Gatekeep
Muichiro's head throbbed.
Muichiro's everything throbbed.
Kind of expected, to be honest. Considering the whole "violently dismembered by my apparent ancestor, who also happened to be upper moon 1" thing.
Haa... he'd thought that death would make the pain go away, but apparently not.
'Brother, hurry up and come find me quickly... I want to hold your hand when we go to heaven together.'
Still, the pain did not lessen. If anything, it got worse. The sharp discomfort of twigs and rocky ground pressing uncomfortably into his burning skin through his tattered uniform.
...Had they been fighting outdoors...?
No, no, that wasn't right.
Muichiro let out a pained groan as he felt something light land on top of his aching head. A too loud chirp making his ears ring somehow even more than they had before.
"Leave me alone," He moaned, voice rasping. "I'm trying to be dead in peace."
The bird chirped again, before the scrape of little claws and a beat of wings against his hair sent it fluttering off.
Muichiro may or may not have let out a little whimper.
His hand twitched against the dry leaves of the forest floor, and very distantly he realized it was the one that Kokushibo had cut off. A distinct burning sensation still wrapped around his wrist, where his vile ancestor had so ruthlessly separated it.
It was kind of god, to give him his hand back in death, but oddly sadistic for him to allow it to still hurt.
Kamisama, you are an awfully cruel being. Had Muichiro not suffered enough already? He thought death was supposed to be a relief.
The bird was back again now, it's chirps just as annoying as before, and Muichiro was starting to get the idea that he may not be dead after all.
Which meant he wasn't allowed to just lay here. Not when his comrades would still be out there, fighting and dying at Muzan's hand.
So long as Muichiro's heart still beat, his every breath would be spent working to see That Man's death.
It was a struggle to sit up, and somehow even harder to open his eyes; which were heavy and strained from exhaustion and his use of transparent world. It seemed that using such a powerful new technique for so long had done a bit of damage, but his swimming vision and aching head might also have been quite literally any of the other head injuries he'd received in the fight.
His limbs, inexplicably reattached, but still aching with the phantom sensations of having been so cleanly removed from his body, trembled with the effort it took to raise his head. And when he did—
Sunlight.
Muichiro gaped blankly up at the unfamiliar forest he found himself in. Filled with trees painted in colors of autumn, (but hadn't it been spring, when night had last fallen?) taller than any he could remember ever seeing. Not that it meant much, with his poor memory.
But very notably, through those golden leaves streamed sunlight.
Warm and welcoming against the otherwise cold forest, marking either tremendous victory or terrible loss.
It was over. But had they won?
Muichiro stumbled to his feet, unable to help the hiss of pain that left him as his midsection revolted against the movement with a terrible burn.
He winced, clutching at his stomach, but ultimately ignored it.
Ignored too, the fact that he could remember being sliced clean in half, dismembered three times over even as he persisted in battle, and that it did not make sense for him to be standing now.
Push past the pain, focus Muichiro, focus. This wasn't over till Muzan Kibutsuji was dead.
Muichiro chose a direction, and began to run.
Izumo yawned.
Gate guarding duty was, as ever, painfully boring.
On a good day, they'd at least get a traveling merchant or two. But with fall officially having arrived and the threat of snow to come, the stream of civilians who made up most of Konoha's visitors had slowed down to a near crawl. No sane civilian would want to even risk being caught up in the snow, and very few could afford the shinobi escort needed to make the risk of getting stuck out on the road manageable.
"Hey, Shisui!"
Izumo jolted upright out of his slouch as Kotetsu called out beside him. Shisui's familiar laugh danced over along with the boy, one of his crows riding on his shoulder.
"Gate duty again?" He teased, and Izumo sighed.
"As always."
"Could be worse, could be a busy day." Kotetsu joked, and Izumo groaned.
"At least then we'd get to actually do something."
Shisui laughed again, the cheerful bastard. Easy enough for him to do, when he hasn't ever had the hell of pure boredom that was near-winter Konoha gate duty.
At least it wasn't too cold yet. Nothing was worse than being bored and cold.
"Heading out on a mission then?"
"Ehh, not really. Guess I just wanted to get some fresh air, figured I might as well say hi." Shisui rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly, then tacked on, seemingly without much thought, "Konoha's been feeling a bit stifling lately I guess."
"Ah," Kotetsu understood, and nodded sagely. "girl problems."
"Huh? No, I—"
"Figures," Izumo chimed in, interrupting Shisui with his own overly loud sigh. "not even the famous Shunshin no Shisui can escape the wrath of a woman scorned."
"A woman scorned!? There is no woman scorned—"
"Aww, our little playboy, all grown up." Kotetsu cooed, and Izumo joined in with laughter.
Adorably, the crow on Shisui's shoulder puffed up with its ruffled master, seeming offended on Shisui's behalf.
"If I start hearing rumors , I know who I'm gonna be blaming." Shisui mock threatened, then paused. Tilting his head towards the tree line as a frown tugged at his lips.
"Hey, do you guys hear—?"
A figure barreled out of the forest.
Instantly, all three of them were on guard.
The figure was small, running fast enough to kick up an impressive storm of dust as they shot straight for them, barely giving any of them enough time to think, let alone react.
They flagged as they neared, falling out of their dead sprint. Even as all three of the young men at the gate recognized them as a kid, none of them relaxed.
Because, as they drew closer, it became obvious that they were a kid. Young, genin aged young. Which made Izumo falter before he remembered that it was freaks (lovingly said) like Shisui and Hatake that made it impossible to judge a kid on their danger level based on age alone.
More alarmingly, they were covered in blood and visibly out of it.
They wore some sort of uniform, though it was in tatters. Chopped off around the waist like someone had tried to saw them in half. A mess of blood and gore was visible through the torn fabric in flashes, making it look like they may have partially succeeded in that attempt.
Dried blood speckled their lips and stained their chin; Like they'd been hacking up the amounts of blood you only get from some serious internal wounds.
They looked like they'd just come off of the sort of battlefields Izumo still saw flashes of in his nightmares, from the very peak of the 2nd war. Things he'd seen too young, that had helped to convince him the life of a village bound shinobi was more his style.
All he was missing was a few dismembered limbs, and he'd be fit to star in more than a few of his worse nightmares as an extra.
Had there been a battle nearby? Was this a survivor? How could the patrols have missed it? The kid wore some sort of uniform, but nothing Izumo could recognize, and most importantly, no sign of Konoha allegiance.
The kid stumbled to a stop, heaving breaths in an odd, rasping pattern. Izumo tensed as they reached out—
Passing right by Izumo and Kotetsu both and latching on to Shisui.
Shisui allowed it to happen, watching in confused alarm as blood-stained hands wrapped themselves in his shirt, the kid falling to their knees and begging with a horrible, frantic look in their eyes.
"-In? Did we win? Is he—?!" Their— his , it was unmistakably the voice of a young boy—voice was cracked and raspy, bloodied teeth flashing red as he pleaded for an answer none of the men present had any context to.
"Woah, slow down there." Shisui tried, not unkind, but a familiar, careful gleam in his eyes.
He gave a barely-there nod towards his crow, and it took off— flying straight for the Hokage's tower.
The boy tracked the crow's departure with glassy eyes for a split second, before locking back on to Shisui's face.
"Did we win? Is he— Is that man dead?"
Shisui didn't hesitate, careful hands coming to wrap in the boy's own— keeping them still, preventing possible hand signs from being used —in a comforting gesture. Blood passed from pale hands to his own, staining his skin red, but Shisui paid it no mind.
"That's right, he's dead. We won." He placated, and the boy collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
For a moment, Izumo worried he had died on the spot. But then soft sobs reached his ears.
Shisui, still with his hands gently wrapped up in the boys, crouched to be on his level.
"That's right, it's over now." He soothed. "I'm glad you're ok, can you tell me what happened?"
The boy ignored him, shaking so hard that Izumo could see it from 5 steps away. Be it from pure relief or just his violent tears, he did not know.
This was... kind of uncomfortable, to be honest. A lot comfortable, actually.
"Muzan Kibutsuji, may you rot in hell." The boy wheezed out, hate and overwhelming, undeniable victory making his voice impressively strong.
The venom filling his voice was enough to send a shiver down Izumo's spine. A stark contrast to his broken, panicked cries not even seconds before.
Then, the kid passed out.
Just went ahead and fell the rest of the way down, limp and bloody onto the dirt road. Not an ounce of strength left in him to keep fighting for wakefulness.
For a moment, they all just stared at the boy where he'd collapsed on to the ground.
Splayed out like this, Izumo could now see that the back of the boy's ragged uniform was decorated with big, bold kanji. Though it was tattered and bloodied, that was not enough to mistake it for anything other than the kanji for 'extermination.'
The chill creeping up Izumo's spine did not abate at the recognition.
After a beat, Shisui snapped to.
"Kotetsu, report to the Hokage's office on what happened here." Shisui ordered, every inch the Jonin he was. Kotetsu nodded once, sharply, and immediately took off.
"Izumo, stay here in case anyone else arrives. I'm taking him to the hospital, I'm sure the Hokage will send reinforcements shortly."
"Shit— I mean, yessir."
Izumo swallowed, eyeing the forest which suddenly seemed a lot more ominous than it had moments before.
"Muzan Kibutsuji, I've never heard that name before. Did you really recognize it...?"
"Nope." Shisui grimaced, tucking the injured boy onto his back, careful not to jostle whatever wounds he was hiding under his shredded clothes. "With any luck though, he really is dead. Less mess for us, right?"
"Right." Izumo nodded. Less mess was great! He loved less messes!
With that, Shisui sped off, leaving Izumo alone.
Just... him and the forest.
Great.
Awesome.
Fuck, that was the last time he ever complained about a slow day again.
Words floated to Muichuro's ears like shiny little bubbles of sound. Pretty to look at, impossible to understand.
"—iracle, someone reattached—"
"—clearly cut clean through, but—"
"—ot a drop of chakra, it's unnatural—"
"—unfamiliar, the Hokage requested—"
He woke only once, to the blurry face of a dark haired woman in white. If she was startled to see him awake, she didn't show it, quick to edge closer with soothing words
"It 'urts." He moaned, and she paused before gently smoothing back his hair.
"Shhh, I'm sorry sweetheart. We'll up the dosage, ok?"
...Oh, had they been giving something for the pain?
"S'rry, Shinobu." He mumbled and adjusted his breathing. Coming out of such a fierce battle, so instinctively attuned to automatically try and circulate anything out of his bloodstream, it took more than a bit of conscious effort to do.
Shinobu hummed, brushing away his apology with quiet reassurance. Muichiro squinted at her, eyes refusing to focus on her hazy figure. There was something off about her, but he couldn't put his finger on what. Finally, he thought he had it.
Though his mouth felt like it was filled with cotton, he still managed to slur out a question. "Did Muz'n take y'r b'tterflies?"
Shinobu must have said something back, but whatever it was, Muichiro couldn't make heads or tails of it. But the slow, soothing movement on her hand on his head didn't stop, so it was probably fine.
"Jackass." He grumbled with a dark scowl, and the hand gave a little twitch.
No longer instinctively working to suppress the effects of whatever drug Shinobu had given to him with his breathing technique, Muichiro was starting to feel a heavy daze slowly creeping up his body.
He wiggled his toes, marveling at how odd they felt, his skin feeling like it was buzzing dully against the sheets.
Again, distantly, he registered something odd about his surroundings. There was a lack of... something.
What was missing? He strained to remember, it was on the tip of his tongue— But before he could figure it out, he was out like a light.
(When he dreamed, it was accompanied by the half-remembered smell of wisteria blooms)
Shisui stood before the Hokage's desk, head bowed.
Sarutobi tapped his finger against the surface of his desk rhythmically, deep in thought.
"The doctor's evaluation?"
"Somewhere from 12 to 14, Hokage-sama. He has calluses and scars that indicate training with some sort of blade, but nothing specific to shinobi. No kunai or shuriken training scars to speak of. Other than the uhh... dismemberment scars, he's mostly unmarked all together, and none of the ones he has are very old."
The doctors were still clueless on how the fuck his limbs had been reattached, and so seamlessly, too. There was clear evidence of the reattachment, scars that sliced bone deep, but not a single issue had arised from it so far.
"If he can wield a blade, he can't have been training for more than 4 years. Not a drop of chakra in him either, not even the base levels everyone should have. Possibly the result of some sort of illness or genetic condition of some kind, they don't know. But he's physically incapable of so much as circling his chakra, has none to circle to begin with."
Terrifying, in Shisui's opinion. He could never imagine living a life so empty. Even civilians had some levels of chakra, even if they didn't know how to use it. Even cows did.
"He's woken only once. The nurse said he complained about the pain, apologized to someone, said something nonsensical about butterflies, cursed Muzan's name, and then fell back asleep."
Shisui hesitated, knowing it was no doubt biased of the nurse, but tacked it on anyway. "She said he seemed sweet, mistook her for someone named Shinobu when he apologized."
The Hokage hummed, glancing down at where he had Izumo, Kotetsu and Shisui's summarized reports laid out on his desk.
Besides them were more papers— things on the boy's health, Shisui was sure. No doubt photos as well, both of the boy but also the strange, bloodied uniform that had been carried off to evidence.
Sarutobi's eyes lingered on the name all three of the shinobi present at the boy's grand entrance had done their best to spell.
"Muzan Kibutsuji... Not a name I've heard before." The Hokage sighed, stopping his desk tapping and folding his hands.
"And in your own, professional opinion?"
"Even if he's not trained in ninjutsu, he's fast. Even injured, I could barely keep my eyes on him when he ran towards us. Then again, I wasn't using my sharingan and it could have been adrenaline. And he wasn't violent, just..."
Scared wasn't quite the right word here.
"Panicked."
"He singled me out immediately, I don't know why. Didn't so much as look at Kotetsu and Izumo, went straight for me and started begging. He seemed to think I was one of— whatever organization he's presumably part of."
Shisui grimaced. "Possibly an extermination squad of some kind, going by the uniforms back."
An awful, unsettling thought. Extermination meant there was something to be exterminated. Konoha did not need any of the implications tied to the existence of any sort of extermination anything.
"I don't know this Muzan, but I'm guessing that he was their main goal. As soon as he got to me, he was asking if they had 'got him.' The kid hates him, you could tell. Blood feud, 'killed my entire family' sort of hate. When he cursed his name..."
Shisui shook his head, and reiterated. "You could just tell. As soon as I told him he was dead, he just dropped . Pure relief, you could see his injuries catching up to him in the instant."
"Any opinions on his possible skill?" The Hokage prodded, and Shisui had to take a second to think it over.
"Like I said, fast. I can't say anything concrete, I really only saw him awake for just barely a minute. I do agree with what the doctors said about his training, he has the hands and muscle of a sword user. The callouses..."
Shisui angled his hands, picturing the way they'd lined up on the boy's own palms and trying to imagine how they might align to the position of holding whatever his chosen blade might be.
"...Maybe a katana?"
"A Samurai's weapon..." The Hokage mused aloud, motioning for Shisui to continue.
"Took a peek into the operating room, and it's like they said. Not a lot of scars, those he does have are few and pretty fresh. Looking at his hands too, he has the calluses, but not too much build up. Muscled like you wouldn't believe though, but I'm giving him a solid 3 years of training, tops.
Shisui frowned, considering. "He could be some sort of prodigy, especially if they let him out on some sort of serious battlefield, but the odds are he's middling level of whatever organization he's part of.
The uniform is well made but the design looks like the sort of simple, mass produced thing you'd see from that sort of rank. Considering the long hair... Well, I doubt it's a mark of skill at his age. So either he's cocky, values his appearance over the risk of long hair in battle, or is kept away from battle enough for it to not matter.
Oh— and no sword belt either, so either he lost it or went out without his weapon and was ambushed."
The Hokage hummed, and then nodded. "Good."
Shisui jolted a little, surprised. "Um, good? Hokage-sama...?"
"I agree with you." The Hokage waved a hand. "Bear."
In an instant, a hulking ANBU agent in a bear mask was standing before the Hokage besides Shisui.
"Watch the boy, alert me when he wakes."
"Only one guard, Hokage-sama?"
"One guard for one chakraless boy," The Hokage smiled. "Quite possibly more than he'll need anyways. I worry for the trouble he might signify coming our way, but I doubt the boy himself will be much of a problem for us."
Huh... If you say so, Hokage-sama.
The curly haired demon slayer was back.
Muichiro tried to better open his eyes to greet him but found that they were too sticky to do so.
Instead, he was stuck squinting blearily through his eyelashes as —judging by the sound of turning paper— the demon slayer lazily flipped through pages of a book.
After a moment, Muichiro gave up on trying to get a look at him. He didn't really want to have a conversation anyways. His head was all pleasantly fuzzy and his bed was so nice and warm. He should just... lay here and appreciate it.
Muichiro faded out for a little while, falling to the pleasant buzz of his mind, the sound of flipping pages offering a nice, soothing background. When he finally tuned back into the world around him, it was because of a deep, rather unfriendly sounding voice.
The demon slayer was talking to someone. He sounded stressed, though Muichiro's ears seemed to be working overtime in their refusal to not let him understand what they were saying.
Whatever. It was none of his business anyways, so he really probably wouldn't care even if it was.
Ugh, the deep voice guy should go somewhere else if he wants to threaten someone though. Muichiro didn't need to be able to make out what they were saying to be put off by his ominous tone of voice.
Annoying.
It was night when Muichiro finally awoke— this time much more thoroughly than all the previous.
He sat up slowly, a hand coming up to the railing on his bedside to steady himself as he wobbled.
He felt fine. Great, actually, but off balance. His head filled with cotton and limbs humming with a soothing, dull buzz.
The butterfly girls had given him the good stuff this time, huh?
His eyes lingered on where his hand— a hand he should not have had —rested on the cool metal railing of his bedside.
A metal bed...? How odd.
He blinked, looking around the room he found himself in curiously. The resting room of the butterfly estate looked so strange... his memory must be playing tricks on him again.
Again, he turned to his hand. Someone had wrapped a bandage around one of his wrists, which he plucked at, unraveling it without care.
(Distantly, outside his window, he registered the presence of a person as they fell out of the trees without a single sound, and left to go inform someone of his awakening. Not that Muichuro knew or cared about that last bit.)
Muichiro lifted up both of his wrists, eyeing them curiously.
His pale skin shone in the moonlight, one wrist bare and the other marred by a thin, perfectly straight red line where Kokushibo had severed his hand. It was still fresh, red and angry. But now looked more like a shallow cut than the devastating, clean through slice it had most definitely been before.
Though his memory remained faulty, there was no chance that Muichiro would ever forget the devastating fight with upper moon 1.
Even through the thick haze of drugs that wrapped his mind, he could still remember the pure, terrifying pressure the man had exuded. It had been like nothing he'd ever known before, an unfathomable killing intent so heavy that, if he focused, he could still feel resonating though his very bones.
Muichiro blinked away the unsettling memories of Kokushibo's aura. He returned his hands, turning them as bleary eyes following along the red line as it circled his wrist.
Dropping his hands to his lap, he peered down curiously at the hospital gown he'd been dressed in, patting at his stomach where he felt more bandages wrapping around his torso. No doubt where another, identical cut looped around his stomach, where it should have split him clean in half instead.
The clothes too, were unfamiliar to him. It wasn't the usual clothes that the butterfly girls dressed their patients in, he was reasonably sure.
Muichiro plucked at his short sleeved, open back gown, squinting at the shorts someone had put him in. He remembered there being long sleeves and proper pants involved in the usual medical outfit, wasn't that right? Or could his memory be playing tricks on him again?
...Maybe he wasn't at the butterfly estate?
Only half aware of what he was doing, Muichiro found himself absentmindedly slipping out of his bed.
Shinobu didn't like it when he wandered while injured... but, awake for all of 2 minutes, and he was already feeling the itch to go and do something. Though what, he didn't know.
His hand instinctively want to his side, grasping for a familiar weight that wasn't there.
Ah. His sword.
Had he... Hm...
He'd been in a forest, wasn't that right? The memory came back to him in fragments of sensation more than anything— warm sun, cold forest floor, panic and alarm and determination .
He must have dropped his sword in the forest.
...The swordsmith would be annoying if he lost it.
Mind still foggy and quite honestly feeling as if he were still half asleep, Muichiro made for the window. It didn't seem to want to open, staying firmly closed despite the fact that Muichiro could see no latch.
Without really thinking too much about how rude he was about to be, Muichiro settled for forcing it open. Easier said than done, as it was surprisingly sturdy when he tried simply slamming it open with brute strength.
Huh. Muichiro blinked at the simple looking window frame, then shrugged, and tried harder.
Finally, the window opened with a shudder and a crack , along with a weird emission of... smoke? For a second, Muichiro thought he smelled burnt ink.
Whatever.
Still feeling like his brain was swimming in cotton, Muichiro leapt out from the window, and into the unfamiliar cityscape below— only to find himself in free fall.
Ah.
He was higher than he'd thought he was. Maybe he should have looked before he leapt.
Forced to twist in the air to avoid falling to the pavement some stories below, Muichiro fell into a tree just below his window.
He braced himself on a branch before he leapt off again, finding himself slightly off balance. He wobbled for a moment, arms outstretched as he awkwardly tried to find his footing. After a moment to catch himself, he crouched to gain some momentum and then leapt, aiming for another tree.
Another bit of an awkward catch, though less so than the first. He felt like he was remembering how to use his legs properly.
His third jump was much better, nearly seamless as he landed on a rooftop.
By his fourth leap, aiming higher up onto another roof, he felt in control of himself once again.
Huh. They were in a real city, albeit not one of the larger, more advanced ones, with their trains and automobiles.
Had it been easier for the demon slayer corps to set up here, instead of heading back home? Muichiro didn't really care, as in the short time he spent sluggishly puzzling over it, he'd spotted a vaguely familiar gate way off in the distance.
He zipped over, leaping from roof to roof without much thought for the noise he was making in his rather careless run. Though after a man stuck his head out of his window to shake his fist and shout at him to get his "damn shinobi ass" off his rooftop, he made an effort to keep his steps light.
Muichiro closed his eyes, enjoying the way the wind whipped against his face with each leap he took.
The city was unfamiliar, but nice. Though the fact that Muichiro was more than a little high probably helped his enjoyment.
It didn't take him long to reach the gate at his speed, and he slowed a fraction to get a better look at it as he grew closer. He'd come through here earlier, hadn't he? So, this was the right direction to go if he was retracing his steps. Probably.
Muichiro didn't bother with the gates themselves, hopping over the wall without issue on partially numb legs. Judging by the lack of reaction from the figures at the gate, he'd gone by unnoticed.
If they were guards, they were pretty bad at their job.
Muichiro slowed to a walk as he entered the forest, peering up at the trees with dazed, half lidded eyes. They were big, really, really big— with oddly shaped leaves the boy had never seen before.
The fact that the leaves were orange felt strange to him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why.
Muichiro bent to pick up a leaf as he walked, twirling it absently and admiring the different subtle shades of yellow it was colored.
He paused to hold it up to the moon, blinking slowly at the gold-tinted shadow it cast.
Um. What was he doing again?
Muichuro dropped the leaf, watching it float down to the forest floor as he attempted to remember. Absently, he brought his hand to rest on the hilt of his—
Oh, right, his sword.
It took him surprisingly little time to find the place he'd lost his blade, perhaps helped by his natural affinity to wander.
It lay mostly hidden by fallen leaves, and just a few paces away, so was his belt and sheath.
That was convenient for him.
Muichuro picked up the sword first, then glanced at his belt. It had been sliced through along with his torso earlier, but seemed fine now. Just like its owner.
Muichiro ran his hand along the leather, finding a deep groove scarred into it. Just like his limbs, it had been sewn back together by some invisible power.
How strange.
Muichiro buckled it back around his waist, sheathing his sword. His hand fell into place on the familiar hilt of his blade, and though his mind remained just as cloudy, he felt... settled, in a way he hadn't before.
He turned to make his way back to... wherever it was he most likely came from, then stopped.
...Which way had he come from again?
Hmmm.
Muichiro crouched and picked up a stick. Placing the tip of it onto the forest floor as he held its other end in the air.
He gazed at it for a long moment, then let it fall. After another slow second, he looked in the direction it was pointing, stood up, and began to walk.
This walk was somehow even nicer than the one that had taken him here, the pleasant buzz of his mind and the familiar weight of the sword at his side almost enough for a smile to rise to his face.
And why shouldn't he smile, when they had won?
Muichiro breathed in deeply, basking in the smell of the forest, and the knowledge that they had done it.
Tomorrow he would find the others, learn who had fallen. He would pay his respects, and together they would mourn.
(Tomorrow he would find Shinazugawa, and speak with him of how brave his brother had been)
But tonight?
Victory.
The thought of it alone brought a near delirious smile to his face, tipped back to absorb the moonlight as he walked through the trees.
Brother, I did it. Are you proud of me?
Muichiro's walk came to a pause as he heard a clamor up ahead. He turned to the noise curiously, identifying the familiar sound of panicked running— two pairs of feet, one much heavier than the other.
Haa, really? A frown rose to his face, and the boy altered the direction of his walk.
It was good he did too, as with a few short, powerful bounds, he was greeted with a bloody scene.
It was the curly haired demon slayer from earlier, one eye shut and hollowed, his face covered in blood. He was edging towards the cliff at his back, a tall man reaching for him with a terrible smile.
No, not a man—
A demon.
Shisui was going to die.
He always knew he would. It was a fact of life, doubly so if you were a shinobi. But he had been hopeful he'd at least last to his 20's. And in the many morbid, idle thoughts he'd had of how he might die, he'd never dreamed of it ending like this.
Running like a rat caught in a trap, one eye down and with the crushing knowledge that he had failed . Failed his village, failed his clan, failed Itachi .
But even having fallen so low, he refused to fail further, refused to fall victim to the fate every Uchiha was born fearing— eye theft.
Eye theft to one of their apparent greatest enemies, though he hadn't even realized it before. Danzo had played him and won, there was no doubt about it. But Shisui would not let him take his eye as his prize—!
His back to the cliff, Danzo bearing down on him with terrible, mismatched eyes, Shisui knew what he had to do.
I'm sorry Itachi, please forgive me for leaving you behind like this.
Shisui took a step back, Danzo reaching out greedily for his face, chakra channeled to his hand to make it strong and steady enough to rip Shisui's one remaining eye from his skull with ease.
Shisui braced himself to leap, and—
A flash of light.
The smell of cool mist.
The sharp shiinng of a blade accompanied by a simultaneous sickening, wet thump .
It all happened so fast, Shisui's mind refused to process it. One second he was coming to peace with killing himself, the next, a boy stood in front of him, sword drawn.
(And paces away, the greedy hand that had been reaching out for Shisui lay on the grass in a pool of blood, sliced clean off.)
Danzo howled. In surprise, in pain, in pure, unadulterated fury.
The boy did not react to his screams, standing tall between Shisui and Danzo, his hospital gown billowing in the haze of fog that was ever so slowly sweeping in from between the trees.
Moonlight glinted off of his pale blue blade, kanji shining bright and bold where it was inscribed proudly down the blade's length.
Destroyer of Demons.
Despite how short he knew the boy was, in that one moment, Shisui did not think he'd ever seen someone so tall.
When he spoke, it was in a dull and airy voice, nothing like the ragged desperation Shisui had heard before.
"Wretched thing." He scoffed, with the tone someone might use when spotting trash on clean streets.
He flicked his blade as if to clean it, the blood of Danzo's hand splattering onto the grass.
Shisui lurched back as if struck as Danzo's killing intent filled the field, heavy enough to feel it as a physical presence, filling his lungs and squeezing his heart.
Still, the boy did not so much as twitch.
"Your master is dead, and you are still so bold as to show yourself before me."
Finally, he showed some emotion. Scorn.
"How stupid can you be?"
Danzo lunged for him, unable to form hand signs with one hand gone, but still dangerous all the same. There was a flash of moonlight bouncing off steel as he whipped out a kunai, and Shisui cried out in warning—
And the boy moved.
Shisui had no words to describe it. His one remaining eye spun red, etching the sight into his mind even as his brain fought to keep up with what he was seeing.
He was fast.Too fast.
In a clean, insultingly simple strike, the boy crouched and lunged , dust in the wind.
His sword shone silver, mist swelling as, to Shisui's moderate sensor abilities, he seemed to light up from the inside out with chakra.
It was the purest he'd ever felt, an all consuming, nearly blinding white; Stunning and beautiful and powerful like nothing he'd ever seen.
Before it had even begun, it was over. Danzo had overshot, blinded in his rage and pain, no doubt underestimating the boy like Shisui had— a fatal mistake.
With a single, smooth move, the boy lopped Danzo's head off.
And that was that.
Danzo's body fell to the ground, his head hitting the grass with a heavy thunk.
Shisui stared, open mouthed unwilling to believe what he was seeing as the corpse of the man who'd been inches away from killing him now lay inches away, undeniably dead.
The boy flexed his wrist, turning to peer curiously at the body in silence. He cocked his head, like a bird spotting something strange, and just... stared.
Partially in shock, and deeply unsure of what the actual fuck to do, Shisui joined him in his staring.
"Hmm. It's still here." The boy finally mumbled, and nudged the corpse with one of his bare feet.
The absurdity of the situation struck Shisui, and he couldn't help the half hysterical giggle that bubbled up in him.
The boy ignored him, frowning with a dazed sort of determination as he readied his sword as if waiting for Danzo to— what? Pop back up? Regrow his head and go for another round?
Shisui's laughter only grew more hysterical, the shinobi doubling over in his struggle to breathe as he shook with unbridled relief.
—and then horror .
He'd survived, but Danzo, Elder Danzo, very important political figure, had not.
The Uchiha were days from revolting and Danzo, who had so loudly been against everything they stood for, to the point that he had apparently even been quietly plotting their downfall for years, was dead.
There was no way the Uchiha wouldn't be blamed for this. No way that they wouldn't be punished for it.
Shisui could bring the boy, the corpse, and his story to the Hokage right this very minute, and not even the fact that Danzo also clearly held one of the Uchiha's sharingan would be able to save him from immediate imprisonment. And once he disappeared into that system—
Fuck.
Fuck.
Even if the Hokage somehow believed him, took Shisui's word over the body of his trusted advisor and childhood friend, the village people never would.
An Uchiha and a respected elder walk into a forest, and only the Uchiha walks away? A fucking stranger, a, what? 13? Year old boy who, oh yeah, was found by that same Uchiha, was the one to kill the Elder?
Shisui was fucked!
The Uchiha were fucked!
He had to— He just—
Shit—!
Ok, ok, new plan.
Danzo was— Shisui grimaced, looking at the decapitated head where it lay staring up at the sky with dull, sightless eyes. In the moonlight, the stolen sharingan looked more grey than red, and sent a shiver down Shisui's spine.
—Danzo was a fucking traitor, and you know what? Fuck, just, all of this. All of it!
Maybe Fugaku-sama had been right! Shisui had thought he'd be able to try and choose both his clan and his village if he helped Danzo to suppress the coup, but this is what that had brought him.
The signs were clear, it was time to choose— one or the other. Should have known he couldn't have both, but hey, he'd always been an optimist!
Danzo made it pretty fucking clear that the village was not a safe option for him. And even with the man dead at his feet, this entire adventure was not a lesson Shisui would soon forget.
'Fuck all of this, Mikoto-sama will know what to do. I'll just— have to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness first is all. I'll totally totally take that over whatever T&I would do to me.'
The strange boy was still staring dully at the corpse, like he expected it to jump back up like a child's puppet at any moment.
Shisui should probably... do something about that.
"I—"
"Shh." The boy hushed sharply, and Shisui snapped his mouth shut. Then felt a little embarrassed at how quickly and totally he'd obeyed.
He thought he could cut himself a little slack though, he was still seeing stars from the chakra the boy had practically blinded him with earlier.
What even was that? It felt sort of like sage chakra, but different—? Almost purer, which is technically impossible, considering sage chakra was supposed to be the purest kind of chakra that existed in human form. And it had been so much, out of nowhere.
Interestingly enough, it had vanished as soon as his sword ceased its gleaming. The mist too, Shisui noted, had also dispersed. It had definitely come with the boy, like some sort of omen.
Now, the boy was back to having about as much chakra as a lump of coal.
If Shisui wasn't looking directly at him, he wouldn't even have registered as a living thing to his sensor abilities. It wasn't chakra suppression, it was just... lack of any chakra at all.
Terrifying.
Shisui shook his head, trying to focus back on the situation at hand.
"I really don't think—"
Danzo lurched upright.
There was no way to explain it, one moment his corpse was lying in two most definitely separated pieces, the next he was alive.
And it hadn't been the night that colored his stolen sharingan gray, because as Shisui stared in horror as Danzo lunged at the boy, his miraculously restored hands coming together to form hand seals, the stolen eye sat dull and blind in his skull.
The forbidden Uchiha jutsu to revert death, izanagi—!
But the boy had been ready, had somehow known and waited for this very thing; And so as Danzo's hands clasped together to form a sign, his sword descended once more with a terrifyingly precise ferocity.
With yet another clean sweep of his sword, Danzo was once again beheaded before he could so much as speak.
Shisui gaped.
If it was at all possible to feel more shocked than he already had before, well, he sure was feeling it now!
What the fuck—!
The boy nodded, as if satisfied, then after a beat, frowned again.
He squinted at Danzo's twice decapitated corpse, mumbling to himself, "Still not disappearing? What an annoying blood art..."
Shisui very slowly rose up on to unsteady feet, sharingan swirling as he recorded the image of Danzo's corpse on the forest floor.
"Are— You— He— I mean— Fuck!" A hand came up to tangle in his own hair, tugging at it furiously as he somehow managed to agonize even harder over this entire clusterfuck of a situation.
The boy glanced back at Shisui with a careless air, then froze.
Fast as a body flicker but somehow completely devoid of chakra, the boy's hand was suddenly clamped on to Shisui's face, wrenching him closer.
He'd been too fast to dodge—!
Glassy eyes stared into Shisui's, vacant but intense. Shisui considered pulling him under genjutsu, but he wasn't hostile just yet, so Shisui stilled his nerves and resolved to see where this was going.
"No... I saw you out in the sun earlier..." The boy finally mumbled, and frowned thoughtfully, tilting Shisui's head this way and that. "What's wrong with your eye?"
"My eye—?"
"I said that the first time didn't I? Why does it look like that."
"My— You mean my sharingan?"
"Is that what you call it?"
Shisui flicked his sharingan on and off, just to demonstrate.
"Huh." The boy blinked. "Do it again."
Shisui obeyed, and the boy just kind of... stared at him blankly.
Shisui's eye darted away nervously before settling back onto the boy's unnervingly still face. Unsure what else to do, he flickered it on and off again.
"...And this is... normal...?"
"Yes?? It's part of my clan's bloodline limit—?"
The boy continued to stare at him blankly, seeming incapable of comprehending this.
Shisui couldn't help himself, blurting out a high pitched and slightly hysterical, "Are you high right now—!!?"
Finally, the boy released Shisui's face, dropping his hand to look at them curiously, as if he could tell just by examining his fingers. Then, he blinked back up at Shisui.
"Possibly."
Shisui— didn't know what to say to that.
The boy didn't seem to care, apparently deeming Shisui a non-threat as he turned away from him, and back to the body.
"I don't think—" Shisui cleared his throat, edging a bit closer. "I mean, he shouldn't be able to come back a third time. He used his only sharingan the first time, so..."
"Sharingan...? So he has one too?"
"A stolen one, yeah. Fucking bastard, may he rot in hell."
Shisui gave a furious shake of his head, then took his chances and spat on the bloodline thieving motherfucker, the spit coming out tinged red with blood he could still taste between his teeth.
"Don't even know who's. Shit, he almost got mine too,"
The true revulsion of the situation was only now setting in as the high of running for your life faded. To think he'd come so close to losing his eye, to having it taken from him—
"...And this is also normal...?"
"What?"
"The eye. Sharin-gone? This is normal?"
The boy had to be seriously out of it if he was asking these sorts of questions— the fact that he'd managed to kill Danzo while apparently high out of his mind was... Something.
Shisui couldn't really process it actually. Didn't know if he wanted to, to be honest.
Trying to be patient, Shisui nodded. "Yes, it runs in my family. Very normal, I promise."
"...So he's a man then?"
"Uh." Was that a trick question? "Awful one, but yes?"
The boy looked from Shisui's bloody, one eyed appearance, to the body, and back again. Finally, he shrugged.
"Close enough."
Cool? Shisui was going to take that as a hesitant win.
"Look we need to go, we don't have a lot of time and Danzo is uhh... Well, this is gonna cause a lot of problems. A lot more problems. You sort of came at the worst best time— Oh, thank you, by the way. For um. Saving my life. And the eye. Really appreciate that."
Shisui cringed at how stilted the apology came out.
He meant it! Truly! He was just also a teeny tiny bit still in shock and also thinking about the laundry list of 'oh god oh fuck what comes next' he was already losing time on.
The boy didn't seem to notice or care much, only nodding dismissively before returning to staring into the void.
Well at least one of them remained unconcerned.
Shisui turned to the body, dithering for a moment. He had no body storage scrolls, but he couldn't just leave it here. Morning patrol would be by eventually.
He glanced at the cliff consideringly. He could always just... throw it over the edge? It'd be a type of karma, all things considered.
He didn't have the time to fully dismember and strip the body of anything recognizable, but he could at the very least remove the bandages Danzo was known to wear.
He got to work quickly, ripping them away from Danzo's body with perhaps a bit more force than needed. Not that anybody was there to comment. Save for the boy, anyways, who continued to apparently be content with staring blankly at tree bark.
With the bandages gone, Shisui dragged the body over to the cliff, and tipped it over without much thought.
Watching it fall off into the darkness below was... kind of therapeutic?
He quickly burned the bandages, then unceremoniously shoved Danzo's decapitated head into his bag.
Right then!
Time to go beg Mikoto-sama for forgiveness.
… but first he had to figure out what to do with the boy.
