Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Sacrifice ❯ The Truth ( Chapter 10 )

Chapter Ten: The Truth

 

Sasuke could feel her hands, cool and slender, at the back of his neck, but he didn't dare move, for more reasons than one. First, there was a pleasant shock pulsing through his system. Second, he had never been kissed before (he definitely did not count Naruto's…in fact, in his book, it never happened) and was unsure how to react. Third, he felt like he was somehow betraying Sakura, but even though was nothing official between him and her, it still somehow didn't feel right. After running through a rack of ideas through his brain, nothing seemed to fit, so he stayed still.

As for Kira, she was ecstatic, but Sasuke was still. He didn't respond or even move at all. It was like he just froze. It wasn't like she'd expected him to grab her and kiss her, but she expected some sort of warm welcome, not a frozen demeanor. Maybe he didn't like her anymore? Maybe their childhood crush hadn't stayed with him all these years? But then he stirred a bit, and she dismissed the thought. He was just Sasuke, there could be no way there was another girl. No, it must be that he was just surprised. And she really didn't blame him. She was surprised too; she hadn't expected to see him so soon.

On Sasuke's side, he was still confused. The kiss was lasting longer than 10 seconds, and he supposed maybe he should respond. He leaned forward a little and tilted his head slightly. He hated things along the lines of romance and love; it was the only thing that eluded his grasp. He was hardly experienced in that matter, and had always deemed it useless, preferring to follow his instincts than his heart (he's always insisted there was a difference, though others begged to differ). Suddenly, he started to lose balance, and, rather than fall or stumble against Kira, he took a step back to steady himself. Too late, he realized that this might have been relayed wrong. And, of course, he was right. Kira glared up at him.

“What?” she said, obviously hurt, “What did I do wrong now?”

“Uh…” he hadn't meant to ruin her shining moment, but now he had no explanation for his actions. He was stuck. However, he definitely was not going to confess that he had almost fallen, so he wracked his brain for a likely excuse. “It's nothing.”

She wasn't satisfied. “Nothing's ever nothing, Sasuke. Now what's up? Something wrong?”

“No, not really.” He said, still trying to think of something. Suddenly, a pink flower blossom caught his eye, and he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. “Sakura!”

“Yeah, it is.” Kira said, fingering the blossom fondly, half smiling. “I grew them myself.”

“No, I meant the girl.” Sasuke continued, not thinking. “She's still trapped with Itachi. We've got to go get her!”

Kira narrowed her eyes. “We?”

He stared back at her dumbly. “Well, aren't you going to help me?”

She looked away. “I don't quite like her, Sasuke.”

“Well she's still my friend!”

“Yes, I get that, and I respect that, but you'd better not try and get her out—it's suicide.”

“Suicide or not, she's helped me a lot, and I owe this to her.”

Kira was quiet for a while, but then she spoke again, but this time her voice was soft and dangerous. “Are you sure it's just that? Nothing else?”

“Don't start this again!” Sasuke felt strangely weary and annoyed. “She came to help me, and I've got to return the favor.”

“Just the favor?” Her eyes were narrowed, cruel, but Sasuke didn't know what to say or do to calm her down.

“Yeah, yeah, just the favor.” Sasuke said, but somehow, he couldn't look her in the eyes when he said it. Something twisted and turned in his chest, and he frowned slightly, squirming a bit under Kira's unrelenting gaze. After a few merciful moments of silence, a pause in the interrogating questions on Kira's part, Sasuke realized that it was his heart wriggling in his ribcage. What was wrong with him? He hadn't felt so…it was hard to place a word to it, but he felt like there was an aching pressure pushing down hard on him, flattening his heart and stabbing at a spot above his navel.

Kira said nothing, watching him silently through troubled eyes. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her, and after an internal battle, she apparently won and grabbed Sasuke's shoulders, spinning him around to meet her eyes.

“Hey—Kira—stop, stop, what are you—” Sasuke was silenced by the venom in her eyes. Suddenly he realized that her eyes were no longer green—they were brown, with a dark edge that made them look almost black. “Kira?”

She smiled, teeth sharp to such an extent she was like a vampire; after all, she did act like one. She was luring him closer and closer with her eyes…and then lunged—but instead of biting him she bit the air right next to his left ear. Sasuke turned his head inches to the left, trying to see what she was doing. The sight that met his eyes was so frightening; he backed away, shaking off her now lax grip. But when he tried to go further, he couldn't. It was like he was bound to her for the moment.

Kira was—no, Sasuke realized, this wasn't Kira anymore—the girl that looked remarkably like Kira, only shorter, was writhing on the floor, some kind of blue gas twitching in her clawed hands and a liquid leaking down the corner of her mouth, her fangs stained the same color. With a pang of horror, he realized that it was his chakra. Somehow, she'd bitten into his chakra, and swallowed it like a real vampire. After the initial shock, he realized that she was suffering, and vampire or not, this was Kira's body, meaning if something happened to the vampire, Kira would feel it too. She was facing the ground, body contorting in agony, so he grasped her around the waist and pulled her up. She gasped in pain and tilted her face towards him. Sasuke let go immediately, scrabbling backwards. Her eyes were huge, like mirrors, and reflected in them were not Sasuke of the present, but him from the past, all of his memories, replayed right there, like a giant television screen. A few moments later, her eyes returned to normal again, a light brown, but just as suddenly, they were crystal green again.

“So, you lied.” Kira said in a rasping voice, clutching her chest, doubled up in pain. “You…you have feelings for that…that girl…you lied to me…Sasu-Sasuke…” She gasped, forcing herself to her feet, grasping a nearby stool for support.

“I don't!” Sasuke said indignantly, anxiety and worry scarring his usually emotion-lacking features. “And I didn't lie to you! What did you just do?”

She smiled, pale and wane, “I read all of your memories, your feelings, your conscience…you in the very depth of the word. I know things about you that you yourself don't know.”

“Then I didn't know it myself, so how could I have lied?” retorted Sasuke, still a few cautious steps back. “You couldn't do that last time. I know you couldn't.”

“These aren't my powers, Sasuke. These are my sister's.” said Kira, leaning on a table. “I just borrowed them for the moment.”

“Those aren't normal abilities, Kira. Who exactly is your sister?” Sasuke edged a bit closer, extending a helping hand.

Kira tilted her head up, and an insane look spread over her face, stilling her, but making her look like an obsessive fan of whatever she was going to say. “My sister?” She lowered her head and whispered passionately, “My sister is Itachi's pet.” She spat out the last word like a bug, almost grimacing at the taste of the word itself. “And I didn't say they were abilities. They aren't. They—they're powers. Stolen from other people. It was Orochimaru's ability, to steal from others and take them for his own. But Itachi was smarter, better, more skilled. He copied Orochimaru's abilities…and mixed them with others, then gave them to his most loyal followers. He created what he called “the rulers of tomorrow”. I call them the freaks of today. They plundered, but in secret, killed all who opposed Itachi—and that's how he raised so freakishly quickly into power. And—and my sister helped.” The last few words were spoken so quietly Sasuke almost missed them.

Sasuke backed up a bit. “And you? What did you do?”

“I finished my job. It was hard and long, since they fled from me, and were faster. But I was smarter. I killed the people that killed my parents, and I was ready to go home. But when I returned…” She looked up again, pain written all over her face. “No one was there. They were gone. At first I thought maybe they had all gone on a village vacation, or they were on a mission, but something didn't feel right. I left the village and asked travelers on the road about what had happened. And then I found out…”

“Everyone was buried.” Sasuke continued, staring down at her. “You came back after they were dead. It was too late.”

Kira sniffed and wiped a tear away from her face. “Yeah. I went to the cemetery and suddenly realized how big it was.”

“They expanded it. There wasn't enough room for all the bodies.” Sasuke shared his story with hers, filling in the gaps.

“There were some unmarked graves, where the people were too mutilated to be identified. I saw Hoshi's grave, Toki's grave, and poor little Ichi, too. I cried over every grave, and said a prayer for each soul. I counted the graves. There were a few too little.”

“Mine, Itachi's, and I'm guessing your sister's?”

“And some others, too. I wondered if there had been mass burials. It was likely, since there were so many bodies. Then I wondered who buried them.”

“Friends from other villages. They couldn't identify some, for the unmarked graves, because they didn't know them very well.”

“I dug them up. I wanted you to be alive. I wanted my sister to be alive. I wondered where Itachi was, and I wanted to torture him until he begged me for the escape of death. The ones who dug the grave were stupid. They couldn't identify some of the people. Luckily for me, the graves were fresh. It seemed I had come to the cemetery only a few days after the deaths.”

“The unmarked were Itachi's enemies. They weren't us.”

“I knew something was wrong. Itachi couldn't have killed you; I knew he wouldn't. But my sister? What could have been so important about her? Absolutely nothing. Yes, she could absorb other people's abilities sometimes, but it was always temporary. She had learned to control it. It seemed fishy, but at that time I didn't know Itachi's intentions. I check every house. I checked every secret passageway. I scoured all nearby towns and villages. I combed through the forests and lakes, and interrogated every passerby. I captured one of Itachi's followers and finally got some information from him. My sister was alive, but I didn't know where she was. The man stabbed himself before I could ask. So I came to a quick conclusion. The only survivors were you, she, and I. but I wasn't sure where her loyalties lied. By then, it had already been a year. My sister was young. She wasn't yet sure who was good and who was bad. Itachi might have turned her against me.”

“So you searched for her.” Sasuke said, eyes widening. “I heard, when Itachi and Orochimaru were talking one night, that the only other survivor of his attack besides the ones he had spared was close to tracking him down. He feared you, even if it was only a little. He called a girl to his side. I couldn't tell who she was in the darkness, but she might have been your sister. He told her to lead someone on a dead trail.”

Kira sneered. “But I was smarter. I saw past everything and realized that the one who had set everything up was my sister. I taught her those techniques. There were little messages within each trap she set, each trail that led to a different town, each person that was set up to see her at a place, and in the direction she was going. My sister was trying to find me, but she wasn't sure if I really was her sister.”

“You found Itachi's lair and your sister. But he knew you were coming. He was smart.”

“And I was desperate.” Kira sobbed, eyes clouding over. “He took her hostage, threatened to kill her, offered me acceptance into his elite ninjas.”

“He manipulated you, making you think that your sister had turned against you. He let her go in your plain sight, when you were furious and believing every word he had said, and you attacked her. But she fled, terrified, and Itachi seized the moment to try and kill you.”

Kira gasped. “What? How did you know?”

“I was there.” Sasuke frowned, trying desperately to remember what had happened. “I had been tracking down Itachi too. But you got to him first, and I watched you from the shadows. I didn't know who you were, since you wore a mask, and your voice echoed off the walls—I couldn't tell who was speaking. But I did know that your sister was innocent. You saw Itachi out of the corner of your eye, and you dodged it just in time, countering with a strike of your own. I saw your fighting style, and I was convinced that I had to help you, and when we won, I would ask you who you were.”

“You were the person that came out of the shadows!” She cried, realization flooding her pretty features. “I didn't recognize you, it had been years since I saw you! You didn't step any closer to me or him, you just threw weapons and dodged his attacks.”

“I couldn't hold him back. It was hard, and someone grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me back. It was Orochimaru. I ended up fighting a battle of my own, and I couldn't help you.”

“I was wondering why you disappeared!” said Kira, leaning forward, eager to share her side of the story. “Itachi and I were both very injured, I more so than him. But he was worried his wounds were fatal, he heard a cry, must have realized it was his ally's dying scream, and fled, leaving me for dead and my sister a lost cause.” Kira's eyes were vacant for a moment, but there was color flooding her cheeks. “I was on the verge of death, and I wondered where my savior was. But out of the shadows came not you, but my sister. She performed some complicated jutsu that, even to this day, I do not understand, and my soul, my very being, separated from my body and entered hers. I left my old body behind, and we have shared an entity since. For nearly three months, I could not free myself from her, to surface and see the world and feel my body again. When I finally could, my looks, my clothes, my skills were returned, and I soon found that I could use my will to control my sister. I didn't care anymore whether or not she felt. I let her enjoy life sometimes, but I still hated her for working for Itachi. She had begged him to spare her, and he did. Of course he used her, but she was still alive. Beg! Honestly, I'd rather have died.”

“That vampire thing…that was her ability?”

“Yeah, it was, among others. I can borrow them whenever I want. This isn't even my body, but I like to think that it's my second shot at living. I'm going to make the best of it.” Kira's eyes focused once again on Sasuke. “But first, let's go back to Sakura. Who exactly is she?”

Sasuke moaned inwardly. Not this again!