A Toast to the End of the World - 4
Recycled for challenge: 4. Dancing with the devil (500themes)
Part IV:
"I am very pleased at your accomplishments, Minato."
The addressed blond knelt in the middle of the Hokage's office in full ANBU garb, eyes on the floor. Even though he could not see Orochimaru's face, those few sibilating words painted a clear enough picture in his head of the yellow-eyed reptile he was, leaning back on his chair and basking in the red glow of the setting sun coming in through the panoramic windows behind him.
After seeing Rin's grandmother, the events of the previous day were very fresh in Minato's mind. No one was allowed to look the Hokage in the eye or speak unless they were answering a direct question and, for once, these self-glorification tactics worked to the jounin's advantage, as he wasn't sure if he could keep the revulsion off his face if he had to lay eyes on the sickening pale man behind the desk.
The question of how the leader of Konoha could have found out about his "accomplishments" did not even cross his mind, despite the fact that he had not yet officially reported since returning from his latest mission. Minato knew that there were spies and that Orochimaru made it a point to put them to use on enemy and ally alike. He would never let someone as potentially dangerous as him run about unchecked, no matter how many reasons his subordinate had not to do anything that might count as rebellious.
Minato closed his eyes on that line of thought.
"You have done me a great service. The scroll?"
One of the members of the Hokage's personal ANBU squad stepped forward at once to stand between the two men and collect the item. His secondary objective was to shield Orochimaru in case Minato produced something other than the intended item from the pouch at his belt. The blond was intimately aware of this because that ninja's position had once been his.
Doing his best not to look at the smudges of blood on the paper, Minato silently deposited the scroll he had been ordered to retrieve into one clawed black glove and waited.
"Good, very good..." Orochimaru purred, breaking the wax seal and going over the contents.
After learning of what had happened to Rin, Minato had debated whether or not to risk opening that scroll to find out what kind of secrets Orochimaru considered important enough to warrant sending the Yellow Flash to hunt down one of their own chuunin. Ultimately, he had decided against it. The Hokage was smart and Minato had too much to lose.
His target's name had been Tonbo Tobitake, a green but promising ninja who used to keep his head wrapped in bandages to hide the damage he had received after getting trapped in a house fire on the night the Nine-tailed fox had attacked. That had been five years ago and Tonbo had been an extraordinary enough ninja that he had overcome his blindness. He had asked to be transferred to the Intelligence Department, where he might work his skills and limitations to the fullest.
If that did not speak of the man's dedication, Minato did not know what did. The shame he felt for killing him - and other fellow Konoha ninjas - would never leave him for as long as he lived. Nothing would erase their faces from his memory, but, if he could go back in time, Minato would still have changed nothing. He had a very good reason to do Orochimaru's bidding, a tiny blond five-year-old reason whom he would gladly go to hell for.
"One more thing, Minato. I was told that your student caused quite the commotion during the executions yesterday. See to it that it doesn't happen again. Tobitake was a nobody, but I would hate to have to do something to one of my Uchiha."
"Understood, Lord Hokage," the blond said around the knot that had suddenly formed at his throat. Not for the first time, he was glad that Obito's heritage had protected him from his rashness. The Sharingan was a powerful reason for Orochimaru to keep him alive.
"You're dismissed."
Minato complied, but as he walked past the two ANBU guarding the door, he promised himself that the next time he saw Orochimaru, it would be under very different circumstances. He was done playing the part of the obedient little tool and turning a blind eye on the way things were run.
He just had one more thing to do while he was in the Tower for now.
Removing his black gloves and armoured gauntlets along with his ANBU mask, he turned into a seldom-used corridor on the same floor as the Hokage's office. Another pair of ANBU stood guarding the passage and even though they let him pass, Minato still felt their eyes watching his every move.
His feet carried him to a door he knew well. At a first glance, it was identical to all the others next to it but the steady pulse of massive amounts of live chakra just beyond it made it unmistakeable. Minato twisted the doorknob and walked into the heavily painted room - a seal unto itself - and towards the sole occupant inside, held upright at the centre by shackles and chains and thick paper binds with even more complex seals written on them.
"Naruto..."
*
"What did you do to get her killed?" Obito asked again, shaking the brown-haired man in his grasp when he didn't start talking right away as if that would dislodge the answers he wanted out into the open.
"Hey, calm down, man... take it easy." His voice was meek, choked by the abundant blood running down his nose and throat. Like a predator sensing weakness in his prey, Obito held on to the collar of his vest that much more tightly.
"'Take it easy'? Did you tell that to Rin when the damned ANBU took her to the gallows?"
The other's eyes widened in fear. Obito had not realised it yet but his Sharingan had activated involuntarily and it was the first time that the other ninja was getting to see it up close. Both eyes were spinning, as wildly as their user's emotions, just like he had heard in the stories. The only difference was that the three black tomoes seemed to be changing, expanding towards the centre pupil to form a much more menacing shape of hard angles and sharp points.
"You're going to tell me everything you know, right now, starting with your name!"
"Genma... Shiranui..." the words left his lips before he could think them.
"Well, Genma Shiranui, how the hell did you know Rin?" Obito asked, punctuating his question with one more shove against the hard wall.
Genma recognised that he was being drawn into the Uchiha clan's hypnotising brand of genjutsu, but he was powerless to resist it. He could not even bring himself to raise a hand to try to free himself from the painful hold or wipe the blood dripping from his broken nose. All he could do was watch the wicked shuriken-like shape of this twisted Sharingan and take note of the pervasive darkness at the edges of his sight while his mouth took on a will of its own.
"She took care of my injuries when I had to go to the Hospital after a mission."
"That doesn't explain why..."
"Is everything all right here, boss?"
Obito's shouting vanished as quickly as the red from his eyes. The jounin eased back from Genma to face the police patrol who had interrupted his tirade.
"Yeah, it's okay," he told the three. He recognised their faces, although he had only seen them a couple of times at headquarters. Those who worked during the night were practically a department of their own. "Everything's fine."
Seeing Obito's uniform and that he was the one holding the other ninja, the Uchiha policemen were reassured and moved on their way. Obito, on the other hand, was suddenly remembering his teacher's warnings. He could not be so impulsive - at least not in public.
Genma also shifted from side to side, struggling against Obito's grip as he tried to see if anyone else was watching.
"This was a mistake," he said. "I shouldn't have come..."
"Oh no, oh hell no! I'm not letting you go until you tell me everything. We're going to my place to finish this."
Genma was looking distinctively pale, but he reminded himself that he had to go along if he ever wanted to discuss the actual subject that had led him to seek out the Uchiha.
The box full of flowers and pictures and definitely feminine clothes was still lying on the ground where it had been dropped, and his attention was drawn to a particular patient's file with the Konoha Hospital stamp on it that was peeking out of the side.
Genma would have told Obito to lead the way, if the other had given him enough time to do so before shoving him onwards. He almost stabbed himself on the inside of his mouth with the metal needle he liked to chew on. He thought about throwing it at the Uchiha's ass while he was bent to pick up the doctor's box, just to relieve some of his annoyance and return some of the treatment that had been inflicted on him, but decided against it in the end.
Whatever those shuriken-eyes had been, they were scary and they were not normal. He would be content never to see them again.
Part V...
Part IV:
"I am very pleased at your accomplishments, Minato."
The addressed blond knelt in the middle of the Hokage's office in full ANBU garb, eyes on the floor. Even though he could not see Orochimaru's face, those few sibilating words painted a clear enough picture in his head of the yellow-eyed reptile he was, leaning back on his chair and basking in the red glow of the setting sun coming in through the panoramic windows behind him.
After seeing Rin's grandmother, the events of the previous day were very fresh in Minato's mind. No one was allowed to look the Hokage in the eye or speak unless they were answering a direct question and, for once, these self-glorification tactics worked to the jounin's advantage, as he wasn't sure if he could keep the revulsion off his face if he had to lay eyes on the sickening pale man behind the desk.
The question of how the leader of Konoha could have found out about his "accomplishments" did not even cross his mind, despite the fact that he had not yet officially reported since returning from his latest mission. Minato knew that there were spies and that Orochimaru made it a point to put them to use on enemy and ally alike. He would never let someone as potentially dangerous as him run about unchecked, no matter how many reasons his subordinate had not to do anything that might count as rebellious.
Minato closed his eyes on that line of thought.
"You have done me a great service. The scroll?"
One of the members of the Hokage's personal ANBU squad stepped forward at once to stand between the two men and collect the item. His secondary objective was to shield Orochimaru in case Minato produced something other than the intended item from the pouch at his belt. The blond was intimately aware of this because that ninja's position had once been his.
Doing his best not to look at the smudges of blood on the paper, Minato silently deposited the scroll he had been ordered to retrieve into one clawed black glove and waited.
"Good, very good..." Orochimaru purred, breaking the wax seal and going over the contents.
After learning of what had happened to Rin, Minato had debated whether or not to risk opening that scroll to find out what kind of secrets Orochimaru considered important enough to warrant sending the Yellow Flash to hunt down one of their own chuunin. Ultimately, he had decided against it. The Hokage was smart and Minato had too much to lose.
His target's name had been Tonbo Tobitake, a green but promising ninja who used to keep his head wrapped in bandages to hide the damage he had received after getting trapped in a house fire on the night the Nine-tailed fox had attacked. That had been five years ago and Tonbo had been an extraordinary enough ninja that he had overcome his blindness. He had asked to be transferred to the Intelligence Department, where he might work his skills and limitations to the fullest.
If that did not speak of the man's dedication, Minato did not know what did. The shame he felt for killing him - and other fellow Konoha ninjas - would never leave him for as long as he lived. Nothing would erase their faces from his memory, but, if he could go back in time, Minato would still have changed nothing. He had a very good reason to do Orochimaru's bidding, a tiny blond five-year-old reason whom he would gladly go to hell for.
"One more thing, Minato. I was told that your student caused quite the commotion during the executions yesterday. See to it that it doesn't happen again. Tobitake was a nobody, but I would hate to have to do something to one of my Uchiha."
"Understood, Lord Hokage," the blond said around the knot that had suddenly formed at his throat. Not for the first time, he was glad that Obito's heritage had protected him from his rashness. The Sharingan was a powerful reason for Orochimaru to keep him alive.
"You're dismissed."
Minato complied, but as he walked past the two ANBU guarding the door, he promised himself that the next time he saw Orochimaru, it would be under very different circumstances. He was done playing the part of the obedient little tool and turning a blind eye on the way things were run.
He just had one more thing to do while he was in the Tower for now.
Removing his black gloves and armoured gauntlets along with his ANBU mask, he turned into a seldom-used corridor on the same floor as the Hokage's office. Another pair of ANBU stood guarding the passage and even though they let him pass, Minato still felt their eyes watching his every move.
His feet carried him to a door he knew well. At a first glance, it was identical to all the others next to it but the steady pulse of massive amounts of live chakra just beyond it made it unmistakeable. Minato twisted the doorknob and walked into the heavily painted room - a seal unto itself - and towards the sole occupant inside, held upright at the centre by shackles and chains and thick paper binds with even more complex seals written on them.
"Naruto..."
*
"What did you do to get her killed?" Obito asked again, shaking the brown-haired man in his grasp when he didn't start talking right away as if that would dislodge the answers he wanted out into the open.
"Hey, calm down, man... take it easy." His voice was meek, choked by the abundant blood running down his nose and throat. Like a predator sensing weakness in his prey, Obito held on to the collar of his vest that much more tightly.
"'Take it easy'? Did you tell that to Rin when the damned ANBU took her to the gallows?"
The other's eyes widened in fear. Obito had not realised it yet but his Sharingan had activated involuntarily and it was the first time that the other ninja was getting to see it up close. Both eyes were spinning, as wildly as their user's emotions, just like he had heard in the stories. The only difference was that the three black tomoes seemed to be changing, expanding towards the centre pupil to form a much more menacing shape of hard angles and sharp points.
"You're going to tell me everything you know, right now, starting with your name!"
"Genma... Shiranui..." the words left his lips before he could think them.
"Well, Genma Shiranui, how the hell did you know Rin?" Obito asked, punctuating his question with one more shove against the hard wall.
Genma recognised that he was being drawn into the Uchiha clan's hypnotising brand of genjutsu, but he was powerless to resist it. He could not even bring himself to raise a hand to try to free himself from the painful hold or wipe the blood dripping from his broken nose. All he could do was watch the wicked shuriken-like shape of this twisted Sharingan and take note of the pervasive darkness at the edges of his sight while his mouth took on a will of its own.
"She took care of my injuries when I had to go to the Hospital after a mission."
"That doesn't explain why..."
"Is everything all right here, boss?"
Obito's shouting vanished as quickly as the red from his eyes. The jounin eased back from Genma to face the police patrol who had interrupted his tirade.
"Yeah, it's okay," he told the three. He recognised their faces, although he had only seen them a couple of times at headquarters. Those who worked during the night were practically a department of their own. "Everything's fine."
Seeing Obito's uniform and that he was the one holding the other ninja, the Uchiha policemen were reassured and moved on their way. Obito, on the other hand, was suddenly remembering his teacher's warnings. He could not be so impulsive - at least not in public.
Genma also shifted from side to side, struggling against Obito's grip as he tried to see if anyone else was watching.
"This was a mistake," he said. "I shouldn't have come..."
"Oh no, oh hell no! I'm not letting you go until you tell me everything. We're going to my place to finish this."
Genma was looking distinctively pale, but he reminded himself that he had to go along if he ever wanted to discuss the actual subject that had led him to seek out the Uchiha.
The box full of flowers and pictures and definitely feminine clothes was still lying on the ground where it had been dropped, and his attention was drawn to a particular patient's file with the Konoha Hospital stamp on it that was peeking out of the side.
Genma would have told Obito to lead the way, if the other had given him enough time to do so before shoving him onwards. He almost stabbed himself on the inside of his mouth with the metal needle he liked to chew on. He thought about throwing it at the Uchiha's ass while he was bent to pick up the doctor's box, just to relieve some of his annoyance and return some of the treatment that had been inflicted on him, but decided against it in the end.
Whatever those shuriken-eyes had been, they were scary and they were not normal. He would be content never to see them again.
Part V...