Found You

A/N: I’m gonna warn ya’ll right now, that just like everyone else even if I have good ideas, I need inspiration. Reviews stroke my Ego – and when the Ego is happy, I can write. So. Stroke, people. I don’t wanna have to inflict a quota again.

Lemon: Nah. Again, this is mostly story movement. But we’re definitely much closer!
Spoilers: It’s not fair to call them spoilers anymore really. By the time AFF allows updates again, Cartoon Network will just about be caught up.
Chapter Pairings: References to Jiraiya/Yondaime, Yondaime/Kakashi, and Orochimaru/Itachi obsession
Note: There is going to be major Sasuke-angst in this chapter. And it will deviate greatly from the brief piece of encounter shown in the anime and the manga. I thought it just couldn’t justify his behavior when he woke up Cursed.

Bibiri-kun = scaredy-cat
Geta = wooden sandals used to walk in all weather, but take practice
Tomoe = (巴) a type of kamon (家紋), or family crest traditionally used in Japan. It consists of three commas arranged clockwise in a circle. (Wikipedia)
Kamon = family crest. Like Sasuke’s fan.
Doujutsu = eye technique. Sharingan, Byakugan, and all techniques used thereof.
Aniki = a formal term for big brother. ‘Niisan’ is an affectionate application. Aniki is used more to denote function, and recognized in title only.

~$~$~$~$~$~$~$~ = angst

Disclaimer: I do not own Uchiha Sasuke’s Ego. I do however own the washcloth used during his bout with it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Chapter Ten: Hubris

“It looks like it will be easier from now on. We can kill, now.” Venom-coated eyes drifted from one team of genin to the next, smirking to himself from beneath the straw hat when he saw a silver tail of hair shift. Kabuto always had a very keen awareness of his surroundings.

The years of information he had been gathering in these exams always yielded a humdrum selection of prospects. But, this year it was going to be different.

He had promised himself this was going to be the last quiet year in Konoha.

Dark brown eyes drifted to the batch of children that had wandered off with their consent forms, opting to stand as he shuffled his faceless deck. “There shouldn’t be anyone to worry about.” Not unless those three from the Sound decided to pick an inappropriate fight.

As forgiving a person as he was, Kabuto was still a little sore at the fact he had not been privy to their arrival. Especially since they didn’t know who he was. He was just another Leaf, to them.

It was insulting.

Gates flew open as the second hand zeroed-in, anticipation flooding him. It had been… decades since his own exam so long ago, and now he could feel the same type of heady glee that had made him a proud member of this village such a long time ago.

It was like being a genin for the first time all over again.

“Remember, find the three of them!”

“Just the kids right?”

“Oho~!” crooned from above. “Still my number one fan aren’t you!”

A lazy blue eye lifted to the spiky shadow that had come over him. Amusement glowed in his eye as he took in the delighted features of the older man. Delighted really wasn’t the word for it, but he could understand.

“Ohayo, Jiraiya-sama. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Dark eyes ticked at the relaxed way the jounin took in his presence. “Jeez! Kids have no respect for their elders these days!”

Didn’t he know it. His unmasked eye slid back to the page, casual and unconcerned. “I didn’t know you were old…”

“Flattery will get you nowhere!” Mesh covered arms folded, releasing an offended snort. Kakashi didn’t have the breasts to flatter him, no matter how nice a guy he was! He hopped down from the rail, white tail wagging behind him as he made himself comfortable. “Congratulations on accepting a team.”

“You heard about that huh?”

Grinning in triumph, he thumbed his chest confidently. “I heard everything that goes on around here!” At such a declaration, he had to grow a grim expression to it, leaning on to the rail, opposite Kakashi whom had his back to it. “…Which is exactly why I came.”

A knot of suspicion corded in his gut, his wandering eye settling on the frog hermit that had turned so grim. “…Hm?”

“Kakashi, that was kind of rash, entering your rookies in to this exam. Especially now that…”

In this place there was no sense of time. As soon as any light bled through the canopies, it was just as quickly gone again and the humid, swampy environment closed in with inextinguishable gloom. This was such a miserable place to conduct an exam, which he supposed made it the perfect place. After all, being a chuunin was not exactly without missions through such a setting.

The only real light about it was the fact that his comrades were of amusing stock, especially when put together. But only in small doses.

Sasuke was quite sure that his mind would be gone if they were left to themselves for all five of those days. By himself, he had no doubt he would be killed on his way to the tower.

With them, he was better off killing himself. Either prospect flattered their surroundings, a place where young and old alike all shared the fact they had been killed here with only one thing in common: they all died as mere genin.

And he had a sinking feeling that they were going to be joining those unfavorable odds.

His skin was sticky, and his head was pounding with a headache from roaming the last few hours with these two and their restless chattering. Not to mention the one that had tried to ambush them earlier. Sasuke could still feel the blood on his cheek, dry in his wrist warmer and attracting mosquitoes.

Now, even bigger pests were upon them. Pests that could devour him, and Sakura, who was next to him. Her mint green eyes were wide with the leftovers of fright, and she reeked of urine. It was something he didn’t have time to pay attention to, grunting as he ripped the kunai from his thigh bone. He couldn’t blame her.

Bile was soaking through the collar of his shirt.

That freak that had jumped them was the one with the tongue from the gates. If he had known back then that the guy was a threat, he would have made it a priority to take inspection of their adversaries instead of worrying about the consent form.

Blood hounded itself in frantic circles and made him deaf as he peered around the belly of the tree they were hidden on.

“S…Sasuke-kun…” His hand shot out to gag her, knuckles trembling from tremors all the way up his arm.

This wasn’t some game!

We have to run! It was all he could do the last time, to make himself move. If he had to save them both again, he wasn’t sure he could run very well on two injured legs. Desperate pulls visited his rigid arm, but she was always complaining about something.

“Sasuke-kun! Snake!”

Senses fastened around as he turned his head, both of them scattering as the scaled belly crashed in to decadent wood.

I was so panicked, I couldn’t even detect the snake coming?!

It was easy to understand why. Fangs glistened as the roaring hiss buffeted him, slatted irises fixing on him. Those same poisonous eyes as that guy from before.

They were going to die. There was only one time in his life he had ever been so sure of that. This person would not be so arrogant as to overlook his weakness as reason to let him escape.

Specifically, this guy was looking for them. Looking for him. Wanted him dead, and everyone around him was consequence.

It had been years since all he could do was scream. This time though, he had something available to him. He had a means to defend himself.

“Get away from me!!” Carbon-dipped steel went flying, a barrage of shuriken and kunai lodging in to the serpent’s skull. As he landed on a branch nearby, there was the small thought that Naruto wasn’t here. Not even a good distraction was around.

Panting, heaving, and ready to collapse, he stood there with hands on his knees and the drenched coals of his eyes matching how his Coil’s hearth went cold at watching the body crack and purge a new growth from its gouged neck.

Oh, God…


So fascinating. Here he had come to this exam hoping to exterminate one of the few things that bastard boygod seemed to have an attachment to…

And he had ended up enjoying himself. There was enough sense in that little one to bring life in to his bones and make escape. Where a brave man would have faced his end and thought of making no such cowardly bolt, this boy was proving he very well could become a smart man.

He couldn’t bring himself to admire the brave. The fact remained they were still dead. It reminded him of a certain young man that had decided that everyone else was worth everything. How foolish. So young.

Sometimes running was the smartest thing to do, and he had found a way to run when Orochimaru had been convinced he had no legs to do such.

It looks like I can have some fun…

What had intrigued him the most, though…

Were those bright claret eyes that had followed his kunai.

Now…

“That’s the problem with being prey. Wasting so much energy running around.” An insipid coo bubbled out of him, the dead-colored whip of muscle falling out of his lips and wagging at them.


So noisy, that blond one. So obstructive. Interrupting his chance to sweep in on his quarry and get his fangs around that tender neck to snap the life from him. Now he was out of the way, a passing fascination. That was the vessel the Yondaime had chosen to bear the demons of this village.

And in the same team was a boy that was everything the other pair of red eyes could never be: afraid.

To see such a thing in eyes he had come to loathe with their impassive dismissal of him. In his days living in this village, Uchiha was another word for ninja. Personified, that little monster of a shinobi was everything the Sharingan could and should be.

Oh how he wanted that menace to perish. Such was a thought he had owned, to poison him, and resurrect him endlessly for his tortures. Those eyes would be the same.

Orochimaru stood here now, listening as that girl screeched at his target. Pleaded with the reason that had been absolutely dominated by instinct to run from something so much more powerful than himself. How cute, children playing Ninja…

Before he was their age, he could count on his fingers and toes the people he had killed. Two innocent little fawns still in their spots were hardly worth adding to his bodycount.

Tainted ochre eyes widened when Sharingan blossomed and closed on him. Feet spread wide, and his arms stretched in taunting.

My, my… His blood must be getting him excited. Maybe he’s not so smart after all. At least he would be able to kill him face-to-face.

A shiver of anticipation trickled up his spine as he saw determination swirl those inky tomoe, the slits of his pupils thin as hairs as he waited for the first move.

“It seems like I’ll be able to have some fun with you yet. Well then, come on…”


What kind of Avenger would he be, if he could not risk his life even for this? To be killed here, like some coward would be disastrous. Pathetic. A kunai knocked in to the grip of his teeth, arms free to form seals as he made haste across the branches.

He wouldn’t be the prey, and he wouldn’t be outdone by that idiot. If he didn’t at least try, he could never stand himself. To do nothing but stand there as their number one loser fended off humongous snakes, all to make a point to him.

”You’re not hurt are you… Bibiri-kun?”

To go berserk with a pair of eyes Sasuke, for the life of him, could not recognize. As he punched and parried, flipped and flung, he had no time to think that Naruto had some mind in that empty head of his while he had been saving their asses. Everyone else on this stupid team was willing to do so much to keep it intact, and all he could do was be selfish. Like he would be that much better to merely disregard them.

To be away from them and killed on his own, recognized as only Konoha’s Top Rookie of the year. Not even a real ninja. Not Itachi’s Avenger. Probably not even as an Uchiha worth the name. He had no chance against Itachi, as he was. And if he couldn’t fight here – win here, he could only be a worthless hypocrite.


“I’ve decided not to kill you…” But if you don’t reach my expectations, you’re as good as dead. If Itachi has put so much stock in you, his secret weapon… Oh, he reveled in the way those claret eyes ticked at the mention of Itachi. So, this one was his baby brother. His little secret and possession. They were so much alike that it haunted him. Infuriated him.

And at the same time, there was ecstasy to be had in the idea of having such a creature under his control. With the embodiment of his perfection now decaying in the underbelly of this village, in hiding and in wait, he needed another body before this one would begin to betray him.

He would never deny that the meddlesome Uchiha which gripped his nightmares like that horrible doujutsu, and was a god amongst men much closer to such a state than even his immortal self. But with this one—oh, this one…

Fangs sank, and the blood that curdled with the excitement of battle washing over his tongue was unmistakable.

This was the ambrosia of a godslayer. Wrapped in the armor of that, such a gorgeous weapon bound to him at the fibers of his Coils and his consciousness...

This village never ceased to stop amazing him. He was proud to call it home.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It had only been a day, and he was already missing them. Kakashi leaned back on the stone monument, hands laying about in his lap. Now, with Jiraiya’s information… Orochimaru was on the move, and they had no idea where. But they could think that Konoha wouldn’t stay quiet and happy for much longer. A fist built up in his silver hair, sweeping it away and letting his head fall back.

Worrying about it too hard wouldn’t get him anywhere. If he started regretting his decision now, he would probably regret every decision from now on. It was bad enough he regretted so many things in his earlier days.

Not far off was the hole he had buried the little menace in up to his neck. This was where it all started. Sandaime had entrusted him with both the Kyuubi and the last true Sharingan of this village.

The Hokage hadn’t trusted him to go and get smitten with his student.

”Kakashi, you’re going to have to teach that kid how to use his Sharingan. You’re the only one that can. He’s a liability, otherwise.”

Absolutely, he was suspicious as to why Itachi would massacre everyone, and leave just his little brother. While so many saw the potential in the younger one, what Itachi intended to make of that…

”Any idea what Itachi meant by it?”

“Most likely just the same stuff you came up with. You’re pretty smart sometimes.”

“Well, like father like son I guess.”

“Heh. From what I’ve heard, that kid’s got a temper.”

“Fugaku-san would be proud.”

Jiraiya gave him a long look, arms folding across his chest. “You sound like you picked your favorite.”

His lone ice-colored eye drifted over, treading carefully in to the question. This guy had a nasty habit of being too perceptive when it wasn’t needed. “…Is it that obvious?”

“You’re pretty bad at hiding things.” Pulling his weight from the wall, geta clacked as he neared the jounin that only watched him in that cool and detached way of his. “…Some advice, though. I wouldn’t go trying to treat your favorite the way your sensei did to you.”

A heavy sigh. …It was that obvious. Defensive now, he hid it well with the way he drawled. “Sounds like history likes to repeat itself, hm?”

With a snort, the older ninja retreated from the subject and folded his arms. “You know how charismatic that little shit was.” Remembering brought color in to his cheeks, lips pursing awkwardly around the words. “S’not like anyone could resist him anyway.”

It was an amused hum that came from him, sinking on his elbows and head in to his shoulders. “…Sasuke’s got that much in common.”

Not that Naruto didn’t, with that guy. If he just glanced over his shoulder, in the distance was the tall stone tribute to their founders, the Hokage cliff. Certainly, there were obvious differences between them. And deep down, Kakashi couldn’t shake himself of that. Regrettably he rested his head against the carved names, adding on to his pile of self-guilt for his attempt to not regret failing.

Perhaps he was getting in over his head. Sasuke was the kind of person he was convinced wouldn’t stay in Konoha. There was nothing to stay for, save the fact he couldn’t just get up and leave. He had no reason to start a relationship, and Kakashi had no reason to maintain one; they both understood that, eventually, a ninja’s success rate dropped to zero. That kid had no obligation to this village, and while he had the potential to become elite, had no ambition to apply it to the preservation of this place. It made him so incompatible with Naruto, who convicted himself to doing everything for a village that entirely hated him. Their friction was something he was growing tired of. And his own friction… He was growing tired of that, too.

His heavy eye rolled away from the statue so he could take in the treacherously blue sky. It had no right being that blue. Bluer than him.

Five days without his cuddle-bug of an Uchiha was going to be very rough on his hand.

Maybe he should have let the boy stay the night. His wrist was still sore and his back was still dry from the cold water he had finished off in that night. And he had been unable to bring himself to bathe since.

Being dirty on the outside matched his insides nicely.

Moping here much longer wouldn’t do him any good. There was nothing but time on his hands as he had to wait for those kids to either flunk out of the exam, or he would have to be at the tower by the end of the week.

Maybe he’d get some take-out. Rolling his weight forward, Kakashi got to his feet and dipped one hand in to his pocket. The other surfaced his novel from his pouch, and while he could wander through town without having to glance up, that did not particularly mean he was reading.

The last thing he needed was to give himself ideas. This was torture.

Even when that little prick wasn’t around, he was still tormented by him. Now he wouldn’t be able to find out what was to happen next to his favorite protagonist.

And after he’d spent an hour prompting the author for the release date of the next installment, to ration out how much he had to read until then.

His foot traveled over an irregular rock. …A rock that squeaked. Glancing up from his book, he was confronted with a tan face scarred across the nose, and a bush of chestnut satin on the top of his head.

“Oh, hello there Iruka-sensei…” There was a sweatdrop to lace down his cheek as his eye leveled with the uncomfortable expression. Kakashi lifted his foot. “…Didn’t see you there.”

“Obviously.” Pouting for a moment, he cooled down and his shoulders leveled. Silence passed between them, and his face heated at the realization that Kakashi was waiting for him to speak. “…Long day, huh? It’s only been five hours, and I’m already worried…”

“Mm.” He didn’t really have anything to say to this guy, but it would be too rude to merely walk away from him. Such behavior could turn their bitterly neutral exchanges in to just plain bitter. But at least this guy was on the same track he was, eye folding with a smile. “They’ll do just fine.”

For one reason or another, Iruka chose not to look at him then. His head fell, and there was that smile in his face that made the jounin put effort in to hiding his scowl. That whiteness in the other’s scar was back.

“…Yeah… I’m… looking forward to congratulating them. I’m sure they came a long way, with you.” Carefully he stepped to the side, fist crunching a piece of paper in his pocket as his head lifted and he beamed.

“Well! It’s late! I should be getting home! It was nice to see you again, Kakashi-san.”

As the chuunin made his escape, Kakashi could only stare in to the words of his page and still not see them as he sauntered his own way down the road. “Sure it was…”

~$~$~$~$~$~$~

It was the last thing he could remember. The only thing. After a ribbon of fire swept across the guide of his wire, he had been convinced that their menace was dead. If not, at the least laid to waste in a retreatable fashion.

Sasuke lay there, too far from his own body to recognize the pain it was in. Elsewhere his mind had wandered. Much and many darker places it had gotten to. Here, his subconscious reigned, and there were only nightmares to greet him.

No, not nightmares…

A person could wake up from those. And he could not, he discovered. For what could be hours on end, he was confronting this. His younger, stupider, spineless self that could only glare angrily at the photos lining the inner walls of the family mausoleum. An underground facility established in one of the family shrines, and a place he visited quite rarely for there was nothing to visit.

Only faces trapped behind glass, unaware to what fate had befallen them. There was no argument he could give, and even when he wanted to snap and send the back of his hand across a pudgier face, he couldn’t budge. Could only stand there numb, confronting the mindless ravings of his youth.

It was abhorring to see how annoying he had been. To know this was how he saw himself, and his tongue was too thick, his ears too deaf, his throat too dry and eyes too wide to do anything else but seethe in the tinier body’s direction. The one that teased him and threw in his face his weaknesses.

He had failed to protect people that were his responsibility. Not just once, but now maybe even twice. Trapped in this world of his, he couldn’t fathom what had come upon Sakura and Naruto. That unconscious twit was most likely killed in his sleep. And her, that excuse of a kunoichi would be taken care of like such a token flower. Stomped on, or even torn to shreds and left to die out here, possibly just feet away from his own position.

There was only nausea in his gut, and no stomach or contents or way to move in the feel of that. So he stewed and grew more miserable by the unperceivable minutes.

On the old wood floor were the vanquished bodies of his parents, and he could still remember, as if this replica across from him, how it ripped something fragile in him. A gossamer veil of sanity that lay shredded as their shroud, just before he had tossed his pride on to that pile and ran.

”There was nothing you could do for them. You were young, and weak, and so stupid back then.” The small frame there trembled with sick little giggles. ”If you had power, you could do anything. You wouldn’t be fettered by your own incapacity.”

As if to read him, the little one continued, head falling to one side and further crooking the smile that threatened to break his face open. It was an expression Sasuke knew he could never manifest, and while everything else was something he could deal with, this was something that led him to believe he was hallucinating.

”Top Rookie, Top Rookie,” the pseudo-Sasuke chanted, advancing a step and making the other want to retreat one. ”Like it means anything. You’re still just a rookie. You have menial jutsus, and a useless team, and a sensei that lies to you and a village that pities you and a brother that’s disgusted with you. Maybe you’re not even related. He had some worth. He had definition. He had power.”

It meant everything to him, the ability to clench his fist and hiss. To be able to do anything. Even in his own head he didn’t have any choice or sway of things.

”Maybe he’ll never come back for you. And you won’t leave here. You’re happy being Konoha’s little Uchiha. Konoha’s only Uchiha. It makes you special. You like being special, ne?” Another childish giggle that was perverted by the face wearing it and the words behind it spilling forth. Another lagging step made him approach, heel stomping the fallen that lay between them, and grinding his heel in to the posture of his father’s back that had remained rigid and unforgiving even in death.

Sasuke didn’t believe in ghosts. His family didn’t believe in ghosts.

Still, he was haunted.

It’s not like that at all!

“You think you can lie to me now? The only one that believes your shit is you.”

You’re not real.

“And you aren’t, either. Who’s to say what Uchiha Sasuke is? If he’s real, or the figment of everyone’s expectations and adorations? You’re brother saw you for what you were. You weren’t even worth killing.”

Head twisting to a demented angle his little body sagged to sink his fist in to a mane of soft black hair that soaked in its own crimson, stirring the face of his mother. ”They were worth killing. Your aunt, and your uncle, too. Your mother’s niece that had been born in the spring. Hah! A baby’s worth more than you. They got the better deal of it.”

A solid thump resonated in everything when he lifted the head of his mother by the scalp, and forced it back to the floor. ”They don’t have to face the fact their Avenger can only do what his great aniki tells him. Can only stay here in this village, and rot away pretending he hates him. Rot away pretending he’s angry and doing nothing about it.”

It didn’t match the body, the strength that this figment had to yank his mother’s body by the hair and fling her to the beyond of shadows that surrounded them. His father, he was stomped on again and sank in to the few strips of wood that accumulated as his entire world. It was the only way he could make up from down, and now he was left with… only himself. This maddening self that mocked him with that insipid giggle and crooked head and hunched frame. There was no barrier now, when that child encroached another step but dared not touch him.

”Your aniki wronged you. Took away your worth. Went to all the effort of making sure you had a damn good reason to hate him, and here you stand. Useless and feeble and nothing but a child playing Ninja with his stupid little friends. Nothing but a would-be Avenger. Likes the title and none of the work. No ambition to earn it and lay waste to this one that made you everything that you are.”

With a final step he had reached this taller self that claimed to be Uchiha Sasuke. This one that could only look upon him with livid horror.

”He owns you.”

Look at him with all the bane he possessed, and still could not correct him. A choked noise of delight shook him, a hand raising to his own cheek and nails snaring his lower eyelid. ”You’re in luck. Be grateful there’s someone in this world to make use of you. Someone that’s willing to give you power. Someone willing to make you in to a real Avenger.”

Tiny, half-button nails tore the flesh and exposed a toxic yellow eye. That was the real face. The real face of the one that knew him, and crawled in his skin even now. The presence that confined him here, knowing all too well if he had the chance he would run away rather than confront these truths. Lick his wounds in the darkness, where he didn’t have to see the field of failures that surrounded him.

”All it costs…”

Sasuke’s stomach truly flopped. It was the first thing to be thrown as tinder to the flame that crackled to life in his core, allowed at last to tap in to the anger that had been building. Piled in this antagonistic eternity, the only thing that grounded his existence was the eye locked on him and sent venom through him. Decaying his would-be parts and replacing them with something more finite. More appropriate and refined.

”The only thing it costs…”

Something special and aglow with power as it crawled its way through the joint of his left shoulder. Seared its way in either direction and brought him to the point of screaming. Screaming which he couldn’t hear, still trapped in this motionless state that barely allowed his fingers to curl and his eyes to narrow at that one which fed him.

”…Is everything.”

That was a price he could pay.

~$~$~$~$~$~$~

Entropic winds stirred and threw in to them with a force like scalding magma. This didn’t hurt just on their skin. It itched, then burned its way down to their chakra and ate away at it in such a way to seize them. Awe swept the shinobi children were seized in something raw and menacing that erupted from only one position.

Sakura recognized through her unbloodied eye that figure in blue and white which rose.

“Sasuke-kun…!” It was a delightful thing to see he hadn’t died. Pupils dilated with pain shrank however, when she recognized that there was a distinct relativity between the poison filtering the air, and this body.

The whole of her insides jumped with a mix of fright and joy at hearing his voice again. Left to herself through the whole night in this home of monsters and enemies, to have one of them back at last overjoyed her.

But… To have him back, with the inky flames that tracked along his features…

Sasuke had been left to himself far too long. Left to the realm of his demons and hatreds for too long. In any instance that he could recognize more than a second, it was too long. Left there with no way to defend or help himself, trapped in himself and now, stuffed on the feast of his own anger made deliciously bitter and tangible in every cell of him that these markings tainted… A glutton of hatred.

Patience was not something that existed in him right now. Or sympathy. And he could see, with those deep eyes of his the color of something lacking in this scenery, that he wasn’t too late. There nearby was one, and beside him was the other.

They were still alive. He could still do something. Be let loose on this immediate world.

All he needed...

“…Sakura…” A voice twisted around the infinity of his agonizing ardor, one that had been dry in his hours of fever, and weighted with his newfound, glorious reality. Insistent and impatient—needy, even, for something to do. Anything.

The only thing he needed…

“Who did that to you…?”

…was a reason.