[Public Video Post] - Akatsuki
[His eyes are blue fire but his face is hardened stone. Yondaime is angry beyond belief, but he can't do anything but supplicate himself to his enemies because it's Kakashi's life that's at stake. So he's here, addressing Konoha's worst enemy, forcing the words out.]
Uchiha Madara-dono. [His voice is surprisingly calm and undisturbed--respectful ( Read more... )
Uchiha Madara-dono. [His voice is surprisingly calm and undisturbed--respectful ( Read more... )
Oh well, I suppose that's too bad that you have no use for him.
[ The Hitomi shifts then, moving as Madara does as well -- there is a blur of some kind of darkened room, and then a handful of blood-splattered silver hair comes into the screen.]
You should be proud of him. He wasn't very... talkative.
[As the Hitomi moves, Kakashi's face comes into view inch by inch, panning south over silver hair that falls over closed eyes.]
You train your dogs very well, Hokage-sama.
[And then it's clear Kakashi has no mask on -- his nose comes into sight, then his lips, slightly parted, as though in sleep.
There isn't a single bruise on him, except for splatters of blood along his jaw and cheek.]
Such a pity. He would've been more useful if he actually talked.
[And then Madara abruptly draws his arm away from the camera to allow it to capture the perfect shot: Kakashi's head, cut off at the neck and dripping with what looks like fresh blood that hadn't started coagulating.
Madara starts chuckling. It is a low, slippery sound.]
Reply
This is not like the HiMe Matsuri, or fighting Orphans. Both which were terrible and frightening for their own reasons, but this is not. This is not the kind of war Akira has fought in. He's in no way prepared for seeing something like that.
Some ninja he makes. He throws the Hitomi away from him - hard enough to break it, crack the screen - and bolts for the bathroom.
He barely makes it to the sink before reacquainting himself intimately with gluey rice and dried-out chicken he had for dinner.
But at least he didn't start crying. ]
Reply
That's not him--
--I'm sorry, I'm sorry
And then erupts in cold rage.]
How dare you-- [Yondaime snarls and hatred overflows--caustic and burning through reason and caution. Anger--it's safer and grief has no place here, not in front of his enemy.
But silently, Minato mourns what Yondaime cannot. Will not.
Because Yondaime doesn't easily accept what Minato does--Madara is merciless, cruel, inhumane, but not stupid.
This was too abrupt. Too thoughtless. It's not...cruel enough.
Either this is a ruse or there's more to come.]
Reply
[ Madara is all amusement and smug satisfaction -- he clearly enjoys seeing such a visceral reaction and decides he'd like a little more. He sets the Hitomi down on some kind of surface, revealing that he has a spear. And it's this, that he stabs into the base of Kakashi's neck, sending blood flying as he impales it with a sickly squiiiish. ]
In any case, I might as well take back what belongs to me.
[ Madara continues on all too blithely as he picks up the Hitomi, which is now directed at Kakashi's bared face. His hand comes into the view of the screen, reaching right for the scar -- and then digs in. Blood runs down Kakashi's face as Madara's fingers stab and pry, and finally yanks the coveted eye out. It's this, he holds up to the Hitomi -- a red eye, with three black tomoe set against it. Blood stains his fingers. ]
Well, I suppose you can't call him Sharingan Kakashi anymore.
Reply
Just like that image.
She'd been right there. She hadn't been more than ten feet from Kakashi when that bastard, that fucking bastard had snatched him. She'd stopped Naruto from going after him, and she regrets that now more than anything else in her life.
She should have let him go. She should have let Naruto find him, should have let him go after Madara like a natural force and let him rip Madara apart. Instead of punching Naruto she should have gone with him and helped him tear that man's flesh from his bones with her bare fucking hands and let his blood stain her hands like Kakashi's stained his, and the Kyuubi could eat the rest of him --
Should have should have shouldhaveshouldhave --
Sakura's breathing is so fast and shallow and useless that she's almost hyperventilating.
She wheels back in the opposite direction of the Hitomi and doesn't stop until a wall prevents her from going any farther. Her legs give out under her; she slides down to the floor and doesn't even bother to try to pick herself back up.
It takes a long time for her breathing to even out, but even then, she does not move. She just stares, without seeing, at the Hitomi. ]
Reply
And what the hell is it with crazy sonsabitchs and eyeballs, anyway? At least he didn't eat it. Still pretty gross, though. Kakashi had seemed like an all right guy, and it was a shame that he was being used as a lure like this.
Bastard really wanted a fight. Suppose he'd get one, after this. Kinda equivalent to whipping it out and shaking it, actually - no subtlety. No style. Just brute force and a flair for the dramatic. A show-off. And with this crowd, good enough to be a show-off. That could be useful. ...Whatever kyuubi was, that could be useful too. Maybe Hakkai knew. Maybe Hakkai knew what he was getting into.
Not like that'd ever stopped them before.
This war was going to be a fucking bloodbath. ]
Reply
The rage reaches a point at which its burn turns him numb--it leaves him cold and cruel. He doesn't bother with recriminations, doesn't bother swearing, screaming, calling Madara an animal and scum upon the earth.]
I'm taking him back.
[It's a sharp whisper, like a furious wind that cuts. The Hitomi is held loosely in his hand, looking up towards his face, which is blank and passive.]
And when I do--
[Minato cants his head--an animal, predatory action. And though his expression is still indecipherable, his eyes are hungry for violence.]
--what you did to him will be nothing compared to what I'm going to do to you.
[There's silence a long while afterward, and not once does his expression change. This is Yondaime at his most dangerous state of mind, because he wasn't lying when he told his son that he is intimately familiar with how depraved people could be.
A sharp crack and the screen goes black, as Minato crushes the Hitomi in his hand.]
Reply
I'll look forward to what you think you can do, Namikaze Minato! Let's hope you are as strong as Senju Hashirama. I haven't had a good fight in a long, long time.
Reply
Well, I suppose you can't call him Sharingan Kakashi anymore.
That was when rage erupted, so hot and supernova like that Iruka smashed the screen with a fist, and continued to do so till the screws and mechanisms rolled off his table and clattered to the ground. He didn't want to believe it and he knew he often wished Kakashi would get hurt and things, but never, never would he wish such a thing on a comrade.
Kakashi was a good man. And Kakashi wasn't weak, Kakashi was strong, perhaps even Kage level and -
Iruka shook a bit, and thought of Naruto, immediately of the boy because this would crush him. This would devastate the boy. This would -
Iruka covered his mouth, feeling shock and reality combine and bring forth a wave of nausea that he forced back down viciously.
The war was coming and there was no stopping it at all. And Iruka wondered and hoped - even through the denial - that Kakashi went down fighting, and that the motherfucker of an asshole who did this to him, was going to pay.
Somehow. One way or the other.
Iruka covered his face with his hand and bit his lower lip, hard. Silent. Even when the roar in his ears continued to rage.]
Reply
Remember.
Never forget. Every last motion, every fall of shadow, every sound and every single drop of blood that slips down that uncovered face in the wake of that monster’s actions.
Look.
His fingers curl. Tight. Dad. Dad. Dad I don’t know what to do help me sensei is sensei is- Why do people die dad-- Tighter but not too tightly. He cannot break the Hitomi now. He cannot, even as the first hairline cracks appear across his psyche instead as he watches and he watches. He lets his fingers just squeeze instead of crushandshatter because he won’t allow it. He won’t allow it.
This.
This death.
This transgression.
No.
Thisisnotallowed.
There is something twisting through him, something like horror; grief; fury; betrayal and screaming emotion but he shoves it behind soundproof glass and he lets it rage there instead, he lets it scream alongside the beast that prowls quietly through him, the thing that grins in the dark, fanged and patiently waiting its turn.
Soonnow.
Soon.
And when Madara is done, Naruto watches the broadcast again. And then he watches it again.
And again.
And again.
His fingers move over the buttons on autopilot. He watches it again as the comforting constricting numbness covers him like a blanket. He watches it again and tugs that blanket a little tighter around himself. He doesn’t cry. It never occurs to him to cry.
He watches it again.
He’s not dead.
He’s not.
He’s…
Lying. Only he’s not, he has faith in that man, he has trust in that man, he knows that man’s strength and it has made him fearless in the past it has pushed him forward and it has given him strength. That man has given him faith and what kind of a student would he be if he did not return it in kind? So he gives it back now and thinks: You’re not dead. You’re not. You’re not.
Not again.
Never again.
It’s not denial. It’s not denial if it’s true and Kakashi is not dead.
…
He’s lying.
He’s lying and he doesn’t even know it.
The thing is, everybody lies; it’s just a matter of the degree to which the deception is carried.
...
Eventually, he turns the Hitomi off. And he curls, knees up, head bowed between them and he raises his hands and he uses them to cover his head.
Contained
Quarantined
don'tmovedon'tbreathedon'tthink
And he waits for things to stop.]
Reply
Why? The question is back again, the way it was, always. Why? Why are you like this, why did you do this, why did you kill them? Why did you kill him? why why why why why
Sasuke is eight years old again and swept up in the fucking senselessness of everything, the pointless cruelty of the world. It was to test my capacity. Once again his eyes were torn open and he saw that under the thin layer of order and rationality, under skin was a wound waiting to be opened, already festering, and any sense that the world was whole was just a lie that hadn't revealed itself. All of it. The stupid lighthearted conversations and the way he would feel a little better after them. Trying to tease him back for a change and failing miserably. Pretending to be annoyed by the way he called him "Sasuke-kun" but really, secretly - it was nothing, all of it. It was important that I did so. His bond with Kakashi had been a sham from the start. He had thought that Kakashi would survive, somehow, against all odds - thought that Kakashi would make it. It was a certitude except there was no certitude, and he should have known that, he did know that, why, why, why did he forget?
Why had this happened?
That was the reason? Just for that, you killed them? And he feels the world spinning around him, feels everything closing in on him, it grasps him, tears him open, shows his insides where he is vulnerable.
Except this time he finds he can answer the question himself - it doesn't matter. He doesn't care. Doesn't care one fucking bit what Madara wants, why he does things. Doesn't care the way he did about Itachi, because Madara is no one. Nothing. Less than nothing, less than the worst possible scum, and Sasuke doesn't want to know about why he did this because he's the lowest form of life that could ever exist and wondering about his mind is like wondering about the mind of a mad dog. Sasuke hates him, hates him, hates him so badly it hurts. He only knows that the fire inside him is relit, and it's howling. Screaming for blood. It won't be denied, and Sasuke has never tried anyway. The only thing to do is appease it. Feed it something and watch it go up and turn to ash.
Because when it's this bad, when that wound opens itself up, the only thing he can do is cauterize it with that hatred. The feeling is so familiar that it's almost comforting. Sasuke has lived half his life with it as his companion. He was raised on it, raised by it, his surrogate parent after the real ones were cut down in front of his eyes. That all-consuming fire had warmed him for eight years, and burned away anyone who tried to touch him. Protected him from the world, kept away anything that might open up his wounds again.
The open wound that he had always cast aside in favor of fire. He feels it burn through him, as thick and hot as chakra. It's power, that hatred. He feels invincible with it, and there is not even the slightest doubt in his mind when he thinks, I'll kill him. Because he will. Because he has to. Because once again, he has nothing else.
He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, and when he sees that the tears are red, he feels a sort of cold satisfaction.]
Reply
Staring so hard he's not blinking and the burn in his eyes isn't just Sharingan.
He had tried to avoid watching this video, but it was about Kakashi. He could only avoid it for so long before he was pressing play and seeing the anger--so strong he could almost feel it himself--in the eyes and stoic features of the Hokage, and the utter amusement on Madara's.
And then-- Then Kakashi--
No. His eyes are burning, his Sharingan exerting enough chakra that before would sent him spiraling into the blinding white darkness--and maybe it still would--trying to prove to himself that it is false, that...that is not Kakashi.
But even if it's not, it's his face--Kakashi's face that no one should see unless Kakashi allows them to--
No. That is not Kakashi. Itachi doesn't want to believe--wonders if he has managed to trap himself within his own illusion.
But this is Madara. Itachi can never forget that this is Madara and Madara has shown that he can reach into the deepest darkness of the human heart and tear it out and force each man to face it--smiling and taunting those caught in aftermath of the horror and the destruction.
Why-- Why would he do this? Was this his way of taunting Konoha? His way of breaking them before they can even prepare to fight back?
It's working. Itachi almost thinks he can feel himself shattering under the weight of his need to disbelieve--even if the affected is not who Madara intended it's more than effective--and if Madara knew, he would see it as a bonus.
But it's just a trick. It has to be. Kakashi would never let himself be--
He would, he would if he thought he was protecting his comrades--because those who don't protect their teammates are worse than trash--and Itachi knows that Madara is strong enough to make Kakashi think it was the only way--if that was how it had happened, but it could have been so much worse, and Itachi just doesn't know, cannot be sure--
Itachi doesn't want to know how worse it could be.
His eye. Kakashi's eye--the gift--the treasure--the life beyond the red and black that Kakashi cherished above all others--
"Well, I suppose you can't call him Sharingan Kakashi anymore."
His vision is red, and he smells the copper--so strong and potent and it's not Kakashi's blood, it's not, it's his---but he's staring so hard at the device in his hand--screen cracked and fuzzy from how tightly he's clenched it--that he's not sure if his Sharingan has bled or if its from how hard he's bitten his lip--to keep from screaming--
Because that's Kakashi.
Itachi hand begins twitching, then blankly releasing the Hitomi from dead fingers, but he falls to his knees before it even clatters to the stone floor--thick liquid red splattering onto the screen directionly over the empty, bloody space of Kakashi's eye.]
Reply
no longer attached to the rest of him
...Anko could take that because it was simply not happening. See, these things didn't happen. To Kakashi. These things happened to other people, people Anko knows and remembers because she watched those things happen to them. They could have happened to her, even.
But not Kakashi.
Kakashi is untouchable. Unbreakable. He's a total stiff, and not that fun, and prone to calling Anko out when she can't keep her stupid fat mouth shut, which is his job after all and it's almost a glowing point of pride that he does it so well, that Anko is privileged to serve under this man who represents so much of what she treasures. Of Konoha.
Konoha cannot exist without Hatake Kakashi, and Mitarashi Anko cannot exist without Konoha. She is watching this, therefore she exists, therefore Konoha exists, therefore Kakashi exists.
Thus, proven. Thus, fact.
But--
The hand comes away with Kakashi's eye, his Sharingan, sticky with blood and clutching its prize and that's Kakashi's fucking eyeball, you shithead, that belongs in his face because he needs that, he fucking needs it--
And that's when the thought pierces Anko's shields, that that Sharingan is what identifies Kakashi, what makes him special, what supports the legend and by extension, him.
Without his Sharingan, without his mask, Kakashi is just another head attached to a body. Madara's clearly shown to have severed that head, and if Kakashi has no head and no mask and no Sharingan, he no longer exists as Anko knows him to.
And if Kakashi doesn't exist anymore, Anko's world is crumbling around her ears.
Thus, proven. Thus, fucked up. Thus, wrong.
She puts the Hitomi down, hands shaking. Head reeling.
No.
This is not fucking allowed.
"You bastard," she whispers aloud to the room (not to the Hitomi, no, she's learned for weeks now to make sure to keep her mouth shut and her head down on the network, gods forbid Anko starts another war, huh?), "you fucking bastard, you--"
and that's when she lets go with every swear word she knows, trying to verbally deny the truth of this happening, because Anko can't pretend things exist where they don't and don't where they do--
she's pounding her fist on the wall, tears streaming down her face, and down her knuckles--nope, that's blood, sorry, blood streaming down her knuckles where she splits the skin and if she pounds harder she'll have more to worry about than some broken skin and bruising--
Anko closes her eyes and decides to lie there on the floor until she figures something out.
Until she can prove she exists. ]
Reply
A sharp revulsion pierces him.
So much death. He'd seen so much death already, been tainted by enough of it that he felt physically sick at the prospect of more. And he had no reason to doubt Kakashi's words to him; words of war, words that hinted at more death to come, more blood, more viscera. He had no reason to doubt what he'd seen on the little screen that was his window to this new world he'd found himself in.
Stiffening, he braces the back of one gloved hand against his mouth, fighting the urge to be violently sick.
It wasn't anything he hadn't seen before. The sword he wielded left no room for squeamishness - it was large and clumsy, a fine edge with weight behind it that could, and did, shatter bone and reduce flesh to a fine spray of red mist. But he was sick of seeing it.
Sick of fighting.
And now the only contact he had in this place - the only one he even felt inclined to trust - had been brutalised. And no matter how much Cloud wanted to ignore it, he can't deny the tight curl of anger inside him, a fierceness that whispered to him to do something.
Flaring up all of a sudden, the calm surface breaks. Clenching his fist around the Hitomi with a force that has the hairline joins squeaking in protest, he flings it to the floor in disgust, knowing even as he does it that it's not going to make him feel any better. ]
Reply
Leave a comment