Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Sound of Silence ❯ Eight Empty Graves ( One-Shot )

Diz-nam! I'm once again going against my no-angst policy, and that makes my heart hurt. Because angst is annoying. Oh well, I wrote this for me, and not anybody else. This was just another one of those things I had to do, and maybe I'll feel better now that it's out of the way. It's not perfect, but it's still all right, I guess.

 

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???

Kaguya Kimimaro

Dosu Kinuta

Zaku Abumi

Kin Tsuchi

Jiroubou

Kidoumaru

Tayuya

Sakon

Ukon

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Being a doctor was a funny thing.

No matter how many people he killed or how easy it was to do so, Kabuto still maintained a strange respect for life. Somehow, he simply couldn't brush off the significance of a life ending, couldn't forget the absolute finality of death.

He supposed that was what compelled him to make the memorial. The one to those who died for the sake of Orochimaru-sama's ambition; those who had no family or loved ones to mourn them.

They didn't have graves, any of them; their bodies left neglected to rot where they lay.

Well, except for That Girl, who had died specifically for the use of her body, and Dosu, who didn't really leave one behind.

Dosu had disappeared a few nights before the last test of the chuunin exam, and all they could find in his wake was a large bloodstain on a roof.

By the time Kabuto had confirmed that the mess had, in fact, once been Dosu, Zaku and Kin had started wondering why he had been gone so long and where he could be at such an important time.

It was also around then that Orochimaru-sama decided that the pair would be more useful dead.

The only reason they had been in town at all was to watch the rest of the exam; they wanted to see their comrade's fights, cheer him on.

Those three… They hadn't been bad kids, really.

Actually, neither was Jiroubou, come to think of it. He had only started working for Orochimaru-sama because he hadn't had any better options. It was simply a matter of not having anywhere to go.

Tayuya on the other hand, she knew what she wanted and that was power. Kidoumaru hadn't been much different; came straight to Orochimaru-sama because he had it.

Well, power they got, but apparently not enough to keep them alive.

You know, it was funny that they had been called the Sound Four, as the actual number of them had been so ambiguous.

First of all, there was the fact that quite generally; no one knew whether to count Sakon and Ukon as two people, what with them sharing a body. Hell, Kabuto had trouble deciding exactly how to put them on the memorial; everyone had allways referred to them as either Sakon/Ukon or left the older brother out entirely. Eventually, though, Kabuto decided that they were separate entities and should be treated as such.

On the note of being separate, there was also Kimimaro. He had made the Sound Four the Sound Five… Even though technically they should have been the Sound Six. How ridiculously complicated…

Oh well, it doesn't matter anymore, the whole lot of them are dead.

…And all six of them died for the sole purpose of getting Uchiha Sasuke here. All six.

Kabuto bet that if the Four (Five?) knew they'd all cack, there's no way they would have bothered. Was getting that little punk across the border really worth four (five?) lives?

As for Kimimaro, though… He went knowing full well that he wouldn't survive. He gave everything he had and then some to Orochimaru-sama… And Kabuto couldn't for the life of him figure out why anyone would be so ridiculously devoted to him. That man was clearly insane, and not to mention the whole `embodiment of evil' thing.

But maybe Kimimaro had been the type who needed something to believe in, something to devote his whole being to, something to give him a purpose; even if it was completely and utterly wrong. Just so long as it gave him a reason to be.

But… Living just to be someone else's body sounds like a pretty lousy existence.

Lousy… Existence…

Oh, lord, what had her name been? That was so long ago, Orochimaru-sama had that body for years…

But, Kabuto could still vaguely remember her, Orochimaru-sama's first vessel.

Mainly, he knew that she had some sort of valuable bloodline limit, and while she hadn't exactly been enthusiastic about the situation, she did seem to appreciate the fact that for once, her body was being used out for a purpose that wasn't sexual.

He also remembered that in the entire time he knew her, Kabuto had never once seen that girl smile.

He wanted to put her on the memorial, but he didn't remember her name, and putting `That Whore Whose Body Orochimaru Stole' seemed pretty disrespectful… `Whats-her-face' wasn't a whole lot better…

And also, if everything went the way it was supposed to, Kabuto would be putting Sasuke's name on there soon as well.