Iteration

Author's note - still having problems with the new text entry - sorry!

'Iteration' is part of the space saga that began with ‘In the cold of space you find the heat of suns’ and continues in ‘Tales in Tarrasade’.  There is also a one-shot ‘Silver Leaf Tales: Tying the knot’.

Thanks to Small Fox for being my beta.  For this story he has also been my muse, suggesting a number of the ideas that have evolved to create this arc.

Thank you to those readers who have written a review and particular thanks to richon, Zakunai, Lixx, sadie237, Prism0467 and cynaga for revoewing chapter 56.

Apologies if the characters have grown differently in their new environment.

This is posted in the Naruto/Sasuke section because it is part of a Naru/Sasu/Naru space saga.  However, it does feature many other pairings (and a few threesomes).  Apologies to those who are expecting Naruto/Sasuke or Sasuke/Naruto every chapter.

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Chapter fifty-six: Death

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Haru understood about what Shi-chan called the long game and Ranmaru called patience but he wanted to go home.

He wanted to be in a nest with the others and to play with Kazuki.  He wanted Kiba-san to frown at him and tell him off.  He wanted his Papa to try to answer his questions.  Above all he wanted his To-chan.

He was fed up of pretending to be Hoshi.  He had started off pretending to be Hikaru but that only worked for being stubborn and refusing to give in.  Once he had to be nice to people it was easier to be Hoshi because Hoshi always said the right thing to the right person.  He treated Konan the way Hoshi treated Papa, but without the hugs.

He was determined to learn something useful today.  That was the target he had set himself; to learn something new about their prison every day.

Mostly he did it by listening.  Sometimes he did it by doing an experiment.  Very occasionally he stole something.  Today he and Ranmaru were with Konan in the large garden.  He was playing ball.  Playing ball was incredibly boring but you could throw or hit a ball and then chase it.  That allowed you to go places you shouldn’t.

He waited until Konan had sent Ranmaru to fetch something.  That meant Ranmaru wouldn’t get into trouble for not looking after him properly.  He whacked the ball as hard as he could.  Amazingly, he made perfect contact and the ball sailed through the air and over the metal fence that Hana called railings.

He was meant to stay this side of the railings.

He checked on Konan, who was reading, ran to the railings and squeezed through.

As soon as he went five steps from the fence he knew he was in trouble.  He might not know much about plants but normal grass did not react when you stepped on it.  He did not know there were plants that turned and looked at you; not that they had any eyes.

He was thinking it was neat when the first dart hit him and what he had thought was a creeper wrapped around his ankle.

He screamed.

More darts hit him.  Each one hurt when it hit and hurt even more afterward.  He tried pulling one out but that was worse.  His feet were pulled out from under him and he fell heavily.  Something was pulling him towards where the plants were denser.

Then there was snarling and growling.  For a moment it was like a miracle; Kiba-san was there to save him.  Only it wasn’t Kiba-san, it was Hana.  She sliced away the creeper, gathered him up and ran towards the fence.

They went through a gap that hadn’t been there before; Hana had bent the railings to get to him.

“This is going to hurt, little one,” she told him, “but the needles have to come out before they kill you.”

She did not stop running and it did hurt, a lot, each time she pulled out one of the darts; they ripped his skin.

Then he couldn’t see properly and it stopped hurting.  It felt good but Haru realised it wasn’t.  Then it was like he was falling down a hole with black sides.

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Konan could understand why Shikamaru was angry but the ferocity of it surprised her.  It was a side of him that she had not imagined existed.

“You don’t tell a child not to go beyond a line,” he shouted.  “You tell him why.  You tell him that there is a lethal security system that will kill him.  Or at least you make a fence he cannot get through.”

“That was an oversight,” she admitted.

“An oversight!” he yelled.  “You almost killed him because of an oversight!”

Hana growled at him.  He ignored her, which was as astonishing as it was unwise.

“He is alive,” Konan reminded him.  “He will be fine.  That is partly thanks to Hana, who risked her life to save him.  He also appears to have an amazingly robust constitution.”

Shikamaru took a few deep breaths.  He turned to Hana.  “Thank you, Hana-san.”

For once neither of them reprimanded him for the inappropriate honorific.

“He has nanobots,” Shikamaru told them.  “They probably neutralised the poison and they will speed up the healing process.”  He sat down beside the bed and stroked Haru’s hair.  “You did not leave him in the tank.”

“We do not have tanks,” she told him.

“No tanks?” he queried.  “How do you know that there isn’t any brain damage or internal injuries?” he demanded.

“We don’t,” she admitted.  “Other people who survived the poison made a full recovery,” she added.

“But none of them were children,” Shikamaru stated.  His dark eyes bored into her.  It was disconcerting.

“None of them were children,” she confirmed.

He sat quietly beside the bed.  The only movement was his hand on the child’s hair.  When he turned to her the anger and the intensity were gone or buried. 

“May I sit with him a little longer, Konan-san?” he asked.

She nodded and indicated that Hana should stay with him and watch him.

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Shikamaru had almost lost it when he realised how close to death Haru had been.  Luckily he managed to maintain some control, so he did not say things that would obliterate any possibility that Konan would ever trust him.

They could not stay here.  There were no dia-docs, no tanks and no way of servicing Haru’s nanobots.  Added to that, this environment was far more dangerous than that on the Oak or the household in Tarrasade.  The acceptable limits of the long game had shortened.

At least they now knew that escape through the surrounding forest would be challenging.  Once Haru was better they would talk about what he had seen.

“He will recover, Shikamaru-san,” Hana reassured him.  “There may be scars where the needles hit him but none of those were in his face, his hands or his eyes.”

It was the first time she had initiated a conversation with him.

“I expect you are correct, Hana-san,” he replied.

“Just Hana.  It would be easier for me if you did not call me Hana-san.  Konan-sama will tolerate your eccentricity on this issue but Pein-sama will not.  A print other than Ranmaru might report to him.  If so, I would be more likely to bear the consequences than you.”

Shikamaru paused as if considering.  “Very well.  Hana it is.  As long as you know I think that this business of hybrids or prints being inferior is ridiculous.”

She stiffened slightly.  “Hybrids, prints and golems do not have souls,” she told him.

He looked at her.  “Believe me, Hana, if I have a soul then Naruto has one too.”

She blinked at him.  “What is he like?  Naruto?” she asked very softly.

Shikamaru’s mind raced.  There was something about the way Hana asked the question.  She knew about Naruto and not just because Haru or Ranmaru had mentioned him.

“Special,” he admitted.  “Amazing.  Like the sun or the sea or the sky.  He is my best friend.  He is Haru’s To-chan.  He is Sasuke Uchiha’s partner and lover.”  He smiled at her.  “You would like him.  Kiba does.”

“Kiba looks after the children,” she checked.

Shikamaru frowned at her.  “Kiba is a member of the crew.  He is family.  His main responsibility is the children because there are too many of them for Naruto and Sasuke to raise them without assistance.  He likes looking after them and he helps with the other children.  He has a lover, Choza, who is another member of the crew.”

“Kiba killed Orochimaru-san,” Hana stated as if still astonished at the thought of it.

“Orochimaru was well worth killing,” Shikamaru replied.  “Shame he didn’t stay dead.”  He considered.  “Surely the current Orochimaru is a print?  Doesn’t that make him expendable?  Isn’t that the distinction?  Prints can be killed because they don’t have souls?”

“Orochimaru-san is not a member of the Akatsuki,” Hana confirmed.  “Just as the prints of Pein-sama and Konan-sama are not.”  She stood up.  “I shall sit outside, Shikamaru-san, and give you some privacy with Haru-chan.”

Shikamaru recognised that she realised that she was talking too much.  He smiled at her.  “Thank you, Hana.”

They were in their equivalent of an infirmary.  It was a rare chance to examine an unfamiliar room.  Shikamaru knew that Hana would be able to hear every movement through the door, so he used his eyes and ears.

It was depressingly like all the other rooms he had seen.  The technology was limited and free-standing; he had expected at least a computer with a reference database for diagnostic purposes.

There was a window that was unbarred and unfrosted.  It looked out onto a large garden.  He could see the railings beyond.  He suppressed a sudden surge of anger.  How could they not expect a small boy to go through such large gaps?

He calmed himself.  They had to have more technology than this.  The Zetsus must have a main laboratory.  Pein ran his whole operation from here; there had to be a communications system.  Were there mindprinting facilities?  Did they grow clones here?  Where did the spacecraft land?  Did they go through the lethal vegetation to get to it or was it within the security cordon?

There was no way they were going to let him search the place and Shikamaru had no intention of letting Haru do it; not after this.  That left Ranmaru.

Haru had asked Ranmaru why Konan and Pein trusted him.  He had explained that there had been two prints.  One, him, had retained his loyalty to Uchiha while the other’s loyalty had reverted to Konan.  Apparently this Ranmaru, the one loyal to Uchiha, had managed to change places with the other one just before he was due to be consigned to stasis.

It made sense.  It explained why they knew so much because the other Ranmaru had told them everything he could remember.  It explained why this Ranmaru appeared to be working on his and Haru’s behalf.

The other, more likely, possibility was that this Ranmaru was loyal to Konan and was going to alert her as soon as Shikamaru stepped out of line.

Shikamaru sighed.  There was no other viable option.  He would have to trust this Ranmaru.

---

Ranmaru had told Haru off thoroughly as soon as the child was well enough to listen.  He realised what Konan did not; Haru had hit the ball over the fence deliberately.

Haru responded with wide-eyed remorse that Ranmaru did not believe for a moment.  Then Haru hugged him.

“Shi-chan needs you to find out where the technology is,” Haru whispered directly into his ear.

Ranmaru had known the request was coming.  He had been putting off trying to find out he would have to interact with the other prints.  If the guards were anything to go by, they were scary.

He had seen the way they looked at Hana and even Konan.  Given that there were no other females, a small, pretty male was the next best thing.  Some of them had already made comments and a few of the bolder ones had brushed against him or pinched his buttock.

He hated the idea of it.  He wanted Konohamaru, not men who were probably only a few notches better than the crew of the Hellion.

He told himself he could do it.  He tried smiling at one of the men, who leered back and sent him scuttling away.  After that he decided he needed to observe them more carefully; at least one of them had to be nice.

Interestingly, there were suddenly more of them.  They were modifying the fence so that Haru could not squeeze between the railings.  There had been six.  Now there were twenty-four but still only six types; four sets of the six individuals.

That suggested that there were many such sets in stasis.  When Pein needed more labour, he woke as many as he needed.  It also focused Ranmaru’s attention on the servants rather than the guards.  They were Hana, him, the gardener and the cook.

Maybe he could start with the cook, who might have had a name once but was now known only as Cook.

He started by getting up earlier.  Cook had to be busy, he was feeding eighteen extra men.  Sure enough, he was trying to do ten tasks at once and accepted Ranmaru’s help without question.

“You are good at this,” he acknowledged once Ranmaru had helped with the men’s breakfast and had prepared trays for Shikamaru and Haru.  He was now clearing away the dirty dishes.

“The Ranmaru I was printed from was a member of a large spacer crew,” he explained.  “His duties included helping out in the galley.”

Cook looked at him.  “Prints don’t usually talk of themselves as prints,” he said.  “I’m a print, but I like to think of myself as me.”

“That Ranmaru died,” Ranmaru told him.  “I remember him dying.”

“So it was a net to net print,” Cook observed.  “There are more of those these days.”

Ranmaru decided to try.  Cook could always say no.  “How did you come to work for Pein-sama?” he asked.  For a moment Ranmaru thought he would refuse to answer, or evade, but then he began talking.

“I was a chef in a restaurant.  Konan-sama liked my food.  Pein-sama approached me.  He offered me a large quantity of credit for a sample of my bone marrow and the promise I would go through a second, also painful, procedure five standards later.  I thought he was crazy, but it was a lot of credit, enough to start my own restaurant.

“I never really expected him to turn up the second time but he did.  Pein-sama isn’t the type of person you say no to when you owe him.  I remember going onto his spacecraft.  They put me in a pod.  I remember it hurting.”

Ranmaru also remembered being put into a pod and it hurting.  It had been like his head was going to explode.  He had been young.  It had been after they bought him but before he met Konan-san.

“Then I had this much younger body and I was a print.”  Cook continued.  “I guess the real me went back to his restaurant.  Not sure what happened to the other five.  This house gets closed down when Pein-sama and Konan-sama aren’t here; everyone gets podded.  Maybe there are five other houses.”

Ranmaru’s mind was buzzing with what he had learnt.  He pulled himself back to the present and rewarded Cook with one of his best smiles.  “Thank you, it was kind of you to answer my question.”

Cook put out a large, calloused hand and placed it on Ranmaru’s head.  Ranmaru braced himself for the incoming emotions but they were kind; parental rather than sexual.

“You are welcome, little one.  You are really young, aren’t you?  Not an older print in a younger body?”

Ranmaru had never thought of that.  He thought about how to answer.  “I have never been older than fifteen standards,” he admitted.

Cook frowned.  Ranmaru’s answer had upset him.  “Maybe the original you is off somewhere, a happy adult with a family,” he suggested.

Ranmaru doubted that but he smiled again and finished clearing away before taking Haru his breakfast.

Next thing he knew he was standing motionless in a corridor holding Haru’s breakfast tray.  He felt odd.  He thought about it and decided that he was in shock.

They had printed him before he met Konan-san.  The Ranmaru who had lived with Konan-san and joined Uchiha, the Ranmaru who had loved Konohamaru, had always been a print.

It made sense.  Cook had said that six prints were made from the original at a time.  One of those prints had lived in the orphanage, so that the Ranmaru who was to be a spy would have a background that could be checked.  Where were the other four?  Were they off infiltrating other crews?  Had five of the six lived with prints of Konan-san?  Were they still in storage?

Were there more than six?  He only remembered one painful mindprint, but all that told him was that he was one of the first batch of six.  Were there twelve, eighteen, thirty-six, one hundred and twenty?  Did Pein plan to have battalions of empaths?

Where was the original?  Did they keep him in stasis and only wake him up to put him through the printing process again and again?

Was he still only a child?

He took a deep breath and resumed walking; Haru needed his breakfast.

Oddly, he felt liberated.  He had been a print for seven standards; it was who he was.  Before he had felt like a ghost.  Now he realised that he had not died; merely changed bodies.

Konohamaru had fallen in love with a print.  A print had loved Konohamaru in return.

He smiled.

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