Children of the White Angel, Part II (Part 1)
Hey everyone! thebunnybag and I are pleased to present Part II of this monster. Sorry it took so long! We're both very busy people and we got a little stuck in places. Anyway, here it is. Mind the warnings (they are, believe it or not, still relevant) and enjoy!
Children of the White Angel
By Adi and Lutra/Kit
Summary: The war is over, and team Taka is a mere formality away from becoming full-fledged shinobi of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Unfortunately, one of the requirements is candor, and not a single one of them is willing to expose the secret they all share.
Genre: Suspense/Horror
Rating: M/R for violence
Pairing: Gen
Warnings For the Fic: Body horror, psychological torture, physical torture
Additional Warnings For This Chapter: Flashbacks, Juugo's episodes
Words this chapter: ~10.5k
Part II
Physical Examination-Third Exam
Uchiha Sasuke:
Third round of x-rays and breathing tests support hypothesis of lowered breathing capacity due to obstruction of chest cavity. Obstruction likely due to third and fifth anterior ribs and second, third, fourth, and fifth posterior ribs. Suggest manual resetting.
Range of motion tests still inconclusive. Patient appears to have full range of motion despite nerve damage. Patient is a little shit who is way too good at hiding weaknesses. Suggest fourth round of RoM tests, perhaps while patient is distracted.
Further treatment-Schedule surgery for rebreaking procedure. Discuss potential avenues for RoM tests with alternate source. Suggest UN whack patient’s knees when not expecting it???
Uzumaki Karin:
N/A. Second round of tests proved conclusive. See past notes re: nerve damage. Digestive tract functioning normally.
Further treatment-judged unnecessary. Patient appears to have adapted to nerve damage and has full RoM. Patient appears to have appropriate diet. Patient rejected suggestion that she not use herself as a battery for injured nin. Vehemently.
Juugo:
Tests conclusive. Cardiopulmonary system appears to be functioning normally. Digestive system appears to be functioning normally. Adrenal system appears to be functioning normally. Adrenal system should not be functioning normally, all things considered. Suggest further research.
Further treatment-Adrenal and hormonal tests re: treatment plan. See past notes.
Hozuki Suigetsu:
Who the fuck even knows? Suggest saline drip.
*
"Alright, then, we're agreed. Hikaru, have the D rank to the missions office by tomorrow morning. Suggest the genin wear gas masks and approach the refrigerator with caution. Actually, note that a more experienced team should take it. Actually, make it a C rank." Hikaru nodded solemnly and made a note on the paper in front of him. Tsunade nodded back. "Anyone else have anything to add?" Nobody raised a hand. "Good. Dismissed. Sakura, stay. Everyone else back to your stations."
Sakura, who’d been gathering up her charts halfway through Tsunade’s dismissal, paused and looked at her former teacher quizzically. She was probably eager to get back to work. Tsunade couldn’t blame her, really. Sakura had a touch-and-go case in the ICU that simply refused to stabilize for longer than half an hour at a stretch. She had the look that all medics got when their patients were frustratingly close to flatlining-large bags under her green eyes, hair greasy and pulled back with the closest available piece of string, frown lines set permanently into her forehead and around her mouth. Being a medic-nin aged you way faster than other specialties, Tsunade knew.
Tsunade grimaced and flicked her eyes at the door, an indication that she’d explain once the others left. Sakura sighed a little and nodded, settling back in her chair and flipping open the chart in front of her, picking up her pen and absentmindedly chewing on it as she glared at her jounin’s stats. Tsunade suddenly felt a little bad about keeping her for something unofficial.
Tsunade settled back in her chair as the door closed quietly behind the last hospital worker. Sakura looked up and put down her pen, giving Tsunade a small smile. Tsunade quirked her mouth at her old student in return, then got straight to the point. “I’m doing surveys of how Uchiha’s team is settling into the village now that they’re allowed to move around freely. I figured you’d be a better source of information than Naruto.”
The small, inquiring smile dropped off Sakura’s face faster than a person dropped with a kunai to the throat. She shook her head, looking resigned, and sat back in her chair a bit. “Sorry, Shishou, but you’ve definitely come to the wrong place. Sasuke and I… haven’t really connected since he’s been back.”
Tsunade blinked. That… was pretty unexpected actually. She wasn’t getting regular reports on Uchiha’s movements anymore, since the brats were ostensibly on parole and that meant the ANBU teams reported once every other week unless asked explicitly. But the reports had heard that even before they were cleared, Sakura visited Sasuke as often as was allowed. Twice a month, granted…but it was still a fair amount of trouble to go through, even moreso if they weren’t getting along.
“You visited him fairly regularly during his house arrest,” Tsunade prompted, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, yes,” Sakura said, picking up her pen and fiddling with it a little as she shifted uncomfortably under Tsunade’s stare. “But it was… mostly because he’s Sasuke. He let me in and I put food on the table, and then he eyed me sideways as we discussed things like the weather until I had to leave.”
Tsunade raised the other eyebrow. “The… weather?”
“In our defense,” Sakura said dryly, putting her pen back down. “We did try to kill each other years before. I think Naruto’s the only one who considers that an overture of friendship.”
“He was under house arrest.”
“He had windows, Shishou.”
“Right.” Tsunade rubbed her eyes, feeling a headache coming on. “Thank you anyway, Sakura. You can go back to your post.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be more help, Shishou,” Sakura responded, standing up and beginning to put her charts away again. “If you want, I can ask Naruto what he thinks. He might be more open with me than you, since I don’t actually have the authority to lock Sasuke back up again.”
“You can if you want,” Tsunade allowed, watching her finish up her packing through her impending migraine. “I’m not going to ask you officially, though. I’d rather leave that card in reserve for when it’s really necessary.”
Sakura smiled at her, slinging her back onto her back. “Right. In that case, I’ll look into it.” Tsunade waved a hand dismissively, and Sakura left. Tsunade waited until she was gone to sigh and summon an aide. She still had a lot of work to do on this case. The aide stepped in and bowed respectively.
“Bring me all the reports on Orochimaru’s movements prior to his death,” she ordered. “And call Ibiki.” The aide bowed, respectfully.
“Would you like me to bring you some aspirin as well, Hokage-sama?”
“Bring the whole bottle,” Tsunade deadpanned, and the aide retreated. Tsunade was pretty sure he was laughing at her.
Asshole. Tsunade was surrounded by assholes. And difficult former traitors. And the day was only half over.
Tsunade gave herself a whole minute to long for her bed and a bottle of sake, and then went back to her teetering piles of paperwork.
*
“So.” Tsunade said without preamble when Ibiki entered. She had a cluster of scrolls and three notebooks on the table. “Examinations I performed on the former Sound nin showed damage to internal organs, and to me, the damage doesn’t seem consistent with Orochimaru’s experiments. Partly, I’m going on my experience with him in the field. The rest of it, I’ve got here.” She picked up one of the notebooks.
“They confiscated several of his notebooks after shutting down the lab. These three here are the ones still around.”
“What happened to the rest? Assuming there were more,” Ibiki asked. He reached for the notebook Tsunade handed him and, when Tsunade waved her hand to tell him to go ahead, turning to the first page.
“I don’t know, and yes, there were more, just no one can find them. That’s one of the things I need you to do.”
Ibiki nodded, shutting the notebook again. “Yes, Hokage-sama. What else do you need?”
“Who Orochimaru collaborated with while he was still in this village. He didn’t work alone all the time. Here…” she pulled out one of the scrolls. “I wrote down some of the known names of his associates. One of them is still alive and lives in the northwest sector of the village.” She flipped the scroll open and indicated the section where the man’s contact information was listed. “One of the ninjutsu specialists Sandaime kept around due more to longevity of service instead of actual approval of his techniques.” Ibiki made a noise of acknowledgment and set his mouth in a thin line. Tsunade smirked. “Yeah, he’ll be fun. Go find him and ask him what he worked on with Orochimaru. Look in on the records of the others, too. See what else they did before and after Orochimaru. Try and find any other connections between them, if possible.”
She passed him the scrolls and the other notebooks, and watched as he stored them in his vest, out of sight and close to his person. “Look for any records of Orochimaru’s medical experiments, go through them and see if you can find anything involving more specific organs and systems rather than just the jutsus themselves, or incidents like Yamato’s. Check for excessive use of electricity on said systems and organs. Make sure to ask this of the living associate. Do whatever you need to find anything from him, I don’t feel like delaying this process any longer.”
“One more thing,” she continued, when he returned his attention to her. She leaned back in her chair and placed her hands on the armrests. “I need ANBU back watching Uchiha Sasuke. I had thought that Haruno Sakura would be able to help me with that, but it turns out she’s not really close enough to get anything out of him. From what I’ve gathered, he’s not settling in as well as the others, keeps to himself, almost rudely quiet. If we’re going to get these kids to a point where we can call them Leaf nin, they need to actually interact with the others in the village. The other parolees don’t seem to have this problem.”
“I’ve heard Juugo keeps to himself as well,” Ibiki pointed out mildly, raising an eyebrow.
“He still leaves his apartment, and despite his… history… no one has reported any problems with him.”
“Hm… I’ll have several members on it, then.”
“Thank you.”
“Anything else?”
Tsunade quirked a smile. “Figured that was enough for now. This… might be bigger than we anticipated, so we’ll take it by ear.”
“Then I will get right on this, Hokage-sama.”
*
At the exact moment the clock chimed, Juugo showed up in the doorway. He wasn’t bound, but still kept his hands clasped behind him and his eyes cast downward.
“Hokage-sama,” he said.
“Juugo. Come in,” Tsunade said, her voice light and welcoming. Juugo stepped in and looked all around him, his eyes darting quickly from one light to the next, from the tools on the table to the chair against the window, blood pressure cuff dangling off a hook next to the monitor. She could see the muscles bulge in his arms when he looked at the chair, and then he started taking deep breaths, and finally met her eyes.
“You wanted to see me?”
“I did,” Tsunade continued. “I just wanted to see how well your heart is working. Your x-rays showed some scarring, and if it affects your cardiopulmonary system in any way, I would be glad to fix that for you.” She spoke calmly, knowing what Juugo was capable of when angered or frightened.
There was no reason for him to still be so afraid of what he could do. If Orochimaru had fulfilled his side of the bargain, Juugo would probably have been under control a long time ago. But as had always been true in their time as teammates, Tsunade was the only one left to pick up the pieces once Orochimaru dropped the ball.
She had the x-ray clipped up on the board, and she showed it to him, pointing out the individual scars.
“Can you fix…anything else?” Juugo asked, his eyes going from her to the x-ray and back again repeatedly.
“I don’t know yet,” Tsunade continued. “But if there is a way, I will do my best to find it, I promise.” She didn’t make promises lightly, but this boy was owed one.
Juugo nodded. “What do you need me to do?” and then, slightly more uncertain, “What will you be doing?”
“Well, first, I’m going to do an echocardiogram. I’m going to use this machine here…” she walked over to the one in the corner. “And it’s going to use ultrasound in order to give me a picture of your heart and how well it’s working. It will take about a half an hour, since I want to get a very good look at what’s going on here.”
“Is…that it?”
“Depending on what the echo shows me, I might want to get a closer look at things. Lie down on this table, please, and remove your clothing from the waist up.”
Juugo obeyed, and Tsunade placed three electrodes on his chest. “Now, lie on your left side.” She took the sound-wave transducer and moved it across his chest. He let her, though he flinched when the cold gel touched his skin. He remained eerily motionless for the entire procedure, in fact, only rolling onto his right side and then his back when she told him to. He was almost calm, it seemed. She produced enough images of the heart, and let him know when she was done, and then she plucked off the electrodes.
“Hmm,” she said, looking at the pictures produced by the echo. There were enough problems where it required further analysis. “I’ve still got more to do, but we’ll be done after this test. Here,” she began to prepare for the intravascular ultrasound. “I’m going to pass a transducer through a catheter which I will have to thread through an artery in your groin. It will give me a better picture of what is going on not only in your heart but in the vessels surrounding it, seeing how much further damage there is. There’s more damage than I expected.” She said with a sigh. “I’m going to need you to strip for me and lie down, alright?”
Juugo obeyed, and she was preparing the tools and readying the machine, and didn’t notice the slight change in Juugo’s eyes and the way he was tapping hard and fast against the side of the table.
“Alright,” Tsunade said. “I’m going to pass this through the artery in your groin,” she held up the catheter. “And it’s going to show me a better picture of your heart and the surrounding veins. I’m going to give you an anaesthetic so you won’t move during the procedure, and it’ll be much more comfortable when you’re asleep.”
Juugo nodded, but his jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscles were jumping. He was an oddly patient boy, although very tense, twitching at every sound in the room. His heart rate was elevated, breathing shallow. Poor kid, what did they do to you?
First she tied off his upper arm, finding a good vein to inject the anaesthetic into. Then she gently slid the tip of the needle into the vein. Juugo gasped, and then from the site of the needle, horrible black-red lines started crawling across his arm. “No!” Juugo said. “No no no!” The lines raced up his neck and face and for a moment his face was filled with fear and despair, and then it changed, a manic, bloodthirsty gleam coming into his eyes. He started laughing as his muscles bulged and skin changed to a dark, ugly brown, spikes jutted from his arm and on his face, and with a roar he wrenched free of the IV and threw her across the room. She hit the echocardiogram machine hard and they both crashed against the back wall.
“Needles?” Juugo roared. “You touch me with needles, woman?” His clawed hands dug into the floor, then started tearing it up. “I’ll kill you for that! I’ll kill you ALL!” The last word was almost unintelligible as he started breaking all the machines, ripping them apart with ease and extraordinary violence. Then he came down on Tsunade, wrapping his hands around her throat.
This was not going like it was supposed to.
She drew in her legs and then kicked him hard in the chest, sending him skidding backwards. He dug his nails into the floor and stopped just before he crashed into the back desk, leaving deep scores in the tiled floor. She grabbed the machine used to check vitals and shoved it in his direction, giving him a distraction while she tried to find and load a tranquilizer. Every report said that once he flew into a rage, he would attempt to kill and destroy everything in his path until it passed.
Juugo tore the machine apart and high-pitched whines and beeping filled the air. Tsunade went to the refrigerator and flung it open, reaching in and scrambling for the Ativan liquid solution. Then Juugo slammed into her and she dropped the first vial, glass shattering and liquid splashing on the floor. She swore and gathered her chakra in her arms, then grabbed Juugo’s upper arms and shoved him against the glass and spilled drug. He roared with anger as the tiny shards dug into his face.
“Hokage-sama!” two assistants ran into the room, skidding to a halt when they saw the mess and Juugo. “What…”
“I’m fine, I’ve got this under control. Just get me some fucking Ativan!” She held his arms behind him and gave an extra push, breaking the tiles and digging him further into the ground. “As much as you can, put it in the syringe in the corner and give it to me!”
“Syringe!” Juugo’s voice rang out, rough and furious. “I’LL KILL YOU FIRST BEFORE YOU FUCKING USE THAT!” He flipped around and grabbed a handful of tile, shoving it into Tsunade’s face. Pain flared as the tiles dug into her cheek and blood started dripping onto the floor. She had to let go of one arm to get the tiles out of her face, and he pulled free and started going after the assistant who was filling the syringe. The assistant had enough time to look up before Juugo punched her in the face and sent her flying backward, then he leaped onto her and started tearing out her throat.
Tsunade didn’t have time to think about that, she had to get the damn Ativan into this thing before he did anything else. She ran over and filled the syringe, breathing hard and hoping it was enough.
The needle was filled with enough ativan to knock out three two-hundred pound men, but Tsunade could counter it if it slowed his central nervous system too much. For now, she stuck the needle into his neck and pushed the Ativan, and within the minute he fell unconscious to the ground, and several minutes later the physical changes receded and left just Juugo, passed out on the floor, breathing too slow.
Tsunade had seen worse than this before. But the other members of her staff hadn’t.
“Get Haruno in here,” she said, panting and covered in sweat and blood. “I’m going to need some help cleaning up.”
*
Juugo sat in the middle of the floor with his hands folded and his eyes closed. He didn’t touch anything in his apartment after closing the door. He knew he should change, his clothes were shredded from the transformation, and he knew he should wash, there was blood on his arms, fingers and under his nails. But what he knew and what he actually did were never the same.
The Hokage was a good person. She was kind, she was a brilliant medic and one of the best ninjas of their age. There was no reason to attack her and destroy the lab, no reason to kill one of her assistants who was just trying to be helpful. No reason to have an episode when he had gone years without one.
After a few hours of this, he got up and locked the door, then lay on the couch. He was always tired after an episode, and eventually he fell asleep.
He was woken up by loud banging on his door.
“No one come in here,” Juugo warned, the words out of his mouth before he was on his feet, ready to force whoever it was back out. He needed to be alone, he didn’t want to see anyone, didn’t want to think about what happened and why it happened at all.
“Yeah?” Karin’s voice sounded from the other side. “Why the hell not?” Then she kicked down the door and walked in. “Ugh, it smells disgusting in here, you need to take a shower.” She turned around and picked the door up, carefully propping it into its frame, then looked him up and down. Juugo suddenly didn’t even have the energy to protest. “Seriously, go take a shower.”
Juugo found the energy to protest. “Why are you here?”
“Why not?” Karin shrugged. “Heard you broke the Hokage’s lab. That sucks.” She went into the kitchen and opened the fridge, digging through it for some food.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Juugo mumbled.
“Fine, I don’t really care.” Karin replied. She pulled out the remnants of an old sandwich. “Why’d you do it? I’m throwing this out, it’s fucking gross. I thought Suigetsu was bad about the shit he left in his fridge.”
“I don’t…I don’t remember.”
“Seriously?” she poked her head back into the living room, holding out the sandwich. “Seriously, do you never clean your fridge? No wonder it smells so bad in here.” She ducked back into the kitchen and threw the sandwich in the garbage. “Don’t remember why you did it? Do you just forget everything when you go crazy?” she paused. “That sucks.” There was shuffling in the kitchen and the sound of things being thrown in the trash. After five minutes of this, Karin came back into the living room. “Why are you not in the shower? Seriously, you’re disgusting, there’s blood everywhere.”
Juugo wasn’t sure how to respond; he was never sure what to do around Karin, or around Suigetsu, despite their years of knowing each other. The only member of their little band of former Sound nin he was comfortable around was Sasuke, and he seemed to be the only one who was.
She was right in that he should shower. He threw out all his clothes, too, for good measure.
When he came back out, the garbage was filled with old food and what seemed like half of his kitchen. The air smelled of dust and mold and vinegar. Karin was sitting at the table with vinegar-soaked rag next to her, and she was eating some noodle soup. There was another bowl on the other side of the table. “You’d better fucking eat that,” she said. “I bothered to make it, and cleaned your kitchen because it was so disgusting I couldn’t stand to even be here. Probably everyone thought that and that’s why you never have any visitors, ugh.”
Juugo sat down and started eating the soup, realizing he was extremely hungry. He ate the whole bowl in under five minutes, then he went to the fridge to see if there was anything else to eat. There wasn’t much but he ended up finishing all ofwas left in there. He’d almost forgotten how hungry he was after an episode. He thought he had it all under control after so many years being fine. But that… that …
His hands tightened into fists when he remembered the pull of the tourniquet and the pinch of the needle in his arm. Again. And again. And the Hokage only tried it once but others did it again and again and every day…week, month, hour, in his arm, in his back, in his spine, then deep in his chest, sometimes taking blood and sometimes putting things into his body and --
He felt a hard blow to the side of his head, and Karin stood there scowling. “Don’t start that shit while I’m here, I don’t feel like dealing with it.”
Juugo looked down and saw the dark lines starting to spread across his chest. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths until they receded. The sat back down and put his head in his hands.
“Why’d it happen anyway?”
He shook his head.
“Thought you said it doesn’t randomly happen anymore. Not since the war.”
“I did it on purpose sometimes during the war.”
Karin shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” she replied. “We all did shit like that.” She picked up the bowl and dumped the rest of the noodles into the trash, then put the bowl in the sink. “You clean that, I’m done doing your stupid chores.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She shrugged again. “Whatever. Seriously, why’d you do it? Why’d it happen?”
Juugo sighed, and looked down at his plate. Across from him, Karin huffed in exasperation.
“Whatever. I’m going home, clean the rest of your shit yourself.” She pulled down her sleeves and started towards the door.
Juugo still didn’t know why she bothered to come. No one really knew Karin’s motivations, other than she wanted to manipulate everyone around her for one reason or another, and she was still desperately seeking Sasuke’s affections, and constantly in a verbal war with Suigetsu.
“Needles,” Juugo said when she was almost out the door. “She was… needles.”
Karin stopped. “Oh.”
“She was just going to help me. She said there was something wrong with my heart.”
Karin turned around. “Was there?”
“I don’t know. She showed me the x-ray but I don’t know what my heart is supposed to look like. In Sound he never showed me the x-rays he took.”
“Yeah,” Karin agreed. “I don’t think he showed anyone.”
He didn’t know what else to say, and when it stretched on for too long, Karin sighed and left.
Juugo went back to the couch and sat there, rubbing his arm convulsively. This time he was done forever. Whatever it took, he would not have another episode and notkill anyone else, not unless he was in the field doing his duty as a ninja. He’d hoped that this time he might have found a place where he could get himself under control, could be an asset in the field and not a danger to his allies even there, but it seemed it was not to be. It didn’t matter what Tsunade did, what the others did in the past, he was done with this.
He wondered if she would still help him after he wrecked her lab and killed one of her assistants, anyway. He didn’t expect she would. In her situation, he definitely wouldn’t.
He should leave the village before he hurt anyone else.
*
Karin made it a habit to spy on everyone else in the village. Most of them were boring, but she kept an eye on them anyway in case they stopped being boring and started doing something she’d want to use. She wasn’t a warden anymore, but old habits died really hard, and she didn’t know if she actually wanted to shake this habit. It was fun to watch people and see what they’d do.
After she left Juugo’s house, she went to look at Sasuke for a bit. He wasn’t being interesting at all, just sitting in his room reading or something. Still, she always wanted to look at him because he was such a damn fine looking man, and if she had the opportunity she’d watch him all day until he took his clothes off. But his damn sharingan knew she was there half the time and he made her leave. Whatever.
Then she went to see what Suigetsu was doing, which was sleeping. But he heard her and woke up. His eyes shot to the window, but he relaxed when he realized who it was and grinned at her, showing his pointy teeth. Then he phased out of his clothing and waved at her. Perverted asshole. She flipped him off and he saluted her. Why was he always such an asshole? Why did she bother to put up with his stupid immature crap?
That kid with the dog was pretty hot, so she went to look at him for a bit, but the dog was fucking huge and went right after her and she didn’t feel like dealing with that. She probably still smelled like Juugo’s fridge, gross.
Speaking of Juugo… She felt a familiar chakra from nearby, and stopped to follow it. Juugo, heading north. What the fuck was he doing out? No former Taka member did anything without Karin knowing why. She jumped along the roofs, following after him, then landed in front of him. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
Juugo froze, and she could see fear on his face, hidden by the cloak he had tossed haphazardly over his large frame. “How did you find me?”
“I felt your chakra, obviously,” Karin rolled her eyes. “I can track all you morons anywhere, did you forget that?”
“Were you looking for me?”
“Not really, I was trying to see the guy with the dog start training, then you got in the way.”
Juugo looked down and folded his hands in front of him. “Sorry,” he said.
“Whatever, I’ll just go look at him later. Hey where are you going? Anywhere interesting?”
Juugo shook his head.
“That’s no fun,” Karin whined. “I followed you here for nothing, then?”
“It would seem so,” Juugo said. He started walking again, quickly and purposefully.
“Don’t walk away from me!” Karin shouted after him. “That’s fucking rude,” she caught up with him in a moment. “Spend a few years away from Sound and think you can be rude to me?”
Juugo whirled on her, anger flaring in his eyes. “I can be rude to whomever I want,” he informed her, calm tone of voice jarring with his tense frame and angry eyes. “And we’re not in Sound anymore, and you’re not our warden and never will be again.”
“Then what, you’re just rude to everyone?”
“No.”
“Then you hate me,” she put her hands on her hips. “You hate me so much you won’t even tell me where you’re going!”
“I’m leaving!” Juugo stated matter-of-factly, stepping away from her. “I’m leaving the village. Sorry,” he added. “I just don’t want to hurt anyone here, they’ve all been terribly kind to me.”
“That’s stupid,” Karin retorted. “Like you’ll be better off anywhere else.”
“Maybe I will be.”
“Wow, you’re really stupid if you think that.”
Juugo flushed. “Don’t call me stupid, Karin.”
“Then stop being stupid. Fuck, we’ve seen half the other villages out there. It’s not going to be any different, so might as well stay here where the rest of us are.”
Juugo hesitated.
“Yeah, you know I’m right, I’m always right. Plus,” she added. “Sasuke is here. What are you gonna do if he needs you for something and you’re not here? Yeah, that’s right.” She nodded firmly when Juugo looked down and started tapping his fingers against his thigh. He always did that when he was thinking. “Yeah he’ll need to do something and go ‘Where the fuck is Juugo?’ and then you won’t be here, what then?”
Juugo’s face muscles spasmed, and his fingers tapped quicker and quicker. Good, he was probably going to stay. She didn’t want any of the former Taka members where she couldn’t see them, That would be really problematic if she needed to make them do something later.
“You’re right,” Juugo whispered. “You are.”
“Yeah, of course,” she tossed her hair. “No fucking shit. Go home.”
Juugo was very good at taking orders when he wasn’t in a state. He started home and she followed him the whole way, making sure he actually went into his apartment and stayed put.
That was better. She didn’t need him walking out on her.
Now she could get back to business, and that business probably involved seeing if the man’s dog wasn’t so close to him anymore.
*
Juugo couldn’t and didn’t want to sleep that night, too many snippets of memory crowding his mind when he closed his eyes, old sensory imprints crawling across his skin. But he knew despite that he wasn’t going to leave the village.
*
Next
Part I
Children of the White Angel
By Adi and Lutra/Kit
Summary: The war is over, and team Taka is a mere formality away from becoming full-fledged shinobi of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Unfortunately, one of the requirements is candor, and not a single one of them is willing to expose the secret they all share.
Genre: Suspense/Horror
Rating: M/R for violence
Pairing: Gen
Warnings For the Fic: Body horror, psychological torture, physical torture
Additional Warnings For This Chapter: Flashbacks, Juugo's episodes
Words this chapter: ~10.5k
Part II
Physical Examination-Third Exam
Uchiha Sasuke:
Third round of x-rays and breathing tests support hypothesis of lowered breathing capacity due to obstruction of chest cavity. Obstruction likely due to third and fifth anterior ribs and second, third, fourth, and fifth posterior ribs. Suggest manual resetting.
Range of motion tests still inconclusive. Patient appears to have full range of motion despite nerve damage. Patient is a little shit who is way too good at hiding weaknesses. Suggest fourth round of RoM tests, perhaps while patient is distracted.
Further treatment-Schedule surgery for rebreaking procedure. Discuss potential avenues for RoM tests with alternate source. Suggest UN whack patient’s knees when not expecting it???
Uzumaki Karin:
N/A. Second round of tests proved conclusive. See past notes re: nerve damage. Digestive tract functioning normally.
Further treatment-judged unnecessary. Patient appears to have adapted to nerve damage and has full RoM. Patient appears to have appropriate diet. Patient rejected suggestion that she not use herself as a battery for injured nin. Vehemently.
Juugo:
Tests conclusive. Cardiopulmonary system appears to be functioning normally. Digestive system appears to be functioning normally. Adrenal system appears to be functioning normally. Adrenal system should not be functioning normally, all things considered. Suggest further research.
Further treatment-Adrenal and hormonal tests re: treatment plan. See past notes.
Hozuki Suigetsu:
Who the fuck even knows? Suggest saline drip.
*
"Alright, then, we're agreed. Hikaru, have the D rank to the missions office by tomorrow morning. Suggest the genin wear gas masks and approach the refrigerator with caution. Actually, note that a more experienced team should take it. Actually, make it a C rank." Hikaru nodded solemnly and made a note on the paper in front of him. Tsunade nodded back. "Anyone else have anything to add?" Nobody raised a hand. "Good. Dismissed. Sakura, stay. Everyone else back to your stations."
Sakura, who’d been gathering up her charts halfway through Tsunade’s dismissal, paused and looked at her former teacher quizzically. She was probably eager to get back to work. Tsunade couldn’t blame her, really. Sakura had a touch-and-go case in the ICU that simply refused to stabilize for longer than half an hour at a stretch. She had the look that all medics got when their patients were frustratingly close to flatlining-large bags under her green eyes, hair greasy and pulled back with the closest available piece of string, frown lines set permanently into her forehead and around her mouth. Being a medic-nin aged you way faster than other specialties, Tsunade knew.
Tsunade grimaced and flicked her eyes at the door, an indication that she’d explain once the others left. Sakura sighed a little and nodded, settling back in her chair and flipping open the chart in front of her, picking up her pen and absentmindedly chewing on it as she glared at her jounin’s stats. Tsunade suddenly felt a little bad about keeping her for something unofficial.
Tsunade settled back in her chair as the door closed quietly behind the last hospital worker. Sakura looked up and put down her pen, giving Tsunade a small smile. Tsunade quirked her mouth at her old student in return, then got straight to the point. “I’m doing surveys of how Uchiha’s team is settling into the village now that they’re allowed to move around freely. I figured you’d be a better source of information than Naruto.”
The small, inquiring smile dropped off Sakura’s face faster than a person dropped with a kunai to the throat. She shook her head, looking resigned, and sat back in her chair a bit. “Sorry, Shishou, but you’ve definitely come to the wrong place. Sasuke and I… haven’t really connected since he’s been back.”
Tsunade blinked. That… was pretty unexpected actually. She wasn’t getting regular reports on Uchiha’s movements anymore, since the brats were ostensibly on parole and that meant the ANBU teams reported once every other week unless asked explicitly. But the reports had heard that even before they were cleared, Sakura visited Sasuke as often as was allowed. Twice a month, granted…but it was still a fair amount of trouble to go through, even moreso if they weren’t getting along.
“You visited him fairly regularly during his house arrest,” Tsunade prompted, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, yes,” Sakura said, picking up her pen and fiddling with it a little as she shifted uncomfortably under Tsunade’s stare. “But it was… mostly because he’s Sasuke. He let me in and I put food on the table, and then he eyed me sideways as we discussed things like the weather until I had to leave.”
Tsunade raised the other eyebrow. “The… weather?”
“In our defense,” Sakura said dryly, putting her pen back down. “We did try to kill each other years before. I think Naruto’s the only one who considers that an overture of friendship.”
“He was under house arrest.”
“He had windows, Shishou.”
“Right.” Tsunade rubbed her eyes, feeling a headache coming on. “Thank you anyway, Sakura. You can go back to your post.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be more help, Shishou,” Sakura responded, standing up and beginning to put her charts away again. “If you want, I can ask Naruto what he thinks. He might be more open with me than you, since I don’t actually have the authority to lock Sasuke back up again.”
“You can if you want,” Tsunade allowed, watching her finish up her packing through her impending migraine. “I’m not going to ask you officially, though. I’d rather leave that card in reserve for when it’s really necessary.”
Sakura smiled at her, slinging her back onto her back. “Right. In that case, I’ll look into it.” Tsunade waved a hand dismissively, and Sakura left. Tsunade waited until she was gone to sigh and summon an aide. She still had a lot of work to do on this case. The aide stepped in and bowed respectively.
“Bring me all the reports on Orochimaru’s movements prior to his death,” she ordered. “And call Ibiki.” The aide bowed, respectfully.
“Would you like me to bring you some aspirin as well, Hokage-sama?”
“Bring the whole bottle,” Tsunade deadpanned, and the aide retreated. Tsunade was pretty sure he was laughing at her.
Asshole. Tsunade was surrounded by assholes. And difficult former traitors. And the day was only half over.
Tsunade gave herself a whole minute to long for her bed and a bottle of sake, and then went back to her teetering piles of paperwork.
*
“So.” Tsunade said without preamble when Ibiki entered. She had a cluster of scrolls and three notebooks on the table. “Examinations I performed on the former Sound nin showed damage to internal organs, and to me, the damage doesn’t seem consistent with Orochimaru’s experiments. Partly, I’m going on my experience with him in the field. The rest of it, I’ve got here.” She picked up one of the notebooks.
“They confiscated several of his notebooks after shutting down the lab. These three here are the ones still around.”
“What happened to the rest? Assuming there were more,” Ibiki asked. He reached for the notebook Tsunade handed him and, when Tsunade waved her hand to tell him to go ahead, turning to the first page.
“I don’t know, and yes, there were more, just no one can find them. That’s one of the things I need you to do.”
Ibiki nodded, shutting the notebook again. “Yes, Hokage-sama. What else do you need?”
“Who Orochimaru collaborated with while he was still in this village. He didn’t work alone all the time. Here…” she pulled out one of the scrolls. “I wrote down some of the known names of his associates. One of them is still alive and lives in the northwest sector of the village.” She flipped the scroll open and indicated the section where the man’s contact information was listed. “One of the ninjutsu specialists Sandaime kept around due more to longevity of service instead of actual approval of his techniques.” Ibiki made a noise of acknowledgment and set his mouth in a thin line. Tsunade smirked. “Yeah, he’ll be fun. Go find him and ask him what he worked on with Orochimaru. Look in on the records of the others, too. See what else they did before and after Orochimaru. Try and find any other connections between them, if possible.”
She passed him the scrolls and the other notebooks, and watched as he stored them in his vest, out of sight and close to his person. “Look for any records of Orochimaru’s medical experiments, go through them and see if you can find anything involving more specific organs and systems rather than just the jutsus themselves, or incidents like Yamato’s. Check for excessive use of electricity on said systems and organs. Make sure to ask this of the living associate. Do whatever you need to find anything from him, I don’t feel like delaying this process any longer.”
“One more thing,” she continued, when he returned his attention to her. She leaned back in her chair and placed her hands on the armrests. “I need ANBU back watching Uchiha Sasuke. I had thought that Haruno Sakura would be able to help me with that, but it turns out she’s not really close enough to get anything out of him. From what I’ve gathered, he’s not settling in as well as the others, keeps to himself, almost rudely quiet. If we’re going to get these kids to a point where we can call them Leaf nin, they need to actually interact with the others in the village. The other parolees don’t seem to have this problem.”
“I’ve heard Juugo keeps to himself as well,” Ibiki pointed out mildly, raising an eyebrow.
“He still leaves his apartment, and despite his… history… no one has reported any problems with him.”
“Hm… I’ll have several members on it, then.”
“Thank you.”
“Anything else?”
Tsunade quirked a smile. “Figured that was enough for now. This… might be bigger than we anticipated, so we’ll take it by ear.”
“Then I will get right on this, Hokage-sama.”
*
At the exact moment the clock chimed, Juugo showed up in the doorway. He wasn’t bound, but still kept his hands clasped behind him and his eyes cast downward.
“Hokage-sama,” he said.
“Juugo. Come in,” Tsunade said, her voice light and welcoming. Juugo stepped in and looked all around him, his eyes darting quickly from one light to the next, from the tools on the table to the chair against the window, blood pressure cuff dangling off a hook next to the monitor. She could see the muscles bulge in his arms when he looked at the chair, and then he started taking deep breaths, and finally met her eyes.
“You wanted to see me?”
“I did,” Tsunade continued. “I just wanted to see how well your heart is working. Your x-rays showed some scarring, and if it affects your cardiopulmonary system in any way, I would be glad to fix that for you.” She spoke calmly, knowing what Juugo was capable of when angered or frightened.
There was no reason for him to still be so afraid of what he could do. If Orochimaru had fulfilled his side of the bargain, Juugo would probably have been under control a long time ago. But as had always been true in their time as teammates, Tsunade was the only one left to pick up the pieces once Orochimaru dropped the ball.
She had the x-ray clipped up on the board, and she showed it to him, pointing out the individual scars.
“Can you fix…anything else?” Juugo asked, his eyes going from her to the x-ray and back again repeatedly.
“I don’t know yet,” Tsunade continued. “But if there is a way, I will do my best to find it, I promise.” She didn’t make promises lightly, but this boy was owed one.
Juugo nodded. “What do you need me to do?” and then, slightly more uncertain, “What will you be doing?”
“Well, first, I’m going to do an echocardiogram. I’m going to use this machine here…” she walked over to the one in the corner. “And it’s going to use ultrasound in order to give me a picture of your heart and how well it’s working. It will take about a half an hour, since I want to get a very good look at what’s going on here.”
“Is…that it?”
“Depending on what the echo shows me, I might want to get a closer look at things. Lie down on this table, please, and remove your clothing from the waist up.”
Juugo obeyed, and Tsunade placed three electrodes on his chest. “Now, lie on your left side.” She took the sound-wave transducer and moved it across his chest. He let her, though he flinched when the cold gel touched his skin. He remained eerily motionless for the entire procedure, in fact, only rolling onto his right side and then his back when she told him to. He was almost calm, it seemed. She produced enough images of the heart, and let him know when she was done, and then she plucked off the electrodes.
“Hmm,” she said, looking at the pictures produced by the echo. There were enough problems where it required further analysis. “I’ve still got more to do, but we’ll be done after this test. Here,” she began to prepare for the intravascular ultrasound. “I’m going to pass a transducer through a catheter which I will have to thread through an artery in your groin. It will give me a better picture of what is going on not only in your heart but in the vessels surrounding it, seeing how much further damage there is. There’s more damage than I expected.” She said with a sigh. “I’m going to need you to strip for me and lie down, alright?”
Juugo obeyed, and she was preparing the tools and readying the machine, and didn’t notice the slight change in Juugo’s eyes and the way he was tapping hard and fast against the side of the table.
“Alright,” Tsunade said. “I’m going to pass this through the artery in your groin,” she held up the catheter. “And it’s going to show me a better picture of your heart and the surrounding veins. I’m going to give you an anaesthetic so you won’t move during the procedure, and it’ll be much more comfortable when you’re asleep.”
Juugo nodded, but his jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscles were jumping. He was an oddly patient boy, although very tense, twitching at every sound in the room. His heart rate was elevated, breathing shallow. Poor kid, what did they do to you?
First she tied off his upper arm, finding a good vein to inject the anaesthetic into. Then she gently slid the tip of the needle into the vein. Juugo gasped, and then from the site of the needle, horrible black-red lines started crawling across his arm. “No!” Juugo said. “No no no!” The lines raced up his neck and face and for a moment his face was filled with fear and despair, and then it changed, a manic, bloodthirsty gleam coming into his eyes. He started laughing as his muscles bulged and skin changed to a dark, ugly brown, spikes jutted from his arm and on his face, and with a roar he wrenched free of the IV and threw her across the room. She hit the echocardiogram machine hard and they both crashed against the back wall.
“Needles?” Juugo roared. “You touch me with needles, woman?” His clawed hands dug into the floor, then started tearing it up. “I’ll kill you for that! I’ll kill you ALL!” The last word was almost unintelligible as he started breaking all the machines, ripping them apart with ease and extraordinary violence. Then he came down on Tsunade, wrapping his hands around her throat.
This was not going like it was supposed to.
She drew in her legs and then kicked him hard in the chest, sending him skidding backwards. He dug his nails into the floor and stopped just before he crashed into the back desk, leaving deep scores in the tiled floor. She grabbed the machine used to check vitals and shoved it in his direction, giving him a distraction while she tried to find and load a tranquilizer. Every report said that once he flew into a rage, he would attempt to kill and destroy everything in his path until it passed.
Juugo tore the machine apart and high-pitched whines and beeping filled the air. Tsunade went to the refrigerator and flung it open, reaching in and scrambling for the Ativan liquid solution. Then Juugo slammed into her and she dropped the first vial, glass shattering and liquid splashing on the floor. She swore and gathered her chakra in her arms, then grabbed Juugo’s upper arms and shoved him against the glass and spilled drug. He roared with anger as the tiny shards dug into his face.
“Hokage-sama!” two assistants ran into the room, skidding to a halt when they saw the mess and Juugo. “What…”
“I’m fine, I’ve got this under control. Just get me some fucking Ativan!” She held his arms behind him and gave an extra push, breaking the tiles and digging him further into the ground. “As much as you can, put it in the syringe in the corner and give it to me!”
“Syringe!” Juugo’s voice rang out, rough and furious. “I’LL KILL YOU FIRST BEFORE YOU FUCKING USE THAT!” He flipped around and grabbed a handful of tile, shoving it into Tsunade’s face. Pain flared as the tiles dug into her cheek and blood started dripping onto the floor. She had to let go of one arm to get the tiles out of her face, and he pulled free and started going after the assistant who was filling the syringe. The assistant had enough time to look up before Juugo punched her in the face and sent her flying backward, then he leaped onto her and started tearing out her throat.
Tsunade didn’t have time to think about that, she had to get the damn Ativan into this thing before he did anything else. She ran over and filled the syringe, breathing hard and hoping it was enough.
The needle was filled with enough ativan to knock out three two-hundred pound men, but Tsunade could counter it if it slowed his central nervous system too much. For now, she stuck the needle into his neck and pushed the Ativan, and within the minute he fell unconscious to the ground, and several minutes later the physical changes receded and left just Juugo, passed out on the floor, breathing too slow.
Tsunade had seen worse than this before. But the other members of her staff hadn’t.
“Get Haruno in here,” she said, panting and covered in sweat and blood. “I’m going to need some help cleaning up.”
*
Juugo sat in the middle of the floor with his hands folded and his eyes closed. He didn’t touch anything in his apartment after closing the door. He knew he should change, his clothes were shredded from the transformation, and he knew he should wash, there was blood on his arms, fingers and under his nails. But what he knew and what he actually did were never the same.
The Hokage was a good person. She was kind, she was a brilliant medic and one of the best ninjas of their age. There was no reason to attack her and destroy the lab, no reason to kill one of her assistants who was just trying to be helpful. No reason to have an episode when he had gone years without one.
After a few hours of this, he got up and locked the door, then lay on the couch. He was always tired after an episode, and eventually he fell asleep.
He was woken up by loud banging on his door.
“No one come in here,” Juugo warned, the words out of his mouth before he was on his feet, ready to force whoever it was back out. He needed to be alone, he didn’t want to see anyone, didn’t want to think about what happened and why it happened at all.
“Yeah?” Karin’s voice sounded from the other side. “Why the hell not?” Then she kicked down the door and walked in. “Ugh, it smells disgusting in here, you need to take a shower.” She turned around and picked the door up, carefully propping it into its frame, then looked him up and down. Juugo suddenly didn’t even have the energy to protest. “Seriously, go take a shower.”
Juugo found the energy to protest. “Why are you here?”
“Why not?” Karin shrugged. “Heard you broke the Hokage’s lab. That sucks.” She went into the kitchen and opened the fridge, digging through it for some food.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Juugo mumbled.
“Fine, I don’t really care.” Karin replied. She pulled out the remnants of an old sandwich. “Why’d you do it? I’m throwing this out, it’s fucking gross. I thought Suigetsu was bad about the shit he left in his fridge.”
“I don’t…I don’t remember.”
“Seriously?” she poked her head back into the living room, holding out the sandwich. “Seriously, do you never clean your fridge? No wonder it smells so bad in here.” She ducked back into the kitchen and threw the sandwich in the garbage. “Don’t remember why you did it? Do you just forget everything when you go crazy?” she paused. “That sucks.” There was shuffling in the kitchen and the sound of things being thrown in the trash. After five minutes of this, Karin came back into the living room. “Why are you not in the shower? Seriously, you’re disgusting, there’s blood everywhere.”
Juugo wasn’t sure how to respond; he was never sure what to do around Karin, or around Suigetsu, despite their years of knowing each other. The only member of their little band of former Sound nin he was comfortable around was Sasuke, and he seemed to be the only one who was.
She was right in that he should shower. He threw out all his clothes, too, for good measure.
When he came back out, the garbage was filled with old food and what seemed like half of his kitchen. The air smelled of dust and mold and vinegar. Karin was sitting at the table with vinegar-soaked rag next to her, and she was eating some noodle soup. There was another bowl on the other side of the table. “You’d better fucking eat that,” she said. “I bothered to make it, and cleaned your kitchen because it was so disgusting I couldn’t stand to even be here. Probably everyone thought that and that’s why you never have any visitors, ugh.”
Juugo sat down and started eating the soup, realizing he was extremely hungry. He ate the whole bowl in under five minutes, then he went to the fridge to see if there was anything else to eat. There wasn’t much but he ended up finishing all ofwas left in there. He’d almost forgotten how hungry he was after an episode. He thought he had it all under control after so many years being fine. But that… that …
His hands tightened into fists when he remembered the pull of the tourniquet and the pinch of the needle in his arm. Again. And again. And the Hokage only tried it once but others did it again and again and every day…week, month, hour, in his arm, in his back, in his spine, then deep in his chest, sometimes taking blood and sometimes putting things into his body and --
He felt a hard blow to the side of his head, and Karin stood there scowling. “Don’t start that shit while I’m here, I don’t feel like dealing with it.”
Juugo looked down and saw the dark lines starting to spread across his chest. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths until they receded. The sat back down and put his head in his hands.
“Why’d it happen anyway?”
He shook his head.
“Thought you said it doesn’t randomly happen anymore. Not since the war.”
“I did it on purpose sometimes during the war.”
Karin shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” she replied. “We all did shit like that.” She picked up the bowl and dumped the rest of the noodles into the trash, then put the bowl in the sink. “You clean that, I’m done doing your stupid chores.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She shrugged again. “Whatever. Seriously, why’d you do it? Why’d it happen?”
Juugo sighed, and looked down at his plate. Across from him, Karin huffed in exasperation.
“Whatever. I’m going home, clean the rest of your shit yourself.” She pulled down her sleeves and started towards the door.
Juugo still didn’t know why she bothered to come. No one really knew Karin’s motivations, other than she wanted to manipulate everyone around her for one reason or another, and she was still desperately seeking Sasuke’s affections, and constantly in a verbal war with Suigetsu.
“Needles,” Juugo said when she was almost out the door. “She was… needles.”
Karin stopped. “Oh.”
“She was just going to help me. She said there was something wrong with my heart.”
Karin turned around. “Was there?”
“I don’t know. She showed me the x-ray but I don’t know what my heart is supposed to look like. In Sound he never showed me the x-rays he took.”
“Yeah,” Karin agreed. “I don’t think he showed anyone.”
He didn’t know what else to say, and when it stretched on for too long, Karin sighed and left.
Juugo went back to the couch and sat there, rubbing his arm convulsively. This time he was done forever. Whatever it took, he would not have another episode and notkill anyone else, not unless he was in the field doing his duty as a ninja. He’d hoped that this time he might have found a place where he could get himself under control, could be an asset in the field and not a danger to his allies even there, but it seemed it was not to be. It didn’t matter what Tsunade did, what the others did in the past, he was done with this.
He wondered if she would still help him after he wrecked her lab and killed one of her assistants, anyway. He didn’t expect she would. In her situation, he definitely wouldn’t.
He should leave the village before he hurt anyone else.
*
Karin made it a habit to spy on everyone else in the village. Most of them were boring, but she kept an eye on them anyway in case they stopped being boring and started doing something she’d want to use. She wasn’t a warden anymore, but old habits died really hard, and she didn’t know if she actually wanted to shake this habit. It was fun to watch people and see what they’d do.
After she left Juugo’s house, she went to look at Sasuke for a bit. He wasn’t being interesting at all, just sitting in his room reading or something. Still, she always wanted to look at him because he was such a damn fine looking man, and if she had the opportunity she’d watch him all day until he took his clothes off. But his damn sharingan knew she was there half the time and he made her leave. Whatever.
Then she went to see what Suigetsu was doing, which was sleeping. But he heard her and woke up. His eyes shot to the window, but he relaxed when he realized who it was and grinned at her, showing his pointy teeth. Then he phased out of his clothing and waved at her. Perverted asshole. She flipped him off and he saluted her. Why was he always such an asshole? Why did she bother to put up with his stupid immature crap?
That kid with the dog was pretty hot, so she went to look at him for a bit, but the dog was fucking huge and went right after her and she didn’t feel like dealing with that. She probably still smelled like Juugo’s fridge, gross.
Speaking of Juugo… She felt a familiar chakra from nearby, and stopped to follow it. Juugo, heading north. What the fuck was he doing out? No former Taka member did anything without Karin knowing why. She jumped along the roofs, following after him, then landed in front of him. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
Juugo froze, and she could see fear on his face, hidden by the cloak he had tossed haphazardly over his large frame. “How did you find me?”
“I felt your chakra, obviously,” Karin rolled her eyes. “I can track all you morons anywhere, did you forget that?”
“Were you looking for me?”
“Not really, I was trying to see the guy with the dog start training, then you got in the way.”
Juugo looked down and folded his hands in front of him. “Sorry,” he said.
“Whatever, I’ll just go look at him later. Hey where are you going? Anywhere interesting?”
Juugo shook his head.
“That’s no fun,” Karin whined. “I followed you here for nothing, then?”
“It would seem so,” Juugo said. He started walking again, quickly and purposefully.
“Don’t walk away from me!” Karin shouted after him. “That’s fucking rude,” she caught up with him in a moment. “Spend a few years away from Sound and think you can be rude to me?”
Juugo whirled on her, anger flaring in his eyes. “I can be rude to whomever I want,” he informed her, calm tone of voice jarring with his tense frame and angry eyes. “And we’re not in Sound anymore, and you’re not our warden and never will be again.”
“Then what, you’re just rude to everyone?”
“No.”
“Then you hate me,” she put her hands on her hips. “You hate me so much you won’t even tell me where you’re going!”
“I’m leaving!” Juugo stated matter-of-factly, stepping away from her. “I’m leaving the village. Sorry,” he added. “I just don’t want to hurt anyone here, they’ve all been terribly kind to me.”
“That’s stupid,” Karin retorted. “Like you’ll be better off anywhere else.”
“Maybe I will be.”
“Wow, you’re really stupid if you think that.”
Juugo flushed. “Don’t call me stupid, Karin.”
“Then stop being stupid. Fuck, we’ve seen half the other villages out there. It’s not going to be any different, so might as well stay here where the rest of us are.”
Juugo hesitated.
“Yeah, you know I’m right, I’m always right. Plus,” she added. “Sasuke is here. What are you gonna do if he needs you for something and you’re not here? Yeah, that’s right.” She nodded firmly when Juugo looked down and started tapping his fingers against his thigh. He always did that when he was thinking. “Yeah he’ll need to do something and go ‘Where the fuck is Juugo?’ and then you won’t be here, what then?”
Juugo’s face muscles spasmed, and his fingers tapped quicker and quicker. Good, he was probably going to stay. She didn’t want any of the former Taka members where she couldn’t see them, That would be really problematic if she needed to make them do something later.
“You’re right,” Juugo whispered. “You are.”
“Yeah, of course,” she tossed her hair. “No fucking shit. Go home.”
Juugo was very good at taking orders when he wasn’t in a state. He started home and she followed him the whole way, making sure he actually went into his apartment and stayed put.
That was better. She didn’t need him walking out on her.
Now she could get back to business, and that business probably involved seeing if the man’s dog wasn’t so close to him anymore.
*
Juugo couldn’t and didn’t want to sleep that night, too many snippets of memory crowding his mind when he closed his eyes, old sensory imprints crawling across his skin. But he knew despite that he wasn’t going to leave the village.
*
Next
Part I