move or remove the very faint traces of the scowl. He waited, and watched. Kakashi did not disappoint. “Shinobi have our own code--I never claimed to be a warrior. Killing is human--what should and shouldn‘t be done isn‘t always what happens.”
Gaara said nothing. He should kill him. By rights, he really should. Because he _could_. Because he was preaching at him, and that was irritating, and not his place. It would shut him up--he had trained him and Sasuke. He deserved it. He wasn‘t a threat, not even remotely (and that was not exactly true but Gaara was not thinking logically and Kakashi knew that) but he was annoying. Extremely. Because. He knew…he had known Naruto when he was young and still him. But he…he still knew that word. That single word. It was dangerous and tempting and dangerous because it was tempting.
“You’re lying.”
Kakashi shrugged even though his arms were squished. “No, but I can’t make you believe me.” He looked away briefly, squinting at the early afternoon sun. “I won’t hurt you.”
“You couldn’t anyway.”
“Well, yeah, but I’m surrendering is what I mean to say. I won’t try.”
“Why should I care?”
Despite himself, despite his training, Kakashi did hesitate momentarily. “Because I want to talk to you.”
“You just want to live.”
“Well, that too. But I can‘t kill you, so we should talk instead.”
“Why?”
“Because violence doesn’t solve everything.”
“Yes it does.”
“It solves most things. But not everything.”
“What if I don’t want to talk to you?”
“I’d say you were lying.”
The sand tightened around his ribs, a heavy ugly weight on his stomach and hurt his elbows so badly Kakashi was sure they were being dislocated out of their joints. They weren’t, because he knew how that felt and even though this was damn painful it wasn’t that. Still, his gaze didn’t waver.
He was looking for reactions. It was a test. It would have an end, but it all depended on how he passed.
Kakashi said that word again, the one that had made Gaara spare his life. The special word. The old one.
“Gaara…”
The sand dropped him distressingly fast, so fast that he barely had time to register his free arms and legs because the ground was rushing up alarmingly quick. He landed on his feet and cursed his ankles when the pain lanced up his legs, accumulating at his knees and his left hip, his breathing seeming too much for his lungs to accommodate, crumpling a little on the ground.
From the moment he touched ground, even before that, he kept his eyes on the red sneakers. He hadn’t moved from where Kakashi left him, and the pain thankfully kept him for automatically going for a weapon. That would be a mistake. The pain was actually so intense that he suspected he had some internal bleeding. Fairly certain.
When he did manage to stand up gingerly, muscles and bones and other assorted organs screaming in protest because his body really wanted to pass out unconscious right then, he found Gaara ignoring him effectively as he inspected one of his knives. The sand was banked in a wide circle around them inoffensively. Kakashi eyed it as one eyes a wolf. Slowly, painfully, he managed to make his way over to the redhead who was examining his knife entranced.
Gaara ignored him pointedly until he was a foot away, the sound of his breathing more-than-comfortably loud. Green eyes blinked innocently, almost childlike and unsuspecting as he looked up at him, and without a word he extended the knife, holding it out handle-first.
Kakashi was free, the sand was at a distance, and now he was going to be armed. Behind the pale mask, something in Gaara grinned expectantly. The shinobi was old, true, but he was fast. If he went in to stab him, Gaara would see it, but maybe he wouldn’t able to dodge out of the way or call the sand fast enough. The good thing was that whatever he did to him wouldn’t be enough to kill him. But maybe it’d be enough to hurt him…
Gaara smiled invisibly. Not widely, but a small half-dead smile at the corner of his lips.
Long bruised fingers grabbed the handle after looking from it to Gaara, and he felt the blade run between his finger pads like silk. If Kakashi had been looking up, he would have seen eyes widen with surprise when he shoved the weapon into its holster without a thought. He pulled his headband down over his left eye, warding the Sharingan. He hid the wince--one day, the eye would kill him.
He straightened and looked him in the eye without blinking, rotating one aching shoulder in its joint absently. “So…”
Alarmingly bright but strangely empty green eyes stared at him, as if waiting for the next attack, the next trick. Kakashi popped some chewing gum into his mouth, and then offered the packet-doing it without removing his mask. He was faster than he looked.
Gaara turned around and started walking without a second thought, Kakashi following a few steps behind and the sand trailing alongside of them and behind through the bushes and grass with a faint rustling sound, like a million of ants out on parade.
And thus they proceeded to the wall.
***
It should have come as no surprise that Gaara walked too quickly on purpose. Kakashi was straining for breath when he dropped from the tree, walked with a slight limp on his left side at the best of times, and currently felt like a lawnmower had run over his legs and just about everything else. He had bone fractures in his legs, at least two of them below the knee in his right leg. Regardless, he kept pace. The sand was right behind him.
He had slipped in a few painkillers in along with the bubblegum, but whatever they were doing he was barely feeling. If he dropped, Gaara would kill him. If he suddenly became uninteresting or incoherent, Gaara would kill him. If he strayed too close to the red sneakers or strayed too far away, Gaara would kill him.
He was walking with a known killer-not just a murderer, not just a criminal, because they did what they did with some reason, be it temporary insanity or stupid hate or simple greed-but someone who’d kill him simply because he was alive and not yet dead. He’d do it simply because the opportunity was there.
A very simple character to understand, Gaara seemed.
Chapter Continued Here