Chapter 35
“Ha! Ten points ttebayo!”
Sasuke puffs his chest up, unwilling to be shown up. He grips his shuriken tightly in his little hand and takes aim at the human shaped target about ten meters away.
He takes his aim, draws his arms back, and throws it.
The shuriken flies through the air with sure aim, embedding itself square in the center of the dummy’s chest.
Naruto pouts, folding his arms and muttering something under his breath.
But Sasuke doesn’t care. He punches the air in triumph, declaring “thirty points!” at the top of his lungs.
Reluctantly, Naruto adds his point total to their notebook while Sasuke sprints to retrieve the shuriken.
“I told ya,” he declares. “Nobody’s got better aim than my brother, and my brother’s the one who taught me!”
“Nobody huh?” a strange voice behind them asks.
Both boys jump in surprise, whipping their heads around toward the source of the sound.
That strange boy with dark skin and his hair pulled back in a tight ponytail is watching with the most smug expression, both sets of arms folded and his head tilted as if to say is that all? Sasuke glares at him, nose scrunched up in disgust at this boy who dares to say he’s better than his brother at anything.
“What? Can you do any better?”
“Ha! Can I? Watch this one, kiddo.”
With a smug grin, Kidomaru strolls over to the equipment shed, pulling out a bow and a handful of arrows.
He turns, not bothering to get any closer to the target. He strings up all the arrows on the bow at once, taking full advantage of his second set of hands and taking aim.
“Outta the way,” he warns, drawing the bow back with laser focus.
Naruto and Sasuke obey the command, scampering out of the way right as Kidomaru lets the arrows fly.
They whistle past the younger boys; one even manages to take a bit of Sasuke’s hair with it as it whizzes by a bit too close.
Each arrow embeds itself in a different target- each one dead in the center. And he does it in a way that makes it look like it didn’t take any effort at all.
“How many points is that?” Kidomaru asks, with a satisfied smirk.
Naruto and Sasuke glance at each other in stunned silence. Sasuke looks over at each target, tallying up the total in his head as his eyes get steadily wider.
“...A hundred and fifty,” he finally answers disbelievingly.
“Heh. You think your brother can do that?”
“I mean- I uh-”
Sasuke is too awestruck to retort.
Instead, all he can utter is “how did you do that?!”
“It’s basically all I do all day,” Kidomaru answers, his posture getting a bit friendlier. “Whenever I get bored I come out here.”
“Show me how!”
“Wha-”
“-How’d you do that?! I wanna know how!” Sasuke insists, running over to him and insistently tugging at his shirt. “You gotta show me how you do that!”
Kidomaru puffs up with all the flattery.
“You might be too young to get it, but what the hell. C’mere, I’ll show ya how it’s done.”
Naruto isn’t particularly interested in archery, so he wanders off while Sasuke gets his lesson.
He wonders if the rabbits are out again. Maybe they’ll let him pet them this time.
On his way to the rabbits’ den, though, a colorful butterfly flits past him, seizing him with the urge to catch and admire it. So he wanders after that instead. He follows it as quietly as he can, not wanting to startle it.
Right as he’s close enough to try to snatch it, though, yet something else grabs his attention instead.
It’s faint, so at first he’s not sure he actually heard it.
But as he stands still, the sound comes through- still quiet, but undoubtedly there.
Music. A flute, it sounds like.
He finds himself intrigued by it, so he follows the direction of the sound, deciding he simply must find the source.
It gets steadily louder as he gets closer.
It’s a melancholy sort of sound. Like if someone managed to turn loneliness into music. It’s hypnotic, an invisible force compelling him to listen.
drawing him forward like it’s tied a string around his wrist and is pulling him along.
He finally reaches the source of the sound, coming from somewhere overhead.
He looks up, first spotting the dirty bottoms of bare feet, then as his eyes wander higher, a girl with a head of wild red hair.
She doesn’t notice him at first, continuing to play on a battered old flute while staring off into the distance like she’s in a trance.
Naruto sits on the mossy ground, quietly watching her.
The music makes him misty-eyed, stirring up strange emotions he can’t quite pinpoint. He can’t tell if it’s a good feeling, but he can’t bring himself to stop listening.
His eyes fall shut, and he almost feels like he might fall asleep.
Until the music abruptly stops, snapping him back to reality.
“What the fuck are you doing here?!” the girl snaps, in a combination of anger and embarrassment.
Naruto splutters, leaping up to his feet and dodging the branch the girl throws at him.
“I-I just wanted to listen!” he stammers. “I just thought it sounded pretty-”
That seems to take her off guard. She squints down at the boy below her like he’s spoken in gibberish.
“...You think so?”
“Yeah!” Naruto declares, slapping against the rough bark of the tree to emphasize his statement. “It’s pretty like you’re pretty!”
The girl harrumphs, turning her head away to hide that her face has turned as red as her hair.
“I mean- I mean you’re prettier now that you’re not trying to beat us up,” Naruto stammers, stumbling over his own words.
“Stupid brat,” Tayuya grumbles, not addressing his statement.
(That would make it even more awkward, anyway.)
Naruto jumps in the air, trying to grab onto the lowest branches of the tree.
“Keep playing dattebayo!” he pleads. “C’mon, I promise I’ll shut up, I just wanna listen-”
The girl glares at him. But, finally, she seems to relent.
“You’re fucking ridiculous.”
Even as she says this though, she hops down from her perch so that Naruto doesn’t have to keep struggling to reach her.
“Whatever. Just don’t make it weird or I’ll kill you.”
Naruto grins, delighted that he’s getting his way.
He’s more than used to people threatening to kill him, so this is okay.
With a huff of resignation, the girl leans against the tree, shuts her eyes, and starts to play once more.
Naruto is fascinated by it- by how this girl moves her fingers and controls her breath in such a way as to summon such a haunting melody.
In spite of herself, the girl ends up smiling a little at her eager audience of one.
He wonders if maybe she’d teach her how to play, if he asks nicely enough.
Before he gets the chance to ask, however, they hear shouting back at the training grounds.
“Ah for fuck’s sake!” The girl growls, stomping her foot in frustration at her broken concentration. She storms off toward the source of the ruckus, and Naruto follows behind her.
Sasuke is brandishing a bow in one hand, frustration scrunching his face into an unflattering expression.
“Come on, there’s gotta be some kind of trick!” he yells, pointing the bow at the older boy accusingly.
“No trick, just a good eye,” Kidomaru answers.
“No way! You’re cheating! How do you do that?!”
“It’s not cheating just because you’re salty.”
“Oi, what the fuck’re you bitching about?!”
“Mind yer own business, Tayuya!”
Tayuya squares up with the boy, nose to nose as if daring him to try her. Kidomaru shrinks back a bit, holding one set of hands up in a pacifying gesture.
The girl glares from him to Sasuke, making him wither under her glower as well.
“You’re bein’ noisy and it’s a fuckin’ pain in the ass! Quit it!”
“W-well why do you care anyway?” Sasuke musters up. “We’re outside, aren’t we allowed to be noisy outside?”
“Oh shut the fuck up, half-pint,” she growls, immediately stunning him back into silence.
“What the hell, who pissed in your tea this morning?” Kidomaru asks, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Mind your own damn business.”
“-So how many points did ya manage to get dattebayo?” Naruto asks, wanting to diffuse the uncomfortable tension.
“He’s at four hundred so far,” Sasuke whines, folding his arms and pouting.
“What are you on about?”
“We were playin’ a game before he showed up. Mom told us to see who can get the most points.”
“Mom?” Tayuya shakes her head. “Nevermind, I don’t wanna know. Gimme some fuckin’ shuriken, lemme play too.”
“Aw c’mon-” Sasuke starts to complain, but clams up when Tayuya glowers at him again.
“What? Don’t want me to play cause I’m a girl? Worried you’ll get your ass beat by a girl?”
Mouth pressed firmly shut, Sasuke shakes his head, and makes no further protest.
She turns out to have a pretty keen eye as well, giving Kidomaru a run for his money after just a couple turns.
Eventually, Naruto and Sasuke sit back and watch them compete, fascinated by their skill- even as they perpetually argue with each other.
They glance at each other for a moment, silently deciding that they want to be that skilled some day.
Maybe watching will help them understand how it’s done.
-
“Well? What’s the news?”
Orochimaru stops his work, straightening up to properly face his former students.
Amai glances over at his companion, pushes his glasses further up his nose, and sighs in a wordless apology for interrupting him.
(They look so very tired. He wonders what’s bothering them.)
“Not great.”
“-Their clan is worried sick about them,” Hakuto answers, sounding kind of sad. “Even with everything else going on. They worry that they might have been killed. Or that you might have done something to them.”
“Ah. I was worried about that.”
Orochimaru sets a set of pliers down, shaking his head in annoyance.
“I should have seen that coming,” he complains, leaving his work (now basically finished anyway) to pop in and check on Itachi.
The boy is mostly lucid again now- enough to be upright in his own bed, quietly reading. Or at least pretending to.
He looks up at Orochimaru as he enters, following him across the room as he crosses over to the cabinet.
“What’s going on?” he asks, immediately knowing something’s wrong and not liking it at all.
No point lying. He made a promise after all.
“Well, if you don’t mind, it seems like your family would like to hear from you.”
“Huh?”
“Just so they know you and your brother are alright. I think it would do them good, don’t you?”
Itachi’s brow furrows. He has questions about the situation, but apparently decides they aren’t worth asking, instead holding his hands out to accept the pen and paper he’s given.
(The boy has pretty distinctive handwriting. This should be enough to reassure his clan that he’s alive- even if not entirely well.)
Itachi stares at the blank paper for ages, trying to think about what he might want to tell his mother and father. What he might want the rest of his clan to hear.
What can he even say? Will he even be believed, no matter what he says?
Will anyone care? Or is their worry just a performance to try to get Sasuke home?
“Do you think it’ll make a difference?” he asks.
“Maybe not. But it would be nice for them to hear from you, anyway. They’re still your parents after all, aren’t they?”
He still doesn’t see the point. But more than that-
“-What if I don’t want to talk to them?”
He sounds so guilty even asking.
“What do you mean?”
Itachi glares at the blank paper, the hand holding the pen shaking.
“What if I don’t want them to hear from me? What if I don’t care if they’re worried about me? None of them believed me when I tried to talk to them before-”
He grits his teeth, frustrated at himself for not being able to properly put his feelings into words.
“-What difference is it going to make now? What I’ve said never mattered before.”
Ah. He should have known.
“It’ll matter to the people who matter,” Orochimaru says. “Even if nobody believes you, you can at least say your piece so they’ll know where you stand.”
Itachi groans, running a hand through the fringe of his hair and glaring at Orochimaru.
“...Fine. But I may not be very kind.”
“You don’t need to be. Just write whatever you feel like you need to say.”
Orochimaru leaves him be for now, while he agonizes over what he really wants to write.
I’m still alive, if anyone cares to know. I was told sending a message would be the right thing to do, even though if I’m being honest, I don’t feel like it’ll make a difference.
I want to reassure everyone one more time that I left of my own free will. I took Sasuke and Naruto with me of my own free will- in fact bringing Naruto at all was a surprise. I didn’t intend to at first. But I decided that Kushina-bachan would have preferred her son to be as far away from the village as possible considering how badly they’ve treated him. He and Sasuke seem to be getting along well, so at least he won’t be too lonely.
I don’t intend to bring them back anytime soon because I know they’ll be in danger. And they deserve better than that. And so do I.
Both of them are doing well, and they're being taken care of. So you won't have to worry about that.
I’ll stand by my promise to keep Sasuke safe, no matter what. So you can believe that he’ll be protected regardless of whether we ever come home.
I know Sasuke is the one you really care about, anyway.
He pauses. He doesn’t have much to say, but he ends up scribbling one more like just in case.
If for some reason this letter makes it to Danzo-sama- I believe this is the part where I tell him where he's welcome to shove it. But I assume he can figure that out on his own.
He signs his name at the bottom, but wonders if maybe that won’t be convincing enough. So he smears the ink from the pen over the pad of his thumb, then presses it beside his signature as a crude sort of stamp.
They took all his fingerprints on graduation. Surely they’ll be able to check if they doubt it’s actually him.
He lays the paper aside and breaks out in a coughing fit that he’s pretty sure brings up blood, based on the nauseating copper taste in his mouth.
He feels absolutely disgusting. Vile. And even know he knows this (probably) won’t be what kills him, he certainly feels like he’s dying. Or at least puking.
Flopping back down on the bed, he picks his book back up and tries to get his attention back. He should probably give up on that and try to sleep, but he couldn’t sleep any more if he tried.
He feels pretty pathetic. He should be stronger than this. Better than this.
He wonders, if he had been a better son- if maybe none of this would have had to happen.