"He's the only person on staff here that can fix what I broke and well... frankly we both hate each other. Like I said nothing for you to worry about."
"Uh... sure? Go on in then." The second guard waves me in.
...
I confidently walk to the center of the large circular room. The only sound in the vast expanse is the sound of my steps. Not a single prisoner is making a noise. All of them remember what happened the last time I was here. They remember what I promised. They're scared of me.
"Alright you poor unfortunate souls, I've got an offer for you." I say with a raised voice to the deathly quiet room. "You see I'm in a bit of a tight spot so I'm here to make a deal. If there is someone here who is capable of healing a purely aesthetic injury that I have then the next time I come down here they will be spared from me."
Silence follows my offer.
"What's... astet... atheti... ashet..." One of the more simple prisoners asks. Or tries to at least.
"Okay, simple version." I sigh before resuming to yell to my captive audience. Literally. "You heal me, I won't kill you when I come back next."
The complex explodes into a sound garden. Each prisoner who knows even a scrap of medical jutsu is shouting for me to pick them.
"Oh and I should add on that if you fail, you die. I'm not here to waste time."
The noise dies down quickly.
"I can do it." One person call out. "I'll fix you."
"Fantastic!" I stroll over to him. "No funny business and you get to live a longer life."
"Of course. Perhaps you could even steer Orochimaru away from me?"
"Don't push it." My eyes narrow and my hostility spikes. "You've already earned a pass from me, that will suffice for now."
"I overstepped my place, forgive me."
"Get my skin back and I will." I demand and he does just that.
"Yay!" I cheer to myself. "Now I don't have to see that fuck face Kabuto!"
"You mean all of that was to avoid someone you dislike?"
"Yep!" I skip out of the Complex, past the two guards and back towards my room.
"What..." The first guard says.
"... the fuck?" The second guard finishes.
...
Alvarcus's Room
"Ah messing with people is so entertaining." I happily say to myself. "I needed that. Something amusing to do. When was the last time I actually had fun? Uh... huh. When was it? Some time during the Chunin Exams? Tayuya made things interesting but... well that's stained a different color now. I wouldn't exactly call anything else during that fun. Except maybe the part where I played with Temari. No, that was just something to do. Sure I enjoyed it but I wouldn't call it fun. Hell the last time I had actual fun was probably when the Rookie Nine took on the ANBU. Now that was fun! It's a shame we can't do that again."
"You and I remember that day very differently. Tsunade was scary. She threw me across the entire park." Sasuke interjects from my doorway. He's leaning on the frame while inspecting one of his numerous kunai. "Got some time to chat?"
"Sure, why not. Not like I was going to do anything important." I wave him into my room.
Sasuke sheaths his kunai and confidently walks into my room. As usual for him, for any shinobi really, he takes a quick inventory of every item, possible exits and hiding spots. Then his eyes lock onto a specific piece of furniture. It's one that is relatively new to my room, one that he's never seen in here before.
"You actually brought the couch with you." Sasuke sigh in resignation. "Honestly I don't know why I'm surprised by that, of course you would bring it with you. Sometimes I swear you have no common sense."
"I have plenty of common sense! I just tend to ignore it sometimes, like when I find a nice piece of furniture I want. I'm keeping a lookout for an armchair next so let me know if you see a good one."
"Fine." Sasuke plops down onto the couch. "Well... I was going to ask you what the hell was going on this morning but you seem to be out of your funk already."
"Oh. Yeah. That." I cringe. "Not my best moment."
"What was all that about anyways?" Sasuke asks as he kicks his feet up onto my couch.
"OI! Feet down!" I bark at him and he rolls his eyes at me. He still moved his dirty feet down so it's my win. "I needed to vent some anger. The last few times I had to do that I went over to the Nest but I need to stop trashing my Summon's home. Luckily for me I channeled it into something productive. Absolutely mind-bogglingly stupid and potentially life threatening, yet productive."
"So... you're good now?" Sasuke tentatively asks. "Because if you're not you can always talk to me. Or shout, or spar against or whatever floats your boat at the time."
"Even if it's helping me prank the Sound Three?" I ask with hope in my eyes. He's never joined me in a prank before. He has no idea what he's missing, plus that opens a whole new slew of pranks! He can cast genjutsu!
"Sure?" He weakly agrees to help my devious plots. Then his eyes widen a fraction, so little that anyone who doesn't truly know him would never notice. "As long as you spare me."
"Agreed!" Oh this changes everything! I bet I can top the three hundred rubber ducks now!
"What set you off anyways?" Sasuke yanks me out of my delusions of crazy and crazier pranks.
"Oh. Yeah. That." How can I possibly answer that?
"You're stalling." Sasuke blandly points out. "Don't bother to try and change the topic, I know how you work."
Arrogant prick, I hate it when he's right. One of these days I'll wipe that smirk off his face.
"Shirokumo accidentally made me realize a few things about myself that I'd rather have never discovered." There, it's the truth but it's vague enough that he'll never know exactly what I'm referencing. "I've changed since we've left Konoha. I've changed a lot. Some of it's good, most of it's bad. Basically my moral compass is getting fuck up. My sense of what is acceptable is warping."
"No shit." Sasuke snorts at me. "You're too comfortable with taking damage, even severe damage. Honestly I'm surprised you haven't accidentally killed anyone yet. To you massive wounds are nothing, in return you'll feel less hesitant to inflict them on someone else. And why not, if you can take it then why can't they?"
Oh. I've never made that connection before. Hold on, does that mean that I did break some of Ino's ribs back during the second exam? I overheard her talking to Hinata and she mentioned that she might have broken ribs, it's entirely possible. The only other people I fought besides Orochimaru since leaving are the Root shinobi who I slaughtered and didn't care if I hurt them, Temari who I never actually touched, Lee who takes hits from Gai so even if I did hit harder than normal he'd shrug it off, Hiro who I used the daggers on, and Leiko who surrendered before I could do anything. Then there was the fight after the Exams where I hit Lee again but used ninjutsu against everyone else.
So he could be right. I truly might not be pulling my punches enough. To me it might feel like a feather but to someone else it could feel like a brick. I'll have to test that against the next person I fight. My holding back could still be too strong. What a ridiculous idea!
"Not to mention the whole masochist thing. I'm all for getting inside your opponent's head to mess with them but you do it in such strange ways. Like seriously you could have played like you were immortal or something to fuck with her, honestly I thought that was what you were going to do. Instead you... did whatever the hell that was."
"It worked didn't it?" Why does everyone care so much about that? It was a one time thing!
"Alvarcus you're not-"
"Stop right there." I cut him off and pin him in a glare. "We've already been over this. I'm not. I'm just accustom to pain so I use it to my advantage, that does not mean I am a masochist. If anything I'm a sadist, I fantasize about brutally murdering so many people it's unhealthy. Oh shit was that out loud? So how about a new topic? Yeah let's move on and forget that ever happened."
"I picked the weirdest friend to ever have. Seriously, what does that say about me?" Sasuke mumbles to himself. "Fine, new topic then. I've got a question for you."
"If it's 'are you a masochist' I will hurt you." I threaten and I mean every damn word of it.
"No it's not." Sasuke rolls his eyes. "I want to know what you did to the training field to damage it like that."
"Oh that's easy. It was a lot of seal malfunctions of varying intensities. Anywhere from a small bang up to explosions with enough force to throw me into a wall and leave behind a dent." Whew. I thought he was going to ask another question that I'd rather avoid answering at all costs.
"Yeah I figured that out just by looking at it. You had to go through a lot of seals to make that big of a mess. I meant the big crater in the middle."
"The smooth one?" I ask for clarification. "About... five ish meters in radius?"
"Yeah that one. What made that? You weren't testing a new explosive seal it's too clean for that." Sasuke is looking at me intently. "More importantly can you teach me?"
...
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