eswareinmal | (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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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.

Sure? He'd already seen Sasuke collapse into sick, cowardly, childish pettiness and emotion. It would be hard for him to debase himself even more, but he'd had enough in public for one day.

"I'll punch you if you don't leave me alone," he growled. "I know you can bleed."

And that was exactly why he was concerned and didn't think Sasuke would want to be alone. Misery loves company and all that.

"...a simple 'yes,' works, you know..." Bakura pointed out, making a bit of a face.

"Fuck you."

He wanted to throw up, punch Bakura in the mouth, pull his own hair out. He felt like a popped balloon--pressure, pressure, and nothing.

His vision was grainy.

"No thanks..."

Bakura paused, however. "...Are you going to be able to make it back? You look a little unsteady..."

"Ha fucking ha," Sasuke spat, wrapping his arms around himself. He could walk, he wasn't a fucking infant, and he would, even if it took him hours to take one step.

...Yep. Crankybutt. Sigh.

"I'll go on ahead then..."

And if Sasuke didn't arrive at the house in a half hour, he'd go looking again.

Sasuke didn't answer--set off away from the town. He wanted silence and wind and the smell of leaves.

Somewhere to expend the energy that was boiling in him again. He needed blood. If not an NPC, then a bird or a wild dog or a fox--

Not a fox. Kyuubi's voice growled, sinister, in his head.