“You crazy b*****d!” he screamed, striding forward and gesturing wildly. “Where’s the first aid kit?”
Sasuke glared at him, but it seemed more exasperated than angry. “Forget it,” he said coolly. “I’m fine.” He turned his back on his friend and was making for the kitchen sink, barely acknowledging the blood trailing behind him.
“No you’re not. I thought leaving for Orochimaru was insane, but obviously that was just the beginning!” Naruto grabbed Sasuke’s shoulder in a vice grip, burying his fingers in the hard muscles.
Sasuke gasped as he felt the nails dig into his flesh, and he looked over his shoulder to see Naruto’s eyes burning an unearthly crimson.
“Get the bandages,” the guttural tone of Naruto’s voice made him shiver, “then we’re going to the hospital.”
“No!” Sasuke growled viciously, spinning out of the tight grip of Naruto’s fingers and feeling his flesh tear. He triggered the Sharingan and blinked as everything came into sharper focus. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Fine,” the blond snarled, surprising Sasuke with his agreement. “Just put something on that wound, you nut job!”
Sasuke would have responded, but he suddenly felt lightheaded, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut and release the Sharingan to keep from passing out. Maybe I overdid it a bit, he admitted to himself, moving to the bathroom to fetch bandages, his gait steady despite his swimming head.
He made it to the bathroom, gripping the edge of the sink for support, and reached to the shelf above the small shower seat. Reaching made him even dizzier, and he paused, trying to still the tremor in his hands. The blood flowed out of him in a steady ooze. He stepped back, grasping the first aid kit tightly, but he almost slipped on a smear of red marring the soft blue tiles at his feet. A strong arm grasped his elbow, steadying him.
“Let go, moron,” Sasuke ordered, jerking his arm and trying to look menacing as he swayed on his feet. Those eyes, now blue, narrowed at the provocation, the tan fingers digging into the tendons at Sasuke’s elbow. Sasuke winced.
“Like hell I will,” Naruto replied. “You can hardly stand.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sure,” Naruto bit out. “Nothing wrong with biting necks and slitting wrists. All in a day’s work.”
Sasuke tensed at the icy tone, lowering his head to hide his face and reaching for some gauze. No one could accept him like this, not even Naruto. He had suspected as much. After all, he wasn’t even human anymore. “Just let go of me,” he whispered fiercely. “I don’t need your help.”
“Whatever,” Naruto growled, shoving Sasuke onto the stool. “I’m helping anyway.”
Sasuke tried to hold onto his righteous fury as Naruto clumsily tore open a package of gauze and grabbed a roll of tape, but it was just too much effort. Naruto would only persist until he gave in anyway. He relaxed on the seat, letting himself be tended to without complaint. There was gauze clenched in Naruto’s teeth: The only reason he wasn’t blabbing. He listened to the tear of plastic wrapping, the unwinding of a roll of tape, the jostle of alcohol being poured onto a cotton swap. There was no such thing as silence when Naruto was around. They argued constantly, but at least that obnoxious voice stifled the encroaching loneliness here, in this abandoned district filled with old ghosts.
And new ones.
He didn’t feel alive anymore.
Then there was the sting of the alcohol sinking deep into his flesh, and he sucked air through his teeth at the intensity. Seemed his nerves were still working.
“Quite whining, baby,” Naruto teased playfully, glancing up to gauge Sasuke’s reaction.
Sasuke glared, but remained silent.
Naruto gave a small sigh and concentrated on bandaging the forearm. He was clumsier than usual from his swollen knuckles. Sasuke tried not to snicker when the dope ruined another length of tape, letting it stick to itself.
Once his wound was finally bandaged, Sasuke flexed his fingers and inspected the wrappings. It would suffice. Naruto had straightened to grab some more cotton balls, and Sasuke eyed him curiously. The skin on his knuckles has already started to close, so why does Naruto need more cotton balls?
“Off with your shirt.”
“Excuse me?” Sasuke said, trying to cover his surprise.
Naruto rolled his eyes.
The little twerp, Sasuke growled internally.
“I can’t treat your shoulder through your clothes,” Naruto explained, letting a superior grin sidle onto his face. “You call me a dumbass? What were you thinking?”
Sasuke frowned, twisting to regard the wound Naruto had inflicted. He had already forgotten about it. The claw marks were shallow, though it bled a lot. “Don’t bother. It’s hardly bleeding.” The low rumble of Naruto’s growl made his mouth twitch with repressed humor.
“You are such a stubborn a**,” Naruto complained.
“And you’re so annoying,” Sasuke retorted, rising to leave. He hated being coddled: It’s why he could never stand women.
“Geez, you’re touchier than ever,” Naruto said, his voice strained.
Sasuke almost stopped. Almost. He shrugged off the guilt, like a dog shaking off water, (by now, he was a master at such things) and left Naruto to clean up the bathroom. “Think you can behave long enough to have some tea?” he hollered from the kitchen.
Naruto growled something obscene. Sasuke took that for a “yes.”
He grabbed the tea pot from where it had fallen to the floor during their short skirmish. Humming softly, he perused his stock, selecting a cool jasmine green tea for himself, and a Chinese black tea for Naruto. While the water warmed, he parceled out the loose leaf into some wire balls, waiting for the perfect moment, that perfect temperature just shy of boiling, before pouring. The aroma was heavenly. He sighed ever so softly. He loved tea.
“You going to ask that tea to marry you, or can I have some?”
Sasuke shot a dark glare over his shoulder. Trust Naruto to obliterate his semi-good mood. “Yours is on the left, dummy.”
“Gee, thanks, tea ********.”
Sasuke’s jaw dropped right before his gut clenched involuntarily, making him snort. Then the laughter came, so sudden that he couldn’t suppress it before it was too late. Leave it to Naruto to say the most inane thing and make him lose control.
Naruto was grinning widely by the time Sasuke recovered from his outburst. Sasuke reigned in the snickers that kept working their way up his throat. Tea ********, honestly, why was that so funny? he wondered morosely, even though his mouth kept twitching into a smile, despite his best efforts to repress it.
“Stop scrunching your face up like that,” Naruto said merrily. “You look constipated.”
Well, that did it. Now he wasn’t remotely amused. “Hn,” he sniffed, settling on a cushion in the dining areas, tucking his knees under him like the folding of a graceful insect. Naruto flopped across several cushion, lying sprawled on his side like an overgrown mutt. He promptly began flipping a throwing star into the air and catching it. Sasuke sighed at his antics. “Would you stop that? You’re going to get holes in my ceiling.”
“You’re too uptight,” Naruto replied, not even looking at him. “That’s why you need me around. This is what happens when you hide for months…” he trailed off, the star caught between his index and middle finger. “What have you been doing, anyway?”
“Hiding,” Sasuke confirmed with a shrug.
“Why?”
“No one knows about my condition. You’re the first.”
“I still don’t get it. How the hell are you immortal? You look the same. And you almost fainted from that stupid cut.”
“I did not,” Sasuke protested hotly. “Just dizzy. The feeding causes a lot of physiological side effects, and losing the blood only adds…” he trailed off at the look on Naruto’s face.
“Fe-feeding?”
Sasuke nearly groaned. This was going to take a while. “Let me start from the beginning. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of vetala?”
A blank stare.
“Right,” Sasuke sighed. “Didn’t think so. You understand Orochimaru’s body transfer jutsu, correct?”
“Yeah,” Naruto offered, nodding enthusiastically. “The one where he takes over your body and turns you all snaky.”
“Snaky?” Sasuke repeated hesitantly.
Naruto continued bobbing his head.
“Well,” Sasuke said, choosing to ignore his urge to throttle Naruto and hoping he knew the rudiments of the jutsu, “the jutsu is flawed. It’s not true immortality. Each body transfer dilutes the possessor’s spirit, because remnants of the possessed remain.”
Naruto looked a little glassy eyed.
“And the spirit is forced to undergo a period of readjustment and stabilization, during which the container is vulnerable. There’s also a risk that the transfer will result in lost fighting abilities or techniques with an inferior or ill-suited body.”
Naruto started tossing the star again, idly staring off into space.
“Are you listening?”
“Yeah,” he answered, flicking his gaze to Sasuke briefly. When the throwing star didn’t return to his fingers as expected, he jerked his eyes back up. The weapon was lodged half an inch into the ceiling. “Oops.”
Sasuke huffed in annoyance. “Could you pay attention? You asked me to explain, so I’m explaining.”
“Sorry,” Naruto mumbled, fiddling with the hem of a cushion.
“Anyway, Orochimaru wanted to find a permanent house for his soul – something that wouldn’t deteriorate and would be resistant to death. Three months ago, Kabuto’s net of spies ferried a report to the lair about a holy man, a priest from the west who seemed to be following an immortal spirit from his homeland.”
“You mean a ghost?” Naruto was leaning away from him, his eyes abnormally large.
“No, a spirit that inhabits corpses. The spy reported that the creature was called a vetala, and apparently it had been terrorizing a seaside town and possessing the recently deceased.”
“Ew,” Naruto complained, making a face.
“Anyway, Orochimaru wanted to see for himself if the report was true, and he took me with him. At the time, I thought it was merely to keep an eye on me, but now I know the truth.”
“What?”
Sasuke took mild satisfaction in the fact that he had his teammate’s undivided attention. He’d rather not have to tell Naruto this, though he supposed it was unavoidable now.
“What!?” Naruto was looked excited and scared all at once, like a kid listening to a ghost story around a campfire.
“The priest was trying to commune with the spirit to gain wisdom, because the spirit can see the past and future. After speaking with the priest, Orochimaru began to speculate about binding the creature permanently.”
“How?”
“Orochimaru wanted to harness the spirit to a corporeal form.”
“A what form?”
“To a mortal. He wanted to bind the spirit to a human.”
“Why?”
“Orochimaru wanted a more dependable form of immortality,” Sasuke answered in exasperation, “and it was an immortal spirit, dummy.”
Naruto tossed a pillow half-heartedly at Sasuke’s head. “Then what?”
“During dinner one night, Kabuto drugged me with a neurotoxin that made it appear as if I was dead. Orochimaru convinced the man to use my body as a medium for the spirit to possess. The priest didn’t know until it was too late.”
“Too late?” Naruto whispered, dawning comprehension starting to twist his features.
“The priest coaxed the spirit to my body using a charm spell and an offering. I couldn’t see much, but my eyes were open. I was aware the whole time.”
Naruto face had gone utterly still. Ssauke started to lose himself in the story, the words slipping from his mouth effortlessly. He had never shared it before, but he felt strangely detached as he unloaded the lead in his heart.
“I felt when the spirit slipped inside my mind, like being split open. I was too full for my body. I think the spirit tried to separate from me when it realized I wasn’t dead, that there wasn’t enough room for both of us, but Orochimaru sealed me while I was possessed.” Sasuke pushed his bangs from his crown, pulling chakra into his Sahasrara. His crown lit with a single kanji – unity. Bound as one. “Kabuto killed the priest.”
Naruto stood up abruptly and jumped away, landing in a crouch with throwing stars jutting from the crevices of his fingers. He didn’t look like he’d be playing catch with them this time. Sasuke followed the movement with wary resignation.
“Is that thing still inside you? That’s why you’ve been hurting people?” Naruto’s voice had hardened with determination, steeling for a real fight. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Why don’t you tell anyone about the Kyuubi!?” Sasuke snapped.
Naruto winced involuntarily. Trust Sasuke to be an insensitive p***k.
“I still have control. This thing is just sharing my body.”
“Then why’d you hurt that woman?” Naruto demanded. “I don’t care what you say, she was bleeding a lot.”
“The spirit is a servant to a goddess from the priest’s home land, a goddess who drinks the blood of her enemies.”
“Are you ******** with me?”
“Do you think I’d joke about this?” Sasuke growled. “If I don’t drink blood, the spirit weakens.”
“Who cares if it weakens? Wouldn’t that be good?”
“We’re connected somehow,” Sasuke said, his voice so low that an untrained ear would have missed the words. “I get cravings. Thirst. No matter how much water I drink, I’m still thirsty.”
Naruto had never been afraid of Sasuke. Never. He hated ghost or spirits or anything not quite alive. He didn’t want to be afraid of Sasuke, but the tremors deep in his bones belied him. And he knew that Sasuke would be able to sense his fear if he paid enough attention. It would kill what little was left of their friendship. He willed himself to be rational. This was Sasuke. A creepier than usual Sasuke, but still Sasuke.
“If I ignore it…” Sasuke took a deep breath. “If I ignore the spirit, it starts to make me weak, like it’s draining me instead. Then my control will slip.”
“Is that what happened tonight?” Naruto whispered. That hadn’t seemed like control back in the alley.
“No,” Sasuke answered forcefully, meeting Naruto’s eyes. Naruto resisted the urge to turn away. “I was never out of control. She was hardly injured and she’ll be fine when she wakes up.”
“That’s not what I saw.” Naruto wanted to believe him, but he needed to be sure. “You didn’t even sense my presence and I wasn’t trying to mask my chakra.”
“I can’t concentrate on anything else when I’m in the middle of…it,” Naruto noticed how he avoided calling it “feeding” this time. “That’s why I’m so careful to use civilians and inconspicuous locations. Once I start the process, I’m useless.”
“How is that in control?”
“I didn’t kill her.”
Naruto felt a chill settle over him. “What happens when you aren’t in control?”
“It’s only happened once, and I delivered Orochimaru’s head.”
“Because he did this to you?” Naruto asked, thinking he’d probably kill someone who did that to him.
“No, I wasn’t strong enough then. I was weak while the spirit integrated into my body. For a few days, Kabuto locked me in a medical observing wing and ran tests on me constantly.” Sasuke stared straight ahead, his body rigid. “I killed him two weeks later. I was left alone for a week to see if the binding would settle. The union was unprecedented. They didn’t understand the nature of the spirit. The cravings became so strong that I thought I’d go mad.”
“For blood?” Naruto whispered, entranced by the sheer morbid quality of it.
“Yes,” Sasuke answered quietly. “I didn’t know what I craved at the time. I still don’t know how I killed them.”
“Them?”
“Orochimaru, Kabuto, the Sound ninjas,” Sasuke shook his head. “When the cell opened, I could smell their blood beneath their skin. I could hear their heartbeats. That’s all I remember.”
Naruto was having a little trouble digesting this new dimension to his teammate. This can’t be real, he reasoned. I have to be in a genjutsu. He’d always been bad at detecting those. Hesitantly, trying to be inconspicuous in case he wasn’t in an illusion and Sasuke caught him, he brought his fingers into a dispelling seal. “Kai,” he whispered.
“What did you say?” Sasuke growled.
“Nothing!” Aw, man! He looks so pissed…
