Fanfic, again....
This time, it's Naruto. Blame my Naruto-obsession, AF's daily prompts and my fondness for taciturn guys in sunglasses. I present to you; Shino, plain and unadorned.
When he is not many days away from having been born, he is still only becoming aware of the world. Everything is still indistinct, sound and smell and sight - big, shapeless things that he is conscious of, but still too small to think about.
And then comes the crawling, the angry motion of others and they're beneath his skin and he can't get them out. Screams turn his throat raw, and still the buzzing life is still there, apart from him and a part of him, all at the same time, and he can't make it go away.
Shino is three weeks old when he gets his first kikai.
*'*'*
The school-yard is dusty, grass burnt away by the bright, bright sunlight, and his coat sticks to his back like a second skin. Somewhere in the crowd of people behind him, his father is standing - arms crossed, no doubt, and with an empty space around him (Shino knows because there's an empty space around him, too.) - attending his induction.
“Welcome to the Ninja Academy,” the speech begins, and Shino tries his best to listen, but all he can really think about is the constant buzz beneath his skin and the fact that he thought the Hokage would be taller in person.
He has not been expecting this short, shrivelled old man to be the strongest shinobi in the village. The little girls beside him - the blonde one, with the hair-clips - whispers the same thing to her little pink-haired friend, and Shino finds himself a little angry on the Hokage's behalf. Appearances are deceptive, after all, he thinks as he sends a little bug crawling over the bridge of his nose.
Shino is seven years old when he enters the Academy.
*'*'*
On his seventh day of school, Shino decides that he hates it.
The crowd of rowdy children bothers him; used as he is to the quiet calm of the Aburame household, the sheer loudness of them is overwhelming. There are times when he just wants to clap his hands over his ears, crawl under his bench and never come out, if that's what it takes to shut them up. The kikai surge in those moments, crawling along his bones and buzzing just beneath his skin until it feels like he's going to burst and, and, and -
- and that's when he remembers his father's lessons, and takes a deep breath to calm himself. Kikai feed on chakra. Anger is a powerful emotion, and emotions change your chakra-flow. Retaining serenity is the foremost rule of the Clan. Shino repeats it in his head over and over until his father's voice - deep like it's coming out of his shoes, and always, always calm - resounds in his head, just another rhythm. Like heartbeats. Like kikai. Like breathing.
That's when the kikai settle down, slow their pace and calm until they're almost sluggish. To make sure they're still there like they're supposed to, he lets them crawl all over his arms for a little while. He breathes. His heart beats. The kikai move. Everything is right with the world.
On the seventh day of school, just after lunch, Shino decides that he hates Umino Iruka.
Pen scratching over paper, he is copying notes of out his book when the bench is nearly upended and he splatters ink all over the wood. The kikai buzz again, and he turns his head to the right, coming face to face with a boy who is grinning at him. Shino stares at him. Takes in the red triangles on his cheeks, the shaggy hair, the sharp canine teeth.
“Hi!” the boy barks - yes, that's the right word, Shino thinks, and waits for the boy to start slobbering and chewing on things - and waves. “Hi! I'm Kiba! Who're you?”
“... Shino.”
Kiba is loud. Kiba is obnoxious. Kiba brings a little white puppy to school. Kiba is everything Shino is not, and they're sitting next to each other in a classroom full of other seven-year-olds.
Shino is seven years old, give or take a few months, when he feels like hurting someone for the first time.
*'*'*
They call him scaredy-cat Shino when his back is turned. He knows, because the kikai tell him.
They play shuriken-tag, laughing and shouting even as the wooden mockeries of real weapons leave bruises on their skin, and they call him scaredy-cat Shino because he never wants to join in.
He thinks them stupid for never asking why.
Shino is eight years old, and he knows what the kikai beneath his skin are for.
*'*'*
The first thing Shino thinks when he learns the names of his team-mates is; this is not true.
He knows the force of nature that is Inuzuka Kiba and his Akamaru, knows the furious enthusiasm with which they live. Knows, too, their lack of concentration - knows, with near certainty, that Kiba will be troublesome to live with. The kikai crawl closer to the skin when Kiba is around, agitated and eager to break out.
Hyuuga Hinata is all pale skin and pale eyes and reluctance to look anyone in the eye, and Shino wonders how she managed to pass at all. Ninjas, in his opinion, are supposed to be proud, straight-backed, and Hinata is everything but.
It is only later that he learns of Kiba's fierce loyalty to friends and Hinata's near-perfect control of her chakra. It is only later that he comes to appreciate them and the ease with which they work together - it is only later, much later, that he begins to value them as parts of himself. (because that's the way he thinks of it - Shino, who has never been alone; Shino, who has ever been the one-who-is-many; Shino, who knows that teams are only ever extension of your own will, your own chakra, your own self.)
Shino is twelve years old, and he has only just begun to believe in something outside of himself.
*'*'*
The Forest of Death does not scare Shino. It is crawling with poisonous bugs - but then, so is he - and it is dangerous to merely breathe while inside it, but it does not scare him. It's nothing but trees and dirt and animals, and he knows those. Trees and dirt and animals are easy.
So is acquiring the second scroll. The only difficult parts of this second stage exam is putting up with Kiba's leader-instinct and over-eagerness, and he has been doing that for months. Kiba has become like the kikai - a constant irritation that makes his skin crawl, but useful all the same.
No, the Forest of Death does not scare Shino. Nor does the Chuunin Exam intimidate him. He knows that both can be overcome with determination and resourcefulness, both of which he has aplenty.
What truly scares Shino - what makes him shake and shiver and break out in cold sweats - is neither forest nor exam nor even the prospect of failure. What truly scares him is a child; a skinny, pale child, whose skin bears no scars and whose hands are never dirtied.
What truly scares him is Sabaku no Gaara - what truly scares him is the absolute silence of his kikaichuu, the dead stillness under his skin as Gaara performs the sand-and-blood funeral.
Shino is twelve years old and on his knees in the dirt, the first time he sees someone who has a weapon far worse than the kikai inside him.
*'*'*
Aburame Shino rarely makes his voice heard. Words have always been precious things in his mouth, few and far between.
This is not to say he never speaks. Shino lives in a world made of nothing but speech. Kiba laughs and shouts and is so loud by nature that Shino cannot imagine him otherwise. Hinata is soft sounds and giggles and sighs, few words spoken but the ones said mean something. (Shino is aware of Hinata's crush on Uzumaki Naruto before she is, merely by counting the times she has repeated his name). His kikai are all sorts of sounds, and he hears them talktalktalk beneath his skin until he knows all their secrets and everyone else's secrets too.
Shino is a weapon - has always been a weapon - and though he sometimes wonders what life would have been like without the kikaichuu, without the buzzing thrum of otherlife beneath his skin, it does not worry him over-much.
He is what he is.
Weapon.
Hive.
Shinobi.
Comrade.
Shino.
When he is not many days away from having been born, he is still only becoming aware of the world. Everything is still indistinct, sound and smell and sight - big, shapeless things that he is conscious of, but still too small to think about.
And then comes the crawling, the angry motion of others and they're beneath his skin and he can't get them out. Screams turn his throat raw, and still the buzzing life is still there, apart from him and a part of him, all at the same time, and he can't make it go away.
Shino is three weeks old when he gets his first kikai.
*'*'*
The school-yard is dusty, grass burnt away by the bright, bright sunlight, and his coat sticks to his back like a second skin. Somewhere in the crowd of people behind him, his father is standing - arms crossed, no doubt, and with an empty space around him (Shino knows because there's an empty space around him, too.) - attending his induction.
“Welcome to the Ninja Academy,” the speech begins, and Shino tries his best to listen, but all he can really think about is the constant buzz beneath his skin and the fact that he thought the Hokage would be taller in person.
He has not been expecting this short, shrivelled old man to be the strongest shinobi in the village. The little girls beside him - the blonde one, with the hair-clips - whispers the same thing to her little pink-haired friend, and Shino finds himself a little angry on the Hokage's behalf. Appearances are deceptive, after all, he thinks as he sends a little bug crawling over the bridge of his nose.
Shino is seven years old when he enters the Academy.
*'*'*
On his seventh day of school, Shino decides that he hates it.
The crowd of rowdy children bothers him; used as he is to the quiet calm of the Aburame household, the sheer loudness of them is overwhelming. There are times when he just wants to clap his hands over his ears, crawl under his bench and never come out, if that's what it takes to shut them up. The kikai surge in those moments, crawling along his bones and buzzing just beneath his skin until it feels like he's going to burst and, and, and -
- and that's when he remembers his father's lessons, and takes a deep breath to calm himself. Kikai feed on chakra. Anger is a powerful emotion, and emotions change your chakra-flow. Retaining serenity is the foremost rule of the Clan. Shino repeats it in his head over and over until his father's voice - deep like it's coming out of his shoes, and always, always calm - resounds in his head, just another rhythm. Like heartbeats. Like kikai. Like breathing.
That's when the kikai settle down, slow their pace and calm until they're almost sluggish. To make sure they're still there like they're supposed to, he lets them crawl all over his arms for a little while. He breathes. His heart beats. The kikai move. Everything is right with the world.
On the seventh day of school, just after lunch, Shino decides that he hates Umino Iruka.
Pen scratching over paper, he is copying notes of out his book when the bench is nearly upended and he splatters ink all over the wood. The kikai buzz again, and he turns his head to the right, coming face to face with a boy who is grinning at him. Shino stares at him. Takes in the red triangles on his cheeks, the shaggy hair, the sharp canine teeth.
“Hi!” the boy barks - yes, that's the right word, Shino thinks, and waits for the boy to start slobbering and chewing on things - and waves. “Hi! I'm Kiba! Who're you?”
“... Shino.”
Kiba is loud. Kiba is obnoxious. Kiba brings a little white puppy to school. Kiba is everything Shino is not, and they're sitting next to each other in a classroom full of other seven-year-olds.
Shino is seven years old, give or take a few months, when he feels like hurting someone for the first time.
*'*'*
They call him scaredy-cat Shino when his back is turned. He knows, because the kikai tell him.
They play shuriken-tag, laughing and shouting even as the wooden mockeries of real weapons leave bruises on their skin, and they call him scaredy-cat Shino because he never wants to join in.
He thinks them stupid for never asking why.
Shino is eight years old, and he knows what the kikai beneath his skin are for.
*'*'*
The first thing Shino thinks when he learns the names of his team-mates is; this is not true.
He knows the force of nature that is Inuzuka Kiba and his Akamaru, knows the furious enthusiasm with which they live. Knows, too, their lack of concentration - knows, with near certainty, that Kiba will be troublesome to live with. The kikai crawl closer to the skin when Kiba is around, agitated and eager to break out.
Hyuuga Hinata is all pale skin and pale eyes and reluctance to look anyone in the eye, and Shino wonders how she managed to pass at all. Ninjas, in his opinion, are supposed to be proud, straight-backed, and Hinata is everything but.
It is only later that he learns of Kiba's fierce loyalty to friends and Hinata's near-perfect control of her chakra. It is only later that he comes to appreciate them and the ease with which they work together - it is only later, much later, that he begins to value them as parts of himself. (because that's the way he thinks of it - Shino, who has never been alone; Shino, who has ever been the one-who-is-many; Shino, who knows that teams are only ever extension of your own will, your own chakra, your own self.)
Shino is twelve years old, and he has only just begun to believe in something outside of himself.
*'*'*
The Forest of Death does not scare Shino. It is crawling with poisonous bugs - but then, so is he - and it is dangerous to merely breathe while inside it, but it does not scare him. It's nothing but trees and dirt and animals, and he knows those. Trees and dirt and animals are easy.
So is acquiring the second scroll. The only difficult parts of this second stage exam is putting up with Kiba's leader-instinct and over-eagerness, and he has been doing that for months. Kiba has become like the kikai - a constant irritation that makes his skin crawl, but useful all the same.
No, the Forest of Death does not scare Shino. Nor does the Chuunin Exam intimidate him. He knows that both can be overcome with determination and resourcefulness, both of which he has aplenty.
What truly scares Shino - what makes him shake and shiver and break out in cold sweats - is neither forest nor exam nor even the prospect of failure. What truly scares him is a child; a skinny, pale child, whose skin bears no scars and whose hands are never dirtied.
What truly scares him is Sabaku no Gaara - what truly scares him is the absolute silence of his kikaichuu, the dead stillness under his skin as Gaara performs the sand-and-blood funeral.
Shino is twelve years old and on his knees in the dirt, the first time he sees someone who has a weapon far worse than the kikai inside him.
*'*'*
Aburame Shino rarely makes his voice heard. Words have always been precious things in his mouth, few and far between.
This is not to say he never speaks. Shino lives in a world made of nothing but speech. Kiba laughs and shouts and is so loud by nature that Shino cannot imagine him otherwise. Hinata is soft sounds and giggles and sighs, few words spoken but the ones said mean something. (Shino is aware of Hinata's crush on Uzumaki Naruto before she is, merely by counting the times she has repeated his name). His kikai are all sorts of sounds, and he hears them talktalktalk beneath his skin until he knows all their secrets and everyone else's secrets too.
Shino is a weapon - has always been a weapon - and though he sometimes wonders what life would have been like without the kikaichuu, without the buzzing thrum of otherlife beneath his skin, it does not worry him over-much.
He is what he is.
Weapon.
Hive.
Shinobi.
Comrade.
Shino.