#netsurai

[loveoaths]

🌹

The Father, The Son, and the Unholy Ghost: Luke likes Din. Din likes Luke. Din is less crazy about Luke's insane, evil father who keeps trying to kill him from beyond the grave.

In Din’s defense, he’s never been much of a drinker.

So when Luke sets a bottle of cheap liquor on the hotel suite counter, looks up at him through this thick blonde lashes, and asks, “Ever done a handle pull?” with that sneaky grin, Din is already half-way to drunk. 

The liquor just hastens the inevitable. 

The last thing he remembers is Luke laughing too hard at something terrifying he’d said — No matter what Din tells him, Luke never seems to get squeamish, and that’s something Din likes about him: he knows there’s more blood on Din’s hands than skin, yet he still lays those long fingers over worn gloves with an ease that reminds Din that, actually, Luke’s body count is much, much higher than his own — and then he remembers Luke floating their glasses in the air with one hand, his other hand running up his arm to the broken seal around his neck, warm knuckles brushing against exposed brown skin. Din had swallowed, torn between acknowledging the touch and ignoring it in case he was misreading the situation. He’d chosen the latter. He nodded his helmed head toward the glasses.

“Cool Jedi trick,” he’d said, like an idiot.

And Luke, bright, terrifying, ridiculous, gorgeous Luke, had fixed him with a look like molten silver and tipped his chin back toward the bedroom door behind them.

“Thanks. Wanna see a cooler one?”

A more suave man would have had a line ready to reel him in, but seeing as hearing those words nearly killed him, Din’s just glad he could fumble out a quiet “Y-yes please,” before Luke changed his mind.

When he wakes up, he feels like he’s run over by a transport, and then seven more after that. In the dark, Din rolls over with a groan and immediately regrets it: his breath is sour and overwhelming inside the helmet, which is backwards. He lifts a hand to right it when something tightens around his naked waist.

He’s desperately trying to remember where his blaster is when the something shifts and strokes hot up his bare stomach, and Din freezes. 

Slowly, carefully, quietly, Din works his helmet right way forward, and looks down.

An arm. An arm is wrapped around him.

Luke Skywalker’s arm.

He is in bed with Luke kriffing Skywalker.

For the first time in his life, Din wants to throw up and grin at the same time.

Din relaxes, slowly, pressing back into unfamiliar pillows and turning to look down at the messy blonde mop poking out of the sea of blankets. As if by instinct, Luke turns sleepily toward him and shoves his face against Din’s chest with a warm, unintelligible murmur.

Din dares to settle beside him and stroke a golden lock. The curtains are drawn shut, but he wishes he could steal over to pull them open a sliver, if only to watch a strip of light set it aglow. He smiles a secret smile down at him, ignoring the way his heart shudders to life in his chest like a vintage cruiser raring for one last race.

What he cannot ignore, however, is the furious blue glare hovering over Luke’s sleeping sun-kissed shoulder.

“YOU.”

To his credit, Din does not jump or curse, despite the disorienting hangover. He instead snatches the small vibrodagger sheathed between the mattress and the headboard and jams it into the figure’s jugular — 

It passes right through, no more than an impotent suggestion.

“If you’d had this sense of self preservation last night, you wouldn’t be here,” the figure snarls and presses forward, pushing through Luke’s sleeping face to fix Din with a bloodcurdling sneer. "At least you've more vim than the last one." The last one? Din ignores the way his heart sinks and slashes at its head this time. The vibrodagger passes through once more. The figure snickers. “Oh, please. It would take more than that to kill me if I weren’t already dead."

Din retracts the blade for Luke’s safety, but keeps it in his hand, braced for attack. Blinking through sleep and confusion, Din tries to understand what he’s seeing. A man. A handsome man with knives for cheeks and sour gold eyes and a strange, breathy voice, not unlike someone speaking through an outdated rebreather. Shiny slivers of fractured durasteel and shattered black armor circle his head like a crown of ruin. Long brown hair waves to tanned shoulders fissured through with cracks of throbbing red and orange and yellow, and where hair and skin meet, the follicles burst into sickly flame. His hands are wicked black metal curdled with smoke, and they grasp desperately for Din’s throat, but they, too, pass through. The man clicks his tongue like he expected this, but is annoyed by it nonetheless.

Din wraps his arm around Luke’s back and pulls him toward him protectively. The man’s eyes immediately drop to the hand on Luke’s back and for a moment Din swears he sees them glow. “What are you?”

“Your worst nightmare,” the apparition sneers. With a crack Din feels in his bones, the shade grows, looming impossibly large in the small room, “I am Luke’s father. You will know me as… DARTH VADER.”

His voice whips through the room, an unholy heat radiating from his furious form.

A pregnant silence settles into the room.

The figure pauses, as if expecting something.

After a moment, Din realizes he’s waiting for a reaction.

Din looks down at Luke — still asleep in his arms, somehow, and something about that makes Din's heart squeeze — and then back up at hell’s most flamboyant reject.

“Sorry,” Din clips, wondering idly if ghosts can burn people to death, and if so, how badly that would hurt, “Darth who?”

[kyousei-a]

     @netsurai​ ᴀsᴋᴇᴅ: it’s been months since he’s seen them, so of course now that they’re here his usual high regard for personal space is scattered like grass-seed. akitsu is propped against his him before shino has half a chance to let her feet touch the ground; shino himself gets a kiss to the cheek that leaves suigetsu dramatically gagging behind them. akitsu’s old enough to remember things, now, and he wants to show her all of it. the endless sky and hills and horses that hate him, the braids of his host-tribe and how karin sticks out her tongue when she’s drafting diplomacy. this is his home— he wants it to be hers, too. “did you feed her yet.” he can hardly wait. he wants to see her face scrunch like shino’s does on sour milk candies. // unprompted

     Grass Country has become something of a second home for Shino and his (their) adopted daughter, tribes of the grasslands welcoming both him and Akitsu with open arms. Sasuke had greeted them the moment he’d stepped foot into the territories, almost as if their arrival had been anticipated. It’s something that Shino recognized but doesn’t speak on; knowing his husband any speak of his obvious affections would be met with flat denial.

     Instead, they are facts that Shino keeps close to his heart. Something for only him and their daughter to reminisce on during the months where they’re apart.

     Shino doesn’t hide the soft smile that he feels pull across his mouth when he sees how Sasuke holds the now four year-old like the precious ray of sunlight she is. Akitsu is giggling excitedly and Shino can feel her kikaichu hive resonating with her joyous mood — they’re buzzing loud enough to be heard among the crickets chirping in the grass. Sasuke might even feel the slight vibrations against his skin if he focused through his own excitement. Truly, he wasn’t very good at pretending to ignore how Akitsu brought out the best of him.

     ❝She said she wanted to wait until she saw you to eat dinner tonight,❞ he responds easily, shifting both his and her packs of clothing and other supplies on his shoulder to sit more comfortably. The little girl nods her agreement, throwing her hands up toward the sky with a, ❝Dinner with Papa! Candy, candy!❞ Her single honey gold eye is sparkling alongside her wide grin, the other eye socket hidden behind a small eyepatch. It was almost as if she knew the lpan from the start, though truly she was expecting to be spoiled during her time here. She wasn't terribly far from the truth, though Shino would still do his best to keep her from falling too far away from routine.

     ❝Dinner first, then candy. The reason is because you need to eat properly. Isn’t that right, Sasuke?❞

[fowleyes]

@netsurai .            |            sc .

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐘 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐇𝐈𝐌 quakes in a display of vulnerability , magnetizing itachi's fingers to the base where lies sasuke's raven fringe . his hands are like ghosts , fading from existence , escaping touch with those who doubt their presence . softness has rotted at his core & when his brother opens his eyes , in a cold sweat , shaking , itachi stands above him , immobile , unwavering : a threat to his very existence .

                                  ❛    this is your reality , sasuke .   ❜   

you can wake up now .

[claysplosion]

" you know— " comes a LOUD voice; the volume both forces attention to its source and covers up any feelings that drive forth the words, " i could have won that fight between us; you just got LUCKY. " / @netsurai

[kusatta]

          “   you   &   i   aren’t as   different   as you want to   believe.   that must be why you’re   so angry   . . .   because   looking at me,   all that i’ve   done  . . .   it’s like   looking in a mirror,   isn’t it   ?   the only difference is   you never had a chance at being hokage.   ”   /   @netsurai​.

[yinseal]

HOW DO YOU NEED TO BE LOVED?

casually, the same way you love to breathe

you want someone who will see your favorite flower and will give it to you,  without even thinking about it.  you want someone who will remember all the little details about you,  the things so seemingly unimportant but that matter more than you thought they did.  you want someone who will still be there,  thirty years down the line,  holding your hand while the two of you do two separate things.  you want the intimacy of being known by someone who makes you feel safe.  you don't want expensive dinners or grand proposals.  you want someone who will love you consistently.

tagged by: @fullmtal​ this hurt so much thank u   tagging:  @avadite​ @resolutepath​ @vrulence​ @netsurai​ + everyone else !

[demonsecho]

yall not ready for bffs tanjiro and sasuke

[ironharvests]

♡ hakusasu 😌😈

SEND ME ♡ + A SHIP AND I’LL TELL YOU…

Who is the most affectionate?

this is a joke right. HAKU! they are the romantic of the two of them. they're also the disciplinarian. haku is judge, jury, and executioner of the two of them, but in a loving way. sasuke has zero boundaries, so haku has to mete them out appropriately.

Who initiates the handholding?

haku. they also instigated the kisses.

Who worries more for the other?

haku. sasuke's mental stability is uh, questionable. also sasuke gets into some bullshit that makes haku beat his ass, and then talk to him about why he needs to stop doing stupid ass shit.

Who is more likely to ask for help?

haku. sasuke doesn't ask for things. he just suffers in silence or chooses not to do anything about whatever he's going through.

Who is the one always losing the keys?

sasuke. disassociation brain tingz.

Who leaves little love notes for the other?

haku. they're thoughtful, romantic, and watching sasuke's mental health spirals like a goddamn hawk. they find that leaving notes and physical reminders of care seem to help a little.

Who can’t sleep unless the other is there?

they're both fine, i think? maybe sasuke has some sleep trouble.

Who is more likely to propose to the other?

i can't remember what we discussed, but i think it's sasuke who challenges haku to the marriage match.

Who introduced the other to their family first?

[stares in ge.nocide] technically sasuke does because team seven? team seven.

Who is more likely to play with the other’s hair?

haku. i think sasuke has trouble with haku's hair because it reminds him of itachi.

Who makes sure the other has meals/stays hydrated?

haku. sasuke lives like a depressed dying barnacle.

Who is more likely to stand up to anyone for the other?

haku. sasuke wasn't paying attention.

Who is the most likely to prepare a surprise for the other?

haku. they gotta throw toys into sasuke's enclosure for enrichment.

Who makes the other pinky promise not to do certain things?

sasuke. it's one of those traumatized child remnants that haku finds sad but sweet and happily indulges in. sasuke treats them reasonably seriously, so haku can't go against a pinky promise. ever.

Who puts a blanket over the other when they fall asleep on the couch?

sasuke. he doesn't need blankets because he runs uchiha-hot ( dragon inheritance, baby! ) haku needs warmth to process food/for certain physiological processes because of their whole, you know, yuki blood thing, so not staying warm at night can actually be a big problem. sasuke is avoiding problems.

[loveoaths]

three sentence fic meme but idk who 98% of these people are yet so just pick something unhinged u have earmarked for when i Know More. alternatively the wip you're most feeling

From Nothing Is My Name, a wip fic exploring the first twenty years of Din’s life, starting with (the end of) his childhood on Aq Vetina. Starring Din’s family, a lovely religion of peace and shadows, the power of hermeneutics, and all the insecurities a ten year old boy could ask for.

“What… what do you think?”

When Aliki pushes her veil away from her face, her grin is so wide that her molars wink at him through the black space where her front teeth should be, and that is how Din Djarin knows today is going to be the best day of his life.

“Aliki, don’t,” he pleads at the same moment Aliki snickers “Your face look stupid!” and pulls the fabric away from his face and hair, leaving him bare faced and naked like a child, instead of the young man he is about to become. Din yanks at Aliki’s own veil, a dark green thick-weave in a spiral pattern, until the veil pins scatter loose and Aliki kneels to gather them up off the dirt floor, still laughing her wolfish laugh.

“We have the same face,” Din reminds his twin without heat, then fiddles with his own veil again as he tries to pin the complicated fabric loops back into place. He hadn’t wanted a complicated veil, hadn’t wanted anything that got him stared at more than usual these days, but his mother had insisted he take his late grandmother’s veil, a delicate and artful thing older than Aq Vetina itself. And though he is sometimes prone to daydreaming when he was meant to be tilling the fields, Din acquiesced because he is a good brother and a better son. He wants to make his parents proud. 

He needs to make them proud, after what happened.

And there is no prouder day on Aq Vetina than Kimat’s Day of Shrouds, the holy festival where children hear the voice of the Quiet God for the first, and last, time. 

[kyousei-a]

     @netsurai​ ᴀsᴋᴇᴅ: fuck marry kill team seven, shino // unprompted

     ❝Kiss Sakura, marry Sasuke, kill Naruto,❞ Shino  thinks aloud, idly pinching his chin between forefinger thumb. ❝The reason is because Sakura is an admirable kunoichi. Anyone should feel honored to have such a moment to share with her. Sasuke is technically the Clan Head to one of Konoha’s Noble Houses and as an Aburame it would be our prerogative to unite those houses. The Uchiha and Aburame have a deep history together.❞

     Arms then cross over his chest, brows coming together behind the line of his glasses. ❝Naruto forgot my name.❞

[mononoavvare]

richard siken. “three proofs”. when you paint an evil thing / do you invoke it / or take away its power?

          Sai likes to walk home from training with the team each day. 

     He starts taking the street after a few weeks of simply running the rooftops back to his sparse apartment. The long roads home hold more life than any he’s ever seen-- residential districts, brightly colored homes with laughing children chattering on their way home from school, old women hanging laundry out to dry, young lovers whispering to one another with ducked heads as they scurry home in the hot, mid-afternoon light. Sai likes to watch all of this, as if it might give him some great insight into the minds of people. He likes to watch all of this like he might learn something important from them.

     On the way home, there is an old man. He sits in a wheelchair in an open doorway at the top of a set of narrow stairs and he frowns down at Sai the first few weeks he watches him pass. For lack of anything better to do, Sai always gives his plastic smile and waves, undaunted by the lack of friendly response in return. Walking past his door and his frown with a smile and a wave swiftly becomes a tradition, one that is broken after twelve days when The Old Man lifts a hand back and calls out, “Young man.”

     His voice is reedy, thin and his fingers gnarled like twigs but they do not shake in the warm summer air. The words stop Sai in his tracks and he turns to fully face the man, head tilted curiously. “Hello,” he greets politely, “My name is Sai.” 

     “I don’t care, kid,” The Old Man replies, beckoning him closer. Sai climbs the steps without thought as The Old Man continues, “I need your help.” He wheels himself back and Sai follows him inside-- the home is well-lit, full of pictures of smiling children and grandchildren, neat and lively in a way Sai didn’t expect. He is not sure what he expected to see instead, but he has little time to dwell on the minor curiosity. “I live with my daughters and their husbands,” The Old Man rasps, “and they never leave me enough damn water. I can’t reach the glasses or the sink in this, but the husbands loathe me and they never leave me enough damn water!” 

     Sai hums quietly in response and wanders into the kitchen, carefully picking through the cabinets until he finds the one with the glasses, and he gets The Old Man a cup of cool tap water while he waits in the doorway, tapping his bony fingers against the armrest of the chair. Sai is quiet, and the man looks at him suspiciously while he finishes off the water greedily, and holds the glass out for more. Sai obliges him. 

     That day, he leaves without saying another word, and The Old Man only grumbles a reluctant ‘thank you’ as he wanders out the front door-- Sai just hums in response. 

     Every day for the next few weeks The Old Man beckons him inside of his unexpectedly cheery home and asks him for a glass of water, and Sai silently obliges because really, he has nothing better to do. It’s a few minutes of his time spent on a mindless, simple task. Sometimes The Old Man is silent outside of his gruff demands, and sometimes The Old Man tells him about his family-- the successful daughters, the sons-in-law who hate him, the grandchildren who go to tutoring after school that are going to be doctors and lawyers and other such things just like their mothers. He tells Sai he is alone all day and the sons in law don’t leave him enough water to drink because they hate him and wish him ill, and Sai almost fondly thinks The Old Man reminds him a little bit of Lord Danzo. 

          The more time he spends with team seven, the less fond the comparison seems-- he tries not to think too hard on it. 

     After helping and listening to The Old Man rattle off whatever comes to mind for nearly two weeks, The Old Man tells him of The Neighbor’s Dog. The Neighbor’s Dog, he claims, barks relentlessly all day when The Old Man is alone, drives him up a wall. 

          “Well,” Sai responds mildly, “perhaps your neighbors leave her alone all day as well. Perhaps she is as lonely as you.”

     The Old Man scoffs. “I am not lonely,” he grumbles, gnarled hands curled tightly around the half-filled glass resting in his lap. “I am not lonely,” he insists again, louder this time, and he continues, “I want you to kill the dog, please.” 

     Sai’s expression does not flicker because he feels nothing, but he has to admit to himself that he doesn’t see much sense in the request. “You want me to kill the dog,” he responds flatly, crossing his arms when The Old Man nods at him with wide eyes. “Won’t your neighbors be upset if their dog dies?” 

     Shaking his head hard enough to nearly spill his water, The Old Man stares up at him with wide eyes. “No, no,” he insists, pointing a jagged finger at the wall to indicate which neighbor it is. “They leave her out all day and night! But she only barks when I am alone and she is alone. She barks and barks and barks, rain or shine. If you love a creature you do not leave it out at all hours in all weather, no? You care for it. She is just a thing to them.”

          Sai does not want to kill the dog. 

     He tilts his head and gives The Old Man a vague answer about seeing if he could talk to the neighbors, ask them to chain her elsewhere or perhaps bring her inside, and The Old Man reluctantly agrees that perhaps this is the less contentious solution. Sai then tells him he will be going on an assignment and won’t be in the village for the next few weeks, but he will see The Old Man when he returns. He slips out of the open front door before he can hear the grumbled response. 

          The Neighbor’s Dog is standing in the next yard behind the slatted fence at the very end of her chain, staring at The Old Man’s house when Sai emerges, just like she always is when he comes by. He has never thought it strange. When he approaches the fence and leans his arms against the warm metal and peers down at her, she turns her gaze slowly from the house to him, and it strikes Sai as ... uncanny, somehow. It strikes Sai that before now, he has never seen her move at all. 

     “Hello,” he greets blithely, defaulting to something familiar in an attempt to settle the strange feeling shifting within him. The Neighbor’s Dog drops her head and her tail and takes four steps back until she is settled on the neighbors’ front porch. “Oh, you don’t have to be afraid,” Sai says, hopping easily over the fence and landing in a crouch in the grass. “I just want to know why you bark all the time-- I will not hurt you.” 

     The Neighbor’s Dog creeps forward when he holds out a hand for her to sniff, her steps silent in the grass beneath her paws. She’s cautious, but she doesn’t growl or bare her teeth when he settles his palm atop her head and strokes her ears. They’re silk-soft against his two bare fingers, enough so that he almost wants to take his glove off and repeat the motion. They lock eyes when he draws his hand away. 

          Suddenly, he knows. 

     It’s like his skull has been cracked open and his brain has been half scooped out and replaced with something else and then his head was shaken until the original matter is indistinguishable from the new. Though he’s dizzy with it, he doesn’t reel or flinch back from her because such an instinct was trained out of him long ago. He doesn’t know exactly what he knows but he knows this: something is Wrong. The Old Man is in danger, and the golden-eyed mutt next door knows the truth. 

          “Oh,” he says. “I... What should I do?” 

     He isn’t sure there’s a protocol for reporting a danger to an old man just because a dog told you it existed. She isn’t even a ninken, she’s... Well, not normal. But she doesn’t talk. She doesn’t respond to his question, either, just slinks back to the front door and lays down on the porch with a long, canine sigh. Sai sits for a moment and he tries to pick apart the feeling but he can’t parse anything from it and it makes him nauseous so he takes the feeling and he puts it in a box and shelves it. “Okay,” he says, resolving to deal with this when he gets back from his mission, “okay.” 

     Sai goes home and he packs and, predictably, he almost dies multiple times on that assignment, like he always does with team seven. All manner of things crawl about in his feverish dreams and they whisper things he cannot hear or understand, like he’s under water or perhaps they are, and when he sits around the fire at night and Sakura’s hands rest warm and glowing green on his shoulder he starts to ask her what he should to about The Old Man and The Neighbor’s Dog, but there are bags under her eyes and his tongue doesn’t want to cooperate with him long enough to explain, so he just goes to bed. 

     And when he gets back to the village, he goes to see The Old Man in the middle of the afternoon at the usual time despite the fact that he is not training with team seven that day. The Old Man is sitting at the door like he always is, but his skin is pale and waxy and there are deep bags under his eyes and his hands tremble like leaves in the wind. Sai stands on the top step and stares for a long time before The Old Man speaks.

     “She’s dead,” he starts. Sai’s gaze turns to the empty yard, and then back to him. He wheels himself further into the house, and Sai follows. Gets him a glass of water. Stands in the doorway of his kitchen and wonders if the man ever goes outside. After an eternity The Old Man continues, “she started barking more often after you left-- when everyone was here, when the neighbors were home. Her barks... sounded like speech, to me, so familiar they were. Is that crazy?” 

     “The human mind can find patterns in almost anything,” Sai replies automatically, instead of asking what the dog told him. “Whether there is a pattern to find or not. We seek them out because we find them comforting.” The Old Man’s shoulders slump and he nods weakly, turning to look at the photos on the wall with a troubled expression. Sai opens his mouth and blurts, “I think you might be in danger--”

          “I am tired,” The Old Man interrupts him abruptly. “I am old and I am tired, young man. Why don’t you go home?” 

     Sai pauses, tilts his head, and then nods in acquiescence. He turns and slips out the door, closing it softly behind himself, and he stands in front of the neighbor’s house staring at the grass in their yard with his arms on the bars of the fence. He stands there until the sun starts to set and the air cools and the neighbors come home, and when he sees them he smiles politely and he greets, “Hello.” It rings hollow, but even though the man and the woman exchange glances he continues. “I was wondering-- Well, I usually see a dog here? What happened to her?” 

     The pair exchanges a glance, and the woman sighs sadly: “She got rabies or something... started getting all crazy and aggressive, wouldn’t stop barking and growling, all the time. We had to put her down.” Sai nods once, curtly, and bids them an insincere goodnight. He goes home. 

     The Old Man is dead within the week, he hears. Accidentally wheeled himself down the steep stairs outside of his front door he never left the confines of and crushed himself under his chair. A tragic accident. Sai stands in front of the house exactly once on the way back from the training ground and he peers in the windows like he might learn something, but there’s nothing to see at all. There is no movement inside-- the people are still gone from it during the day, and there is no one to beckon him inside and ask him for water. Sai doesn’t know what to... do. Who to tell, or how to tell it.

          So he goes home, and he doesn’t take the long way back from the training grounds anymore. 

[claysplosion]

“ you’re really not dead, hm. ” the old man and kurotsuchi hadn’t been lying. here is SASUKE UCHIHA and deidara knows he isn’t dead because he’s changed. deidara expects rage to ignite inside his chest at the unexpected sight — here is the man who had rendered his magnus opus meaningless — but these past few years spent dead but undying must’ve dulled his hatred, because all deidara feels is HOLLOW. “ —how? ”     /     @netsurai​

[copycaat]

ignipotent - presiding over fire

     Legend has it, Shisui used to say. Legend has it the Dragons live where the Naka springs from the ground in the mountains. He would sit Sasuke down with the rest of them around a low-burning oil lamp and tuck one of their cloaks around his shoulders when they pretended to ninja-camp in the backyard, and he would peer around at the team with a mischievous tilt to his mouth. 

          Legend, Kakashi would always think wryly to himself, has nothing to do with it. 

     When he was nine years old and a freshly blooded jounin and reeling after the loss of one Uchiha Obito and the acquisition of one of the most coveted dojutsu in the Land of Fire and the subsequent constant drain on his chakra that nearly and should have killed him, he was brought before a council of elders of the Uchiha Clan. He thinks, bearing all of that in mind, his total silence before them as they argued over what to do with him was justified. Minato had tried to come with him to the trial as a guardian, but he knew what to expect and he knew his sensei wouldn’t be able to handle the proceedings without major upset. Besides; Hatake Kakashi was an adult in the eyes of the law-- it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to bring a chaperone. 

     They were perfectly happy to discuss him as if he weren’t even there. Many argued for the removal of the eye-- and he thinks that one was the worst. It would be a mercy, in their view, to take away the last thing Obito had ever given him and the promises he’d made in exchange. He would have preferred death, and plenty of the eldest among them argued for that one as well. He expected it: the Hatake brat, a little monster from a family of pariahs? Proof that the sharingan could survive outside of the Uchiha bloodline, even with the only evidence being that it hadn’t killed Kakashi yet? It was unacceptable. He needed to be made an example of, to declare to the rest of the village that their abilities were not to be bought and sold and traded from corpses. This was an argument he understood. 

     Old clans have old ways, after all; the Hatake had secrets of their own. He did not want to die, but he understood that it was a distinct possibility that he might. Uchiha Fugaku, the future clan head himself argued that Kakashi be allowed to live on with it, though his voice was shouted down by dozens of others in that loud room. They deliberated for hours until Kakashi could barely keep his head up and his eyes-- his eye-- open, until an old crone of a woman that had been as quiet as he had stood, and a hush finally fell over the room. Her hair was thin and grey-white and she’d leaned heavily on her cane when she hobbled over to stand before him. He kept his eye fixed firmly on her feet until she thumped the cane against the ground meaningfully, and when he met her gaze her eyes were milky and sightless, but her voice was the rough burr of a field commander. “We will ask the dragons,” she said. 

          We will ask the dragons. 

     You see-- when Shisui would tell the story he always did it respectfully, with an air of bestowing knowledge of great importance on the youngest member of their little rag-tag group, reverent even when he would adapt great and exciting sweeping gestures and laugh joyfully at some parts of the tale. Uchiha Shisui was a true believer in the way most of the Uchiha were true believers: tales of gods were not things to be passed down and eventually forgotten. They were warnings as much as they were a living heritage, colorful and warm and alive and terrifying. Tales of massive scaled beasts that breathed fire into the sky and knew unfathomable things that had given the Uchiha the gift of Sight in exchange for their dedication were not tales at all; they were history. They were beings of wrath and honor and dignity and they were a lesson. 

     And so when the old woman suggested his case be taken to the dragons she was not met with scorn. Instead a thoughtful silence reigned until more than half of the room had agreed, and thus it was decided. Jounin of Konohagakure, Hatake Kakashi, aged nine, was to be taken to the dragons. Jounin of Konohagakure, Hatake Kakashi, aged nine, took this news about as well as one might expect. 

     Silently and without complaint, he let them set him up in a spare bedroom and spent the night in the compound under guard and he didn’t sleep a wink. He stared at the ceiling all night and he thought about the patrons of the Hatake and how they always seemed so lifeless when he read about them on paper-- the White Ones with their quiet, feral dignity, and Raijin with his penchant for mischief and destruction reduced only to strokes of ink. His father had only taken him into the shrine once when he was very young, and he’d showed him how to light the lanterns and leave offerings and he’d shown him where they’d kept the clan histories and secrets and when he’d went back to lock the place up after Hatake Sakumo’s death he’d sat in there for a very long time and read through histories that felt as cold and dead as the rock and the paper and his father and himself. He thought about the wild joy in the chase and the madness that sparked in him during a storm, and he knew: the Uchiha did not believe their gods are dead. It wasn’t all that difficult to wrap his mind around. 

          But he’d left his family’s shine untended for so long. He would get no help from his own patrons if he really was about to face his judgement. 

     They led him out in the pre-dawn light on a long trek along the river, upstream along a well-worn path. Mist clung to the slow-moving waters and swirled around their feet until it was burned away by the sun mid-morning, and by noon they reached the foot of a mountain inlaid with thousands of steps-- so high that the stairway disappeared into the clouds, and his armed guard stopped at the base of them and sent him the rest of the way alone. 

     One foot in front of the other, he climbed the steps. The constant strain on his chakra from Obito’s eye left him fatigued from what would have otherwise been considered light exercise, and every stair felt like a struggle. He climbed the stairs until the retinue he left behind looked like ants and he kept climbing, the stone path planted neatly next to the river that rushed and crushed on its way down. He followed the stairs all the way to a great plateau, and the air was thin and cold in his lungs and sweat clung to his forehead and left him shivering in the frigid breeze and the exertion left him burning with fever, and on the edge he saw the mouth of a cave and from the cave came the river, the water tumultuous and churning as it spit itself into a long waterfall. 

     A wash of hot air came from the mouth of the cave, and for a brief moment he considered turning around and walking back down the stairs and not looking back. He closed his eye and he steadied himself and pressed a fist to his rib cage like that might still his wildly beating heart, and then he walked forward. All the way to the mouth of the cave and straight onto the rapidly changing surface of the water, keeping his chakra leashed carefully and his steps light, following the river into the dark. A great cavern opened up before him and he came to a standstill on the water, peering into the dark with his one eye and finding that he could see nothing but knowing that there was something there with him anyway. The cave smelled like serpents, like sulfur, and the air was hot and there was a great heaving sound like a sigh, and he kept himself still even as a great red eye with three swirling tomoe flickered to life before him. 

     The red glow cast light on a great shifting mass of scales and whiskers and teeth and five-ten-fifteen-onehundred-onethousand eyes cracked open with the same lazy sort of judgement and they stared at him and they shifted in the dim red and he could pick out black and white and red but no other color. Hatake Kakashi stood still on the water with his shoulders straight and his hands steady and he watched a snout bloom from the mass and lower itself to watch him from twenty feet away-- the dragon’s teeth were as long as his own body, and its head was the size of a house. 

     Its mouth did not move but its voice still echoed loudly in the massive cavern. It said to him: Let us see. He averted his gaze from the end of its nose and lifted his hitai-ate and then lifted his chin once more, Obito’s eye burning in his skull when it showed him in perfect detail just how massive and how powerful the creature before him truly was. The air around him vibrated with the voice when it came again, this time saying: You are no Uchiha. 

     “No,” he’d agreed, because lying wouldn’t fly here and there was little else to be said. A creature like this would not care for a dead boy’s plea and the survivor’s promise. The head drifted closer to him and he was forced to crane his neck up further to keep his gaze on it. 

     Bold little thing, it had chuckled. We gave our gift of sight to the Uchiha because they agreed to abide by our laws, child. You, we have made no such bargain with. 

     Kakashi had grit his teeth but kept his shoulders relaxed, and instead of saying ‘not yet’ or ‘i would strike a bargain with you if that is what you desire’, he said, “I already hold agreements with others.” At the creature’s snort, he swallowed hard. 

     Agreements you have broken, have you not? To you, there is no pack. Its tone was considering instead of mocking, and he did not allow himself to flinch from the truth of it. You are already an oathbreaker, so what use do we have for a wretch like you? 

     It’s not a question he truly had an answer for-- after all, they were right. Hatake Kakashi had thrown his bonds to the wind and abandoned those he was supposed to care for: his father, first, and then Rin, to the cost of Obito’s life. Betraying Pack like that is the gravest of sins a Hatake can commit and he’d done it more than once, and the gods do not care for excuses and platitudes. But it had been Uchiha Obito that made him see the error of his ways, albeit a little too late to save his life. And Kakashi had sworn to him that he would live for the both of them and protect Rin, protect their family, so meeting his death in a flash of fire or teeth today was not an acceptable outcome. So he blinked slowly, his hand fisted tightly over his gut, and finally he replied, “you have no use for me at all.” 

     The stillness that lingered in the air then had raised the hairs on his arms like the moment before a lightning strike, and the great beast’s eyes had narrowed at him and a great, deafening snarl had ripped out of its throat and he had just enough time to think guess that’s the wrong answer before something struck him between the shoulder blades and lit his whole world up with bright white light and then left him once more in darkness. 

     He’d woken again out in the middle of the plateau feeling like his joints were locked in stone, limbs trembling, nose and ears bleeding. The air was frigid except for the great, hot gusts of air rolling out of the cave that made the mouth of the Naka river, and some sense told him he would not be welcome were he to go back inside. Kakashi had stood up, fallen back to his knees, and stood up again, and then made his way toward the steps on legs that trembled worse than a fawn’s. He sat heavily on the first stair at the top until his ragged breathing slowed, threw up off to the side until the only thing that came out of his mouth was stinging bile, and then he’d watched the sun set. 

     By the time he made it back down the stairs, staggering heavily, it was midnight. The only ones waiting for him were the ancient old woman and Uchiha Fugaku, who watched with unreadable faces as he made it all the way down the stairs and stood before them, and then fell straight onto his ass. The woman waited a moment, and then as she turned away she said, “he may keep the eye, then. It’s been decided,” and then limped off down the path into the dark. Fugaku had pulled him to his feet and caught him when he stumbled hard enough to crash face-first into his gut, and carefully steered him all the way back to his apartment without a word. 

     And if Shisui had a look of respect and wonder on his face whenever he spoke of the dragons to their little circle of murderers and a child, whenever Fugaku stood on the back porch and watched them he always had that same unreadable look he’d had that night, with his arms crossed and his brows furrowed, before he turned his back and headed inside. 

[nezasuyami]

He appears to have been approached by a vengeance of Sasuke...

[xmedicus]

Unprompted - Always Accepting

@netsurai​ asked: yehuda amichai. "a child is something else again" ... they've already placed their bets on him but he doesn't know it yet. he scratches his body for pleasure. nothing hurts yet. they're training him to be a polite Job, to say "thank you" when the lord has given, to say "you're welcome" when the lord has taken away. a child is vengeance. a child is a missile into the coming generations. i launched him: i'm still trembling.

He almost feels bad, for what they’re doing to Sasuke. Orochimaru has agreed to train him, yes; has even agreed to make him strong enough to beat his brother, as if the Sannin were even capable of such a feat. And Kabuto is the ever-present guard dog, making sure the ailing serpent doesn’t overextend themself, keeping the determined vessel in peak physical health for the eventual rebirth.

He’s young. But if Orochimaru wishes to snuff him out like a candle losing its flame, if Orochimaru wishes to have those eyes for their own use ... Then I won’t oppose them.

Still ...

His Lord is not entirely heartless. On Mother’s Day, for example, Kabuto always receives a time to rest, a time to approximate the mourning he was denied.

He wonders if Sasuke will be given that luxury today, on a blood-soaked anniversary,

He wonders if the boy would even accept that act of kindness.

“Hey. Are you awake?” A pause, a gloved hand resting on the door frame. Kabuto’s best guess is that, even if afforded the chance to grieve in silence and solitude, Sasuke will instead continue to train, his desire for vengeance fueled by his clan’s history. 

Still, for how monstrous the medic is, for how vile he may be to allow Orochimaru the opportunity to use and take over a child, no matter how powerful said child may very well be or grow to become -

Loss is an emotion he, too, knows well, and Kabuto won’t pretend that losing one’s family in such a violent manner doesn’t hurt. 

“Sasuke. I ... wanted to say that I was sorry for your loss. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to reach out, all right? I’ll be working in the lab today.” 

[demonsecho]

they’re side-by-side in what sasuke privately thinks of as the “difficult patient ward” at the butterfly manor. so what if he likes to get up more than he should with a broken foot? it doesn’t justify tying him to his cot! he knows he can slip out, but… “ hey— hey, you. yeah, you. can you see any of those girls around? ” // for tanjiro!

     tanjiro can smell the boy plotting from the second he wakes up. it’s frankly deceiving, the way he blinks slowly to consciousness and barely moves, taking in his surroundings like any normal person would under these circumstances. however, all that hits tanjiro’s nose is determination and... mischief? no, not quite...

     he doesn’t say anything, unsure if he should bother another slayer that so clearly just woke up from unconsciousness, but the temptation is nearly impossible to ignore. he wants to know what has the boy so riled up; what exactly he has planned in this tiny room the kakushi have locked them up in. tanjiro himself isn’t strapped down, but that’s only because he’s already been threatened into submission, and he can only imagine what the other boy has done to put himself in the position tanjiro’s found himself in countless times.

     when spoken to, tanjiro perks up slightly, turning to look with eyes slightly widened. there’s no one else he could be talking to, considering they’re the only two in the room.   “ oh— um, no, i haven’t seen any of the girls since i woke up. why do you ask ? ”

     tanjiro can feel, right beneath his skin, that he won’t be keeping any promises he made today.

unprompted // @netsurai.