Shikako had never seen Sasuke like this before. He stared at her fixedly, almost hungrily. When he spoke, his words were choppy, choked out into broken sentences.
“You-” He choked, looked away determinedly and tried again.
“Your mission went. Wrong. At Hot Springs. There was. An ocean of blood and. You and Aoba.” He licked dry lips.
“Shikamaru and – his father. Went. I didn’t know or I’d’ve- I would have. Because. We didn’t know then. Our first inkling came when Naruto dragged Jiraya home. Babbling. About Kurama telling him about. That. We raised our defenses, but-” He shrugged helplessly. “The real danger didn’t come from the outside , aa?
“Killer B found us only a few weeks in. You know how A is. Bloodthirsty enough to. To succumb. Anko-” A bleak twitch of the lips, more in memory of humor than feeling. “Meditation. Religiously. She and Tsunade-sama got us out before… Before.
“We heard rumors Sand still stood. Naruto insisted. The desert was- Alive. It made the crossing… We almost made it to the Garden.”
He stopped, turned his back. His shoulders were bowed, his head bent, a far cry from the proud youth she remembered. His whole body was perfectly still, the thunderous silence before a storm. She knew what came next before he spoke, biting her tongue till her mouth filled with copper. She wanted to smother him in a hug, strangle the words before they escaped, as though stopping them would stop their terrible reality.
“He released Kurama so that he wouldn’t scatter. Kurama took out the rest of them, opened the way for us. Gaara and Temari held the Garden, it- It was the only thing left that could stand against. We tried. We – they had- Konoha’s top two strategists, and… joining them doesn’t. Change. Everything. Choji’s father. Managed to walk in. He always had a lot of anger, did you know? He. They didn’t expect. He managed to take out. The strategists.” He sucked in air in an involuntary gasp. “And slaughter his way out of the. Them. ”
He was truly hunched over now, back firmly to her, and she was too frozen to comfort him.
“He made his way to the Garden and. The Garden. Always knew, always- It didn’t. Whenever they came, they could only. To the edge. That’s where they brought Kankuro. And Kankuro was still- He was still- He could still have come in, but. Them. So Gaara went.” He shrugged fatalistically. “Shukaku was. He raged for so long. The desert ate everyone. Only the Garden... And then...
“We tried to talk to the Garden, but. We couldn’t understand. Didn’t want to understand.” He corrected himself, peeking back at her through long hair, lanky and stringy with neglect.
“Kankuro said. The land wasn’t dying , it was. Rotten. Corrupted. Living, but only for the. The vermin. The vultures. We. There was no. No place. For us. Only the Garden. But. For how long? So. The Garden said. That. There were other? Gardens? Only, they were all. All one. One Garden. Ever. So. We could maybe just. Go through.”
The sun was shining brightly, there was the distant sound of laughter drifting through the air. Birds chirped, a crow cawed; somewhere, a dog barked in response.