Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Scarlet ❯ Traitor ( Chapter 8 )

{OoO}---SCARLET---{OoO}

 

{OoO}---{OoO}---Chapter 8: Traitor---{OoO}---{OoO}

 

What I had learned from the Stone interrogator was that the Rokubi's previous host had died. More specifically, she was killed. She rebelled against her clan. Gone power-drunk and crazed, she attacked her own Village. She willingly broke the seal that bound the Rokubi inside her, willingly commit massacre. And they put her down like an animal. It was a public execution, and they tortured her before they took the Rokubi out of her and transferred it to a new host. I'm sure there were children watching. That is the shinobi way.

 

The new host was an old man. They called him the Serpent Sage. He lived in a hermitage in the mountains to the west of Iwakagure, completely alone. This wasn't because the Stone hated him. They tried to send servants to him to care for him, but he sent every single one away. I wondered if he hated the Village for making him the new host. Shinobi like to ruthlessly sacrifice their own, then glorify the ruined ones as martyrs, so no doubt he was bitter and wanted to be left alone to his fate.

 

Like me, I suppose. Except I had ruined ones of my own. My martyrs, who followed me like ghosts.

 

I kept to the narrow, winding trail we were taking into the mountains, and did not look back at the ghosts that dogged my heels.

 

Orochimaru and Souen were more sure-footed than I, having been starved but not beaten during our imprisonment. They scouted ahead of me where the trail forked in two directions.

 

Souen returned first, when the shadows were grey and long and the sun a fiery blaze rimming the peaks. The wind was freezing, and she had to have been chilled to the bone but gave no sign of it. I'd noticed by now that no matter what the weather her skin stayed that same, porcelain pale. My nose and cheeks were chapped and red, but she was colorless as a corpse.

 

“There's a valley to the south,” she told me, barely audible as the wind wailed through the canyons. “He saw me. He knows we're here.”

 

No surprise. Shinobi aren't called “Sage” without reason. I nodded. “What is his reaction?” Obviously he hadn't chased her or we'd be dodging cobra venom, or whatever a “Serpent Sage” threw at interlopers.

 

She looked puzzled—or as puzzled as Souen could look, which meant her brown eyes widened. “He called to me. Motioned for me to come, and pointed toward his home.”

 

“He thinks you're alone,” I said. “We'll take him by surprise.”

 

Orochimaru came sauntering down the trail from the other direction. He never did like to run; he must've thought it showed he wasn't in control of the situation. Smirking for no real reason, he joined us and we formed a plan for Souen to lure the old man out again while the two of us come at him from either side from behind, cutting him off from the hermitage walls. If you're going to capture someone, avoid letting them choose the battle ground.

 

We split up and took our positions—Orochimaru and I on either side of the valley, and Souen out in the open on the trail. The hermitage wasn't truly in the valley, but on a plateau surrounded on all sides by deep canyon. Unlike the barren, rocky country east of the mountains, the plateau was ribbed with rice paddies, an emerald in the rough. There was a distinctly green smell rising from it, which reminded me of home. Of Konoha.

 

I shook my head. My ghosts dispersed.

 

Souen was making her way toward the edge of the trail, and across the canyon the old man was coming out to meet her. He was hunchbacked, and frail-looking. His head was shaved like a monk's, and he wore dark red robes like a monk's. He carried a staff made of wood as twisted as his body.

 

And the valley was filled with his chakra, like a cauldron about to overflow.

 

He stopped at the edge of the plateau, and did not call out to Souen, but turned to face me. He saw me; I'm sure of it. Which was impossible, because I also learned from the Stone that he was blind.

 

Then he turned and looked directly at Orochimaru in his eyrie. Or, at least, I assume he did, because Orochimaru emerged from the shadows of the cliff and stood staring down at him. The Sannin knew he'd been spotted, and saw no point in hiding. I followed suit.

 

Once we had stepped into view, the old man turned back to Souen, and I became privy to a magnificent sight. From the depths of the deep canyon that wound round the hermitage, there rose the head of a behemoth serpent, colored purple to match the twilight shadows. Enormous black eyes transfixed Souen as the triangular head stretched across the divide and came to rest on the trail at her feet. After a moment's hesitation, she climbed onto the head, and was carried to the other side and set down before the Serpent Sage.

 

The old man lifted his head, and shouted. His voice filled the valley. It was rough, terrible, like thunder. Small stones trembled at my feet. I realized then that he was a true Sage of the earth, and that his chakra had merged with the valley so that every grain of sand echoed his voice.

 

“SHINOBI, YOU WHO COME TO TAKE THE BEAST INSIDE ME, WHO COME TO KILL ME. WELCOME. I AM READY TO EMBRACE THE PEACE OF DEATH. AND I WILL DO SO WITHOUT A FIGHT, FOR WHERE IS THE PEACE IN THAT? I ASK ONLY THAT YOU COME DOWN TO ME, AND SPEND ONE NIGHT HERE. FOR BEFORE I GO, I LONG TO HEAR HUMAN VOICES, THAT I MIGHT NOT PASS ALONE.”

 

Any shinobi worth his salt would have disbelieved that in a heartbeat. But we did not. Not a one of us. Had he wanted to, he could have killed us before we even knew he was aware of our presence. Instead he asked for death. The mighty serpent's head swung toward its master, and in the narrowing of its dark eyes I read alarm and disapproval, even grief. Even Orochimaru, who trusts no one, began descending the slope opposite me. The snake held its master's gaze for a moment, then swung toward me. I climbed onto it, and as I did so the black eyes rolled upward to glare at me. But it obeyed its master, and soon both Orochimaru and I stood on the plateau, unscathed.

 

“Welcome,” the Sage repeated, at normal volume. His voice was feeble when not magnified. “You must be tired, and hungry. I will give you shelter for the night.”

 

“And in the morning we leave for the Water Country,” I said firmly. “We will not be dissuaded by anything that is given to us, or said tonight.” I was warning him not to expect compassion. Orochimaru had none, and I was too afraid of my own. And Souen…who knew what she was thinking, with her blank face and hopeless eyes.

 

The old man nodded assent, but there was something in his silence that felt like he was assessing me. Singling me out. For what, I couldn't guess.

 

He led us into the quiet halls of his home, carved with raw chakra from the plateau stones and clean as any temple attended by fifty monks. I could see faint impressions of broom-strokes in what little dust there was; he must have swept his halls every day. There were no lanterns in the place, but when at last we entered his main room there was a large square fireplace built into the floor, over which there hung several copper kettles suspended by chain pulleys. They were steaming, and I smelled miso, green tea and cabbage all at once.

 

The room was bare but well-carpeted with tatami mats and warm. The old man seemed to know his way around without trouble; he motioned for us to take our fill with the clay bowls on the hearth-stones, while he pulled down the tea kettle and whisked in more leaves with his small wire brush.

 

Orochimaru ate with zeal. Souen merely pushed her food around. I ate slowly, watching the old man.

 

“In exchange for the meal, please tell me your stories,” he told us. “First you, the snake charmer.”

 

Orochimaru almost spit out a mouthful of cabbage. Then he recovered himself and swallowed, eyes gleaming. “Snake charmer. I like that. And I respect your abilities, so I'll tell you my story. But I warn you it has no end, for I intend to live forever.”

 

“Why?” The Sage tilted his head inquisitively, owlish.

 

“To learn all that there is to learn.”

 

“We know everything the instant we're born. Then we spend a lifetime growing more foolish while further convincing ourselves we're wise. What you're after can't really be called knowledge.”

 

Orochimaru smirked. “Power, then.”

 

The Sage grunted. “How dull. But you may yet do something worthwhile with your power, so when I pass I will let you inherit Raiga's contract.”

 

He must truly have been blind; Orochimaru was never going to amount to anything.

 

The Sannin, who had probably been about to launch into a grandiose tale of his grotesque experiments and dreams of conquest, shut his mouth for once.

 

“And you, young woman.”

 

Souen flinched, and her spoon clattered into her bowl. “Nothing grand. And like Orochimaru's there is no end. There will never be an end.” The note of anguish in her tone surprised me.

 

“Nothing lasts forever,” the old man told her gently. “I, too, had feared no end. But now you are here.”

 

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. The fire popped and spit sparks.

 

“Once upon a time, there was a princess,” Souen said, “and a shinobi, who loved her.”

 

Orochimaru rolled his eyes. I didn't.

 

“She was very proud. So proud, she treated her ninja guardian like a pet. But her guardian was faithful, and loved her anyway. The princess was kept sequestered in the women's quarters because her father was a strict and hard man. She was bored. She was supposed to learn the womanly arts of flower arranging and calligraphy and poetry and the tea ceremony. She begged her guardian to teach her to use kunai and katana and poisons and antidotes. She became a shinobi herself, in her own right. And in exchange, she became the shinobi's lover.” Souen's eyes shimmered with tears, like a hundred-year-old glass window weeping down itself. But if she had real tears to cry, she held them back.

 

“But a princess and a shinobi are not equal. Shinobi cannot be allowed to see themselves as equal to those they serve, or it becomes impossible to sacrifice their lives for those they protect. And the princess was too proud to believe herself equal to her lover. So it was a wretched, one-sided love.

 

“Her father found out about the secret affair one day when the princess was sixteen, and he was keen to marry her off to a prince of the Lightning Country. He beat her, and threw her guardian in prison. The next morning, both were gone, and the king was found dead. Poisoned.

 

“The princess had done it. Then she demanded her guardian take her into exile, to hide. But when the queen hired an army of ninja to hunt them down, it was the shinobi who was punished. Though strong, while protecting the princess her guardian could not win. This display of true devotion was rewarded with torture, and being left for dead in the wilderness.

 

“The princess never found out where. But she was married to the Lightning prince. And the shinobi, whose body was battered and broken beyond repair, was taken in by Akatsuki.”

 

Souen's eyes were the most alive I had ever seen them. I understood, now, her hopelessness. And that she was, like me, walking the tortured path between vengeance and love. Only I could not yet tell who the true monsters were in my tale—myself, or the ones who ordered me to commit murder.

 

“Pein healed you?” Orochimaru peered at Souen shrewdly. “I'd thought none of us were medic-nin. I am the closest to the type.”

 

“Yes,” she replied. Her eyes were blank again. Carefully so, I thought.

 

Orochimaru seemed keen on pressing the matter, but the Sage interrupted him. “There is one thing, young woman, that gives meaning to life, and that is love.”

 

“If I had died in the wilderness, I would have died still loving her,” Souen said numbly. “But I lived. And learned that she became a great lady of the Kaminari, and truly loved her king, and bore him children. There is no justice in this world; only suffering. The best we can hope for is to rise to the pinnacle of power, to escape being trod upon.”

 

“Straight from Pein's mouth, isn't that?” Orochimaru looked thoughtful, rubbing his pointed chin with spidery fingers. “Not to say I don't agree, of course. But if you're going to believe something you should at least use your own words to say so.”

 

“Perhaps,” the Sage said slowly, “your long life is no curse, but a chance. To find meaning again.”

 

Souen blinked. And went back to pushing her food round her bowl.

 

“And you.” The old man didn't turn toward me, but his tone deepened, and a frown creased his brow. How strange, to think that I unnerved him more than Orochimaru's god complex. “What shadows are those that follow you?”

 

It was my turn to flinch. “What shadows do you see?”

 

The old man scowled, waving his hand as if to swat away something irritating. “I'm blind, fool. And I don't claim to see spirits or tell futures. I merely assume you're one haunted by things you've seen or done, because you're the brooding one. You don't seem quick to brag about those you've slain, nor proud of whatever has driven you to this place and time. So you must have shadows. Regrets. Nightmares.”

 

He was right. And I couldn't hate him for it, because he saw me clearly for all his blindness. And because the hatred I had once felt for everyone and everything around me was slipping through my fingers, day by day, like grains of sand.

 

“You're quite mistaken,” I told him calmly. “I killed my clan to reach the height of my potential.”

 

“And did you?” He seemed genuinely interested.

 

I wanted very much, for some reason, to tell him the truth right then. But doing so would make me appear weak in front of Orochimaru, whom I sensed was awaiting the chance to kill me. Or worse. “I, too, still quest for learning everything there is to learn,” I answered.

 

He nodded, but he seemed disappointed.

 

{OoO} {OoO} {OoO}

 

That night, he took Orochimaru outside and transferred the great serpent Raiga's contract.

 

That night, when the moon had set and the stars burned clear in the vast sky, the old man woke me and bid me walk with him.

 

“You lied, before,” he said. We wandered the edge of the plateau, on the stone rims of the rice paddies. The stars lit our way.

 

“Yes. I don't trust my companions.”

 

“The snake charmer.” He smiled. His smile was cracked and creviced as the cliffs around us. “Trust that he will betray you. There are many like him, each one nothing new. But I gave him Raiga to make him strong. Long after I'm gone, when he betrays you, he will become a force to stand against this `Akatsuki'.”

 

I smiled, in spite of myself. The expression felt sane and unfamiliar. “You believe your death better serves your cause, don't you?”

 

“In part,” the old man agreed. “But I wish to die. I've born many burdens in my life, but the Rokubi sealed within me is the worst. Because I am a Sage, my control over the beast is…staggering. That is why I chose to leave Iwagakure. Such power is not a tool. It should never have been harnessed as a tool.”

 

“Akatsuki will use it as a tool,” I said pointedly. “Do you hate your clan so much you would rather give the Rokubi to us?”

 

He paused, tapping the earth with his staff to keep his footing. “Yes, I hate them,” he said calmly. “I am only human, after all.”

 

Something in my heart began to hurt. Ghosts whispered on the breeze. “But you loved them.”

 

“Yes, that too. And blind though I am, I see the rise of your Red Cloud uniting this divided world to stand against you. In the end, there will be peace. For us all. For now, let the snake charmer become a thorn in your side.”

 

From the depths of the canyon, I felt Raiga watching us. How he must have cursed his fate, that night, knowing he was to be given to a creature as foul as Orochimaru. And how he must have l

 

“You've learned so much about my companion, from just tonight?” I asked.

 

“I am a friend of the Frog Sage,” the old man replied. “Who knew your snake charmer from boyhood. Who was betrayed by him time and time again.”

 

“Jiraiya-sama,” I murmured.

“You don't have to do this! Itachi!”

“For the good of the Leaf…”

I rubbed my temples. That was the voice I'd heard. Jiraiya's. Telling me I didn't have to slaughter the Uchiha. And I, saying I must, had bowed to the will of Konoha's elders because they feared the Uchiha's power. Had he been there, in that secret council, where they ordered the massacre? Or was this all in my head, my troubled mind trying to rationalize the great crime I'd committed by blaming others?

 

My brother's voice and Shisui's, asking Why? Why? Why?

 

I groaned, stumbled. The Sage caught my arm. “Something haunts you. Who is Jiraiya to you?”

 

“I don't know.” But I wanted to. If I could only find out what was happening to me from someone outside my dreams…

 

“You're ill.” The old man laid a cool, leathery palm on my forehead.

 

I shook my head, straightened. Pulled myself together. Tried to banish the pounding in my skull. It was true, my stomach had begun to pain me a few days ago. I might be ill. Could the torment of memories become a disease?

“I have given them back to you because you are dying. And because you ought to remember the face of your killer.”

Tobi had warned me in my dream…or was it a memory? Who was my killer? Jiraiya? Pein? Tobi himself?

 

“You should sleep,” the Sage said kindly. We had returned to the hermitage walls.

 

He pressed a small scroll into my hand, and gently closed my fingers around it. “Take this. It is for Jiraiya.”

 

I took it.

 

{OoO} {OoO} {OoO}

 

In the morning, when we woke, the sun flared above the mountains in an angry red line. And the Sage lay dead on the open plateau. Beside him stood Souen, who had slit his throat.

 

Orochimaru swore loudly. Cursed the skies and pounded the earth. Then he advanced on Souen, murder in his eyes. “You little bitch, what have you done?”

 

Her eyes were alive, and there was an air of peace about her that I would not have thought possible. “I have thwarted my master's plan to turn someone else into a tool for Akatsuki.”

 

He rushed her, ran her through.

 

She scarcely blinked.

 

“Kugutsu,” he hissed. “A puppet. You are Sasori's—”

 

“Spy,” she finished for him. “His immortal doll. I was sent to test you both. Pein questions your loyalties.”

 

“You weren't sent to kill the damned Rokubi!” Orochimaru snapped, twisting the blade and wrenching it free. He stabbed her over and over again, like a madman, trying to find her heart, the one living part of her.

 

“Stop!” I caught his arm, Sharingan flaring in my eyes. “If Pein wants our loyalties tested, killing her won't solve this.”

 

The next thing I knew, he'd turned on me, tried to sink his fangs into my neck. But it was the betrayal I'd been expecting. His teeth never broke my skin; he found himself impaled through the belly on the Sage's staff, which I had picked up. He was desperate. He knew attacking Souen had ruined his chances with Pein, and that I would never vouch for him. He was trying to kill or enslave me, to pin everything—the Rokubi's death, Souen's imminent death—on me. All to remain part of Akatsuki—or so I thought at the time.

 

He dragged himself toward me, livid and horrible, pulling the staff further through his body, gathering poisoned chakra to strike at me again with his snake fangs.

 

I caught him with the Mangekyou Sharingan.

 

I tortured him. Years of his false promises, his lies, his tormenting of an already troubled mind. I gave them all back to him then. I can't remember what I showed him; I was half-mad myself.

 

Souen's voice called me back. She laid a hand on my shoulder. “Itachi-san. The Serpent Sage believed his life would serve a purpose. He will be a thorn in Akatsuki's side. You want what I want. What he wanted. So please, stay your hand.”

 

Did I want what the old man wanted? Peace?

 

As a child I'd seen the ultimate force of destruction: a demon unleashed in the midst of a war between Villages. The most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

 

And I'd pissed myself in fear.

 

We all know, on some level, what is good and what is darkness. It is what we choose that makes us who we are.

 

“How do you know what I want?” I asked slowly. I drew a kunai with a soft hiss of steel, held it to Orochimaru's throat.

 

She lowered her arm. “Because I know why you slew your clan. I have been Sasori's spy for decades, trapped in this puppet form. And I witnessed the last meeting between you and Uchiha Madara. In the forest, the night before the slaughter, where you begged him to take your memories.” Her eyes glistened. “He sealed away your love for them so that you could protect Konoha without losing your sanity. But you are remembering.”

 

I sheathed my weapon. Left him trapped in it, standing there still as a statue, mouth twisted in a silent scream.

 

Swung my Mangekyou gaze to Souen. “Do you speak the truth? Uchiha Madara sealed my memories before I slew my clan?”

 

Her mouth fell open a little. I released my hold, just enough so that she remembered speech.

 

“He seeks to join Akatsuki, under the guise of Tobi. But he is Uchiha Madara, who took your memories and sealed away your humanity for one night. Who aided you in the slaughter.”

 

I froze. She wasn't lying. My dojutsu penetrated to the mind; her artificial body was no defense against me.

 

“I want you to kill me, Uchiha Itachi,” she said. “For you can better than any other. Do not force me to return with you to my master, who keeps me prisoner in this body.”

 

She knew I would. I was a god of death, a double-edged sword. A traitor who had killed his clan to protect his Village.

 

With my dojutsu, I could see her heart clearly in the puppet's body. I drew the kunai again, aimed it well.

 

There were tears of joy in her voice. “Take the Serpent Sage's body to them. They will forgive you the loss of the Rokubi if you blame Orochimaru, and provide them with a corpse full of the Stone Village's secrets. Also, there is a scroll in my pack. Promise me you will deliver it to the princess of the Kaminari. It is all I ask.”

 

At the time, I had no idea if her beloved, cruel princess was still alive after her decades as Sasori's spy. But I promised.

 

She smiled up at me then, for the first and last time. A young smile, that belonged on a spike-haired, brown-eyed woman who still remembered love. “You too, Uchiha Itachi. Soon you will remember, and find meaning again.”

 

I plunged the kunai downward.

 

End of Chapter 8

 

Next and final chapter: “Sasuke”.

 

P.S. If the second half of this seems like it was written by a drunk person….

 

……….it was.