A day late... but here it is! Been so dratted busy with the play I'm in... but that's no excuse.
Rating: K+ Light angst and blood
Beta: KakashiKrazed! Read her fic The Long Road Home
Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, this would probably be canon... I feel sorry for Sakumo already. On with the show.
Sakumo waited outside the compound, heart pounding. The people of Konoha were afflicted by a rare plague, with one hundred percent fatality rate. Rumors spread of Kirigakure having developed a cure. His assignment was to go into their village and steal the formula, if it existed. It was an S-ranked assignment- one that might normally call for an entire ANBU team. However, due to the nature of the operation, it had been decided that one solo ANBU would have a better chance of success than the average four man cell. And who better to send than Konoha's White Fang, not yet completely of age at twenty, and one of the newest members of the ANBU, yet already a hardened veteran of a Great Ninja War? He took a deep breath. The lives of Konoha's people depended on him. If he failed…no! He clenched his teeth. Failure was not an option!
The white-haired ANBU adjusted his mask, his hair sticking up in a gravity-defying style. Here we go, Hatake. He rapidly made hand signs. "Meisaigakure no Jutsu," he whispered. The light about him shimmered and shifted, hiding him from any who would seek him. He walked across the clearing, using chakra to create a slight cushion between him and the ground to prevent him from leaving footprints or cracking twigs. He stopped halfway there, waiting, having already heard the sound of approaching shinobi. More ANBU- Kiri ANBU. They were at ease, having apparently just returned from a mission. The majority passed him, laughing and talking, but Sakumo noticed that the last of them- the shortest, with copper-red hair- was bleeding from a nasty side wound and staggering sluggishly, remaining silent. The others seemed not to care or even notice.
The great gates to the village, bound with iron hinges, slowly swung open. Sakumo slipped in, hardly daring to breathe, fear permeating his being. The wounded one paused and looked back for a minute, gaze landing right onto Sakumo's location before a wave of pain from his wound pulled his attention away and he, at last, rejoined his comrades. The gates closed and the enemy ANBU continued on to the Mizukage Tower, ready to report mission accomplished. Sakumo breathed a sigh of relief – he'd made it into the enemy's village undetected. It's not over, Hatake. Keep moving.
He walked the streets, avoiding the village's residents and finally locating the hospital after several minutes. He slipped in and, recalling the blueprints he'd made sure to memorize, he quickly accessed the record room, closing the door and deactivating the jutsu. If caught, he could always pose as a Kiri ANBU- unless, of course, he was caught by said Kiri ANBU. Still, it would be better than a nurse seeing file drawers opening and shutting by themselves. He pulled open one file drawer after another, hurriedly scanning the names:
Genjutsu Effects
Grange
Graduated Poisons
Grey Death
Hallucination
Wait…Grey Death! The file's name leapt out at him and he pulled the folder out, hurriedly flicking through pages of material. Ah! There it was. He slipped the formula for the cure into his hip pouch.
Sakumo was about to stand up when he heard the slight sound of footsteps. He gripped his throwing needles, and turned toward the entrance. It was the wounded ANBU from earlier. His mask was still on, but his torso was bare save for bandages that had begun to come off, fresh blood spurting like a crimson cascade. Sakumo hurled his senbon before the other man could shout out or form hand signs. The needles embedded themselves into his enemy's neck, and the man dropped without a sound. Sakumo gathered his senbon, pulling them out of the ANBU's neck, and picked up the unconscious man. He walked briskly down the hall until he reached an empty room and deposited him on the bed. He should be long gone by the time the other man awoke.
His task completed, he reactivated the jutsu, fading from sight and slipped away.
Sakumo had finally maneuvered himself into the training grounds of Kirigakure. They were abandoned this late at night, and from here it was a quick shot to the outside wall. Just as he was preparing to leave, all his chakra activity unexpectedly stopped. His jutsu deactivated, making him visible to the naked eye, and the small amount he had channeled to his own eyes to aid his night-vision drained away. He spun around, but was too slow to avoid the shackles of water locking around his feet. The wounded ANBU from before dropped out of the trees in front of him, torn hospital sheets used as a makeshift bandage.
"Don't try to move. My clan has the ability to sense and control the chakra of others."
Sakumo grit his teeth. He shouldn't be awake yet! He reached back, groping for his tantō. Like a flash, the other moved behind him. He struck Sakumo twice, almost softly, on the shoulders. White Fang bit his tongue as a large amount of foreign chakra forced itself into his muscles, painfully prohibiting movement. The red-head reached into Sakumo's pouch and pulled out the scroll containing the stolen formula. He tore it open, eyes flicking down it, before letting it shut with a snap. The man said nothing for a moment, then spoke questioningly.
"Why didn't you kill me, White Fang? You should have guessed that, at the very least, I could raise the alarm when I awoke."
Sakumo tensed. "How- how did you-"
"Answer the question, Hatake. Why didn't you kill me?"
They looked at each other, masked gaze boring into masked gaze. It was a fair question. Why hadn't he, Sakumo wondered before sighing.
"Because I didn't have to," he said at last. "Because you were just an innocent bystander. You had nothing to do with my mission, you didn't mean to interfere." He lowered his eyes, hesitant to state his strongest reason, then he raised them defiantly. Let them think him weak – he didn't care. "Don't you ever get tired of the killing? Don't you ever wish you could lay down the weapons and... and go fishing or something?"
The ANBU said nothing before slowly making a hand sign. "Kai."
All foreign chakra left Sakumo's body and he fell to his knees with a gasp, feeling the water shackles collapse around his feet. The red-head threw the scroll toward him, rolling it along the ground until it bumped against his hand. Sakumo could only stare at it in shock. What the hell...
The other reached up, hesitated a moment, then undid his ANBU mask. Sakumo inhaled sharply. No sane ANBU would ever reveal his face to an enemy. Hell, no sane ANBU would let an enemy go in the first place!
The face that peered at Sakumo took him aback. By the ANBU's skill level, he had assumed his opponent to be full-grown, but now he could see this was a misconception. The man... no, the boy... he couldn't have been over fifteen years old. The most prominent feature, besides his tanned skin- an unusual shade for a Kiri ninja- was his deep brown eyes. They appeared older than anyone that age should have to be, haunted by the cold-blooded life style of the ANBU.
"Yes. I do wish that."
Sakumo blinked in shock at the quiet statement.
"My name is Kidō Ryū," the boy said after a moment, "My clan is among the most ruthless in Kiri. I…I'm tired of fighting, of killing innocent people. The Uzumaki massacre at Whirlpool; the Mizuki incident- I just want it all to stop!" The boy stopped, and took a shuddering breath, tears shining in his eyes. "There…there are innocent people in Konoha, women and children. I…I don't want their deaths to be on my hands." He looked down at those hands, which were trembling, and whispered hoarsely. "I have enough blood spilled onto them as it is."
This kid... what had he seen- what had he done- to make him think this way? Sakumo thought back to the things he had done during his career as a jonin. Dead eyes, flowing blood, names whispered with regret, shattered dreams- it was nothing a kid should have to go through. He knew Kirigakure was ruthless, but never... never did he guess they were this ruthless, to reduce a teen to a killing machine.
"You do it for the sake of your village. That is your duty as a shinobi- to be a tool," Sakumo said softly, not quite sure what else to say.
Ryū looked up. "I am no tool. Tools are things you use and cast aside once they have no more use." He gave a bitter laugh. "Maybe that will be my fate one day. Maybe I will be made useless from the corrosion and rust of emotions and mercy… to either have them forced out of me until I am naught but an empty shell; or to be thrown away, fated to disintegrate in some forgotten grave, lost to time."
He stood up and replaced the mask onto his head. "At least, this way... this way... I have done something good, saved lives without taking any in return." He hesitated. "Sakumo...maybe someday... maybe we'll meet again, on friendlier terms."
The effects of his chakra being frozen seemed to have worn off by now. Sakumo recovered the scroll and slipped it back into his hip pouch securely. He'd make sure to move it to his chest pouch once he was out of sight-just in case. He silently stared across at the other ANBU. Ryū turned to go.
"Ryū," Sakumo said softly. The boy looked back expectantly. "I look forward to that day as well."
There was a brief nod. "A word of advice, Sakumo…you might want to bind your hair into a ponytail while in ANBU mode. Your poofy hair is far too recognizable and betrays the fact that you are White Fang. Not that it would do any good against one of my clan, of course." There was the flash of an ANBU hand sign, and then the red-head was gone, flying through the trees.
Sakumo watched him go, a brief minute of confusion echoing in his mind. The hand sign he'd flashed meant comrade. He thought back on what the boy had said.
"Yes. I do wish that."
"My clan is among the most ruthless in Kiri. I…I'm tired of fighting, of killing."
"I just want it to stop!"
"There are innocent people in Konoha, women and children. I don't want their deaths to be on my hands."
You're like me, Kidō. I, too, am tired of fighting, of killing. But I have the Will of Fire and the love of my comrades to see me through. You don't have anybody, do you? Mist nin aren't known for their people skills. Who helps you through the nightmares you undoubtedly have at your age, through the days you break down and can't stop crying over those you've killed? Nobody. Maybe, had things been different…maybe we could have been friends, you and I.
He shook his head and blasted away from the site of their meeting, anxious to return to Konoha…anxious to save as many lives as he could, but the haunting brown eyes of the reluctant assassin followed him, boring into his mind.
Sakumo hoped that if ever he had a child of his own, the kid would never have to experience half as much death and pain as Kidō Ryū had in his life.
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