Awakening, Chapter 10
Story Title:Awakening
Rating: R
Warnings/Pairings: None yet. Um, realism?
Summary: Sasuke wakes up in the worst possible circumstances. In a world he doesn't recognize, can he make his name once more?
To Sasuke's surprise, the shorter man abruptly halted about ten feet away from him, as if awaiting orders. The other Anbu, too, shifted a bit, a few even looking behind them.
From the back, almost on the other side of the shield, a lone figure came forward. Sasuke riveted his gaze on him as all the other ninja made way. The Anbu leader, he thought. Of course they-- then his head rocked back in surprise.
The man was wearing a dog-shaped mask, very familiar to Sasuke. All too familiar.
It was Kakashi's.
If this is the Leaf's interrogation, Sasuke thought, there's no reason for it not to be Kakashi...
But - his eyes flicking over the figure again and again as it took its time walking forward - if this was Kakashi, there were a few differences. This man seemed somewhat older. His shoulders were muscular, whereas Kakashi had been a leaner man. And his hair, though spiky, was black with only a few hints of gray.
But Sasuke could not shake the lingering feeling that he knew this man.
The man came to stand beside the shorter one. “Do what you have to, Horukichi,” he commanded. His voice is also different, Sasuke thought. Deeper.
But even so, he was sure he recognized it.
Even your genjutsu is second rate... Kakashi.
“Yes, sir,” replied Horukichi. To Sasuke's surprise, he then reached up and removed his mask.
He wasn't the only one surprised. There was a brief and somewhat unprofessional murmur from a few of the other Anbu, including Tiger.
Horukichi's face was so odd as to be called deformed - his broad nose stretched nearly from one side to the other, and his eyes were mere slits. His thin, wet lips worked a few times before he spoke in a somewhat defensive tone. “I can't do the job right with it on.”
The next thing he knew, those lips were inches away from Sasuke's own. He recoiled in horror - Falcon grabbed his head, shoving it back where it was.
Little snuffling noses came out of the hideous face in front of him - and then, the nostrils flared, increasing nearly three times larger than the laws of nature should have allowed them to be.
It took all of Sasuke's willpower not to grimace openly. He had never thought he would have considered the Inuzuka... well... dignified in their olfactory powers. But compared to this?
The man sniffed Sasuke, zooming in on the left side of his head for some reason. His nose got so close it was almost touching his hair - Sasuke could feel it being pulled away from his head, being pulled into those nostrils...
He wondered if trying to strike out would make this more bearable.
Horukichi leaned back, nostrils still twitching. “He smells like two different people.” He pointed a pudgy finger to Sasuke's face. “Here is one of them...” then to the left side of his head, “...here is a little part of another.” Leaning forward, he sniffed Sasuke's shoulder. “More of that one down here.” He licked his lips nervously. “You're going to need a medical exam to know for sure, but I think the two chakras are blended about...” Sasuke had to clamp down on a rather unmanly sharp, high noise in his throat as the mole-man nearly laid his nostrils upon it. “Here!”
“What can you tell about the rest of the body's chakra?” The voice from the dog-mask startled Sasuke this time with its... familiarity. Where had he head that voice before? Kakashi must have changed it through genjutsu to someone else's-- “Are there any other disruptions?”
Sasuke didn't see the order given for Lizard to step over and yank open the prisoner's uniform, exposing Sasuke more than he would like - no small feat considering the outfit he had worn to accommodate the Curse Seal. But the image of the mole-man sniffing his bare stomach would stay burned into his retinas for far, far longer than was preferable.
At long last, Horukichi stepped away. “No, sir,” was his simple answer. “It doesn't seem tampered with below the neck.”
“You do not sense any unusual connections to the outside, then?”
“No, sir.”
“No pre-programmed activations?”
“No, sir.”
“Evidence of mental tampering?”
Horukichi gave the Anbu a slightly bemused glance. “That is out of my purview, sir. But given his delusion, I can only assume--”
“That's enough, Horukichi.” The Anbu leader cut him off. “You may stand down.”
“Yes, sir.” Horukichi replaced his mask. It glinted brown in the light.
Wait a second, thought Sasuke. That's not an Anbu mask.
He recognized it from the materials Kabuto had taken off one of the corpses he liked to gather as a hobby. It had been tacked on the wall like a trophy - the earthy-brown mask of the Special Corps of Iwagakure.
What the hell? thought Sasuke, abruptly baffled all over again. Why was there a ninja from Earth Country in this room? Why would Leaf even see the need to pretend--
“I am going to ask you some questions now,” said the dog-mask in an even tone, interrupting his thoughts. “Answer clearly and honestly. What is your name?”
The interrogation had begun.
He wasn't ready, but he had no choice.
“Uchiha Sasuke.”
Sasuke guessed his best hope was to play it as straight as possible. There was still the possibility they might reveal something instead. No point in trying to hide anything now, anyway.
“Is this your given name?”
“Yes.”
“Who gave you this name?”
“My mother and father,” Sasuke ground out. Why the hell did they keep asking him this? Did they expect him to give a different answer? “Their names were Uchiha Fugaku and Mikoto. They were members of the Uchiha clan, born and raised in the Hidden Leaf village. I am sure if you check the birth records in your own records office, you will find them shortly--”
Falcon jerked Sasuke's arms behind him and up, nearly dislocating his arms from his sockets. Fireworks exploded before Sasuke's eyes and he couldn't avoid a small gasp of pain--
“Enough,” said the dog-mask abruptly. “I want his honest reaction. Hold him loosely.” The pain in Sasuke's shoulders eased, and he took a few deep breaths before looking back up at the man in front of him. Play it straight.
“Tell me your date of birth.”
“July 17, Common Era 497.”
“Tell me your current age.”
“16.”
“Tell me the current date. As near as you can guess it.”
Yet again this question? “Late October. Common Era 513.”
There was a barely disguised ripple, then, across the room, of-something. Sasuke snapped his gaze away, looked around. Only the hollow animal masks stared back at him.
The dog-mask was silent for a moment. “And yet you just spent three and a half days traveling through the spring countryside.”
Shit! Sasuke realized. He had planned to play this interview straight, but what sort of straight, he hadn't solidified in his mind. “Yes,” he offered, rather lamely.
“You are confused.” It wasn't a question. “You are confused about where you are right now. Yes or no?”
Sasuke hesitated before answering. It was a trap, it had to be a trap, but he couldn't see his way out of it. Damn you, Kakashi, you always were clever. Sweat trickled down his brow. Play it straight. Sealed, restrained, weak and tired - he literally had no other choice.
Shit.
He prayed that in some way, somehow, the interrogators might be tricked into giving him they key.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“You aren't sure this is the Hidden Leaf.”
“Yes.”
“You aren't sure that it is really the Anbu who are interrogating you.”
“Yes.”
“You suspect some ulterior motive.”
Sasuke didn't want to answer that, but he had been led straight into it. Damn you. “Yes.”
The dog-mask was silent for a long moment before speaking more quietly, such that Sasuke had to strain to hear him. “Tell me about the last thing you remember. Before things stopped making sense.”
Sasuke blinked several times. The last time things made sense? If he had been strong - or maybe if he had been exceptionally weak - he would have said, the morning before my brother killed everyone I ever loved. But no. Play it straight.
“I was at the 5 Kage Summit in Snow Country.” Attempting to kill the man who sat behind the swirling shield, no doubt. Sasuke gritted his teeth, dredged up the burning embers of his anger. “I was attempting to bring one of the instigators of the massacre of my clan to justice.” Yes, he was right - he was right. Even if they killed him now, they couldn't take that away from him--
“Who was with you?” asked the dog-mask in a rather calmer voice than Sasuke would have expected from a man who'd just hear Sasuke declare his village's leader a murderer, and announce he intended to kill him. “Who accompanied you on your mission?”
“A team I assembled for that purpose.” Sasuke suddenly realized, with a shock, that he might be writing the death warrants of Team Taka. “They followed my orders as a means of achieving their own goals. My goals were not their goals--”
The dog-mask interrupted Sasuke mid-ramble. “What was the last face you saw? Before things stopped making sense.”
There was a tension in his body. It seemed like this question was important, though Sasuke could not imagine why.
Sasuke thought carefully. “The Tsuchikage,” he answered finally. “He was attempting to kill me with a cube jutsu.”
Somehow that answer brought up, finally, all the cognitive dissonance between Sasuke's world he had known and the world he seemed to be in.
He realized, to his horror, that his hands were shaking, and not because Falcon was holding them too tightly. His vision swam in and out. Control, Sasuke. Control! “I am not entirely sure,” he said with all the dignity he could muster, “how I got from there to here.”
“Genjutsu,” said the dog-mask, his voice crisp like he was used to giving orders, “is what you suspect. Yes or no?”
Sasuke merely stared up at him. He couldn't even decide whether he wanted to do it angrily or--or--
Apparently the answer written on his face must have been clear enough. “Of course you do,” muttered the man, almost as if to himself. “You don't want to admit it to me. You think I am the caster. Or one of the casters. You think you can break out of it, because you are an Uchiha. Yes or no?”
The trembling in Sasuke's hands increased, spreading now to his calf muscles. Kakashi. You know me well - too well.
“Yes or no?” The dog-mask's voice had sharpened, deepened, slipping past Sasuke's defenses and hitting something deep within Sasuke's brain that made him speak the truth before he fully realized it.
“Yes--” He bit his tongue, cursed himself. He had answered almost as if--
Was Kakashi using... his father's voice?
Fuck, Sasuke would never forgive him for that--betrayal--rage rose again out of confusion--
“You are not observing particularly well,” snapped the man, almost as if Sasuke's admission had pissed him off too. “You should know genjutsu better than this.”
“I'm an Uchiha!” shouted Sasuke, inner voice howling wordlessly in his head, straining forwards against Falcon's grip--“I know what genjutsu can do! You think you know genjutsu, that's because you've never even had the good fortune to be exposed--” Falcon yanked him back onto the stool.
“Oh really?” Now the man sounded almost amused. “Let me rephrase that. You should know how to read your surroundings better.” He spread his arms out to encompass the whole room. “Nothing at all in this room seems unusual to you? Outside of your expectations? To say nothing of the countryside you traveled through on your way here?”
“I'll tell you what's unusual--” snarled Sasuke. His eyes were stinging, the trembling was at his shoulders now-- his mind was blank, blank-- rage-but the Sharingan wouldn't come, only a pounding, screaming headache--
I'm going to die.
Immediately there was calm in the storm.
Of course he was going to die. It was only logical that he would. He had no strategy, no access to the Mangekyo, nothing left to him but the cold, bitter truth. It was the epitome of logic, logic that had eluding his grasp for what seemed like an eternity, that the next minutes would be his last on earth, and even though that thought somehow perversely relieved him--
Like hell was he going to sit here and be lectured by a man who had so utterly failed him.
“I find it unusual that you wear Hatake Kakashi's mask, but don't bother to reveal yourself as Hatake Kakashi. You despicable coward.”
The man let out a small bark of surprised laughter. Sasuke screamed right over it--
“And that the Anbu in this hidden chamber in Leaf aren't even all wearing Leaf masks! Who was in charge of the set for this interrogation anyway? And why send such fucking incompetents to gather me at first? Were you underestimating me? Trying to insult my intelligence?! And your stupid fucking set-up! As if I could have waltzed out of Mist Country in a cart without seeing a single Mist-nin! As if Konoha would ever rent out the space outside its wall as a gambling town! As if Uchiha Itachi's name would have ever been carved on the memorial stone.” He snarled this last one, saw the reaction jolt through the man like a bolt of lightning.
Oh, how I wish I could send a bolt of lightning through you-but the gods never did grant any of my wishes-never the ones I really wanted-and as long as we're at it, I'll at least take that idiot's stupid dreams down with me--
“Tell me, you sniveling bastards, where in this room is Uzumaki Naruto? This incompetence stinks of him. Tell him that he can't make any grand gestures to get me to give up my revenge. Tell him that he can't hide behind genjutsu. The Leaf will PAY for THE MURDER OF MY CLAN!”
The words ran out as if they were on a tape. Sasuke's throat closed up, his vision swam-are they choking me? A jutsu? Nobody's moving-his own breath was in his ear, shrill--
He looked up one last time, so that he could see the face of the one who killed him-it was important-the clan was about to end forever and it was important--
His eyes caught the shimmer of the shield, and heard a panicked female voice call out “Hokage-sama--”
“It's okay, Kagami,” rang out the voice, garbled as he passed straight through the shield, but recognizable, immediately recognizable. “He's not a threat. Not like we feared.”
Sasuke's blood froze in his veins.
They wouldn't--
The triangular hat was removed with one weathered hand. Sasuke could only stare.
Uzumaki Naruto stood in the garb of the Hokage.
His eyes, blue as ever, bored straight into Sasuke's. His face had long ago lost all traces of its baby fat, replaced with a strong jaw and a few stress wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. His hair, mostly golden still with streaks of silver, wafted lightly across his face. The whisker marks on his cheeks were no longer visible. His voice, when he spoke, was ridiculously stern.
“There's no genjutsu in this room right now, Sasuke. No one is trying to trick you.”
“Naruto,” said the dog-mask in exasperation. “The subject is just trying to piss someone off enough to gain an opening.”
“I know!” Naruto - the fuck-even as a joke how could they-- nodded. “But that means things are clear enough, don't you think?”
“There are a lot of unanswered questions--”
“Most of which can be solved with a semi-decent medical exam.” He squinted his eyes, peering across the room at where Sasuke sat unable to even move. “By the gods, he's like your little clone.”
“What--” Sasuke managed to get out. “How-what--” This could not be happening. It simply could not be happening. Hadn't he called them out on it? Wasn't the confusion supposed to go away now?! Why were they still--
“It's okay,” said Naruto-this can't be--voice smoothing to become almost gentle as he walked forward, coming to a stop besides the dog-mask. “I know you're confused. But it's going to be okay.”
“We don't know who created him,” snapped the dog-mask, “we don't know what he was made for--”
“You've already decided though, right?” Naruto-the fuck are they--cut him off. “He can activate the Sharingan. He's absolutely convinced about the revenge thing, but he didn't just start killing people. He even has the shitty Uchiha attitude. He's definitely yours, one way or another!” He clapped dog-mask on the back with a grim laugh. “Besides, it'd be a waste of a good potential ninja, don't you think? And we can't afford to waste any good ninjas nowadays.” His voice had gone from laughing to deadly serious in a less-than-five-second speech.
No, this is wrong-the Naruto I know could never-
Sasuke thought he knew, suddenly, the truly logical explanation for everything that had happened to him and it was worse than death--
“This is unprofessional, Naruto,” said the dog-mask coldly, reaching his hand up to his face.
The world seemed to narrow, slow, focus around that one movement, as Sasuke's heart pounded loudly in his ears.
He was wrong. He had to be wrong. Absolutely this half-mad theory would be proved just as wrong as the others--
Fingers fixed around the edges in slow motion.
“You continue to amaze me in your improbable avoidance of assassination.”
It slid off slowly, revealing the forehead, the eyes--
Somewhere deep inside of himself, Sasuke felt a scream of protest forming. But it seemed to have been caught about halfway down his throat. It had frozen shut, just like the rest of him,protesting reality, protesting everything because this absolutely could not be--
“Not too concerned as long as you're still looking out for me... ”
The mask slipped down, down, down...
“Sasuke.”
Uchiha Sasuke stared up-stared down- back into his own face.
Rating: R
Warnings/Pairings: None yet. Um, realism?
Summary: Sasuke wakes up in the worst possible circumstances. In a world he doesn't recognize, can he make his name once more?
To Sasuke's surprise, the shorter man abruptly halted about ten feet away from him, as if awaiting orders. The other Anbu, too, shifted a bit, a few even looking behind them.
From the back, almost on the other side of the shield, a lone figure came forward. Sasuke riveted his gaze on him as all the other ninja made way. The Anbu leader, he thought. Of course they-- then his head rocked back in surprise.
The man was wearing a dog-shaped mask, very familiar to Sasuke. All too familiar.
It was Kakashi's.
If this is the Leaf's interrogation, Sasuke thought, there's no reason for it not to be Kakashi...
But - his eyes flicking over the figure again and again as it took its time walking forward - if this was Kakashi, there were a few differences. This man seemed somewhat older. His shoulders were muscular, whereas Kakashi had been a leaner man. And his hair, though spiky, was black with only a few hints of gray.
But Sasuke could not shake the lingering feeling that he knew this man.
The man came to stand beside the shorter one. “Do what you have to, Horukichi,” he commanded. His voice is also different, Sasuke thought. Deeper.
But even so, he was sure he recognized it.
Even your genjutsu is second rate... Kakashi.
“Yes, sir,” replied Horukichi. To Sasuke's surprise, he then reached up and removed his mask.
He wasn't the only one surprised. There was a brief and somewhat unprofessional murmur from a few of the other Anbu, including Tiger.
Horukichi's face was so odd as to be called deformed - his broad nose stretched nearly from one side to the other, and his eyes were mere slits. His thin, wet lips worked a few times before he spoke in a somewhat defensive tone. “I can't do the job right with it on.”
The next thing he knew, those lips were inches away from Sasuke's own. He recoiled in horror - Falcon grabbed his head, shoving it back where it was.
Little snuffling noses came out of the hideous face in front of him - and then, the nostrils flared, increasing nearly three times larger than the laws of nature should have allowed them to be.
It took all of Sasuke's willpower not to grimace openly. He had never thought he would have considered the Inuzuka... well... dignified in their olfactory powers. But compared to this?
The man sniffed Sasuke, zooming in on the left side of his head for some reason. His nose got so close it was almost touching his hair - Sasuke could feel it being pulled away from his head, being pulled into those nostrils...
He wondered if trying to strike out would make this more bearable.
Horukichi leaned back, nostrils still twitching. “He smells like two different people.” He pointed a pudgy finger to Sasuke's face. “Here is one of them...” then to the left side of his head, “...here is a little part of another.” Leaning forward, he sniffed Sasuke's shoulder. “More of that one down here.” He licked his lips nervously. “You're going to need a medical exam to know for sure, but I think the two chakras are blended about...” Sasuke had to clamp down on a rather unmanly sharp, high noise in his throat as the mole-man nearly laid his nostrils upon it. “Here!”
“What can you tell about the rest of the body's chakra?” The voice from the dog-mask startled Sasuke this time with its... familiarity. Where had he head that voice before? Kakashi must have changed it through genjutsu to someone else's-- “Are there any other disruptions?”
Sasuke didn't see the order given for Lizard to step over and yank open the prisoner's uniform, exposing Sasuke more than he would like - no small feat considering the outfit he had worn to accommodate the Curse Seal. But the image of the mole-man sniffing his bare stomach would stay burned into his retinas for far, far longer than was preferable.
At long last, Horukichi stepped away. “No, sir,” was his simple answer. “It doesn't seem tampered with below the neck.”
“You do not sense any unusual connections to the outside, then?”
“No, sir.”
“No pre-programmed activations?”
“No, sir.”
“Evidence of mental tampering?”
Horukichi gave the Anbu a slightly bemused glance. “That is out of my purview, sir. But given his delusion, I can only assume--”
“That's enough, Horukichi.” The Anbu leader cut him off. “You may stand down.”
“Yes, sir.” Horukichi replaced his mask. It glinted brown in the light.
Wait a second, thought Sasuke. That's not an Anbu mask.
He recognized it from the materials Kabuto had taken off one of the corpses he liked to gather as a hobby. It had been tacked on the wall like a trophy - the earthy-brown mask of the Special Corps of Iwagakure.
What the hell? thought Sasuke, abruptly baffled all over again. Why was there a ninja from Earth Country in this room? Why would Leaf even see the need to pretend--
“I am going to ask you some questions now,” said the dog-mask in an even tone, interrupting his thoughts. “Answer clearly and honestly. What is your name?”
The interrogation had begun.
He wasn't ready, but he had no choice.
“Uchiha Sasuke.”
Sasuke guessed his best hope was to play it as straight as possible. There was still the possibility they might reveal something instead. No point in trying to hide anything now, anyway.
“Is this your given name?”
“Yes.”
“Who gave you this name?”
“My mother and father,” Sasuke ground out. Why the hell did they keep asking him this? Did they expect him to give a different answer? “Their names were Uchiha Fugaku and Mikoto. They were members of the Uchiha clan, born and raised in the Hidden Leaf village. I am sure if you check the birth records in your own records office, you will find them shortly--”
Falcon jerked Sasuke's arms behind him and up, nearly dislocating his arms from his sockets. Fireworks exploded before Sasuke's eyes and he couldn't avoid a small gasp of pain--
“Enough,” said the dog-mask abruptly. “I want his honest reaction. Hold him loosely.” The pain in Sasuke's shoulders eased, and he took a few deep breaths before looking back up at the man in front of him. Play it straight.
“Tell me your date of birth.”
“July 17, Common Era 497.”
“Tell me your current age.”
“16.”
“Tell me the current date. As near as you can guess it.”
Yet again this question? “Late October. Common Era 513.”
There was a barely disguised ripple, then, across the room, of-something. Sasuke snapped his gaze away, looked around. Only the hollow animal masks stared back at him.
The dog-mask was silent for a moment. “And yet you just spent three and a half days traveling through the spring countryside.”
Shit! Sasuke realized. He had planned to play this interview straight, but what sort of straight, he hadn't solidified in his mind. “Yes,” he offered, rather lamely.
“You are confused.” It wasn't a question. “You are confused about where you are right now. Yes or no?”
Sasuke hesitated before answering. It was a trap, it had to be a trap, but he couldn't see his way out of it. Damn you, Kakashi, you always were clever. Sweat trickled down his brow. Play it straight. Sealed, restrained, weak and tired - he literally had no other choice.
Shit.
He prayed that in some way, somehow, the interrogators might be tricked into giving him they key.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“You aren't sure this is the Hidden Leaf.”
“Yes.”
“You aren't sure that it is really the Anbu who are interrogating you.”
“Yes.”
“You suspect some ulterior motive.”
Sasuke didn't want to answer that, but he had been led straight into it. Damn you. “Yes.”
The dog-mask was silent for a long moment before speaking more quietly, such that Sasuke had to strain to hear him. “Tell me about the last thing you remember. Before things stopped making sense.”
Sasuke blinked several times. The last time things made sense? If he had been strong - or maybe if he had been exceptionally weak - he would have said, the morning before my brother killed everyone I ever loved. But no. Play it straight.
“I was at the 5 Kage Summit in Snow Country.” Attempting to kill the man who sat behind the swirling shield, no doubt. Sasuke gritted his teeth, dredged up the burning embers of his anger. “I was attempting to bring one of the instigators of the massacre of my clan to justice.” Yes, he was right - he was right. Even if they killed him now, they couldn't take that away from him--
“Who was with you?” asked the dog-mask in a rather calmer voice than Sasuke would have expected from a man who'd just hear Sasuke declare his village's leader a murderer, and announce he intended to kill him. “Who accompanied you on your mission?”
“A team I assembled for that purpose.” Sasuke suddenly realized, with a shock, that he might be writing the death warrants of Team Taka. “They followed my orders as a means of achieving their own goals. My goals were not their goals--”
The dog-mask interrupted Sasuke mid-ramble. “What was the last face you saw? Before things stopped making sense.”
There was a tension in his body. It seemed like this question was important, though Sasuke could not imagine why.
Sasuke thought carefully. “The Tsuchikage,” he answered finally. “He was attempting to kill me with a cube jutsu.”
Somehow that answer brought up, finally, all the cognitive dissonance between Sasuke's world he had known and the world he seemed to be in.
He realized, to his horror, that his hands were shaking, and not because Falcon was holding them too tightly. His vision swam in and out. Control, Sasuke. Control! “I am not entirely sure,” he said with all the dignity he could muster, “how I got from there to here.”
“Genjutsu,” said the dog-mask, his voice crisp like he was used to giving orders, “is what you suspect. Yes or no?”
Sasuke merely stared up at him. He couldn't even decide whether he wanted to do it angrily or--or--
Apparently the answer written on his face must have been clear enough. “Of course you do,” muttered the man, almost as if to himself. “You don't want to admit it to me. You think I am the caster. Or one of the casters. You think you can break out of it, because you are an Uchiha. Yes or no?”
The trembling in Sasuke's hands increased, spreading now to his calf muscles. Kakashi. You know me well - too well.
“Yes or no?” The dog-mask's voice had sharpened, deepened, slipping past Sasuke's defenses and hitting something deep within Sasuke's brain that made him speak the truth before he fully realized it.
“Yes--” He bit his tongue, cursed himself. He had answered almost as if--
Was Kakashi using... his father's voice?
Fuck, Sasuke would never forgive him for that--betrayal--rage rose again out of confusion--
“You are not observing particularly well,” snapped the man, almost as if Sasuke's admission had pissed him off too. “You should know genjutsu better than this.”
“I'm an Uchiha!” shouted Sasuke, inner voice howling wordlessly in his head, straining forwards against Falcon's grip--“I know what genjutsu can do! You think you know genjutsu, that's because you've never even had the good fortune to be exposed--” Falcon yanked him back onto the stool.
“Oh really?” Now the man sounded almost amused. “Let me rephrase that. You should know how to read your surroundings better.” He spread his arms out to encompass the whole room. “Nothing at all in this room seems unusual to you? Outside of your expectations? To say nothing of the countryside you traveled through on your way here?”
“I'll tell you what's unusual--” snarled Sasuke. His eyes were stinging, the trembling was at his shoulders now-- his mind was blank, blank-- rage-but the Sharingan wouldn't come, only a pounding, screaming headache--
I'm going to die.
Immediately there was calm in the storm.
Of course he was going to die. It was only logical that he would. He had no strategy, no access to the Mangekyo, nothing left to him but the cold, bitter truth. It was the epitome of logic, logic that had eluding his grasp for what seemed like an eternity, that the next minutes would be his last on earth, and even though that thought somehow perversely relieved him--
Like hell was he going to sit here and be lectured by a man who had so utterly failed him.
“I find it unusual that you wear Hatake Kakashi's mask, but don't bother to reveal yourself as Hatake Kakashi. You despicable coward.”
The man let out a small bark of surprised laughter. Sasuke screamed right over it--
“And that the Anbu in this hidden chamber in Leaf aren't even all wearing Leaf masks! Who was in charge of the set for this interrogation anyway? And why send such fucking incompetents to gather me at first? Were you underestimating me? Trying to insult my intelligence?! And your stupid fucking set-up! As if I could have waltzed out of Mist Country in a cart without seeing a single Mist-nin! As if Konoha would ever rent out the space outside its wall as a gambling town! As if Uchiha Itachi's name would have ever been carved on the memorial stone.” He snarled this last one, saw the reaction jolt through the man like a bolt of lightning.
Oh, how I wish I could send a bolt of lightning through you-but the gods never did grant any of my wishes-never the ones I really wanted-and as long as we're at it, I'll at least take that idiot's stupid dreams down with me--
“Tell me, you sniveling bastards, where in this room is Uzumaki Naruto? This incompetence stinks of him. Tell him that he can't make any grand gestures to get me to give up my revenge. Tell him that he can't hide behind genjutsu. The Leaf will PAY for THE MURDER OF MY CLAN!”
The words ran out as if they were on a tape. Sasuke's throat closed up, his vision swam-are they choking me? A jutsu? Nobody's moving-his own breath was in his ear, shrill--
He looked up one last time, so that he could see the face of the one who killed him-it was important-the clan was about to end forever and it was important--
His eyes caught the shimmer of the shield, and heard a panicked female voice call out “Hokage-sama--”
“It's okay, Kagami,” rang out the voice, garbled as he passed straight through the shield, but recognizable, immediately recognizable. “He's not a threat. Not like we feared.”
Sasuke's blood froze in his veins.
They wouldn't--
The triangular hat was removed with one weathered hand. Sasuke could only stare.
Uzumaki Naruto stood in the garb of the Hokage.
His eyes, blue as ever, bored straight into Sasuke's. His face had long ago lost all traces of its baby fat, replaced with a strong jaw and a few stress wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. His hair, mostly golden still with streaks of silver, wafted lightly across his face. The whisker marks on his cheeks were no longer visible. His voice, when he spoke, was ridiculously stern.
“There's no genjutsu in this room right now, Sasuke. No one is trying to trick you.”
“Naruto,” said the dog-mask in exasperation. “The subject is just trying to piss someone off enough to gain an opening.”
“I know!” Naruto - the fuck-even as a joke how could they-- nodded. “But that means things are clear enough, don't you think?”
“There are a lot of unanswered questions--”
“Most of which can be solved with a semi-decent medical exam.” He squinted his eyes, peering across the room at where Sasuke sat unable to even move. “By the gods, he's like your little clone.”
“What--” Sasuke managed to get out. “How-what--” This could not be happening. It simply could not be happening. Hadn't he called them out on it? Wasn't the confusion supposed to go away now?! Why were they still--
“It's okay,” said Naruto-this can't be--voice smoothing to become almost gentle as he walked forward, coming to a stop besides the dog-mask. “I know you're confused. But it's going to be okay.”
“We don't know who created him,” snapped the dog-mask, “we don't know what he was made for--”
“You've already decided though, right?” Naruto-the fuck are they--cut him off. “He can activate the Sharingan. He's absolutely convinced about the revenge thing, but he didn't just start killing people. He even has the shitty Uchiha attitude. He's definitely yours, one way or another!” He clapped dog-mask on the back with a grim laugh. “Besides, it'd be a waste of a good potential ninja, don't you think? And we can't afford to waste any good ninjas nowadays.” His voice had gone from laughing to deadly serious in a less-than-five-second speech.
No, this is wrong-the Naruto I know could never-
Sasuke thought he knew, suddenly, the truly logical explanation for everything that had happened to him and it was worse than death--
“This is unprofessional, Naruto,” said the dog-mask coldly, reaching his hand up to his face.
The world seemed to narrow, slow, focus around that one movement, as Sasuke's heart pounded loudly in his ears.
He was wrong. He had to be wrong. Absolutely this half-mad theory would be proved just as wrong as the others--
Fingers fixed around the edges in slow motion.
“You continue to amaze me in your improbable avoidance of assassination.”
It slid off slowly, revealing the forehead, the eyes--
Somewhere deep inside of himself, Sasuke felt a scream of protest forming. But it seemed to have been caught about halfway down his throat. It had frozen shut, just like the rest of him,protesting reality, protesting everything because this absolutely could not be--
“Not too concerned as long as you're still looking out for me... ”
The mask slipped down, down, down...
“Sasuke.”
Uchiha Sasuke stared up-stared down- back into his own face.