eswareinmal | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Characters: Sasuke, some poor NPCs, and you.
Open? Yes.
Where: An alley.
When: RD15, late morning.
What: Stop the Knight of Fire from gutting an NPC and wearing their intestines as a belt! Or don't, whatever you want.
Warnings: Possibly violence.

They would never see him coming.

He shook the girls with clones, sending one of them to the markets and one of them to the tavern to flirt, chat and brood in the way they find so attractive. He slunk off into the castle by using Naruto's prank jutsu--who would have known it would actually be useful?--to turn himself into a girl with long lashes, an hourglass figure, and waves of black hair like his mother.

He made the tailor stammer by leaning forward and displaying cleavage, but it meant he got a display model of a tunic and leggings without having to wait to have flames embroidered around the edges, and a good solid pair of leather boots to go with it. He changed in his room at the Heroes' Headquarters, releasing the jutsu first so he'd actually fit into the clothing, and after tying the handkerchief Bakura had given him around his face to obscure his features and strapping his broadsword to his back, he set off towards the seedier areas of town.

It didn't take long for him to find his target. A man, slow-moving with a mean glint in his eyes and hands that kept straying to the front of his pants every time a girl walked by.

Sasuke crept up behind him and jabbed the soft tissue under his jaw, stunning him for the drag into the alleyway. And he waited.

He wanted to see the light in the man's eyes go out.

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It would be easy to confuse one blue for another, especially when Bakura's were so focused and bright because of the magic he had called close to the surface.

"Not in the blood of these people," he countered, voice firm. "Their blood will prove nothing."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Sasuke cried, staring into Naruto's eyes--Bakura's--so bright it hurt to look, but he couldn't make himself pull away. He put his other hand on the hilt of the sword, trying to steady its trembling. It had been forty-seven hours since he'd last slept, and his body was feeling the effects. His vision blurred.

"Am I supposed to just--sit here and forget that they were stolen from me--that my own brother was forced to steal them from me and I can't bring them back, nothing can bring them back to me but--" His throat ached. "If I can't avenge them, then I'm useless--a fucking worthless little insect--I should have--"

Died with the rest of them. Trembling, he pointed the sword towards his own stomach.

Bakura reached out, fingers shielded in glowing white as they wrapped around the blade to try and pull it back.

"Don't..." His words were softer now. "Killing yourself won't avenge them either. You aren't useless, you're just cut off from your goal. Rest. Regroup. Plan. And until you go back, get your revenge by living."

He held out his left hand, the faded scar oddly illuminated in the light that streamed down between the rooftops. "Let's go back... okay?"

Edited 2012-08-13 03:52 (UTC)

"Why would they banish me here if they didn't want to back me into a corner?"

Sasuke stared at the ground, gripped the sword against the pulling and ignored the hand stretched to him. This was what they'd wanted all along--to drive him to madness, incurable despair so that he would stop sullying their name with his existence. He'd been a fool, a child--he'd thought about it so many times when he was little, but always pushed it away with thoughts of taking his brother's life and earning the right to live again.

But that had never been an option. And they must have known.

"I can't," he muttered.

"You weren't banished, you were stolen," Bakura corrected, stubbornly not letting go or retracting his hand. "Something thought you were strong enough to stop something that no one else could and stole you away to fight and protect something far away from your world. Don't blame yourself for something you had no way to stop..."

"I couldn't stop it," Sasuke murmured in agreement, biting the inside of his cheek. "I never could. That's why they hate me. It should have been left to someone else. Someone strong." Nii-san, who never should have been put in this position in the first place. I will always love you. A cool forehead pressed against his, hands in his hair.

He slammed his fist into his thigh to wake himself up--would have stabbed himself with a kunai if he'd had one accessible. Fuck. "Fuck, fuck--"

"No one gets to chose who gets left behind," Bakura shook his head, feeling a touch like he was trying to balance a heavy weight in the deep end of a pool. It was a bit nerve wracking, but he was doing his best not to show it.

"Sasuke-kun... just let go..." he said softly. "Come back with me and rest."

"My brother chose me and I failed him," Sasuke countered, voice thin, trembling. "I failed all of them. I can't--"

He couldn't keep doing this, not without purpose. His breath hitched as he looked up into those blue, blue eyes. "I can't."

It was pleading. His stomach hurt and the back of his throat was going raw.

"You can," Bakura insisted.

He hesitated just a moment before reaching out to put his left hand on Sasuke's head, willing his magic to flow towards the tormented teen. It was a soft, cool glow, like the breath of spring, bringing the promise of life as it seeped out from Bakura's hand. He gave it no form, no direction other than to help. He couldn't heal what the problem was, but if he could sooth any of it at all...

It felt like Karin's healing chakra, cool and green and soothing.

He'd never thought to apply it to his mind before.

It was telling him it would be okay--that he would be safe. That somehow, it--whatever it was--would get better.

He knew it to be a falsehood, somewhere in him, but he couldn't call up the terror that should have come. Couldn't do anything but bow his head and fall to his knees, the anger he'd been running on in place of energy seeping from him and leaving nothing but a shell behind.

Bakura made a small, startled sound, shifting to try and catch Sasuke as he seemed to start to crumple.

"H--hey! Are you all right...?!"

The sword went clattering to the ground and his hands fisted in the cloth of his pants. He shuddered--it had been an age since someone had asked him that in that tone. Sincere. It hurt.

"Never have been," he caught himself saying, lips moving and vocal chords humming together before he was even really cognizant of it.

Bakura put a gentle hand on Sasuke's shoulder, his other moving to rest over one of Sasuke's fists. "Come back with me... even if I can't do much, let me help, even a little?" he asked, voice as gentle and hopefully as soothing as his magic had been. "Even if it's just listening..."

He startled at the touch, jerking backwards and away--the softness as much as the contact was what jarred him; he wasn't used to anything less than a punch. The edge of anger, fear that had ebbed away with the healing was starting to sharpen again, and he pulled his lip into a snarl.

"It doesn't matter," he said, and behind him he heard the scrabbling of the NPC standing up and fleeing. His fists clenched. "Talking about it won't bring them back."

"No, it won't. Nothing will," Bakura acknowledged. "Not keeping silent, not getting your revenge, not screaming to the heavens... But there are other ways of honouring someone's memory.... And if you wanted to keep it all inside of you, it wouldn't be spilling out so easily."

"You don't understand," Sasuke said, staring up at Bakura's face. So familiar, but completely foreign. "What it's like to lose everything. I shouldn't even be here. My only purpose is to give them what they want, in payment for my weakness--for my selfish existence."

His stomach churned and his ears roared with the voices of a hundred ghosts.

Bakura shook his head. "Your purpose is to live... because they could not," he insisted softly. "So that you can carry their hopes and dreams, their wishes and their wants in this life for them. To do that, you have to live, for them, and for you."

"What if I don't want to?"

Sasuke stared at the ground, eyes stinging. The burden of solitude pressed, unbearable, against his shoulders. Making new bonds was useless against the looming threat that they'd be torn from him, too. "What if I just want it to be over?"

"Then that's your choice...." Bakura's voice was still soft and quiet. "But I think it would be a waste."

A harsh laugh. He was broken, sullied, weak. "Waste of what? Carbon, meat, shit?"

"Of a person," Bakura corrected, again offering his hand. "Come on. Let's go back. You don't want to die here anyway. You'd likely just come back as a ghost or something like that," he joked with a warm smile.

"Fuck."

That would be torment--dead with no escape, trapped in an eternal loop of uselessness, unfamiliarity. He gritted his teeth and didn't take Bakura's hand, but pushed himself up on his own.

Bakura's hand fell to his side again, smile lingering as he turned to head back out the alleyway. "And I did mean what I said... if there is anything I can do to help, just tell me, okay?"

Sasuke didn't want to follow, but he didn't want to be forced to more, so he allowed his feet to move after Bakura.

He didn't to look him in the eyes--didn't want to risk seeing someone else in that face. He bit the inside of his cheek.

"Want to be alone," he muttered.

Bakura looked over his shoulder. "You're sure...?" he asked.