[week 33, day 2 | accidental voice]
[Sasuke opens his eyes. The rain has stopped. He had thought the hollow patter of drops on the rocks-on his skin, in the scattered puddles of blood-would be the last sounds he ever heard. And yet, tragically, his eyes are open and he finds himself staring at nothing. Blurs. He blinks rapidly. Leaves. Sky. Blue.
Other senses awaken. Birdsong and the ( Read more... )
[ It had only been a matter of time.
Kakashi should've known, should've expected. Should've been prepared that one day he would wake and find Sasuke close enough to grab. Or kill. He had been so busy trying to figure out the limits of this world, to seek out its boundaries and dissolve the walls that hold them in and keep them trapped in this place, that he had let time pass him by, the ticking of hours seguing into days and weeks in the blink of a single uncovered eye. And here now, Sasuke's voice lances through the silence of dawn like a stab of lightning straight through the heart.
(Don't act like I'm still your student... I've been dying to kill you... Kakashi.)He was too late then, but he won't be late now ( ... )
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Kakashi emerges from the treeline about forty feet away, directly before Sasuke, and releases the hold he has over his chakra. Allowing the familiar feel of Sasuke's to slide in like the tide, reading the ripples that shake through its surface. He doesn't know if Sasuke will want him dead. Doesn't know if he'll need to fight his student again, in this beautiful place of growing things and so much beauty it can take away a person's breath. ]
Sasuke.
[ He says, his voice soft, eye steady as it takes in the sight of his former student. If you listen closely, there's a tremor of something just under those syllables. Something tired. Something raw. ]
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Do you know...
[ His head drops to the side, casually, observing two pale fingers twist a blade of grass between their tips. For all that Sasuke appears relaxed, his muscles twitch between his shoulder blades and his chest is still impossibly tight. ]
...I've been asked that question twice today.
[ He doesn't bother to look up at his "teacher"--a word so abused as to lose all meaning where Kakashi was concerned. ]
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[ Kakashi keeps his voice steady, even as he continues to assess Sasuke's current condition. The expected spike of chakra and anger, the feel of fire hadn't occurred. There is something wrong with this situation. And Kakashi is starting to think it isn't just the unnatural environment, the way it smoothes over everything, like sand on a beach polished to shiny glass.
He takes a careful step forward. And then another. ]
How did you answer the first time?
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[ Only now does Sasuke raise his head to look at Kakashi, expression hardened porcelain. He rolls to his feet, the embodiment of grace despite his appearance, and his gaze never wavers. His right hand rises to ghost across the skin of his exposed left shoulder, dipping into the contour of his neck, over the spot where the curse seal once resided. ]
Victory.
[ His hand falls bonelessly to his side, and thin lips twist faintly, but don't dare form a smile. Victory. ]
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That could mean anything at all. Against Orochimaru. Itachi. Konoha. But somehow, Kakashi doesn't think Sasuke means Konoha, because surely if that were the case, they wouldn't be standing here talking to each other. Sasuke wouldn't be interested in talking to a man he'd rather have dead. And not even the calm of this place could possibly change that fact. ]
Orochimaru?
[ He asks softly, and then after a pause -- ]
Or Itachi?
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The steady calm of Sasuke's chakra suddenly bursts alive with familiar fire that swirls all around him, stabbing and hot and confused all at once and Kakashi stops mid-step, carefully drawing his foot back as he slowly tucks his hands into his pockets. Lets his shoulders slump more, if only to disarm Sasuke a little. (As though Sasuke is even capable of being disarmed when he lives his life, blade out. Doesn't know how to live any other way.)
He falls quiet then, letting his chin dip down slightly.
Itachi.
To have such a reaction, just to his brother's name, it can only mean that Sasuke must be from that time. Perhaps, shortly after he defeated Itachi. (And before Uchiha Madara, Kakashi hopes. Or guesses.) ]
You're right.
[ He says after a moment, quietly, letting his eye fall shut.]
I shouldn't have.
[ An apology, perhaps.
The first of the many he owes. ]
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[ Sasuke repeats Kakashi's words back at him, but monotone, flat. Sasuke searches the words, one by one, each syllable, meticulously seeking the mockery he knows must be tucked inside, waiting to catch him off guard, to tease and infuriate him. To fluster his already taut nerves, raw with emotion and tears as yet unshed.
He finds nothing of the sort, but he can't trust the man's sincerity when the words are spoken from behind a mask. Always a mask. What does Kakashi have to hide that he must remain behind it even when offering an apology? ]
Why...am I here?
[ Am I a prisoner? Am I dead?]
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And here it is. The mockery. The trick. The lie and the charade he had known would be found lurking beneath Kakashi's words, behind his mask.
Sasuke's punishment for the murder of his brother: to live. To be. Here.
He would give anything, just now, for Kakashi to disappear. For his own body to return to the grass, and for it to swallow him up instead rather than the rising tide of numbness sweeping over him. ]
Why are you here?
[ In this world, but moreover, in this place, now, with me? ]
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So he does what he does best.
He closes the distance between them, until they are just ten feet apart.
Lets his eye curl into a gentle arc, and says, just as gently: ]
Because I wanted to see my kawaii student.
[ He misdirects. ]
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Something is waiting there, just underneath Sasuke's skin, simmering, slowly heating to a boil, rolling and burning him up from the inside.
He wants to scream at Kakashi.
He wants to pry loose his own stiff mask of control and rage at him, ask him where the hell he was the last time and hadn't he been worth coming after? Or had it only been Naruto who longed to return him to the village and make their broken team whole again? Had it been Kakashi's idea to replace him ( ... )
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