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Chapter Text

Asuka hated seduction missions with every fiber of his being.

They made his insides feel all twisted up in disgust. In horror that would run down his spine in a cold rush– that one day he’d be forced to do those things. With his body. Today, he was accompanying Rat-senpai for “field training”, something he was fairly relieved about. 

Rat-senpai was like an older sister to him. She was one of a number of people that Asuka could count on one hand that knew about his secret. Before they had left the village, she reassured him that while she was training him for this sort of thing, it’d be all observation and theoretical lessons until he became of age to actually do these sorts of missions.

(The rational part of Asuka’s brain knew this was all procedure in ANBU. The emotional part of Asuka’s brain thought about how in times of war, kids were graduated early, like Spider-taichou, and made to kill people. Why wouldn’t they do the same for–)

“Usagi-chan,” the microphone around his neck crackled, “It’s go-time.”

Asuka sighed. 

Their target was a wealthy Water Country businessmen who was rumored to have… peculiar tastes. He supposed that was why Rat-senpai insisted on doing the majority of the actual job alone. 

He shunshined to their designated meeting place. Outside of the royal suite, top floor. His uniform and rabbit mask were sealed away into a scroll in a pouch buried beneath the layers of his light green kimono. The hallway was vacant, silent. A light flickered like the tail end of a firefly. It cast twisted shadows across the beige walls.

Inside the hotel room, Asuka could hear noises that could only really be described as a cross between a cat in heat and a dying whale. He shuddered. He was really only on this mission to help Rat-senpai with the interrogation once she’d hooked the man. To glean as much information from him as possible, then kill him. 

Once he retired from ANBU– rather, if he retired from ANBU–Asuka figured he’d go join T&I. He’d always liked Ibiki. Plus, he reckoned T&I didn’t care if you were a boy in a girl’s body, just that you were efficient.

He heard one last horrible, high-pitched moan and then there it was: sweet, sweet silence. 

He rapped his knuckles against the door. “Housekeeping.”

The door swung open almost immediately. 

“Usagi-chan!” cried Rat. Her honey-colored hair looked like a bird had made a nest in it. She wore some sort of very revealing leather strappy vinyl get up, complete with lace up, six inch high heeled boots that went up past her knees, a collar, and cat ears. 

“Senpai, what the hell are you wearing?”

Rat’s eyes became huge. She immediately slapped a hand over his eyes. “Avert your gaze, young one!” 

“Senpai–” 

She pushed him inside the room, paused to check the corridor, then quietly shut the door. 

Asuka blinked, steadied himself up against a wall, and slowly took in his surroundings. 

The room looked like a tornado had passed through. The bed, a plush thing that he was admittedly envious of and would steal if he could figure out how to get it into a scroll, had been torn to shreds. Feathers floated everywhere. The half-naked target was tied to the bed frame with ninja wire. He looked blissed out of his mind.

“Ew,” said Asuka.

“Don’t look at me like that,” whined Rat from the connected bathroom. 

“Senpai, I’m not even looking at--besides, this is our job. ” He suppressed another shudder. The dark wood coffee table was broken in two. How? You know what, he didn’t want to know.

The blinds were drawn tightly shut. Asuka took out his pouch from where he had it strapped to his leg. He pulled out several sheets of paper and started to put up barrier seals around the perimeter of the room. Then he layered silencer seals over them. He heard the noise of running water coming from the bathroom. Despite her code name, Rat hated being dirty. 

They’d been on the same squad in ANBU since Asuka had joined three and a half months ago, and she was one of the people that made all the blood and the death and the nightmares worth it. After every mission they were on together, especially missions like this, she always had to take a shower. Even if it was to the team’s detriment.

Asuka snorted, remembering the time Spider-taichou nearly popped a vein because Rat’d nearly been caught and killed after assassinating a daimyo because she had to have a shower as there had been “too much blood everywhere.”

ANBU are eccentric. Usually you don’t get into that line of work, or successfully get out of it in one piece if you’re not slightly crazy. 

Asuka considered himself perfectly sane, thank you very much. But he was in fact aware of the fact that thinking something like that was a red flag, in of itself.

Asuka walked over to the bed’s desk side table which held a small instant coffee brewer with several tea options off to the side. He opted to heat up two cups of hot water while he waited. 

“Ahh, tea, Usagi-chan? You didn’t have to,” remarked Rat, towling her hair dry. She was back in her regular ANBU uniform. Several reddish marks and bruises littered her pale neck. She gave Asuka a kind smile. 

I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know.

“Green tea or black tea?”

“Black, since it’s caffeinated,” she replied. He dropped the bag into the cup and watched as it steeped slowly, like ink excreted by an octopus.

Asuka watched as Rat put her mask on and gestured for him to do the same. He went into the bathroom. The lighting was off-amber. He didn’t look sallow or sickly like he usually did. Asuka stared at himself for a minute and wondered if at this moment in time, if he really did look like his dead aunt. 

He wore the kimono to blend in. Here, in this love hotel, most would either assume he worked there, or gag, he was a patron. Before they left, Rat had forced make-up on him. Not a lot, just enough to cover the imperfections and his distinct purple clan markings.

He saw a brunette girl with her hair twisted up. He saw a girl frowning back at him. He briefly wondered if Aunt Rin ever frowned like this. He’s aware he’s now older than she ever got to be. Asuka heard his grandmother’s voice: “You’re ruining that pretty face of yours! You’ll get lines and wrinkles, Asuka-chan!” 

He felt a stab of guilt.

Asuka unsealed his ANBU uniform. He put the Rabbit mask on first, then the rest on quickly.

When he emerged from the bathroom, he spotted Rat standing in front of the foot of the bed. Her posture was rigidly straight. There was to be no more joking around. 

“The paralytic poison should be wearing off about now,” Rat said.

Asuka hummed. He walked up to the left side of the bed and sat next to the unconscious man. Five minutes passed, and the man awoke thrashing. 

Ah, thought Asuka dryly, This is why we have the restraints. 

“Where the fuck am I? Who are you people?” he roared, desperately trying to yank his forearms from the bindings. Though unfortunately, he only managed to slice through his skin. Blood dripped down onto the white sheets. 

“My name is not important, though you can call me Rabbit,” said Asuka.

“Fuck you!” The man spat, “Why are you doing this?” 

Underneath the mask, one of Asuka’s eyebrows rose. “Why are you funding a genocide?” 

The man narrowed his eyes, took a deep breath, and hocked a loogie right on Asuka’s mask. 

“Karatachi Yagura, what’s the appeal?” Asuka asked, standing up and wiping the spit off of his mask. “Why are you financially backing the Fourth Mizukage?”

“Hah, you’re just a stupid Konoha brat.” the man sneered, “You know nothing of how life’s been in Kirigakure since Yagura-sama took over.”

“You’re right. I am just a brat. However, if there is one thing I know, it’s how to sever limbs in such a way that you’ll still be around to sing like a canary,” Asuka said, pacing around to where Rat had stood. She’d made herself scarce for the actual interrogation, but he could still feel her chakra so it was likely she was just transformed into an object. He took his tanto out from its sheath and said with a smile in his voice, gesturing to the man’s genitals, “And I was thinking of starting with this one.”

Instantly, the man blanched. “No–No! I’ll tell you anything you want! Just don’t do that! Anything but that! ” 

Sometimes, his job was so easy. 

For effect, Asuka took the tanto and stabbed it a hair’s width away from where the man’s crotch was. The businessman looked like he was about to vomit. 

“Good, now that’s settled,” Asuka clasped his hands together, “Why are you funding the Fourth Mizukage?”

Blood rolled down the edges of the wire. 

“It’s cause and effect, sweetheart. If I give my money to Yagara-sama, then when my rivals die out in the purges, I make even more money. And so on and so forth.”

Asuka was disgusted. He flared his chakra surreptitiously, and felt Rat’s response: kill him. 

“So, honey, are we done here? Are you gonna let me go?” The man gave him a queasy smile.

“No,” Asuka took the tanto and threw it through his windpipe. The blade went through the headboard.

*

“Usagi-chan!” Rat tutted, “You are brutal!” 

“Thank you, senpai,” Asuka said, then he paused and asked, “Are you going to make me fill out a psychiatric report when we get back to headquarters?”

“Nah,” Rat replied.

It was nearing three in the morning. They had been running for hours, and had yet to reach the Water Country border. Even at the speed they’d been traveling, they still had another day of travel before they reached the village. 

It was wet. Super wet. His sandals were coated in mud. And Asuka was tired. The moon was covered by a thick smattering of misty clouds. It was hard to see, and the coniferous forests they’d been in earlier didn’t have branches that were strong enough to support the weight of a shinobi.

He heard a noise behind them. 

“Senpai.”

Rat nodded and pulled out a kunai. They kept moving forward as though nothing was wrong.

It appeared that they may not have been as careful as they believed they were. 

Because that’s what the mission was– an assassination. Bonus interrogation. (Which is why Rat chose to bring him along, what with his gift in it and all.) And the mark was important, prized by the Fourth Mizukage. Asuka supposed if he had been profiting that much from it, surely the Mizukage was too. And if this quid pro quo was that important… 

“Motherfucker,” he muttered.

Bodyguards. Surveillance. This money is how the Mist stays bloody. Perhaps Spider-taichou should’ve sent a larger team?

A thud came from behind Asuka. He slowed his pace just slightly, and his eyes widened as he saw a kunai graze Rat’s arm. She flashed several Konoha ANBU signs: Several enemies in pursuit, call for backup. 

“Fuck!” Asuka swore. He lifted the bottom of his rabbit mask and bit his thumb. He backed up against a tree and watched as sparks flashed from Rat’s kunai clashing with an unknown assailant. He slammed his hand on the ground. Summoning jutsu!

A black rabbit appeared. She had a Konoha headband tied around her neck. “Katsuki! Go find any of the other teams in the area–” Asuka stole another glance at the fight happening behind him, “--preferably quickly. Thanks!”

Katsuki merely blinked and nodded. Then she disappeared into the forest. 

Rat-senpai must’ve already killed the other pursuers, he thought, masking his chakra to the point of invisibility. He dug into his pouch for some exploding tags and a few shuriken. I only sense one hostile chakra signature. 

Asuka was nearly blinded as a gigantic fireball roared through the woods. The shadows where he hid retracted into themselves and the heat rocketed to the temperature of a boiling summer’s day. 

Asuka managed to pick his jaw up off of the floor and formed the signs for the water dragon jutsu. His beast crashed into the fireball with violent gusto, plunging the woods into darkness with the hiss of steam. 

He closed his eyes for a second, trying to track the hostile signature. 

“What the fuck? Senpai, did you kill that man? His chakra signature disappeared!”

“No,” groaned Rat, pushing green healing chakra into a wound on her shoulder, “Rabbit, I was wrong– there’s only one enemy.”

Only one?

That’s probably not good news. Like, at all. 

“Well, shit,” said Asuka.

The forest was completely silent. He heard no chattering of raccoons or possums, no chirping of crickets. It unnerved him. Then he felt it. The chakra signature was back, like it had never left, only it was now twenty meters to the north.

Asuka weaved through the signs for his next jutsu, the water bullet, and let it fly towards their assailant. 

The man’s chakra disappeared again.

And reappeared. 

Right in front of Asuka. 

“What the fu–”

He felt blinding, searing pain. 

Asuka clenched his teeth. He touched his gut and came up with sticky, hot blood. He was stuck to the tree. He physically couldn’t move, he realized. He had been impaled. Asuka grunted and shifted, then groaned as he felt like his stomach had been set on fucking fire. Gut wounds were bad. He felt like he was seeing stars. Little twinkling things, red and white and orange and teal. All spiraling around his head. 

I’m going into shock, he realized.

The back of his standard issue tank was wet. His stomach was wet. Blood ran down the wooden pike that held him several inches up off the ground. 

Wait– wooden pike?

Mokuton?

“Cat-senpai?” he yelled. 

“No cats here, Usagi-chan,” Rat yelled back. She grunted and parried another strike from the mystery assailant, then threw a barrage of shuriken at him. Asuka didn’t know if it was just the shock, or he really did see the shuriken phase right through the guy.

Oh fuck. Fuck. Shitfuck. This was really, really bad. 

Rat yelped. She stopped suddenly for some reason and then the guy appeared behind her. Then she just narrowly managed to dodge a killing blow, aimed at her carotid artery. Their assailant growled. A glowing red eye flashed from behind his spiral mask. 

Asuka snapped the wood spike holding him up in half. He was no med-nin, but he wasn’t stupid, so he opted to leave the gigantic splinter in because he didn’t fancy bleeding to death. 

“Hey dickface!” he yelled, “Your battle is with me!” 

The man snorted. Asuka felt insulted. Rat looked at him fearfully.

“You want to die that badly, girl?”

“Fuck you, shithead,” he snapped. Asuka was tired and had already lost a lot of blood. His patience was running a bit thin. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” said the masked stranger, and he materialized behind Asuka and kicked him into a tree. 

“Usagi-chan!” 

His mask shattered upon impact. Blood welled up in his mouth. Asuka’s lungs felt like they’d been turned to jello.

He felt dazed. Darkness threatened to overtake his vision, but the fuzzy stars, violet ones and green ones and blue ones and gold ones, held it at bay. He felt Rat’s chakra, bright and vibrant and purple, flaring desperately. He tried to push himself up but his arms shook hopelessly. He collapsed onto the ground and spat up a mouthful of blood.

Rat screamed– more of a war cry than a shriek– and he heard the masked man hiss in pain. Adrenaline flooded his veins. Asuka managed to push himself up. Pieces of porcelain clattered off of his face and he stared briefly at his ruined mask before getting up and running to Rat. 

He was down to about half of his chakra reserves. He’d have to be smart about this if he and Rat-senpai wanted to get out of this fight alive. 

He formed several hand signs and the ground became flooded with all of the moisture in the air. Asuka held the stake in and jumped up into the tree. He saw the masked man standing on top of the water, holding Rat by her throat. He took her mask off and she spat out a mouth filled with fire at him. The man dropped her and she sprinted away. 

Asuka knew a signal when he saw one. “Lightning style: deep fried asshole!” He formed the signs and a bolt rushed down and electrified the pond. Purple light flashed and crackled. A deep sense of satisfaction formed in what was left of Asuka’s stomach. He poured more chakra in the jutsu, just to be sure. 

“Got you, fucker.” 

“That plan would’ve been smart, had it worked.” 

Rat-senpai’s body was littered with kunai, floating in the middle of the clearing.

He was behind him. 

Asuka leaned forward and vomited. 

“Just make it fast,” he said, looking up into the man’s single sharingan. Asuka shut his eyes and waited. And waited. Yet, death hadn’t come yet. He opened them. His vision was beginning to blur.

“Rin?”

Asuka thought the man sounded like he was about to cry. He tried to take a deep breath, and felt his organs moving around with a nice side of more burning pain. The man cupped his cheek, with he dare say, tenderness. Asuka, however, still hated this guy for impaling him and kicking him into a tree, so he opted to cough up blood onto him. 

“Oh, Rin,” the man whispered and Asuka could’ve sworn he sounded so heartbroken– or maybe that was the concussion, “What have I done to you?” 

“‘M not Rin,” said Asuka, watching the stars spin, “But I’m pretty sure I’m gonna go see her real soon.” 

Chapter Text

“Asuka-chan,” said his grandmother, tears dripping down her face, “Do me a favor, won’t you? Don’t become a kunoichi. Do something serviceable instead. Like becoming a schoolteacher. Or a seamstress.”

There had still been smoke heavy in the air when the first bodies had begun to be buried after the attack of the Nine-Tailed Fox. 

Asuka merely looked up at his grandmother and squeezed her hand. 

**

Asuka awoke with a tremor. His gut throbbed and he felt like vomiting. He leaned over to the side of the bed and emptied the contents of his stomach. Which appeared to be just bile. Asuka slowly blinked, awareness hitting him like a ton of rocks. 

Firstly, apparently he was alive. 

Because surely, there was no way this musty ass cave was the Pure Lands. 

His head pounded and he was grateful that it was so dark because otherwise he wouldn’t even be able to think right now. Definitely concussed. 

He pushed himself up and grunted. His wounds had been cleaned, he realized. There were bandages wrapped around his midsection to his neck, and across his forehead. Someone rescued him. 

“Rat-senpai?” He called. It echoed, echoed, echoed.

Definitely in a fucking cave.

“Senpai?” he tried again.

It wasn’t a very big cave, or more likely, it was a smaller section of a bigger cave. He lay on a futon against the back of the wall. A stalactite hung over his head and acted as a perch for several sleeping brown bats. It smelled damp, like somewhere along the walls water flowed freely. There were several candles spread out on the floor, melting. They reflected the shadows of the stalagmites and of the cup of water and folded plain white yukata placed beside him. 

Out from the darkness, a pair of yellow eyes stared at him. 

He stared back, though it felt as if the temperature had dropped several degrees.

“You’re awake.” 

He recognized the voice of the masked man from the woods, and opted to continue staring at the yellow eyes. It took every ounce of training he had to repress the fear that welled up. He didn’t really sense any chakra– but maybe it was due to that strange disappearing jutsu he had used during that one-sided slaughter that could hardly be called a fight. 

Asuka’s throat felt pinched. He breathed in deeply then exhaled slowly. 

The masked man materialized in front of him. He held a tray of soup. 

“Madara,” called out the creature, the thing with the glowing, pupiless yellow eyes. 

The masked man ignored it.

Madara– like the first missing-nin Uchiha Madara?--  continued to hold out the tray. Asuka really didn’t want to take it. 

Emotional Asuka argued that this– this man murdered his senpai- and had taken him captive for an unknown reason. Why the hell would he want to eat something an enemy had provided him? Logical Asuka retorted that he was starving. He needed to eat something to aid in his recovery from the fight, and to gain energy to escape. Plus, this Madara had saved him for some unknown reason. It wouldn’t make any sense if he just up and poisoned him after going through all that trouble to prevent him from dying. 

Fighting a sour expression, Asuka took the bowl of soup. His traitorous stomach rumbled. The masked man’s posture shifted, sloped. He relaxed and plopped down at the edge of the futon, crossing his legs. He rested his head on his arm and activated his sharingan.

Asuka was severely uncomfortable. The shadows on the wall flickered up and down and around. 

The ground rumbled and a venus fly trap-like creature emerged a few feet away from him. Half black, half white. Those soulless, yellow eyes that didn’t blink. “Madara, what are you doing?” hissed the black half.

The creature was ignored. Asuka shot it a nervous look. 

“Eat,” Madara said. 

Asuka glanced down at the soup. The broth was brown and he saw mushrooms, tofu, onions and carrots floating in it. Then the soup bowl seemed to blur and double. He squinted. His vision returned to normal.

“It’s not poisoned,” there was a hint of humor in the masked man’s voice. 

Asuka scowled. He wished that “Madara” had been stupid enough to give him cutlery. He picked the bowl up and drank. He gagged. His stomach felt like he’d just chugged a flask of acid. He clutched his stomach. 

“I never thought I’d see you again,” breathed the masked man. Out of the corner of his eye, Asuka noticed the plant man’s irritated expression. The black half, especially, seemed to look at him with open hostility. 

“She isn’t that girl you lost,” said the plant-thing. “The copy-nin killed her nine years ago. This one is alive, and a child at that.” 

“Shut up!” spat Madara. The tomoe in his sharingan eye twisted into a shape like a three-bladed shuriken. Knowing what was coming, the creature sunk into the ground. Asuka felt nauseous. 

Somewhere in the cave, likely off of a limestone stalactite formation, water dripped. 

“Drink the rest of it.” 

Asuka swallowed the rest of the bile rising to his throat, and avoided the man’s glaring red eye. He drank the rest of the soup.

 Madara sighed and pushed a gloved hand through his short, spiky black hair. Briefly, Asuka wondered how he looked so good for someone pushing like, a hundred and fifty. A breeze flitted through the cave, and he suddenly felt like he was freezing. He wasn’t wearing his armor anymore, just the tattered black base uniform. 

“Why didn’t you heal yourself?” 

Asuka was caught off guard by the sheer vulnerability in the man’s voice. Another breeze rushed through the cave, and caused the flames of the candles to flutter wildly. Shadows danced across the wall, and across Madara’s orange mask. The spiral of which seemed like it was almost moving. 

“...I don’t know medical ninjutsu.” Asuka replied, dazed. He felt sudden warmth, then realized after a few seconds that Madara was cupping his cheek.

“But Rin,” he said gently, softly, “you're a medical ninja.”

“My name is Asuka,” he replied immediately, jerking his head away and scooting back up against the cold rock wall. “How do you even know her anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be dead, Uchiha Madara?”

Madara chuckled. He pulled his hand away. Then he seemed to hesitate for a second before ultimately pulling off the spiral mask… revealing a young man who appeared to be in his early twenties. And who looked like he got into a fight with gravity and lost. 

“You’re not Madara."

“No, I’m not.” 

Asuka narrowed his eyes. A sharp stab of pain exploded in his gut. He clenched his teeth and refused to flinch.

“You’re shaking,” the man said. His sole eye faded back to black. 

“Why did you save me?” Asuka bit out.

“Ah.” He smiled thinly, pulling at the scars on his face. “I wouldn’t have ever forgiven myself if I hadn’t.” 

“Despite the fact that your plant friend seems to,” another wave of nausea hit him, “despise me?”

A dark expression crossed the man’s face.

Asuka’s face felt hot. He realized he was actually shaking, and he couldn’t control it.

“Ah, fuck–”

Asuka vomited.

Those rainbow stairs came back. They swirled and twirled around his head until they were all he could see. He felt like he was a spirit detached from its own body, like his limbs weren’t his own, and he could only helplessly watch in the edge of his consciousness as his body collapsed. 

His ears rung in and out indistinctly. It was like everything was in a fishbowl. He felt himself being picked up, he heard Rin’s name being screamed, he heard another name being screamed. 

The darkness was so close. It beckoned him. 

Maybe he’d see Rat-senpai again. 

Besides, it wasn’t really so dark. The glittering stars would keep him company. 

Chapter Text

**

It had been a sunny day, though Asuka had thought that rain was more apropos for their moods. His grandmother, Kanae, had done his hair up in an elaborate style with glittering pins and a pale green ribbon. They wore formal kimonos, as Kanae had said that they ought to look presentable for the dead. 

“How would you feel if someone came to pay respects at your grave but wore slouchy, dirty street wear or worse, pajamas !? Ha! That’s not respectful at all!” Kanae had scoffed, on more than one occasion. 

Once a week, the last two members of the Nohara clan visited Konoha Cemetery. Their vigil lasted the entire day. 

It was Asuka’s turn to make the offerings. He’d spent several hours the previous day making salmon onigiri from scratch. He didn’t remember much about his mother, but he knew that this had been her favorite flavor. 

It was a ritual that had been happening for as long as he could remember.

The wind floated through the grass, rustling the flowers set atop the uniform headstones. The blue sky was cloudless. It was about noon, the sun was at its apex. 

Not for the first time, Asuka wished that he had lighter hair. Or that he could cut it. His hair was down to his mid back, and it was thick. The hairstyle that Kanae had chosen was heavy. It got in the way, it was hot. He just…hated it.

There weren’t many people in the cemetery besides themselves. Asuka walked straight towards his parents’ graves. They were off towards the side, at the newest part of the cemetery. 

“You,” Kanae growled. Asuka could only guess at who.

A lone figure crouched in deference to the stone monument. The Copy-nin, Friend-Killer Kakashi, whatever his name, he was Kanae’s hated enemy. He didn’t acknowledge Kanae, just continued to stare at the stone. Asuka noticed how his shoulders trembled slightly at her voice. 

Asuka dropped into a crouch in front of his mother’s gravestone. He had placed the offerings atop her and his father’s headstones. He watched, warily, as Kanae stalked towards the copy-nin. 

“You–” Kanae shouted, though her voice wavered, “How dare you! Have you no shame, you lowlife psychopath?!”

The copy-nin didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. He simply remained where he was, forehead pressed to the stone in his silent vigil.

“Baa-chan.” Kanae ignored him. Asuka stood up. “Baa-chan, leave him alone.”

Furious, Kanae turned around to face Asuka. Tears dripped down her face. “My daughter is gone–-and it’s all his fault!”

Kanae dropped down to her knees and glared up at the sky. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen. Cicadas buzzed all around them.

Asuka deftly navigated the gravestones around him and went to his grandmother’s side. Kanae’s arms shook. She slammed a fist into the ground. “It’s not fair,” she hiccuped. 

“Baa-chan.” Asuka crouched down and hugged her. He patted her back gently until Kanae stopped sobbing. By that time, the shadows had become long and the copy-nin had long since left the graveyard. 

**

***

“How is she?”

“My, my,” Orochimaru muttered, “Impatient as ever, are we?” 

Madara’s single visible eye narrowed. 

They were in a cave. 

But then again, when weren’t they in a cave? It’d been a good decade or so since Orochimaru had left the village, and because of their need to be off the radar due to the nature of certain experiments , nearly all of that time had been spent underground. 

Absently taking a look at their surroundings, Orochimaru wondered if the reason that their experiments failed so often was due to the lack of hygiene in caves. Bat shit was everywhere . 

Filing this thought away for later, Orochimaru took another look at their patient on the table.

The girl looked to be about thirteen or fourteen, and by the appearance of the numerous scars on her body, had already had quite the career as a shinobi. Her chakra pathways were developed to a level usually found in older jounin. This suggested a prodigy, or someone who relentlessly pushed themselves– Orochimaru noted the strain around certain pathways in her hands and throat. 

Curious.

But that wasn’t what they were supposed to be looking at. 

“Kabuto-kun, status report?”

“She’s stable for now, Orochimaru-sama.” His disciple said, rinsing his hands in a nearby water bowl. 

Madara’s mokuton– such an odd phrase, Orochimaru was simply dying to know more about the man behind the mask, including why the hell he possessed the First Hokage’s kekkei genkai–  had completely damaged her liver. If the girl was going to live, which Madara demanded that she would, then they needed to replace it.

It had taken several hours to transplant it. Orochimaru let Kabuto do it, they knew the boy could use the experience. Now, the only thing left to do was wait and see if her body accepted or rejected the transplant. 

A breeze passed through the cave. The candlelight flickered, twisting their shadows along the wall. 

“Orochimaru, I need a favor.” Madara said. He sat cross-legged on a rock not far from where the operation had taken place. 

“Oh?” Orochimaru asked, disinfecting a bloody scalpel and toweling it clean. 

“I need you to make me a seal.” 

Chapter Text

Asuka woke up and didn’t immediately feel like vomiting. Immediately his guard went up. Darkness. A weight on his abdomen. Flickering lights. Trickling water somewhere in the distance. 

God fucking dammit. 

Somehow, he hadn’t died yet! Asuka was still in the fucking cave!

He tried to get up and was shoved back down immediately by someone cooing at him.

“Fuck off,” Asuka hissed. He was greeted with the sight of “Madara” clutching on to him like a lifeline. Shakily, Asuka pushed himself up. He coughed. 

“The transplant was a success. Good job, Kabuto-kun.” A sibilant voice said. The owner of said voice stood at the head of the cold metal table that he rested on. “Now, now, ANBU-chan, no sudden movements. We wouldn't want to upset your new liver, now would we?”

“What happened to my liver?” Asuka blurted, panicked. 

Knowing the fact that infamous missing-nin Orochimaru of the Sannin had apparently saved him made Asuka extremely nervous. He was inclined to believe the snake sage took it for their lunch.

Asuka was ignored.

“Kabuto-kun, come here,” said the Sannin, pressing two fingers to the space where the slope of his neck met the beginning of his shoulder. “Run a diagnostic jutsu here.”

Kabuto, a gray-haired kid around his age or maybe a few years younger than him, poured green healing chakra into his neck. A shuddering exhale escaped him. He hadn’t noticed the burning in his neck until it subsided.

“Her body is accepting the seal,” Kabuto said. Orochimaru hummed. “Madara” clutched Asuka’s hand like he was afraid it would disappear from his grip. 

“What seal?” Asuka asked.

Nobody answered him.

“What seal?” Asuka repeated, louder. 

“Madara, would you like to test it?” Orochimaru said, looking up at the masked man, who nodded.

 Dread sunk into his stomach like lead. 

“What seal?” Asuka repeated again. He grabbed the arm of the teenage medic and shook it. “What the fuck did you people do to me?” The medic glared at him and wrestled his arm from his grip. He stopped his jutsu and stepped back towards the Sannin. 

As much as Asuka wanted to get angry, kill everyone and escape, he knew he was very, very outclassed. He heard a whisper in the back of his mind of Spider-taichou telling him that one day his hair-trigger temper would get him in trouble. 

Asuka felt a pang in his chest. 

He was afraid he’d never get to have Spider-taichou yell at him again.

“Rin–”

“I told you already, that’s not my name.”

“--try taking off my mask.”

“My pleasure,” said Asuka, yanking his hand out of the man’s sweaty grip. He lunged for the ugly, swirly thing then gasped and fell back against the stiff table. A white-hot, searing pain had exploded in his neck and spread down to the rest of his body, rendering him paralyzed. 

Orochimaru stood over him, golden slitted eyes gleeful. “It works!” 

Asuka bit back a vicious curse and groaned.

The burning stopped, and the man in the mask stood over him, remorseful. Asuka contemplated spitting on him. 

“Fucking fuck!” Asuka sat up again and swung his legs over the sides of the table. He noticed that he was wearing a white yukata over freshly replaced bandages. 

Why go through so much trouble to save his life if only to give him some sort of cursed seal? What the hell was happening with this mysterious cave group? Who was this masked man really and why did he insist on everyone calling him Madara? 

Was he going to be tortured for information on Konoha?

That… didn’t make much sense either. 

The masked man had gone through the trouble of procuring him a new liver, after all. 

Plus, his affiliation with Orochimaru was… strange. 

He watched as the missing-nin and their apparent student cleaned up the space where they had operated and silently left. The masked man watched Asuka the entire time. 

There were rumors back home in the village that Orochimaru had joined up with a mercenary group of S-rank missing-nin, but they weren’t particularly active, so most hadn’t believed it to be super important to verify the rumors. Now, Asuka was pretty sure they were true. 

He noted the clear dress code. Black cloaks with red clouds on them. 

Hideous. Absolutely hideous.

“Why did you kidnap me?”

‘Madara’ let out a low chuckle. “You were dying. I saved you.”

“Yeah, but you put me in that state in the first place. Come to think of it, why were you all the way out there in Water Country in the first place, huh? What reason did you have to attack two ANBU black ops for simply doing their jobs?”

“You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

Asuka clicked his tongue. “Always was the bane of my instructors’ existence back at the Academy. Enough about me, though. What’s your actual name? Why ‘Madara’?”

A pause. 

He hears wax dripping off of a candle onto the stone floor. 

“Uchiha Obito.”

He had a name. Asuka supposed that was a good start. The name twigged on his memory for some reason.

“Why were you–”

“I made a reckless, foolish decision. I’ve nearly jeopardized the plans that I’ve been setting up for years,” here he laughed. It was self-loathing and echoed across the cave walls, “All because you look like her. I know Rin’s gone. Yet…I saw you and for a while, I lived in a world where she wasn’t. That’s what everything’s all about isn’t it? A perfect dream world where no one ever has to suffer any more. You made my dream, even for just a moment, a reality.”

What the fuck is this guy going on about?

“I can’t lose focus, not now,” Obito’s voice cracked. 

“That’s great,” Asuka nodded, “Can I go home?”

He saw red, the red of his sharingan. He felt like he was being lulled to a comforting dream, a dream he would never want to wake up from. 

“I’m so sorry but you can never go back to that village again. I’ll be your home now.”

Chapter Text

Tsukiyama Yuuko, aka ANBU agent Rat, had been in a coma for the past four days. As much as everyone was worried about her, it had been deemed necessary to extract the knowledge of what exactly had gone wrong on that mission. 

Agent Rat was a top assassin, and Agent Rabbit, one of their most promising new prodigies, had outright disappeared.

This mission had been of the highest security clearance due to the information they’d be gaining on the unstable Bloody Mist village. It would be an ace up their sleeve, something they could use to subtly dislodge the dictator known as Karatachi Yagura, turn the tides of the civil war in the favor of the revolutionaries. 

But they had no idea if the mission was successful, if either Rat or Rabbit had eliminated the mark. Rat was hanging on by a thread as it was. She was far too delicate in this state for a Yamanaka mind-walk. 

Concerning Rabbit, by the time her summons had led a team of reinforcements to the scene of the battle, she was gone. The only clue that she’d ever been there fighting in the first place and hadn’t betrayed Rat, was the sheer destruction of charred forest around them. 

Neither Rat nor Rabbit had fire affinities. Rabbit, for all of her prowess, was just plain bad at fire-style jutsus. 

There was also the Mokuton. And considering the fact that Cat was on a different mission all the way in Lightning Country…

Spider, or Shiranui Genma as he was called when he was off duty, didn’t like the picture it painted.

He stood by Rat’s bedside, next to one of the Yamanaka, as a medic nin worked diligently. A knock sounded on the door, then Hatake Kakashi strolled in, nose buried in his lurid orange book.

“Yo,” his friend greeted. 

“Yo yourself,” Genma said, rolling the senbon around he held between his teeth. He already had the beginnings of a migraine coming on. He didn’t need Kakashi to give him the full thing. “What’s up?”

He had a feeling he already knew. 

 “Maa, nothing. Wanted to talk, one captain to another.”

“About what?” he asked, exiting the hospital room. They silently walked down the hall until they came to the courtyard. 

“...you’re sending a team back to Water Country, correct?”

“Yeah,” Genma took the senbon out of his mouth and watched it glitter in the sunlight. “The circumstances surrounding Rabbit’s disappearance are too weird."

(Why would evidence of a long-dead Konoha kekkei-genkai be found near a scuffle of an espionage/assassination mission concerning Kiri’s bloodline purges?)

“Let me join it.”

“Aren’t you running your own team?” 

“They’ll be fine,” Kakashi said breezily, “I can have Itachi lead while I’m gone.”

They both knew Kakashi was barely stable as it was. Rabbit’s familial resemblance to his dead teammate didn’t help the man’s mental state either. Genma was pretty sure that if he let him come on this mission and they discovered Rabbit to have been killed by the enemy for information… Well, it could be considered a miracle Kakashi hadn’t managed to snap for this long. 

Genma definitely felt that migraine coming on. He sighed and put the senbon back in his mouth. “Fine.”

Kakashi would try to find Rabbit anyway. It was probably better he come with the official team so they could supervise him in case he did something stupid. 

***

The door to the Hokage’s office swung open then slammed against the wall, and with a great creaking noise, fell off of its hinges. 

“Hokage-sama! We tried to stop her–” 

ANBU weren’t supposed to have emotions. They were the cold-hearted tools of the village, the kunai that was used to cut the throats of Konoha’s enemies. However, there was an overwhelming sense of burning curiosity in the room as a short brunette woman stomped into the room, restrained by two desk chuunin. She wore jounin blues and white was beginning to streak through her hair. Her eyes were harsh and green, and she had purple markings on her cheeks.

“ I am coming on this mission whether you like it or not! ” howled the kunoichi, bringing her heel down on the toes of one of the chuunin. He bit back a shriek and loosened his hold on her just enough to be elbowed in the face. 

None of the ANBU, kneeling before the Hokage, budged. Silently, each and every one of them– Hound, Spider, Raccoon, and Otter– cursed their porcelain masks for obscuring their peripheral vision. 

“Ah, Kanae-chan,” said the Third Hokage mildly, “How can I help you?”

“Hokage-sama,” greeted Nohara Kanae, dipping her head in a half bow. Though it was difficult as she held the second chuunin in a headlock as he flailed hopelessly. “I want to join the mission that you are dispatching to search for my Asuka.” 

The Hokage took a match and struck it. A small flame burned at its head. He lit his pipe and inhaled thoughtfully. “This mission is classified, and concerns S-ranked intelligence that ANBU is attempting to recover, Kanae-chan. I’m afraid I cannot allow you to–”

“I wasn’t asking,” Kanae said. 

Ice-cold, cutting , killing intent flooded the room. The temperature, stiflingly warm and sticky due to a broken air conditioner, dropped several degrees. 

She released the chuunin from her choke hold and dropped into a full, proper bow. 

“I am the head of the cryptography division. There isn’t a secret that I haven’t sworn to protect, that I am not taking to my grave . I’ve put the good of this village above myself and my clan for my entire life. I’ve cracked countless codes and created many others– without which we would have lost innumerable lives. Forgive me if I think I can be trusted with this information.”

The Hokage exhaled a plume of gray smoke. “You’re sure your emotions won’t get the better of you, Kanae-chan?”

“You should be asking him that.” 

An ANBU doesn't wince. Hound merely heard the words the woman said, noted her grudge and anger and heartbreak and fear hiding within them, and filed it away. 

The Hokage nodded. “ANBU Spider, good for one more?”

Hound could feel his friend’s weariness from here. 

“Yes, Hokage-sama.”

Chapter Text

When he woke up again, Asuka was alone. The candles had nearly burnt out, their wax spilling over the edges of the torches they were mounted on. Occasionally, it dripped onto the floor with a hissing squelch.

Asuka found he really needed a cigarette. 

Rat hadn’t let him have one before the mission because the smell of lingering smoke on his person would be an identifying characteristic. An ANBU agent was no one. They weren’t allowed to have identifying characteristics. 

Asuka didn’t know how long it’d been since the battle in Water Country, as he’d been in and out of consciousness so many times, and it was a bit difficult to tell if it was day or not underground. He felt like he was beginning to go into withdrawal. His lip twitched. 

Asuka sat up, looked around. It was the same cave he initially woke up in. He supposed this was to be ‘his’ cave, then.

He heard chittering. A bat swooped down, chased by another. 

“Fuck this,” said Asuka. He got up and left. 

There was a winding path that seemed to lead out of his private cavern. 

The ceiling of the cave became smaller and narrower as did the path until Asuka ended up crawling on his hands and knees. His heartbeat quickened, but his resolve strengthened. 

After about five more minutes of crawling, Asuka came upon a larger cavern. It smelled wet, but not musty. Somewhere, there must’ve been a crack leading to the outside. He left the passageway and stood up. Water streamed down the side of a wall, bleached white due to erosion. The roof of the cave rose suddenly, tens and tens of feet high. Asuka suspected that this system of caves was in the mountains due to this sudden gain– that, or very deep underground.

In the back of the cavern, head scratching the top of the cave’s roof, sat the ugliest goddamn statue that Asuka had ever seen. The thing had like, nine eyes, and several arms chained together. It looked disfigured, and Asuka knew for a fact that he’d be seeing it in his nightmares that same evening. 

In the middle of the room was a round table with a pitcher of water on it. Sitting around the table were six orange-haired men with identical violet ringed eyes and a blue haired woman, all wearing that vile cloud cloak, and his very best friend, Uchiha Obito. 

Asuka narrowed his eyes. 

The group immediately stopped all discussion once they noticed his presence. 

“Do any of you have any cigarettes?” They fucking kidnapped him. The least they could do would be polite and give him his fucking smokes. 

The blue-haired kunoichi looked alarmed. Immediately, she turned to her nearest companion and whispered something. One of the orange-haired men, one with six piercings in his nose and a spiky hairstyle, asked, “Aren’t you a little young to be smoking?”

“If I’m old enough to die for my village, then I think I’m old enough to have my death sticks, thanks. You got any smokes?”

“No,” said the kunoichi warily, “none of us have any cigarettes.” 

“Shame,” said Asuka. He scrunched up his nose and walked a bit closer to them. “What do you people do here anyway?”

“We’re an organization dedicated towards creating world peace.” The same pierced man as earlier replied. 

Asuka nodded. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, “If you’re so peaceful, why do you insist on keeping me hostage?”

The man shifted his gaze from Asuka to Obito, the question in his eyes. 

“It was either that or kill you.” 

“And you want me alive because I remind you of Rin.”

Silence.

The others at the table looked baffled. 

“You have information that cannot get out.” That could ruin this organization, ruin groundwork that is taking years to lay– the chaos in the Bloody Mist alone– 

“Why don’t you just kill me then?” 

He was taking a gamble, he realized. This is an interrogation, a necessary one. In order to know more about his captor, he’s going to have to pull some metaphorical fingernails. (Humiliate him in front of his colleagues.) 

“Information is power,” said Obito. “And you, an ANBU agent, have a lot of it that will serve useful to my future plans.”

Ah, of course. The village. Obito’s former village, as he’s an Uchiha. 

Asuka cocked his head, “Shouldn’t you have information on Konoha already? I mean, you must be from there, right? Unless that eye’s stolen.” 

“It’s my eye, you little shit.” 

Overwhelming pain flooded his neck and spread to every nerve Asuka had. He gasped and dropped to his knees, clutching the spot where the mark was. 

“A curse mark?” said the spiky haired man, eyes widening minutely.

“Madara, how much does this child know?” The kunoichi asked.

“Enough.” 

“Even with the safeguard of the curse mark…”

“I won’t allow anyone to kill her.”

Asuka felt the pain gradually subsiding and managed to get up. He grit his teeth. Shit, now he REALLY wanted a cigarette.

“Fuck it. Fine. I’ll join your stupid club,” Asuka rubbed at the skin on his neck. It was burning hot. He scowled. “What? Don’t look at me like that. I’d rather be a missing-nin than a corpse.”

Asuka, of course, was lying. 

His mental health was shit. 

If and when he could, he decided he’d sell these losers out for a corn chip and a dollar. But right now, he honestly just wanted to live long enough to get a fucking cigarette and light it up.

.

.

.

“That settles that,” Obito said cheerily, voice jumping up into a different register entirely. “Welcome to Akatsuki!”

“Huh, that’s the name of one of my summons.” Asuka said, silently praying he wouldn’t be forced into wearing one of those ugly cloaks. “Nohara Asuka, pleased to meet your acquaintance.” he bowed. 

The kunoichi cleared her throat and blinked, then seemed to get over the situation. “Konan.”

“I am Pein,” said the man with the spiky hair and the piercings, “I am the leader of this organization.”

Somehow, Asuka doubted that. 

“This meeting seemed important, so please forgive me for intruding, Konan-sama, Pein-sama. O-jii-san.” 

He left to follow another tunnel out to a different section of the cave system. 

*

He found another cave that had a small stream running through it. Torches stuck out of the ground at odd angles. There was a futon in the back corner of the room. It looked entirely unused. Asuka noted, amusedly, that there seemed to be a large amount of ryō stuffed underneath it, making the beige blanket cast a lumpy shadow. 

Next to it, on the floor, there was a half full glass of water by a duffel bag. A full, lumpy duffel bag. Stacked on top of it was another duffel bag, though this one was half deflated. 

Um, thought Asuka. 

He contemplated touching it, but then, from the other end of the cave, saw a flicker of movement. 

“Got any cigarettes?”

“Not if you’re here for my fucking money.”

“I couldn’t care less about your money. I don’t know where the hell I am. I don’t even know what you people do.”

“We’re mercenaries. We hunt bounties. We do whatever the richest fuckers want us to.”

“And you’re missing-nin?”

“Seems fairly obvious,” said the man in the shadows. He stepped out of the darkness, out of the small creek. Water dripped onto the stone cave floor. 

Holy shitting Sage, was this guy ugly. 

He looked like a corpse that had been repeatedly dismembered then sewn back together again with appendages from different people, only except the thread was sentient and wanted to eat your soul. 

“Alright,” He tried really hard to keep his tone even, “Why do you need so much money?” 

“It’s not really us who need it,” said the nightmare creature, seemingly delighted to be able to talk about his favorite thing, “The boss sets a threshold of collection every month. It’s real high. Most goes to him for world peace purposes, the rest we all get to keep.”

“...So would you say you’re in this organization for its aims of achieving world peace or for the money?” 

The man-shadow-demon-thing scoffed. “The money, obviously. I’m the treasurer. Back in my old village, you worked and worked and killed countless people. All for what? Wages you could barely feed yourself on! Here, you don’t worry about things like affording food or proper medical care. Sure, world peace would be nice, but I’d rather be fabulously wealthy. It helps that the job isn’t too strenuous either.”

Damn. Perhaps Asuka might not hate it here. 

“Nohara Asuka. I’m new here.”

“Kakuzu. I thought that. Don’t touch my fucking stuff.”

*

In another cave off to the side was a gigantic puppet. It looked like if a scorpion, a shrimp and a man were all tossed in a blender, baked in the oven at 365 degrees and poured into a mold to form a grade-A monstrosity. 

There were other puppets in this cave; hanging off of the walls, hanging from the ceiling, split into parts on the floor. In the middle of it all sat what looked to be a young man with light skin and red hair, fixing the arm of a faceless puppet. 

Asuka stepped into the room.

He saw that the man’s torso was detached from the rest of his body. 

Asuka left the fucking cave.

*

Asuka missed being outside. He missed the sun and his grandmother’s garden. Faintly, he wondered how the herbs were doing. Two days before the mission, he had planted a new crop of chamomile. His stomach soured as Asuka realized it would be incredibly difficult in his current circumstances to check on it. 

These caves were boring. 

He couldn’t really do anything. He left the book Kakashi lent him at home–since threats of violence had been made if that book wasn’t returned in pristine condition– and all of his weapons had been confiscated when he had been abducted here. 

Asuka ultimately decided to follow the underground river. 

Maybe he’d escape that way. 

…

He waded into the water. It was up to his mid calf, and icy cold. Asuka knew there were probably weird cave creatures here, but oh well. He wondered if the Akatsuki ever used the river to fish. 

And what they ate, for the matter. 

Eventually he came to a point where the river became deeper. He spotted a large stone and hopped on it. Strange glowing worms lit up the walls of the cavern, and everything was illuminated with a faint blue light. 

Asuka bit down on his thumb until it cut open. He smeared a small bit of chakra into a drop of blood onto the boulder. “Summoning jutsu.”

Poof! 

He really hadn’t expected that to work. He’d thought the cursed seal had somehow affected his chakra, but thankfully not.

“Asuka-kun!” cried Natsuki. She bounded over to him immediately. Natsuki had floppy ears like her sister Katsuki, but she was a light gray with white patches instead of black. “We were so afraid!”

“Natsuki,” he breathed, pushing a hand through long wet hair, “I am so glad to see you.” 

“What happened? Katsu-chan told me she could feel your chakra and then all of a sudden it just-- just vanished!”

“Some weird jutsu. I got abducted by some dickhead rogue Uchiha. I think it’s part of his sharingan–some special evolution of their bloodline limit or something,” Asuka said, remembering the spiraling triangular shape. 

“Come with me, Asuka-kun,” Natsuki grabbed the sleeve of his yukata in her mouth and tugged. “I’ll reverse summon you out of here! We must tell Kanae-sama you’re alright! She’s been worried sick!” 

Asuka picked Natsuki up and placed her beside him. He tugged his sleeve away from her and frowned. The last time he had seen his grandmother… Well, let’s just say the neighbors down the street had heard the screaming match, and the Nohara clan compound was in a fairly isolated area to begin with.

Asuka grimaced. 

“You can tell her, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to leave this place,” he said, gesturing to the curse mark. 

Natsuki let out a squeak of righteous indignation. Her whiskers twitched angrily.

Besides, as much as Asuka liked Konoha, he wasn’t sure he wanted to stay in its service for the rest of his life. As a shinobi, he's a tool that's used for the betterment of the village, and tools don't get to have feelings, or control over their own fates. Never once had anyone ever asked Asuka what he wanted– and it’d become evidently clear over the past year that what Asuka wants is at odds with the emotionless tool he’s supposed to be.

Call him selfish, but Asuka did not give a shit. 

He’ll always want to protect the village and its people, but not at the price of his own happiness. 

These Akatsuki freaks– puppets and zombies and creepy kidnappers– he’d reckon that he could actually have a chance for inner peace here. Plus the whole world peace thing sounds cool. 

“Natsuki, can you please get me a pack of cigarettes?” 

Chapter Text

**

It was no secret that Kanae blamed the copy-nin for the death of her youngest daughter. 

At first, Asuka did too. 

Kanae had been so distraught over Rin’s death that she banned any talk of it from their household. Asuka -only five when his kind-hearted aunt suddenly stopped babysitting him- had been quite distressed when he had asked his mother where Auntie had gone, only to be told she had passed away in service to the village.

Kanae had been enraged. Heroic sacrifice or not, to her, Rin was the sweet girl who was going to one day surpass the Sannin Tsunade in terms of her medical ninjutsu prowess. The icing on the cake was that it was the same stupid boy she’d been nursing a crush on that had created the hole in her chest. 

The irony of the situation was almost too much. 

To Kanae, the son of the White Fang–the man who had started the damn war in the first place by foolishly prioritizing his teammates over the mission– had killed his last teammate. Pah!

(Hatake had tried to speak to Kanae on multiple occasions– to apologize, grieve, explain himself, she didn’t care– Kanae had chased him away every time.)

Asuka’s mother, a kunoichi named Youko, had been more understanding. When Asuka’s first impulse was to follow in his grandmother’s footsteps and hate Hatake, Youko had simply told him that it was likely that Kakashi was grieving as well. 

“Why?” he had asked. “Why would he grieve for her?”

Youko gave him a sad smile. She knew that in her mother’s own pain that she had refused to learn anything to do with the circumstances surrounding her youngest’s death. However, Youko, in her own pain, wanted to know what had happened and learned that her little sister was a self-sacrificing hero– a fact Kanae refused to acknowledge, because it hurt too much. 

“Asuka-chan, if you’re going to become a shinobi, it’s important to realize that you cannot trust the information given to you by only one person. People are inherently biased– you have to dig beneath the surface in order to find out what truly occurred and to form your own opinion.”

“Are you saying Baa-chan is biased?”

Youko nodded. “Your grandmother despises Hatake-san because he took your aunt away. However, your aunt’s mission became derailed and she was kidnapped by Kiri shinobi who sealed something bad into her that would’ve killed a lot of people if it had reached the village.”

Asuka’s eyes widened. “So… Hatake killed Auntie because she had been turned into a weapon!?”

Youko grimaced, then patted her son on the head. He looked up at her with wide brown eyes. “Your aunt sacrificed herself for the safety of the village…Auntie ended her own life. Hatake’s jutsu was merely the method she chose.” 

So little Asuka thought about what his mother had told him and came to the conclusion that it made him sad. 

It wasn’t fair that his aunt had to die. The way he saw it was that without the interference of Kiri-nin, his aunt would still be alive and Hatake Kakashi wouldn’t have been forced to kill her. 

A fire was born within him to do whatever he could by whatever means necessary to protect the village, so that no one would have to suffer the same kind of loss he did or the same kind of pain his family and the copy-nin were feeling. 

And for a long time, Asuka hated Kirigakure. 

*

When Asuka was six, two things of great note happened to him. 

Firstly, the Nine Tailed Demon Fox attacked the village. In the chaos, his mother, Nohara-Nara Youko, was killed. 

Asuka was left orphaned and under the care of Kanae. 

(His father, Nara Akaashi, had been missing in action and presumed dead since he was a toddler. During the end of the Third Shinobi War, the man disappeared during an ambush on an Iwa camp and his mother, though she tried to hide it, hadn’t been the same since.)

Secondly, Kanae, heartbroken by two major losses happening less than a year within each other, pulled Asuka out of the academy.

Asuka had been extremely pissed off and very embarrassed. There was no way he could protect the village from those Bloody Mist bastards or scary demons if he didn’t become a shinobi!? He was the last of his bloodline and the heir to his clan. Not being allowed to go to the Academy made their clan look weak. Made him look like he was weak. Made him feel weak.

Asuka knew that his grandmother felt a deep, all encompassing sense of grief. She had lost both of her children. He did too. He missed his mother greatly and spent a lot of time lying in her old room, staring at the ceiling. It still smelled like her in there. 

But he refused to have any part in enabling Kanae and preventing them both from being able to heal from their deaths. The Academy would help him! Asuka couldn’t stand to be in the silent compound all day with nothing but his thoughts and empty chest for company. 

So he did the only thing he could do.

He transformed into Kanae and re-enrolled himself. 

One of his mother’s favorite pastimes with him was to teach him jutsu that was more advanced than what he knew and watching him struggle through it until he learnt it. Asuka knew most of the theory that was being taught at the Academy already due to his viciously smart mother. He was also naturally competitive and liked winning. So as there was an Uchiha in his class that seemed especially prodigious, Asuka continued to teach himself jutsu, pushing himself harder and harder past his limits until eventually he got it.

He knew his mother would be proud of him. 

As for Kanae, she was too wrapped up in her own grief to notice Asuka’s comings and goings. Each time she asked about his whereabouts, he spun lies that he desperately hoped were believable.

“I was at the library, baa-chan.”

“I met some friends down at the playground and we played Ninja.”

“I took a hike up to the top of Hokage mountain to watch the sunrise and then got lost.”

It got easier once he became older and learned how to make clones.

*

Eventually, Asuka got cocky. Then he got caught in the act. 

It was during his fourth year of the Academy. He had been sloppy and left a notice regarding his scheduled parent-teacher conference out in the open. Not really out in the open open, but in a place where its corner was seen peeking out of a drawer by Kanae. Usually he read or did all assignments at the library or outside.

When he got to the Academy that evening, transformed as Kanae, he had a nasty surprise waiting for him. The actual Kanae, along with his sensei, both waiting for him. 

“Asuka,” said Kanae, voice level and a chill rushed down his back like a bucket of cold water. This was her you’re-in-trouble-you-little-shit-but-we’re-in-a-public-place voice. Asuka was screwed. “I withdrew you from the Academy four years ago. Want to explain why I am at a parent teacher conference?”

His sensei looked very confused to see two Kanaes. Asuka let out a shudder and released the transformation. Suzume-sensei’s eyes widened minutely behind her glasses. 

“Baa-chan, Sensei, I can explain–”

“Please do,” snapped Kanae, “You directly disobeyed me- have been disobeying me for years! Asuka, you went behind my back!”  

“Yeah, I did, but listen–”

“I told you I didn’t want you to become a kunoichi! It’s dangerous!”

“Baa-chan! Just listen to me–”

“Nohara-san! Asuka-chan! Please!” Suzume interrupted, stepping between them. Kanae’s lips spread into a thin line. Asuka straightened his posture. “I too would like Asuka-chan to explain herself. But she won’t be able to if you keep interrupting each other! Now, how about Asuka-chan goes first?”

Asuka grunted. He really didn’t like being called by the -chan honorific. He’d prefer -san or better yet, -kun. He thought it was demeaning and childish. It just pissed him off for a reason he couldn’t place and always made him feel vaguely nauseous. 

“I want to become a shinobi. I need to protect the village. I don’t want to lose anymore people who are precious to me–”

“ You are precious to me, Asuka! I wouldn’t be able to handle it if you were to die!”

“–I want to be someone strong enough that I can beat the hell out of all those Kiri shitheads and–”

“Language!”

“And anyone who tries to touch the village! Baa-chan, what happened to Kaa-san and Auntie was terrible, but anyone can die at any time in this line of work!”

“That’s why I refuse to let you be in my line of work, Asuka!”

“Hah!” he cried, digging his heel into the Academy’s worn floors, “If the village got hit by a meteorite tomorrow, we’d all be dead and there’s no ninjutsu that could prevent it! If the Nine Tails came back this afternoon, most of us would be dust in its path of destruction! People die, baa-chan! It’s how you live that matters, and I want to live to prevent that kind of pain for anyone else!” 

Kanae didn’t say anything for a long minute. Her face darkened. The barely-visible crows feet around her eyes deepened. 

“Suzume-san.”

“Y-Yes?” stuttered his sensei.

“Get me the paperwork for withdrawing a student.”

*

Kanae didn’t budge. 

As a result, Asuka barely spoke to her. 

He knew why she did it, the deep, deep scars of loss– losing cousins and siblings and the grandfather he never knew, and the family he did know. The deep trauma from two wars fought. Kanae had seen the worst of humanity– the violence and suffering wrought from desperation. She had an iron resolve born from those circumstances to protect her precious people. 

The woman was, quite frankly, holding on to the last thread of her sanity.

For that, Asuka cut her a break.

He loved her and his heart ached when he thought of all that she’d been through. However, Asuka did not believe it excused her actions in the slightest when it came to attempting to keep him in a glorified cage to ‘protect him’ from all the bad things in the outside world.

Asuka just thought this would make him useless and unable to defend himself. 

Easy pickings.

Idly, he wondered if he was born biologically male if he would be subject to this level of coddling, if Kanae believed he was useless and bound to die like both of her daughters because of his gender. It offended Asuka greatly. 

Both of them had been great kunoichi, just horribly unlucky. That’s really all it came down to in the end. Bad luck. 

Kanae had made sure the Academy had taken note of his chakra signature and unceremoniously banned him from its premises. 

Asuka thought that was bullshit. He refused to sit around in the house all day doing nothing. He was too angry to sit around the compound all day. So he went to the library and checked out scrolls, and tried to teach himself jutsu. 

It went about as well as one would expect. 

Most of the time they blew up in his face. A lot of the time it took him months to get them down, but when he got something, it stuck. 

He sought out random chuunin and jounin to spar with him. Bored genin teams too. Asuka frequently got his ass handed to him. But he learned.

Often, Kanae had to treat bruises and bloody noses and fractures he didn’t realize had happened. She’d ask what had happened and he’d refuse to reply.  Dinners were an awkward, silent affair. Kanae tried to ask him what he’d been doing during the day and he gave her curt one word answers like, library, or exploring. 

The atmosphere in the compound was extremely frigid. 

The Nohara clan were herbalists. Many had chosen to become medics. Kanae herself had medical ninjutsu training. During the Second Shinobi war she had been a field medic before she transferred to the cryptology unit. Kanae didn’t want this secret of their clan to die out with her, so she tried to teach Asuka now that he had a large amount of free time.

Asuka frequently gave excuses as to why he didn’t have time for herbalist lessons. 

He had plans with friends. He had a part time job at the library. He was supposed to meet up with someone.

All of these were lies. Asuka only sought out other people to train. Sure, he consistently had sparring partners, but he didn’t really get along with other kids his age. He didn’t know how to interact with girls. They had a lot of rules and a hierarchy that he thought figuring out was entirely too troublesome to bother with. Some boys were tolerable, but he didn’t understand them either. Asuka honestly just felt out of place.

Being banned from the Academy also didn’t help any social standing he may have had.

Kanae let him go most of the time. Other times he had to sit down to lessons with her or she’d get suspicious.

(Both of them knew what was happening. It was the elephant in the room. However, neither acknowledged it.)

*

About a year into the ban, Kanae broke.

She decided to let Asuka go back and negotiated an end to the ban. With several conditions.

One: Asuka was not to become a field shinobi. If he were to advance from genin, then he would take a job at the mission assignment desk or at the gate.  

Two: Asuka couldn’t advance beyond chuunin. Chuunin don’t get dangerous missions. 

Three: Asuka would have to learn medical ninjutsu. It would come in handy in case he ever needed to save his own life, or someone else’s. 

Asuka agreed. 

With fingers on both hands crossed behind his back. 

**

Chapter Text

They had retraced Rat and Rabbit’s steps, from the Capital of Water Country, to the love hotel in its red lantern district, to the isolated countryside hours away. The trail had inexplicably gone cold. 

The forest was still ruined from a violent, desperate battle. Blackened trees without leaves stuck up wildly, like birthday candles on a melting cake. The muddy ground was littered in splintered wood and ninja tools. Fortunately for Hound, rain hadn’t come to wash away their lingering scents. Or the dried blood, for that matter. 

The only sign that Rabbit had ever been here were the shattered pieces of her porcelain mask. 

“Do you have anything?” Spider asked. 

He nodded. 

There was another, third scent that hovered around the area like the mist of a low hanging cloud. The scent of the attacker. 

Peculiar, wasn’t it?

Rat and Rabbit had interrogated, then assassinated a man who was an oligarch of Kiri and only one person came after them. Not a team of ANBU or Hunter-nin. One guy. 

They smelled like the dank musk of a cave, and like hot ash and cold earth. Like bone-deep cynicism and righteous fury. And somehow, there was a sweet, familiar undertone– like those strawberry candies that old people always gave to you.

“Strange,” muttered Hound. 

“What?” demanded Nohara Kanae. She stuck out amongst the ANBU operatives in her jounin uniform. She was in Hound’s personal space instantly, glaring at him through the mask. 

“Rat’s scent lingers here because she was left here to die by their assailant.”

“Assailant?” Otter exclaimed, incredulous. “Singular?”

 He stood in front of a damaged, bloodsoaked pine tree where a branch seems to have been used to impale Rabbit. As there was a fairly large amount of dried blood, and the injuries Rat received weren’t consistent with impalement, it can only be assumed that Rabbit was the one injured. 

“Yes,” Hound said. “There’s only the scent of one enemy combatant here, and it’s heavy. Then it just disappears abruptly– with Rabbit’s.”

“So our assailant, whoever they are, abducted Rabbit for whatever reason,” Raccoon said slowly.

Hound nodded.

The more they learned about this, the worse it seemed to get. 

It’s common knowledge that the only trees that survive in Water Country’s nutrient-poor soil are evergreens. The stakes that had shot up out of the ground, wild and twisty like wind-whipped baby trees, were the same kind of deciduous Hashirama tree native to Fire Country. In fact, they looked eerily similar to the tree limbs that Tenzou used in combat.

That…unnerved Hound. 

Tenzou happened to be busy on a S-rank bodyguarding mission in the Land of Lightning. He knew this because he assigned it himself. 

Unless he could somehow be in two places at once… It was highly unlikely that this mystery opponent had used the wood style. Unless they did. Orochimaru was still on the loose. Hound knew never to underestimate life’s ability to be terrible.

“D’you think it could be some sort of teleportation jutsu?” Raccoon asked. 

A shuddering sigh escaped Spider. Otter moved to grab his chin in an aborted movement– a nervous tic. Nohara Kanae, who had been silent this entire time, holding on to the largest piece of Rabbit’s shattered mask, clutched onto the broken porcelain so hard it drew blood. 

Everyone knew what a teleportation jutsu meant.

The Hiraishin had died with Minato-sensei. 

If however this enemy had kidnapped Rabbit, for whatever reason– 

Information, his mind nags at him. Nothing else makes sense. Rabbit knew something she shouldn’t have. 

A kekkei-genkai? A modified version of the Hiraishin itself? An entirely new jutsu?

This threat was entirely more serious than they’d thought. 

*

Chapter Text

**

Kanae, as she was prone to do, walked Asuka down to the main gate. 

“You don’t have to keep doing this, you know,” he said. 

It was early morning, hours before the gray light of dawn would come. The village was silent, and the sound of their footsteps against the dirt path was the only noise that could be heard. 

“I have to,” Kanae replied. 

“It’s embarrassing.” His protests were half-hearted. 

Waiting there already were two other chuunin that Asuka had occasionally seen around the mission office – Izumo and Kotetsu, he thought their names were – and a man wearing a bandana that had to be their team captain. Before Asuka could greet his team, Kanae put a hand on his shoulder. Then she pulled him to her chest and crushed him with a hug. 

“Come back to me, alright Asuka-chan?”

“I will, Baa-chan.”

The jounin captain rolled a senbon around in his mouth, the edges of his lips quirked up wryly. One of the other chuunin snorted. Asuka felt his face flush. “She worries a bit. I’m perfectly competent.” 

“I think it’s adorable,” cooed Kotetsu, and Asuka distinctly got the impression he was being mocked, “Grandma sending her deadly little baby off to her first A-rank.”

“This isn’t my first A-rank.” Asuka grumbled.

“Now that we’re all here, we should be heading out,” said the jounin captain.

“Yes, sir!”

They took off towards the trees.

Everything had been explained in the mission scroll. They were headed to Iwagakure to rendez-vous with a spy that had information on some major Iwa military plans, as well as forbidden jutsu. It seemed fishy, but Asuka was assured that this particular spy had been feeding them intelligence since the end of the Third Shinobi war. They were to meet up at a tea house in a town just outside of Iwagakure’s borders. 

Chapter Text

“Here’s the plan,” the jounin, Genma, said. “We have a pass code with this particular spy to ensure that he hasn’t been compromised. It’s essential we slip it naturally into a conversation so we can tell if it’s really him, due to the sensitivity of this mission. I’ll take the lead; the info will be in a scroll. The three of you will transform into unassuming customers and secure the perimeter while I make the exchange with our spy.”

Asuka nodded an affirmative. So did the other two chuunin.

Get the information and get out. Sounded easy enough. 

Though he had to wonder why this wasn’t a solo mission, why Genma-san required so much back-up…

(Kanae would’ve never let him set foot out of the gates if she had known Asuka could be in so much as a hint of danger…)

Asuka chose to hold his tongue. 

All he was here was a shield to his comrade. Someone who could help provide an opportunity for success of the mission if their captain fell. Asuka figured in one way or another, everyone was everyone else’s tool. 

He was fine with that. 

He’d rather die here than wasting away in the village. At least, here, he would be able to say that he had accomplished something–however minuscule– during his life. At least, here, he felt, rather ironically, quite alive.

*

This mission, to put it kindly, was a fucking disaster. 

Their squad had entered the tea house in disguises. Staggered, so not to be suspicious. Genma, transformed as a graying old man, met their spy as planned. They were transformed to look like an elderly lady.

From an outsider’s point of view, it had looked like a violent fight that surely spelled divorce began to transpire. Team Shiranui knew that they had been betrayed and their spy compromised.

(They weren’t the only ones transformed in the tea house. Hilariously, it appeared that every single patron was a shinobi– either Iwa or Konoha– in henge.)

A brawl broke out. Chairs were thrown. Tea cups were shattered. The floor became ruined through the penetration of earth shield jutsu and flashy water jutsu. The tea house’s rice paper walls caught ablaze with a badly aimed fireball jutsu. 

And in the pandemonium of the ensuing scuffle, the betrayer dressed as the old lady made his escape through a hole in the roof. 

It took Asuka a sum total of half a second to think “fuck it”, and propel himself through the hole after him. 

*

The fight between them was a rather short one. 

The spy, being an Iwa-nin, tried to use the rocky surroundings to his advantage, and created mountains as shields and turned packed earth beneath their feet into ravenous quicksand. Asuka, a lightning nature shinobi, deftly changed the nature of the chakra he pumped into his feet.

Walls crumbled into dust. The ground hissed with black smoke. 

The spy screamed in pain as Asuka’s enhanced kick connected with his ribs.

*

Dumb luck. That’s all it really was. 

Dumb fucking luck. That’s all any of this shit ever was. 

“Why did you betray Konoha?”

“Betray Konoha?!” an abrupt bark of insulted laughter shot from the man’s throat. “How can I betray somewhere I was never loyal to?” 

The spy was bound to a tree with ninja wire. Asuka had rigged a trap so that with the slightest hint of movement, explosive tags woven through the wire would go off. The man’s eyes were venomous.

“Okay,” Asuka said, cocking his head, “Why Iwa though?” 

“ What do you mean–” 

“Why Iwa? What caused you to defect? I’m curious.”

The spy glared at him, the man’s nose scrunched up and his mustache flattened out like a bow wrapped far too tightly on a present. 

“The ‘why’ doesn’t matter, brat-!”

“It does, though,” Asuka cut him off. “If there’s something you hate so viscerally about the village that it caused you to defect, I feel like we ought to know it. The branches of even the greatest tree still need to be pruned once in a while, hmm?” 

“Konoha isn’t a great tree of any sort! It’s a stump infected by termites–rotten to the very core!” the spy snarled. 

“Yeah, but why, though? And why Iwa? You remember the third war, don’t you?” 

“I remember my sister,” the spy said. “The whole clan mourned her disappearance. We thought she was dead– it’s been eight years! I’ve been undercover since before the start of the Third Shinobi war.” here, he scoffed. “I’m so deep into my cover I can’t even remember the way the streets of the village look. A few months ago I heard something from one of my contacts. About a sort of shadow ANBU that do the jobs too vile even for regular ANBU. They don’t report to the Hokage, but to that crusty old war hawk, Shimura Danzou.” 

“What? How would that even operate without the Hokage’s direct approval?”

The spy’s thin lips twist into a cruel, birdlike smile. “He is aware of this organization. ROOT, it’s called. He doesn’t give a fuck what it does as long as it’s out of his sight– even if that’s vile shit like kidnapping clan children and indoctrinating them to become heartless murder machines!” 

…

Seconds passed.

That… was a lot to take in.

Asuka opened his mouth, and shut it, just as a kunai flew lodged itself in the spy’s throat. A flash, then he was covered in bright red human detritus.

“Good job on securing the traitor, Nohara-kun,” said the captain. He looked a little worse for wear. His bandana was singed at the edges and he was covered in mud. Izumo and Kotetsu were bloodied but not as bloodied as Asuka himself. They too were muddy. Kotetsu had many small splinters sticking out of random places in his hair.

Stupid, moronic, impossible luck. 

*

The spy’s betrayal had undoubtedly upgraded the mission’s rank due to the fear of leaked information getting into the wrong hands. The peace they had been enjoying for the past six years was still relatively unstable. 

“Taichou.” 

Genma let Izumo and Kotetsu take the lead in setting the pace in their run back to the village. 

"What is it, Nohara-kun?"

“Have you ever heard of an organization called ROOT?”

*

Officially, Nohara Asuka remained listed as a chuunin. All official records stated that Nohara Asuka went on C-ranks, B-ranks, and the occasional A-rank, and that he was frequently out of the village due to being a highly popular shinobi to request for courier missions. 

Unofficially, he joined ANBU Spider’s classified capture and interrogation squad.

Sure, the ANBU were an open secret.

Some ANBU’s identities were known by the rest of the village. This wasn’t a problem for these particular individuals, as they were so deadly it didn’t matter if kill squads were sent after them. 

But ANBU was primarily an organization focused on Espionage. 

That suited Asuka just fine.

He had never had a problem with lying to Kanae before.

It was stupid luck he’d bumbled his way into somewhere he could be useful for the village and make something out of himself… whatever he was. Whoever he was.

Rabbit, they called him. Monotonously, authoritatively. 

Rabbit. 

Asuka-chan, dolefully called out to him in the saccharine voice Kanae always used when she saw ghosts, she was useless. She could only help Kanae with the laundry, the garden. She had a curfew at seven. She always brought her grandmother hot lemon tea when she’d collapse at the dinner table in the witching hours of the night with that empty look on her face. 

Rabbit, who’s pulse beat rapidly when he dodged shuriken rigged with explosives whizzing past his head. Rabbit, who often had the rotten scent of blood drying somewhere odd in the inside of his mask. Rabbit, who during his first month, had one of the highest success rates of any ANBU at extracting information from their targets.

**

In some cultures, the foot of a rabbit is considered a lucky token. 

Asuka felt like a rabbit with its leg caught in a trap.

Another instance, he thought, glaring at his captor, where everything happened not because of a reason, but because of dumb fucking luck.

Chapter Text

Asuka was getting really tired of this whole “waking up disoriented and unsure where he was” thing.

He was propped up in a wicker chair in a room with an ocean view. The patio doors were open. The sheer white curtains in front of them fluttered. He immediately went for his cigarettes, a comforting weight hidden up his yukata sleeve. 

In their place, Asuka found a box of plain candy sticks. 

…

“Give that to me, Asuka! Those things’ll cause your death!”

“Baaaaa-chaaan, Baaaa-chaaaan! It was just one time!”

“Then you should have no problem handing the whole carton over, humph!”

He stood up and walked towards the balcony.

Outside, there was a foggy mist so thick that he could hardly tell if it was late at night or very early in the day. 

“What the fuck,” Asuka said, not for the first time. 

The rest of the room was extremely nice. And not in a cave. 

He wasn’t sure if that was comforting or alarming. 

In the middle of the room were half-opened paper doors separating a master bedroom from the rest of the room. He could see that behind them lay a single neatly made futon with a note atop it. 

He turned around and went into the room, then picked up the note. 

It read: 

“ Dear Nohara-chan,

Tobi had to go out to meet with an important man but he’ll be back later. So don’t worry a bit!”

“Who the fuck is Tobi?” Asuka said aloud. He then went back to reading the note.

“Tobi left you some snacks on the table. But don’t eat all of them. Tobi doesn’t want you to ruin your dinner!  

(Here, there was a drawing of a masked stick figure wagging its finger] .”

“Is...Is he referring to himself in the third person?”

He looked over at the coffee table. Indeed, it held a treasure trove of sugary treats: freshly made mochi, dango, anmitsu. There was also takoyaki and fried squid that was still steaming – his captor had probably gone and acquired these recently. 

Asuka was no stranger to bribery. 

Kanae, desperate in her attempts to win back his affection during his exile from the Academy, frequently spoiled him. Asuka lavished in the attention until he realized that by doing so, he was losing ground in their moral battle. So, he disengaged.

Asuka really, really liked anmitsu. Like a lot. 

Like an unhealthy amount. 

Like to the point where he went an entire month surviving on the stuff exclusively.

And the takoyaki smelled so good.

…

Asuka threw the pile of treats out the window.

*

Have I been underneath the fucking Bloody Mist village this entire time? Asuka wondered, dismayed. 

It appeared so. 

Immediately after tossing the food off the balcony ledge, something occurred to Asuka.

“What the hell am I still doing here?”

Then he jumped off the balcony himself. 

He had no weapons, only the clothes on his back; which happened to be that bloodied white yukata he’d been wearing since his…surgery. Blech.

Whatever. That was fine. Asuka himself was a deadly weapon who knew how to kill seven different ways with a teacup alone . 

It was early morning, just before dawn. The streets were abandoned. The white fog was so thick he could hardly see past a few feet. The gray, blocky buildings were run down, windows were boarded up and there was a suspiciously high amount of dark stains on the cobblestone streets. 

Asuka quickly ducked into the one alleyway around that didn’t seem to already be occupied by either corpses or…those were presumably guerrilla fighters… and summoned Natsuki.

“Asuka-kun! I was so worried about– Are we in Kiri?!”

“It’s a long story and I don’t have time to explain but, uh, can you help me?”

“Any time,” the rabbit replied. “What do you need?”

Asuka grimaced, “A map.”

*

Desperate times call for desperate measures. 

Asuka asked Natsuki to retrieve some money for him, and thus, he used his funds to enter a seedy bar and buy the clothes off of a drunk. Said drunk thought the entire encounter was hysterical and was subsequently cut off by the bartender.

He scoped out as much of the village as he could from the rooftops for a few hours, then had to transform into a bird and hide to avoid some of the fighting that had started up again once dawn broke. 

Half of Kiri was a charred crater from all of the fighting. Most of the civilians, Asuka found out through listening to hushed whispers, hid in the hills outside of the village or in the sewers. Kiri also had a serious problem of looting and grave robbing, on both sides. And a massive wealth disparity, as most of the civil war was fought in the shinobi and poor civilian districts down by the wharfs. 

The wealthier districts, like the merchant district where the fat cats lived or the Red Lotus district – whatever that was – remained unscarred and untouched. Allegedly, whoever was winning at the time had control over the Red Lotus district, and it was Karatachi and his loyalists, currently. 

He’d heard whispers that Karatachi Yagura, dictator supreme himself, was actually going to come out and address his followers sometime that afternoon. 

The way the kunoichi in the alley below had phrased it made it seem like the man routinely stayed up in his ivory tower barking orders while everyone else bled out for his ceaseless and worthless, bloody civil war. She sounded shocked that this was occuring. 

Asuka simply had to see it.

After all, Karatachi Yagara and his bloody damn civil war was what had gotten Asuka into this mess in the first place. 

It was only fair that he paid Yagura-sama a visit. 

(A voice, deep in the pitch-black excesses of Asuka’s mind, sounding suspiciously like Natsuki, cried out: “What’re you doing?! NO!!!! Run! Run, Asuka-kun, get out of here and never come back!”

Naturally, he ignored it in favor of sweet, sweet revenge.)