A/N: Wanted to try my hand at a story like this, and it will be different to the rest of my stories in that it won't be very long at all (at max, 70k). Won't be orientated around plot either, but rather a character deconstruction and rebuilding of it. Thinking this may be my Sasuke x OC story too (need to complete the holy trinity, y'know?). Chapters will be around 1k-2k, dunno how frequent they will be though.

Instead of Kindness

She tasted fruit once.

Or at least she thought she once had.

Sometimes, she liked to daydream about that fruit to pass the time.

It was supposed to be sweet but for some reason she could recall a slightly bitter taste to the generic fruit that she dreamt of. She remembered liking it though, recalling the chill of it on her tongue during what was presumably a warm summer day. But what was so strange is that she could not remember eating anything like it in her entire time being alive, which was as long as fifteen years.

"Apples are red," she mumbled softly to herself, reorienting herself on the tree branch she had been perched on for the better part of an hour. Watching, observing, noting the nothingness that was taking place. As always.

She breathed out slowly, as if to test the strength of her lungs. They were still working, she thought.

"Plums are black," Kino followed up with, wondering what it was that sounded so flat about her voice.

"Humanity is gray."

Maybe it was the subject matter.

私の中

"Report all that you see, especially if it looks as if it will be useful to our cause."

"Yes, sir."

She couldn't say she knew for sure what the 'cause' was but as she had been on the same mission everyday for the past few months, she'd come to grasp what kind of information he was looking for. Still, as much as she never admitted it to herself, this mission of hers had been...

Difficult.

君 が いた

Kino stiffened on her branch before forcing herself to relax.

He'd spotted her again.

"You," he said, turning to look up at her with sharp coal-black eyes.

"Me," she returned.

"You're here again, where you shouldn't be."

"Yes," she agreed.

Leader had clearly warned her that even the civilian kind was nowhere the base of the snake man. Those would be experiments, he had said, possible escapees that she should take note of as best she could but should ultimately leave them alone to their fates.

Already she had seen three of them but they never made it very far.

The boy before her was one of the reasons why.

His name was Sasuke Uchiha and he was strangely kind.

"You're a spy," he stated bluntly.

She'd received no orders to hide the fact.

"Yes."

It was almost difficult to notice but his face tightened for just a second. The change was swift as it was brief and moments later, it looked as if he had never shown even a hint of emotion. It was the type of facial control Leader had instilled within all of ROOT. Like her own, his expression was stone, perfectly impassive and unreadable.

This set her at ease.

"For who?" he asked and she did not blink.

Kino said nothing. Orders were still orders.

"Tch." He turned to curse under his breath before looking back at her, hand going to the hilt of his sword.

He was going to harm her?

Kino blinked at him in something resembling surprise but she wasn't exactly sure if that was the case. Was she surprised he wanted to hurt her, or more surprised it had taken so long for him to show himself as a danger? They'd met twice before after all, once where he had said nothing to her, and the second time where he'd warned her off the area. Almost as if he were a protective force, the feared demon that would not attack.

This behavior of his was almost typical, commonplace reactions to her that she had grown accustomed to.

Like Leader had explained to her long ago, Kino seemed to have the type of face people trusted; soft and with rounded curves that touched both her eyes and chin. Long dark lashes, raven dark hair and a golden gaze—even unsmiling, something about her seemed to make people like her without much attempts towards it.

Leader had used this to her mission's advantages, of course, but it hadn't seemed to be one in the mission parameters of this one. At least, nothing was ever mentioned of it before in the debriefing.

Kino was still not sure what to think of the boy before her though. He wasn't exactly as she expected.

Especially not with the young man suddenly becoming much more of a threat. Unfortunately, she'd both seen him in action and knew her limitations quite well. Perhaps she could outrun him but it was unlikely for her to live if he cared to go full out with the deadly speed she knew he had.

"If you don't speak up, I'll kill you," he told her and she knew he meant it.

Sasuke, in her observations, was rather honest and he did not like to be made into a liar.

"I can speak up in volume," she said, just a bit louder in a clear show that her vocal cords did, in fact, work.

He scoffed. "You can't try and act cute to get out of this. Now, tell me what you know before I kill you."

"You will kill me regardless, then?" Kino asked, swinging her feet just a little bit more in the air.

Sasuke glared at her and with a soft gasp rising from her lips, she noted the very heavy intent in the air. Forming something of a second cloak on her skin that felt like a very heavy boulder on her shoulders and like pinpricks had been set into her heart, Kino nearly bowed to the pressure. She struggled to stay still and even more so than that, she struggled to keep her unsettled stomach from being emptied.

Kino might've lost her breakfast of nuts all over him if he didn't finally relax.

"Of course," he told her, eyes sharp on her. "You have no use to me alive."

"A lot of people fit that description," she noted softly, quickly regaining her breath and composure. "Can you perhaps kill someone else?"

"And let you leave with the information you might have?"

"I have nothing," she told him honestly.

Everything was quiet in the land of sound.

"I plan to kill Orochimaru," he told her.

"Ah," she breathed, blinking dumbly. "Leader would want to know of this."

"That they would," he muttered, looking at her with an expression she could not decipher. It did not look happy or sad but perhaps a mixture of the two.

"So I have to kill you," he explained.

"Please allow me to complete my mission," she said, ignoring for better or worse his statements.

"When it could endanger my plans?" Sasuke looked at her as if she was supposed to be understanding something. She clearly wasn't getting it.

She cocked her head to the side. "Could it?"

As far as she knew, Leader only wanted information. He had given her no such mission to terminate or foil any actions taken by the boy before her.

Sasuke's patience with her snapped then as he drew his sword from its scabbard, holding it up towards her as she looked on in her delicate perch. She knew that distance meant little to him. Even with her up so high, he could close the gap within seconds and she'd be done for.

She felt nothing at the thought of her demise.

"Do you even care if you die?" he asked, eyes on hers.

Kino stared back silently.

The silence was thick but not with emotion. His cloying intent was back in action and the pin prick feeling was back in her heart, the pressure on her shoulders like that of a four hundred pound man laying on top of her.

When it left her, it was as sudden as it had come and traces of it lingered with the buzz and smell of lightning on her skin.

"I'll use you as mine then."

She blinked and felt her brows raise just a fraction.

"I'm not yours to use."

"Why not?" he asked, his sharp eyes marked with cunning. "I'll let you go back to your leader if you agree to return to me with something as valuable as what I've given you today."

"I will be unable to do that," she informed him truthfully.

"Then I'll kill you."

"You shouldn't."

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Because then I could not complete my mission."

"This mission to spy on me."

She turned quiet.

"Either you're mine or you die," he summarized.

"Then I die."

声が聞こえた

She didn't die.

Rather, she was taken.

"Anyone who can hide as well as you, can be made useful," he told her.

"But you found me," she reminded him.

"No one can hide from me," he stated bluntly though she suspected that there were a few who could. He seemed to sense her doubt as he looked at her sharply. "Never for long."

Kino was not prone to shivering but...

It ran up her spine.

"You look cold," he murmured, eyes trained on hers.

"No," she told him. "I'm...fine."

It was strange to say. She had not said the words in a very long time.

Kino looked down at her hands, bound as they were.

"I will be useless to you," she informed him, surprised as she continued, "I am not good."

"I won't let this be an hour wasted on you," he informed her, his eyes feeling like daggers pointed at her. "I'll either have a very useful tool or get in some more practice with my sword by the end of this week. It'll be your choice."

"But I've already told you that you can kill me," she pointed out to him, confused as to why it was still a question in his head.

"And never know who sent you? No, before I kill you, I'll get everything I want out of you."

A sudden thought struck her then.

She tilted her chin up and kept her gaze steady with his.

"You'll have to break my chains to do that."

私を見つけた。

Language Guide;

私の中 - watashi no naka - inside of me

君 が いた - kimi ga ita - you were there

声が聞こえた- koe ga kikoeta - I heard your voice

私を見つけた - watashi wo mitsuketa - I am found.

(Thank you to the guest, Okonomitaiyaki, for corrections!)