Attraction: Enter the Dragon pt 2 Continued
Earlier post is where this chapter starts--this is the continuation, don't worry, the link is in the first chapter.
A very simple character to understand, Gaara seemed.
So with these thoughts in mind, feeling like absolute backwater, old gum between his molars that felt a tad too loose on the right side, and absolutely lost with only a very small idea of how to get back, Kakashi was industriously reliving page 123 of Come Come Paradise vol. 4 right before the second climax. He had always liked that chapter, he reflected. What a great book…too bad there wouldn’t be any new ones out for a while, not until he started writing them himself, since Jiraiya obviously wouldn’t be able to do it, what with being dead and all.
Steadily, through bits of rubble and out of the gray forest, through old ghost little villages the size of a few houses grouped loosely together, the pair marched. Marched. Past stakes shoved in the ground, past the burned areas, past the scattered bones that crunched under Gaara’s sneakers and Kakashi avoided respectfully, past the scoured shacks of peasants and farmers, often synonymous. After some time, around sunset, they reached the site.
There was a concrete wall, broken off to knee-level and splattered with dark stuff. Gaara went around it, studying the ground intently and sand touching at one spot that looked no different from any of the other ravaged plots and wrenched it open, revealing many stairs going down. Then he turned to look at Kakashi.
The older shinobi walked carefully to where he was, and when it became apparent that Gaara was waiting on him, green eyes dull, Kakashi stepped in and then walked down.
Suppose Gaara shut the door and let whatever it was that was down here eat him? Suppose it was all a very silly trap? Suppose he just wanted to lock him up down here so he could kill him without worry of interruption?
Kakashi didn’t have an ace up his sleeve that he was readily aware of. He was stronger than he seemed, more powerful than he felt, he knew. His chakra was there. He just wasn’t itching to fight. He really wanted to take a nap.
Besides, his body wouldn’t be able to take it.
About seven steps down-this thing was very deep, however deep it was-the little sunlight that he’d been seeing by slammed off, the cellar door shutting behind. He sighed, a little irritated, and considered going back up immediately or just relaxing down here for a while. He couldn’t sense any extreme energy close to him. Couldn’t sense any faint energy near him.
“What are you waiting for?” Irritation.
Oh. He wasn’t alone. Well…never mind then. Scrap that second option.
Warily, slowly, he continued walking downward, his senses heightened more than his head felt comfortable with and his Sharingan still warded-he didn’t have the energy or endurance to handle it further. He could smell the faint tang of old blood. The stairs seemed to go down forever.
He stumbled when he hit the ground, and then slipped further on something slick. He caught himself on the edge of the doorframe, and felt further wetness under his fingers. The smell was overpowering down here. He could feel Gaara watching him interestedly from behind, like one watched a mouse running in a wheel; trying really hard and not getting anywhere.
He straightened carefully, and brought his fingers up to his covered nose and sniffed. //Yep.// He rolled his shoulders. “There a light?”
There was a sputtering and a flare behind him from a single candle in the middle of the room, and the first thing he saw were Gaara’s green eyes staring into him. Not at him. Into him.
Perhaps it was the light on Gaara’s eyes or face or just his overall weariness, but another wave of regret seemed to brush his mind; regret that insanity preyed strongest on the very powerful, and kept them weak in the mind. Then he turned around. It took some time for him to absorb all of it. He wasn’t in the habit of throwing up at anything, he noted with some pride and queasiness, or else he would’ve done it.
“Uh…Excuse me? This isn’t a wall. This is a room.”
Gaara shrugged unseen behind him. Whatever. “What can you tell me about it? Was it worth living a few hours more?”
Something darted at the edges of Kakashi’s vision. He didn’t catch it, or see it when he looked around. His skin felt cold.
It was one thing to drench a room in blood. Kakashi was an old shinobi-15, 16 was considered a normal age for adults, and it was rare for shinobi to live past 30. After thirty, thirty-five they just dropped off, like so many flies. Some stayed on, and they became the Jounnin, the Sennin, Anbu, and Hokage. Everyone else just ended.
In his time, Kakashi had seen some truly gruesome things, things that still woke him up around 2:50 AM even though they were years old, even before the fox and fire and all it’s problems. Even before the Fourth had died. When he had been a child still, perhaps the strongest in the village. It was one thing to drench a room in blood.
He had seen the dead mixed with the living often enough just because there wasn’t space to keep them separate. He’d seen family reduced to eating one another gradually, just because there wasn’t anything else to eat, because even the rats wouldn’t enter grounds like that.
Seeing all that he had, and knowing that he was still walking and breathing and that for all horror that there was in the world…all the horror in the world that had ever been and continued on. The pain and horror in man didn’t change; it never would. The methods changed, but not the carnage. Naruto had been right about that, but had been just plain stupid, plain emotional in his reaction. Killing other people did not make them wrong and him right; it just made them dead.
There was a patina of blood and gore over the walls and floor, a thin layer of gruesome light pink and dark brown on the ceiling. Lumps of things Kakashi would probably recognize if he got a good look at them were clumped together on the floor, and stiff shapes hauled off to a corner along with a variety of bones, few unbroken.
The flooring, ceiling, and three of the walls had deep grooves cut into them; with a knife or other blunt object. It nearly resembled a child’s scribble, except that there was a pattern in it that Kakashi didn’t recognize.
“You bring them here. You kill them here.”
Gaara didn’t answer. That was obvious.
Kakashi shoved one hand in his pocket and continued studying his surroundings detachedly. Gaara had brought him here. “I don’t see anything eating it, not even on the ceiling. There‘s probably something wrong with your eyes.”
Gaara brushed past him, and he found himself staring at the back of his neck. At the base of his skull, where a knife inserted could sever the brainstem and that would have to kill the bastard no matter how good he was at healing, but it would have to be done all-out and very quickly. Some electricity added wouldn’t go amiss either. If the neurons could be shocked hard enough…but would that kill the Other soul as well? Or simply the dominant one?
Gaara turned around to look at him from his place by the far wall, standing near the corner. It was the only without markings scratched on it, but it was still thickly covered; too thick to tell what the original color had been. Without a word or gesture, he seemed to beckon him. Kakashi went, still mulling over the possibilities the neck presented. His earlier words of surrender didn’t even come to mind. Wordlessly, Gaara pointed at a section of wall.
“Looks like pretty old blood to me. Smells like it too.”
Gaara took one of his knives from his belt holster before he could protest, grabbed his arm and sliced along it hard. His fingers were a vice on Kakashi’s arm, so even though he had jerked automatically he hadn’t moved an inch. He didn’t cry out, and wasn’t sure if he wanted to attack. He hadn’t planned on attacking the demon this early while there was still time but---
Gaara let go of his arm; the knife neatly covered in blood, and dragged the flat of the blade along of the wall . Kakashi clamped a hand over the wound to staunch the flow. He was still armed even though Gaara had the other knife. He had no idea if the sand had followed or not. He hadn’t heard it coming down, and he didn’t want to take his eyes off the kid.
“Well? Are you watching or what?” Gaara asked irritably.
Kakashi looked the wall that was…soaking up his blood. Like a sponge. Huh. Well. Okay that was weird.
The red of his blood, only faintly brighter and distinguishable from the rest of the dried old burgundy that covered the wall, was vanishing. There were vague hints of white as the wall’s natural color began to seep through.
The sand grabbed his wrist again, “Listen,” and pressed his palm against the wall covered in gore and blood. Kakashi started to listen and---
Snatched his hand away and flushed to his ears, holding his wrist painfully hard, trying to staunch the sound ringing through his bones. He didn’t scream. He felt like it, but he didn’t scream. Every fracture and scratch and break and torn muscle in his body felt like it had exploded, the pain overriding his control and something else…something else overriding his control and widening the pain.
“See? I told you. ”
“What is that?” Kakashi didn’t scream; there was no fear in his voice.
“I don’t know.” Innocent green eyes looked blankly at him. “I just feed it.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” Gaara shrugged.
If not for his mask, Kakashi would have gaped at him like a fish. Gaara acted like…it was some sort of Saturday hobby. His heart was still racing, his skin felt absolutely icy, everything ached and he still had the aggravating impulse to scream. Kakashi liked to think he was above screaming. “That isn’t…normal.”
“Neither am I. What‘s your point?”
“That’s not…it, the thing is that-“ Kakashi risked a look back at the wall, where the stain of his blood had been absorbed quite neatly into the wall. Pristine white paint glared at him. //…oh. Ooh…not good. Not good, not good.// Gaara was looking at the spot captivated.
“It likes you.” green eyes studied him with new interest. Hints of a smile started to form near his lips without ever touching his eyes. “That is interesting.”
Kakashi felt his skin turn cold again and his hair rise. “That thing…is some kind of seal. I don’t think feeding it is such a good idea. Whatever it’s sealed against is powerful, and…” for as long as he kept talking, Gaara wouldn’t attack. That was the important thing. Keep talking. Gaara was still studying him like a mouse in a cage, and while his guard wasn’t down it wasn’t as high as it had been when they had first met.
There could be opportunity. It probably wouldn’t be enough to save his life, but if you couldn’t defend, then you attacked. You did something--you didn’t wish you weren’t there.
Randomly, Kakashi found himself really analyzing the wall. “…And old. Very old.” He looked at his hand, and to Gaara’s surprise-don’t show fear-walked back up to the wall, and lightly placed his fingers on it. Then pulled them away quickly but… “It’s intelligent.” He placed his palm against it flat again, before pulling away just as quickly.
“If you’re trying to impress me, it isn’t working,” Gaara said flatly.
“I’m not,” Kakashi replied absently. And he wasn’t. He was stalling for time, a very different proposal. He pulled out another knife and began prying lightly at the plaster.
“Don’t do that!” For the first time, emotion bled into the demon’s voice. He was snarling. Something yanked the knife from his hand so hard it stung his fingers--Kakashi thought he had seen brown wisps in the air, but perhaps not. Green blazed.
“What? I’m just looking-“
“Don’t. You have no idea what you’re doing.”
//He’s afraid of it. He expected me to be afraid too. Or something.// Behind the mask, Kakashi wanted to grin, but he didn’t. He didn’t even allow it to come through in his voice.
“Aren‘t you curious? Maybe it’s another demon, but somehow I don’t think so. Something else no one else has ever seen…fascinating. Don’t you want to see?”
He waited quietly for Gaara to come in.
“Perhaps.”
He wasn’t too close to him, but neatly within arm reach and somewhat towards his back. Kakashi allowed the chakra energy that he had been gathering diligently to manifest itself with a light buzzing and cracking and blinding white light around his right hand. He turned his head to find Gaara looking blankly surprised over at his shoulder, eyes a bright funky color and the sand a huge agitated wave behind him.
“Let’s find out together, okay?”
“You wouldn’t.”
Kakashi smiled.
Sand (floating in the air above his head) hit his shoulders and yanked on his neck, and he pulled away, slipping away in a complicated slipping gesture that was more illusion than genius, allowing it to trap him in a corner, his hand splattering flat against the wall, a glaring lightening and buzzing a high, furious white sound. Green eyes looked at him-helpless? No, but one could mistake it for that. Shocked. Or just annoyed.
“You wouldn’t.”
Kakashi smiled again. It was not a nice smile. It only touched one eye.
“It’ll kill you!”
“You’ll feed me to it. What’ve I got to lose? Why not?”
Gaara seemed to waver. The sand eased off his ribs. His feet still didn’t touch the floor.
“Don’t.”
“Release your claim on my life and body. Swear it on your name.” Kakashi wasn’t joking around. It came through in his voice.
Gaara frowned. //How the hell did he know about that?// “No.”
“Then…” the buzzing was nearly deafening now. Gaara was tempted to shield his eyes from the light and squinted instead.
“Go ahead then! Do it! It’ll eat you, destroy you! I was just going to kill you but if you’d prefer that then do it!”
“I’ll take you with me,” Kakashi pointed out so softly he wasn’t sure if the other had heard it or not.
“I can’t be killed”
“No? Maybe you’re right.” and Kakashi’s smile colored his voice again. “But it‘s alive and caged and unhappy--I don‘t think you would make good friends to get sealed in with it.”
“It’ll take you too.”
Kakashi managed to shrug somehow, the glaring white buzz never fading from his hands. “So? I’m an old man to be a ninja; I could use one last grand adventure. I’ll die sooner than you, I’m sure.”
Gaara said nothing. He did nothing. He kept glancing between Kakashi’s hand glaring a hateful lightening white to the small smile that his mismatched eyes were giving him. The sand didn’t relent; neither did the lightening.
Without touching his mouth, his eyes swore hatred.
The sand dropped Kakashi completely, but he didn’t stop touching the wall, never mind what it was saying to him. He wasn’t listening. He also didn’t move.
“Get out.”
“Swear on your name.”
“I’m giving you five fucking minutes to get out.”
“I won’t make it in time. I can’t and you know it. I want the promise on your name, nothing less.”
That was a shade of green Kakashi would remember for a long time. When Gaara was-not happy, because he was never happy, not ever in his whole life, but when he was satisfied, his eyes turned a darker shade of green as more blue filmed over. When he was completely bloody furious, as it sometimes happened, his eyes turned pure yellow with shards of black for the pupil. Right now, they were a sickening shade of greenish-yellow with pupils that Kakashi knew weren’t human.
“I’ll do it. But it’ll take you too. For as long as you keep your hands off me, I’ll keep my hands off you.”
“You’ll never get another chance.”
“All the better for you then, eh?”
Kakashi calculated. The sand was swirling in disturbing ways; patterns were immerging that he recognized and didn’t like. The wall was talking to him through his hand. Inhuman eyes hadn’t stopped spitting hatred at him yet. Oh, and his body still felt impaled several times over. Yeah-it was definitely Monday. Only Mondays felt this incredibly shitty.
“Deal?” he asked again.
“You can’t keep that up forever.”
“I don’t have to.”
“You think you can do this to me?”
“I already have.” Gaara’s eyes widened slightly at that calm statement.
“You said you surrendered. You lied. Your word means shit to me.”
“I said I wouldn’t hurt you and I haven’t. Not a finger.”
Gaara’s eyes narrowed, and his voice turned incredulous. “What makes you think you can do this?”
Kakashi let his eyes widen innocently. “Why not?”
“This is…this is where he gets it from! From you…Naruto learned to be a bastard from you. You trained him.”
Kakashi considered that statement. He tried to be a logical man, all his life, and sometimes he managed it.
“Yeah, but he learned more from life than he did from me. I never taught him to murder.”
Gaara stared, his eyes looking slightly surprised.
***
Kakashi rolled his neck again along his shoulders. He still hurt. After all that, he still hurt. And there was sand in his sandals; he really hated that; there were few things he hated more than having sand in his sandals. It wasn’t even a funny pun and his legs and feet hurt badly enough.
But at least things were looking better now. It wasn’t quite what he had set out to do, but it was good enough that he could work with it.
I release from you from my claim, mind and body if in return you don’t touch me, you don’t come near me, you stay as far away from me as humanly possible. Swear it.
On my name.
On my name.
Kakashi caught the slur on ‘humanly possible.’ Oh sure; every other word and then some coming out had malice dripping off the consonants, but there had been an outright revulsion on that little phrase. He wondered who had termed it; Naruto or Gaara? One of the two. He wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate to contradict the redhead or laugh. He hadn’t done either but both had crossed his mind a couple times.
He was being followed. First at distance, where he hadn’t been real sure, and then he couldn’t figure out who it was; Gaara or something else, a werewolf perhaps. Those had been pretty thick around these parts at one time until the really vicious hunters had moved in. Then his right eyebrow had shot up.
//Ahhhh…I see.// He didn’t turn around, not even when he could hear the slight parade of ants slithering through the bushes, not even when he didn’t hear but could still sense the silent footfall several feet behind him, steady. He didn’t say anything, not even when the corner of his eye caught a flash of red.
Gaara approached him from his right side, the side he could still see out of. Neither said anything. It took some time for him to notice, but…Gaara knew where he was going. And he was…wasn’t leading him out. He was watching him to see how long it would take before Kakashi became incredibly lost.
It took three hours.
By that time, Gaara had disappeared along with the sunlight, dusk and darkness and the very hardy and very vicious mosquitoes filling in the gap. Kakashi didn’t swear or get angry. Instead, he climbed a tree, reclined on a branch, and waited for the stars to come out so he could get his bearings and read Come Come Paradise by whatever light there would be.
He was about four miles off course, and six away from the spot he cheerfully called bed but had never ever thought of as home. Back at the ranch, Iruka was probably climbing the walls and Lee pulling him down. Hinata would be quietly giving herself ulcers and Neji and Shikamaru would both be dreading the morning if he hadn’t come back by then. Ino would be calling them all idiots; of them all, she probably had the most confidence in him. That was kind of strange, he’d admit.
No one would come out looking for him until after daybreak; it was the one rule Kakashi really hated and kept laid down. If a team or member had to stay out after dark, then so be it. But no one was to go putting themselves in danger to retrieve them. Or him. The darkness didn’t belong to them anymore, and the whole could survive still without one member. But the night didn’t belong to them anymore. And that really hurt.
Kakashi sighed quietly to himself as leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
True night fell.
It didn’t exist everywhere at all times, but it existed somewhere at sometime, and had been everywhere at one time. You recognized when it was there. Hair stood up, the skin turned cold and you realized that for all your thick walls and sure weapons and unrivaled knowledge, the night was stronger than anything wrought in daylight. It had been, and it always would be. The night that lurked on the edge of firelight, patiently waiting for the final embers to burn out. Morning made it leave, but it never chased it too quickly in case it caught it.
Kakashi breathed.
True night swarmed.
The mosquitoes had retreated to safety, the cold and thicker predators pushing them back. Mist the color of a greasy black city sidewalk curled and writhed along the ground, around the trees and between the leaves. Things on four legs and two prowled between the straight trunks, crawling or flopping silently, eyes rolling. Bone chilling cold set in, settled in the joints, stilling even the rattle of the leaves into silent immobility. Nothing stirred, and there was no sound. If you pressed your ear to wood, you could hear the sap flowing.
Kakashi was still.
True night hunted.
The skin was hairless, thick and clung tightly to the frame. Despite logic, it was slightly pale instead of some dark color for the night. Lizard-like eyes bulged and swept constantly, never seeming to blink or close even for a second lest something incredibly interesting and lethal happen in that fateful second. Broomstick thick arms and legs propelled it forward, ending in sharp, thin extensions of bone; claws.
Kakashi slept.
True night climbed.
It came from behind, slinking forward, clinging to the wood like a gecko to glass. It wasn’t incautious enough to come from the front or below, and too skilled to make a sound. Cleanly, it cut along his throat in a swift movement. And for a second lizard-like eyes widened to see the body not jerk or slump forward, but combust into a cloud of smoke.
With its eyes open, the bogey died.
Kakashi pulled his knife out smoothly and cleaned it against the bark. He shoved the dirtied blade back in its holster-he didn’t clean it on his clothes for the poison-and turned around to greet the second monster of the night to visit him.
Ordinary green eyes watched him, curious that he was not yet dead. But for the faint dead smell that clung to it and the demon clawing at the inside of his skull, Gaara would not have sensed the bogey coming. But somehow Kakashi had. He had been sure it would kill him.
Without a word or second glance, Gaara left.
Kakashi settled himself down again, and closed his eyes.
***
There are few things more annoying than an unpaid debt.
It itches and scratches, and will not leave.
It can drive people mad, or to do very stupid things, which may be similar.
***
//That was surprisingly easy.//
//I wonder if they’re actually bound to those rules though…//
What he didn’t like was that he was still so badly hurt. There was a limit to how many healing Jutsus Kakashi had learned-far less than offensive ones. It was enough to keep him walking, keep him steady, but still…his chakra were reserves had their limit.
He kept his ears open as he staggered gently forward, moving slowly and painfully.
Regardless, due to either superiority on the other side or his own physical deficiency, he never saw it coming. He realized what was happening after he was hit, going straight for his left kidney and Kakashi turned aside slightly falling back, making it only slice through his skin instead of his organs, got his feet back under him and knew he had about four steps left before he collapsed and couldn’t get up.
The Sharingan was out of the question. Since he couldn’t turn it off or modify it like a true Uchiha, it was more a liability and blind spot than anything else.
He heard a slight growl to his side, in his blind spot, and saw a flash of flesh travel in front of his neck in his peripheral vision. Before the other hand gripped his shoulder and before his neck could be snapped in half, straight from the Konohakagure Academy textbooks, straight from the Yondaime’s lessons, came the list of vulnerable body points.
There are eight targets. Kidney, heart, subclavian artery, jugular vein, liver, lungs, spinal column, and the throat.
He was dead. It was here. It happened here. It happened now.
It had been hard losing his eye, and worse having it replaced. Living was painful. In death, there was no pain. Death was a mercy. Death was peace.
Kakashi was a contradiction trapped in an enigma that got nervous placed to close to the light and absolutely placid and blank in close inspection.
He pushed himself back, twisted his shoulders in accordance with the hand breaking his neck, so when the yank came his teeth were already buried into the other’s neck, cutting through the skin and muscle and cloth, his right hand buried up to the wrist in liver and hot blood. Kakashi’s jaw jerked and tightened in pain, the incisors nearly coming in full circle, the knife going in deeper. His neck hurt but didn’t break.
Sand ripped him away in a blizzard, biting at his skin like many tiny harpies, invading his ears and nose, throwing away him on his back.
He was past pain now. Kakashi’s left eye winced open, saw something pale with black circles and red hair and then a pressure just below his left knee and heard the bone snap very clear. He realized later that he had screamed.
It did not occur to him until much, much later, that Gaara was in the habit of fighting and killing with the sand--he disliked using his hands. He never touched anyone, if he could help it.
***
::You would kill me for gold?::
Kakashi struggled for consciousness, light, an edge, something he could orient himself by. He…he had been…
::Not glory. Not honor. Not even arrogance.::
He’d been hit. Hard. There’d been a fight. He didn’t feel dead. Obito was…
::Silence.::
::Shadow walker. Not night nor day.::
Obito was dead. Ino. Lee. Sasuke. The village was gone and he was cold. Why couldn’t he wake up? What was that noise? Was he dead?
::Would you kill me for gold?::
::Answer!::
It was like being hit by a sledgehammer. Kakashi’s eyes received the impulse to jar open and twitched all the way to his neck. His body protested immediately, grease-hot pain gouging his spine.
//Should’ve killed him. I should have killed him. I should’ve loosed it right there and killed him.//
By degrees, his breathing came back under his control. He was probably not dead. Being dead shouldn’t twitch this much. So, logically, if he wasn’t dead he was still very much in danger. The space around him felt open-he hadn’t been rescued, likely.
Wincing, he opened his right eye, the natural one. Gray sky above, hemmed by damp, empty tree tops. What time was it? Where was he?
No.
Was he alone?
His muscles didn’t spasm as he leaned up onto one elbow and looked around because they were tightly gripped by his mind in full Baby Deer Mode: Slow, smooth, near invisible movements for fear of predators.
Then he allowed his muscles to lock into place-it was too late.
A decent distance away, Gaara sat on the ground, sunglasses intent on him. He looked very relaxed, as if he were waiting for something or perhaps communing with nature. Meditating on the nature of truth, maybe.
He stood up abruptly and sauntered closer, crouching at Kakashi’s side well within striking distance and in his face.
Kakashi reevaluated the situation. Gaara moved stiffly, slightly self-consciously, always searching for a fight or preparing for an attack, constantly on edge. But this guy, with Gaara’s body, seemed very, very relaxed-at ease with himself and thoughtlessly arrogant.
Only his reflection-bloody and beat up--stared back at him. By degrees, he relaxed himself to his back again-more comfortable that way, and it left both his hands open. His left leg was shattered. Anything below his waist was left unmoved and it still ached.
His hair was examined-rubbed between fingers and then smelled. He hadn’t washed it-or himself-in a while. Against his will and with some struggle, his mouth was opened and sniffed, teeth felt and examined. Then his right hand. His pulse. His heart. His crotch-//What the hell?!//--and was felt up through his pants. His right foot. Left leg was looked at but not touched. And then, finally, the creature took off its sunglasses and pushed both his eyes open. The left one screamed.
The Sharingan fed him images he couldn’t understand, that his mind couldn’t process, not in it’s state. His natural eye got blurry images that he could understand-overall it was like watching two moving screens at once of the exact same picture at very different speeds and qualities-overwhelming and incomprehensible. But then the Sharingan eye usually was.
Kakashi had-perhaps foolishly-been expecting eyes like fire. Or absolute black circles. Maybe even snake eyes.
These were yellow, vaguely reptilian, vaguely feline, and very feral. Orochimaru’s, Neji’s, even Kiba’s eyes seemed just as unearthly-Kakashi had easily seen worse. It was the intelligence behind them, inside them, that made him flinch.
His head was in a vice-he couldn’t even twitch the tendons. He felt they weren’t just looking at him, they were looking inside him, seeing everything and not being very impressed by anything. Searching.
Kakashi had faced Naruto in full fox form, on the eve of the Burn Out, but he hadn’t really fought him. He had burn scars branded deeply into his chest the shape of claws, but the fox had never touched him. These eyes were the same as those, only in a ordinary mundane human body. The juxtaposition made them a bit…eerier. Frightening.
A monster was only a human with the brakes off.
Kakashi turned his head away when he was released and the glasses replaced-the creature scratched its neck irritably. It tilted its head to one side, looking at him curiously.
His jaw exploded as an uppercut tapped him and made his skull crack a second before his ribcage began to cave in from another hit.
There wasn’t even time to cough up blood. His fingers flew together instinctively, already forming the Signs before his left hand was caught and all feeling below his knuckles shrieked and faded.
He was dying. He was going to die.
//Why did he wait? Why did he have to wait?!!//
Kakashi’s kunai plunged into the side of its ribcage a few seconds before his head was shoved to the side and teeth pierced his neck.
The kunai darted in and out like a hummingbird, gutting along its abdomen and flying for its heart, pulling on energy his body didn‘t have anymore, taking it out on credit and never planning to pay it back. The mouth at his neck continued to dig; the creature straddled his stomach, shuddering when his right knee connected with its back, but ignoring him otherwise.
Blood fiery and acidic warmed and burned his hand laced with scratches and cuts-it fell on his shirt and seeped through. He was light headed from blood loss, stabbing its lungs through the back diligently since he couldn’t find the strength to reach higher or find the heart and it was lying on top of him, keeping its innards from spilling out. He continued out of principle--no reason to let up, especially since he had lost.
//This wasn’t what I had in mind…exactly…//
Quite suddenly, the pressure on his neck released. The knife was taken from his hand and, with a bloody grin, slipped into the creature’s mouth like a lollipop. It cut its lips as it was pulled out-Kakashi watched instead of seeing the world go black. Once again, his mouth was forced open, demon blood flooding his throat. Every bruise, scrape, and gash screamed and writhed and then vanished crying with loss…
He winced. Something in his brain jarred, with intelligence and pain.
Not a scratch.
//It’s not a vampire. It’s not possible. It doesn’t work that way, what the hell--//
Sasuke’s mind had been hurt, but there hadn’t been a single scratch on him. There was more than one way…
He tried pushing the liquid out with his tongue, and then not swallowing or breathing. Then his instincts stepped in, shoved the mind out the door, and stopped fighting-humanity was great, but surviving was better. Besides, it wasn’t really like he had a choice.
//Why? What does it want? It has to want something…//
His throat choked anyway, blood draining from the cuts he had made into its skin-he was able to feel his left fingers again, regrettably, but at the rate he was healing-if it worked the same for him as it had for Sasuke, as it did for Gaara, then the pain wouldn’t last long.
Just as suddenly as it began, the creature backed off, sitting on its haunches and watching him curiously with a faint, amused smile.
//Another fight? It wants another fight? Why not just kill me? It went through all that…because it could’ve killed me, but not totaled me. Well. These things have a sense of fair play? No. Probably just a very fine-tuned sense of extracting absolute humiliation. But it’ll give me time.//
It watched him patiently, and Kakashi had to close his eyes when he felt burning rip along his wounds, which flared momentarily then erased. Even his left leg trembled a little with the fire--his heart beat sped up. The blood must be like some kind of drug…
Kakashi started to lever himself up to his elbows again, testing his left fingers-pain, but a very faint reaction. Not enough to do anything with it yet, but getting there.
The handle of his kunai waved in front of his face, the bloody smile behind it bright and slightly sinister-not a trace of duplicity or guilt, the true smile of an absolute liar and murderer. The head cocked to one side, curious and patient. Kakashi’s eyes flicked from the handle to the smile to the sunglasses-there was something wrong here. There was something uniquely wrong.
The thing in Gaara’s body stopped to scratch at his neck and stood, pacing away, giving him his back, still holding the knife. It scratched harder. The spot on his neck started to bleed.
//Did I have rabies and not know it? Piece of luck if I did. Kind of.//
And then it was back at his side, in his face again.
//Reactions. More than a fight its searching for reactions. Can it smell fear? Why? I must’ve done something interest…but I don’t have rabies. So what is it?//
The ground bucked and wrapped around his neck from under him. For once, Kakashi didn’t fight-he’d been pushed around and tested and he was tired of it. It wanted reactions-he didn’t feel like playing. So it actually made quite a bit of sense for him to lay there and glare mildly annoyed. In other circumstances, it might’ve worked.
Using his knife and hands, it started to rip his clothes from his body.
//Fuck.//
***
Gaara didn’t wake up. He usually didn’t.
It wasn’t so much as he said, “Yes, I no longer want control” so much as he didn’t say, “No, I won’t let you have it.” Or if he did say the latter, that he did not put it into actions. And if he did put it into actions, then that he did not push hard enough.
In any case, it was out of his hands.
***
A/N: I know-this didn’t answer much questions, and while it wasn’t exactly a filler chapter, I felt the Group needed more coverage. And Shukaku. He needed more coverage.
A very simple character to understand, Gaara seemed.
So with these thoughts in mind, feeling like absolute backwater, old gum between his molars that felt a tad too loose on the right side, and absolutely lost with only a very small idea of how to get back, Kakashi was industriously reliving page 123 of Come Come Paradise vol. 4 right before the second climax. He had always liked that chapter, he reflected. What a great book…too bad there wouldn’t be any new ones out for a while, not until he started writing them himself, since Jiraiya obviously wouldn’t be able to do it, what with being dead and all.
Steadily, through bits of rubble and out of the gray forest, through old ghost little villages the size of a few houses grouped loosely together, the pair marched. Marched. Past stakes shoved in the ground, past the burned areas, past the scattered bones that crunched under Gaara’s sneakers and Kakashi avoided respectfully, past the scoured shacks of peasants and farmers, often synonymous. After some time, around sunset, they reached the site.
There was a concrete wall, broken off to knee-level and splattered with dark stuff. Gaara went around it, studying the ground intently and sand touching at one spot that looked no different from any of the other ravaged plots and wrenched it open, revealing many stairs going down. Then he turned to look at Kakashi.
The older shinobi walked carefully to where he was, and when it became apparent that Gaara was waiting on him, green eyes dull, Kakashi stepped in and then walked down.
Suppose Gaara shut the door and let whatever it was that was down here eat him? Suppose it was all a very silly trap? Suppose he just wanted to lock him up down here so he could kill him without worry of interruption?
Kakashi didn’t have an ace up his sleeve that he was readily aware of. He was stronger than he seemed, more powerful than he felt, he knew. His chakra was there. He just wasn’t itching to fight. He really wanted to take a nap.
Besides, his body wouldn’t be able to take it.
About seven steps down-this thing was very deep, however deep it was-the little sunlight that he’d been seeing by slammed off, the cellar door shutting behind. He sighed, a little irritated, and considered going back up immediately or just relaxing down here for a while. He couldn’t sense any extreme energy close to him. Couldn’t sense any faint energy near him.
“What are you waiting for?” Irritation.
Oh. He wasn’t alone. Well…never mind then. Scrap that second option.
Warily, slowly, he continued walking downward, his senses heightened more than his head felt comfortable with and his Sharingan still warded-he didn’t have the energy or endurance to handle it further. He could smell the faint tang of old blood. The stairs seemed to go down forever.
He stumbled when he hit the ground, and then slipped further on something slick. He caught himself on the edge of the doorframe, and felt further wetness under his fingers. The smell was overpowering down here. He could feel Gaara watching him interestedly from behind, like one watched a mouse running in a wheel; trying really hard and not getting anywhere.
He straightened carefully, and brought his fingers up to his covered nose and sniffed. //Yep.// He rolled his shoulders. “There a light?”
There was a sputtering and a flare behind him from a single candle in the middle of the room, and the first thing he saw were Gaara’s green eyes staring into him. Not at him. Into him.
Perhaps it was the light on Gaara’s eyes or face or just his overall weariness, but another wave of regret seemed to brush his mind; regret that insanity preyed strongest on the very powerful, and kept them weak in the mind. Then he turned around. It took some time for him to absorb all of it. He wasn’t in the habit of throwing up at anything, he noted with some pride and queasiness, or else he would’ve done it.
“Uh…Excuse me? This isn’t a wall. This is a room.”
Gaara shrugged unseen behind him. Whatever. “What can you tell me about it? Was it worth living a few hours more?”
Something darted at the edges of Kakashi’s vision. He didn’t catch it, or see it when he looked around. His skin felt cold.
It was one thing to drench a room in blood. Kakashi was an old shinobi-15, 16 was considered a normal age for adults, and it was rare for shinobi to live past 30. After thirty, thirty-five they just dropped off, like so many flies. Some stayed on, and they became the Jounnin, the Sennin, Anbu, and Hokage. Everyone else just ended.
In his time, Kakashi had seen some truly gruesome things, things that still woke him up around 2:50 AM even though they were years old, even before the fox and fire and all it’s problems. Even before the Fourth had died. When he had been a child still, perhaps the strongest in the village. It was one thing to drench a room in blood.
He had seen the dead mixed with the living often enough just because there wasn’t space to keep them separate. He’d seen family reduced to eating one another gradually, just because there wasn’t anything else to eat, because even the rats wouldn’t enter grounds like that.
Seeing all that he had, and knowing that he was still walking and breathing and that for all horror that there was in the world…all the horror in the world that had ever been and continued on. The pain and horror in man didn’t change; it never would. The methods changed, but not the carnage. Naruto had been right about that, but had been just plain stupid, plain emotional in his reaction. Killing other people did not make them wrong and him right; it just made them dead.
There was a patina of blood and gore over the walls and floor, a thin layer of gruesome light pink and dark brown on the ceiling. Lumps of things Kakashi would probably recognize if he got a good look at them were clumped together on the floor, and stiff shapes hauled off to a corner along with a variety of bones, few unbroken.
The flooring, ceiling, and three of the walls had deep grooves cut into them; with a knife or other blunt object. It nearly resembled a child’s scribble, except that there was a pattern in it that Kakashi didn’t recognize.
“You bring them here. You kill them here.”
Gaara didn’t answer. That was obvious.
Kakashi shoved one hand in his pocket and continued studying his surroundings detachedly. Gaara had brought him here. “I don’t see anything eating it, not even on the ceiling. There‘s probably something wrong with your eyes.”
Gaara brushed past him, and he found himself staring at the back of his neck. At the base of his skull, where a knife inserted could sever the brainstem and that would have to kill the bastard no matter how good he was at healing, but it would have to be done all-out and very quickly. Some electricity added wouldn’t go amiss either. If the neurons could be shocked hard enough…but would that kill the Other soul as well? Or simply the dominant one?
Gaara turned around to look at him from his place by the far wall, standing near the corner. It was the only without markings scratched on it, but it was still thickly covered; too thick to tell what the original color had been. Without a word or gesture, he seemed to beckon him. Kakashi went, still mulling over the possibilities the neck presented. His earlier words of surrender didn’t even come to mind. Wordlessly, Gaara pointed at a section of wall.
“Looks like pretty old blood to me. Smells like it too.”
Gaara took one of his knives from his belt holster before he could protest, grabbed his arm and sliced along it hard. His fingers were a vice on Kakashi’s arm, so even though he had jerked automatically he hadn’t moved an inch. He didn’t cry out, and wasn’t sure if he wanted to attack. He hadn’t planned on attacking the demon this early while there was still time but---
Gaara let go of his arm; the knife neatly covered in blood, and dragged the flat of the blade along of the wall . Kakashi clamped a hand over the wound to staunch the flow. He was still armed even though Gaara had the other knife. He had no idea if the sand had followed or not. He hadn’t heard it coming down, and he didn’t want to take his eyes off the kid.
“Well? Are you watching or what?” Gaara asked irritably.
Kakashi looked the wall that was…soaking up his blood. Like a sponge. Huh. Well. Okay that was weird.
The red of his blood, only faintly brighter and distinguishable from the rest of the dried old burgundy that covered the wall, was vanishing. There were vague hints of white as the wall’s natural color began to seep through.
The sand grabbed his wrist again, “Listen,” and pressed his palm against the wall covered in gore and blood. Kakashi started to listen and---
Snatched his hand away and flushed to his ears, holding his wrist painfully hard, trying to staunch the sound ringing through his bones. He didn’t scream. He felt like it, but he didn’t scream. Every fracture and scratch and break and torn muscle in his body felt like it had exploded, the pain overriding his control and something else…something else overriding his control and widening the pain.
“See? I told you. ”
“What is that?” Kakashi didn’t scream; there was no fear in his voice.
“I don’t know.” Innocent green eyes looked blankly at him. “I just feed it.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” Gaara shrugged.
If not for his mask, Kakashi would have gaped at him like a fish. Gaara acted like…it was some sort of Saturday hobby. His heart was still racing, his skin felt absolutely icy, everything ached and he still had the aggravating impulse to scream. Kakashi liked to think he was above screaming. “That isn’t…normal.”
“Neither am I. What‘s your point?”
“That’s not…it, the thing is that-“ Kakashi risked a look back at the wall, where the stain of his blood had been absorbed quite neatly into the wall. Pristine white paint glared at him. //…oh. Ooh…not good. Not good, not good.// Gaara was looking at the spot captivated.
“It likes you.” green eyes studied him with new interest. Hints of a smile started to form near his lips without ever touching his eyes. “That is interesting.”
Kakashi felt his skin turn cold again and his hair rise. “That thing…is some kind of seal. I don’t think feeding it is such a good idea. Whatever it’s sealed against is powerful, and…” for as long as he kept talking, Gaara wouldn’t attack. That was the important thing. Keep talking. Gaara was still studying him like a mouse in a cage, and while his guard wasn’t down it wasn’t as high as it had been when they had first met.
There could be opportunity. It probably wouldn’t be enough to save his life, but if you couldn’t defend, then you attacked. You did something--you didn’t wish you weren’t there.
Randomly, Kakashi found himself really analyzing the wall. “…And old. Very old.” He looked at his hand, and to Gaara’s surprise-don’t show fear-walked back up to the wall, and lightly placed his fingers on it. Then pulled them away quickly but… “It’s intelligent.” He placed his palm against it flat again, before pulling away just as quickly.
“If you’re trying to impress me, it isn’t working,” Gaara said flatly.
“I’m not,” Kakashi replied absently. And he wasn’t. He was stalling for time, a very different proposal. He pulled out another knife and began prying lightly at the plaster.
“Don’t do that!” For the first time, emotion bled into the demon’s voice. He was snarling. Something yanked the knife from his hand so hard it stung his fingers--Kakashi thought he had seen brown wisps in the air, but perhaps not. Green blazed.
“What? I’m just looking-“
“Don’t. You have no idea what you’re doing.”
//He’s afraid of it. He expected me to be afraid too. Or something.// Behind the mask, Kakashi wanted to grin, but he didn’t. He didn’t even allow it to come through in his voice.
“Aren‘t you curious? Maybe it’s another demon, but somehow I don’t think so. Something else no one else has ever seen…fascinating. Don’t you want to see?”
He waited quietly for Gaara to come in.
“Perhaps.”
He wasn’t too close to him, but neatly within arm reach and somewhat towards his back. Kakashi allowed the chakra energy that he had been gathering diligently to manifest itself with a light buzzing and cracking and blinding white light around his right hand. He turned his head to find Gaara looking blankly surprised over at his shoulder, eyes a bright funky color and the sand a huge agitated wave behind him.
“Let’s find out together, okay?”
“You wouldn’t.”
Kakashi smiled.
Sand (floating in the air above his head) hit his shoulders and yanked on his neck, and he pulled away, slipping away in a complicated slipping gesture that was more illusion than genius, allowing it to trap him in a corner, his hand splattering flat against the wall, a glaring lightening and buzzing a high, furious white sound. Green eyes looked at him-helpless? No, but one could mistake it for that. Shocked. Or just annoyed.
“You wouldn’t.”
Kakashi smiled again. It was not a nice smile. It only touched one eye.
“It’ll kill you!”
“You’ll feed me to it. What’ve I got to lose? Why not?”
Gaara seemed to waver. The sand eased off his ribs. His feet still didn’t touch the floor.
“Don’t.”
“Release your claim on my life and body. Swear it on your name.” Kakashi wasn’t joking around. It came through in his voice.
Gaara frowned. //How the hell did he know about that?// “No.”
“Then…” the buzzing was nearly deafening now. Gaara was tempted to shield his eyes from the light and squinted instead.
“Go ahead then! Do it! It’ll eat you, destroy you! I was just going to kill you but if you’d prefer that then do it!”
“I’ll take you with me,” Kakashi pointed out so softly he wasn’t sure if the other had heard it or not.
“I can’t be killed”
“No? Maybe you’re right.” and Kakashi’s smile colored his voice again. “But it‘s alive and caged and unhappy--I don‘t think you would make good friends to get sealed in with it.”
“It’ll take you too.”
Kakashi managed to shrug somehow, the glaring white buzz never fading from his hands. “So? I’m an old man to be a ninja; I could use one last grand adventure. I’ll die sooner than you, I’m sure.”
Gaara said nothing. He did nothing. He kept glancing between Kakashi’s hand glaring a hateful lightening white to the small smile that his mismatched eyes were giving him. The sand didn’t relent; neither did the lightening.
Without touching his mouth, his eyes swore hatred.
The sand dropped Kakashi completely, but he didn’t stop touching the wall, never mind what it was saying to him. He wasn’t listening. He also didn’t move.
“Get out.”
“Swear on your name.”
“I’m giving you five fucking minutes to get out.”
“I won’t make it in time. I can’t and you know it. I want the promise on your name, nothing less.”
That was a shade of green Kakashi would remember for a long time. When Gaara was-not happy, because he was never happy, not ever in his whole life, but when he was satisfied, his eyes turned a darker shade of green as more blue filmed over. When he was completely bloody furious, as it sometimes happened, his eyes turned pure yellow with shards of black for the pupil. Right now, they were a sickening shade of greenish-yellow with pupils that Kakashi knew weren’t human.
“I’ll do it. But it’ll take you too. For as long as you keep your hands off me, I’ll keep my hands off you.”
“You’ll never get another chance.”
“All the better for you then, eh?”
Kakashi calculated. The sand was swirling in disturbing ways; patterns were immerging that he recognized and didn’t like. The wall was talking to him through his hand. Inhuman eyes hadn’t stopped spitting hatred at him yet. Oh, and his body still felt impaled several times over. Yeah-it was definitely Monday. Only Mondays felt this incredibly shitty.
“Deal?” he asked again.
“You can’t keep that up forever.”
“I don’t have to.”
“You think you can do this to me?”
“I already have.” Gaara’s eyes widened slightly at that calm statement.
“You said you surrendered. You lied. Your word means shit to me.”
“I said I wouldn’t hurt you and I haven’t. Not a finger.”
Gaara’s eyes narrowed, and his voice turned incredulous. “What makes you think you can do this?”
Kakashi let his eyes widen innocently. “Why not?”
“This is…this is where he gets it from! From you…Naruto learned to be a bastard from you. You trained him.”
Kakashi considered that statement. He tried to be a logical man, all his life, and sometimes he managed it.
“Yeah, but he learned more from life than he did from me. I never taught him to murder.”
Gaara stared, his eyes looking slightly surprised.
***
Kakashi rolled his neck again along his shoulders. He still hurt. After all that, he still hurt. And there was sand in his sandals; he really hated that; there were few things he hated more than having sand in his sandals. It wasn’t even a funny pun and his legs and feet hurt badly enough.
But at least things were looking better now. It wasn’t quite what he had set out to do, but it was good enough that he could work with it.
I release from you from my claim, mind and body if in return you don’t touch me, you don’t come near me, you stay as far away from me as humanly possible. Swear it.
On my name.
On my name.
Kakashi caught the slur on ‘humanly possible.’ Oh sure; every other word and then some coming out had malice dripping off the consonants, but there had been an outright revulsion on that little phrase. He wondered who had termed it; Naruto or Gaara? One of the two. He wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate to contradict the redhead or laugh. He hadn’t done either but both had crossed his mind a couple times.
He was being followed. First at distance, where he hadn’t been real sure, and then he couldn’t figure out who it was; Gaara or something else, a werewolf perhaps. Those had been pretty thick around these parts at one time until the really vicious hunters had moved in. Then his right eyebrow had shot up.
//Ahhhh…I see.// He didn’t turn around, not even when he could hear the slight parade of ants slithering through the bushes, not even when he didn’t hear but could still sense the silent footfall several feet behind him, steady. He didn’t say anything, not even when the corner of his eye caught a flash of red.
Gaara approached him from his right side, the side he could still see out of. Neither said anything. It took some time for him to notice, but…Gaara knew where he was going. And he was…wasn’t leading him out. He was watching him to see how long it would take before Kakashi became incredibly lost.
It took three hours.
By that time, Gaara had disappeared along with the sunlight, dusk and darkness and the very hardy and very vicious mosquitoes filling in the gap. Kakashi didn’t swear or get angry. Instead, he climbed a tree, reclined on a branch, and waited for the stars to come out so he could get his bearings and read Come Come Paradise by whatever light there would be.
He was about four miles off course, and six away from the spot he cheerfully called bed but had never ever thought of as home. Back at the ranch, Iruka was probably climbing the walls and Lee pulling him down. Hinata would be quietly giving herself ulcers and Neji and Shikamaru would both be dreading the morning if he hadn’t come back by then. Ino would be calling them all idiots; of them all, she probably had the most confidence in him. That was kind of strange, he’d admit.
No one would come out looking for him until after daybreak; it was the one rule Kakashi really hated and kept laid down. If a team or member had to stay out after dark, then so be it. But no one was to go putting themselves in danger to retrieve them. Or him. The darkness didn’t belong to them anymore, and the whole could survive still without one member. But the night didn’t belong to them anymore. And that really hurt.
Kakashi sighed quietly to himself as leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
True night fell.
It didn’t exist everywhere at all times, but it existed somewhere at sometime, and had been everywhere at one time. You recognized when it was there. Hair stood up, the skin turned cold and you realized that for all your thick walls and sure weapons and unrivaled knowledge, the night was stronger than anything wrought in daylight. It had been, and it always would be. The night that lurked on the edge of firelight, patiently waiting for the final embers to burn out. Morning made it leave, but it never chased it too quickly in case it caught it.
Kakashi breathed.
True night swarmed.
The mosquitoes had retreated to safety, the cold and thicker predators pushing them back. Mist the color of a greasy black city sidewalk curled and writhed along the ground, around the trees and between the leaves. Things on four legs and two prowled between the straight trunks, crawling or flopping silently, eyes rolling. Bone chilling cold set in, settled in the joints, stilling even the rattle of the leaves into silent immobility. Nothing stirred, and there was no sound. If you pressed your ear to wood, you could hear the sap flowing.
Kakashi was still.
True night hunted.
The skin was hairless, thick and clung tightly to the frame. Despite logic, it was slightly pale instead of some dark color for the night. Lizard-like eyes bulged and swept constantly, never seeming to blink or close even for a second lest something incredibly interesting and lethal happen in that fateful second. Broomstick thick arms and legs propelled it forward, ending in sharp, thin extensions of bone; claws.
Kakashi slept.
True night climbed.
It came from behind, slinking forward, clinging to the wood like a gecko to glass. It wasn’t incautious enough to come from the front or below, and too skilled to make a sound. Cleanly, it cut along his throat in a swift movement. And for a second lizard-like eyes widened to see the body not jerk or slump forward, but combust into a cloud of smoke.
With its eyes open, the bogey died.
Kakashi pulled his knife out smoothly and cleaned it against the bark. He shoved the dirtied blade back in its holster-he didn’t clean it on his clothes for the poison-and turned around to greet the second monster of the night to visit him.
Ordinary green eyes watched him, curious that he was not yet dead. But for the faint dead smell that clung to it and the demon clawing at the inside of his skull, Gaara would not have sensed the bogey coming. But somehow Kakashi had. He had been sure it would kill him.
Without a word or second glance, Gaara left.
Kakashi settled himself down again, and closed his eyes.
***
There are few things more annoying than an unpaid debt.
It itches and scratches, and will not leave.
It can drive people mad, or to do very stupid things, which may be similar.
***
//That was surprisingly easy.//
//I wonder if they’re actually bound to those rules though…//
What he didn’t like was that he was still so badly hurt. There was a limit to how many healing Jutsus Kakashi had learned-far less than offensive ones. It was enough to keep him walking, keep him steady, but still…his chakra were reserves had their limit.
He kept his ears open as he staggered gently forward, moving slowly and painfully.
Regardless, due to either superiority on the other side or his own physical deficiency, he never saw it coming. He realized what was happening after he was hit, going straight for his left kidney and Kakashi turned aside slightly falling back, making it only slice through his skin instead of his organs, got his feet back under him and knew he had about four steps left before he collapsed and couldn’t get up.
The Sharingan was out of the question. Since he couldn’t turn it off or modify it like a true Uchiha, it was more a liability and blind spot than anything else.
He heard a slight growl to his side, in his blind spot, and saw a flash of flesh travel in front of his neck in his peripheral vision. Before the other hand gripped his shoulder and before his neck could be snapped in half, straight from the Konohakagure Academy textbooks, straight from the Yondaime’s lessons, came the list of vulnerable body points.
There are eight targets. Kidney, heart, subclavian artery, jugular vein, liver, lungs, spinal column, and the throat.
He was dead. It was here. It happened here. It happened now.
It had been hard losing his eye, and worse having it replaced. Living was painful. In death, there was no pain. Death was a mercy. Death was peace.
Kakashi was a contradiction trapped in an enigma that got nervous placed to close to the light and absolutely placid and blank in close inspection.
He pushed himself back, twisted his shoulders in accordance with the hand breaking his neck, so when the yank came his teeth were already buried into the other’s neck, cutting through the skin and muscle and cloth, his right hand buried up to the wrist in liver and hot blood. Kakashi’s jaw jerked and tightened in pain, the incisors nearly coming in full circle, the knife going in deeper. His neck hurt but didn’t break.
Sand ripped him away in a blizzard, biting at his skin like many tiny harpies, invading his ears and nose, throwing away him on his back.
He was past pain now. Kakashi’s left eye winced open, saw something pale with black circles and red hair and then a pressure just below his left knee and heard the bone snap very clear. He realized later that he had screamed.
It did not occur to him until much, much later, that Gaara was in the habit of fighting and killing with the sand--he disliked using his hands. He never touched anyone, if he could help it.
***
::You would kill me for gold?::
Kakashi struggled for consciousness, light, an edge, something he could orient himself by. He…he had been…
::Not glory. Not honor. Not even arrogance.::
He’d been hit. Hard. There’d been a fight. He didn’t feel dead. Obito was…
::Silence.::
::Shadow walker. Not night nor day.::
Obito was dead. Ino. Lee. Sasuke. The village was gone and he was cold. Why couldn’t he wake up? What was that noise? Was he dead?
::Would you kill me for gold?::
::Answer!::
It was like being hit by a sledgehammer. Kakashi’s eyes received the impulse to jar open and twitched all the way to his neck. His body protested immediately, grease-hot pain gouging his spine.
//Should’ve killed him. I should have killed him. I should’ve loosed it right there and killed him.//
By degrees, his breathing came back under his control. He was probably not dead. Being dead shouldn’t twitch this much. So, logically, if he wasn’t dead he was still very much in danger. The space around him felt open-he hadn’t been rescued, likely.
Wincing, he opened his right eye, the natural one. Gray sky above, hemmed by damp, empty tree tops. What time was it? Where was he?
No.
Was he alone?
His muscles didn’t spasm as he leaned up onto one elbow and looked around because they were tightly gripped by his mind in full Baby Deer Mode: Slow, smooth, near invisible movements for fear of predators.
Then he allowed his muscles to lock into place-it was too late.
A decent distance away, Gaara sat on the ground, sunglasses intent on him. He looked very relaxed, as if he were waiting for something or perhaps communing with nature. Meditating on the nature of truth, maybe.
He stood up abruptly and sauntered closer, crouching at Kakashi’s side well within striking distance and in his face.
Kakashi reevaluated the situation. Gaara moved stiffly, slightly self-consciously, always searching for a fight or preparing for an attack, constantly on edge. But this guy, with Gaara’s body, seemed very, very relaxed-at ease with himself and thoughtlessly arrogant.
Only his reflection-bloody and beat up--stared back at him. By degrees, he relaxed himself to his back again-more comfortable that way, and it left both his hands open. His left leg was shattered. Anything below his waist was left unmoved and it still ached.
His hair was examined-rubbed between fingers and then smelled. He hadn’t washed it-or himself-in a while. Against his will and with some struggle, his mouth was opened and sniffed, teeth felt and examined. Then his right hand. His pulse. His heart. His crotch-//What the hell?!//--and was felt up through his pants. His right foot. Left leg was looked at but not touched. And then, finally, the creature took off its sunglasses and pushed both his eyes open. The left one screamed.
The Sharingan fed him images he couldn’t understand, that his mind couldn’t process, not in it’s state. His natural eye got blurry images that he could understand-overall it was like watching two moving screens at once of the exact same picture at very different speeds and qualities-overwhelming and incomprehensible. But then the Sharingan eye usually was.
Kakashi had-perhaps foolishly-been expecting eyes like fire. Or absolute black circles. Maybe even snake eyes.
These were yellow, vaguely reptilian, vaguely feline, and very feral. Orochimaru’s, Neji’s, even Kiba’s eyes seemed just as unearthly-Kakashi had easily seen worse. It was the intelligence behind them, inside them, that made him flinch.
His head was in a vice-he couldn’t even twitch the tendons. He felt they weren’t just looking at him, they were looking inside him, seeing everything and not being very impressed by anything. Searching.
Kakashi had faced Naruto in full fox form, on the eve of the Burn Out, but he hadn’t really fought him. He had burn scars branded deeply into his chest the shape of claws, but the fox had never touched him. These eyes were the same as those, only in a ordinary mundane human body. The juxtaposition made them a bit…eerier. Frightening.
A monster was only a human with the brakes off.
Kakashi turned his head away when he was released and the glasses replaced-the creature scratched its neck irritably. It tilted its head to one side, looking at him curiously.
His jaw exploded as an uppercut tapped him and made his skull crack a second before his ribcage began to cave in from another hit.
There wasn’t even time to cough up blood. His fingers flew together instinctively, already forming the Signs before his left hand was caught and all feeling below his knuckles shrieked and faded.
He was dying. He was going to die.
//Why did he wait? Why did he have to wait?!!//
Kakashi’s kunai plunged into the side of its ribcage a few seconds before his head was shoved to the side and teeth pierced his neck.
The kunai darted in and out like a hummingbird, gutting along its abdomen and flying for its heart, pulling on energy his body didn‘t have anymore, taking it out on credit and never planning to pay it back. The mouth at his neck continued to dig; the creature straddled his stomach, shuddering when his right knee connected with its back, but ignoring him otherwise.
Blood fiery and acidic warmed and burned his hand laced with scratches and cuts-it fell on his shirt and seeped through. He was light headed from blood loss, stabbing its lungs through the back diligently since he couldn’t find the strength to reach higher or find the heart and it was lying on top of him, keeping its innards from spilling out. He continued out of principle--no reason to let up, especially since he had lost.
//This wasn’t what I had in mind…exactly…//
Quite suddenly, the pressure on his neck released. The knife was taken from his hand and, with a bloody grin, slipped into the creature’s mouth like a lollipop. It cut its lips as it was pulled out-Kakashi watched instead of seeing the world go black. Once again, his mouth was forced open, demon blood flooding his throat. Every bruise, scrape, and gash screamed and writhed and then vanished crying with loss…
He winced. Something in his brain jarred, with intelligence and pain.
Not a scratch.
//It’s not a vampire. It’s not possible. It doesn’t work that way, what the hell--//
Sasuke’s mind had been hurt, but there hadn’t been a single scratch on him. There was more than one way…
He tried pushing the liquid out with his tongue, and then not swallowing or breathing. Then his instincts stepped in, shoved the mind out the door, and stopped fighting-humanity was great, but surviving was better. Besides, it wasn’t really like he had a choice.
//Why? What does it want? It has to want something…//
His throat choked anyway, blood draining from the cuts he had made into its skin-he was able to feel his left fingers again, regrettably, but at the rate he was healing-if it worked the same for him as it had for Sasuke, as it did for Gaara, then the pain wouldn’t last long.
Just as suddenly as it began, the creature backed off, sitting on its haunches and watching him curiously with a faint, amused smile.
//Another fight? It wants another fight? Why not just kill me? It went through all that…because it could’ve killed me, but not totaled me. Well. These things have a sense of fair play? No. Probably just a very fine-tuned sense of extracting absolute humiliation. But it’ll give me time.//
It watched him patiently, and Kakashi had to close his eyes when he felt burning rip along his wounds, which flared momentarily then erased. Even his left leg trembled a little with the fire--his heart beat sped up. The blood must be like some kind of drug…
Kakashi started to lever himself up to his elbows again, testing his left fingers-pain, but a very faint reaction. Not enough to do anything with it yet, but getting there.
The handle of his kunai waved in front of his face, the bloody smile behind it bright and slightly sinister-not a trace of duplicity or guilt, the true smile of an absolute liar and murderer. The head cocked to one side, curious and patient. Kakashi’s eyes flicked from the handle to the smile to the sunglasses-there was something wrong here. There was something uniquely wrong.
The thing in Gaara’s body stopped to scratch at his neck and stood, pacing away, giving him his back, still holding the knife. It scratched harder. The spot on his neck started to bleed.
//Did I have rabies and not know it? Piece of luck if I did. Kind of.//
And then it was back at his side, in his face again.
//Reactions. More than a fight its searching for reactions. Can it smell fear? Why? I must’ve done something interest…but I don’t have rabies. So what is it?//
The ground bucked and wrapped around his neck from under him. For once, Kakashi didn’t fight-he’d been pushed around and tested and he was tired of it. It wanted reactions-he didn’t feel like playing. So it actually made quite a bit of sense for him to lay there and glare mildly annoyed. In other circumstances, it might’ve worked.
Using his knife and hands, it started to rip his clothes from his body.
//Fuck.//
***
Gaara didn’t wake up. He usually didn’t.
It wasn’t so much as he said, “Yes, I no longer want control” so much as he didn’t say, “No, I won’t let you have it.” Or if he did say the latter, that he did not put it into actions. And if he did put it into actions, then that he did not push hard enough.
In any case, it was out of his hands.
***
A/N: I know-this didn’t answer much questions, and while it wasn’t exactly a filler chapter, I felt the Group needed more coverage. And Shukaku. He needed more coverage.