Out if everything I expected, the smell hitting me first wasn't exactly what it was. It wasn't repugnant or thick, though. More like someone had spent the last day and a half dedicated to drenching the place in disinfectant. The darkness of the pathway wasn't the least bit concerning as there were small, luminous torches that burned quietly on the walls every so often. Layered brickwork of yellow and dull crimson made up the walls, floors and ceiling of the place in some kind of monotonous tomb. It was so silent that sometimes my breathing would echo into the depths of the long tunnel. Kimimaro hadn't even made a noise ever since we arrived, and even when we passed by the odd door that stole some of the way, we quickly disregarded it. "Hey," I said softly, afraid I might stir something unseen. "No offense, but how much farther do we gotta go?" "Not long." Kimimaro answered. He paused at one door, and smiled back at me. "Here we are." I was tensing before he began to speak. There was a growing list of stupid stuff that I did in the spur of the moment, but I think following a potential enemy into the middle of their base was pretty high up. My specter half was floating above ground just in case I needed a quick getaway. Then he pressed a hand against the door. Letters, numbers and all manner of squiggles crawled along the surface of the door, encircling his hand before spiraling out to the outer fringes. The black ink pulsed as if alive, and then sunk back into the wooden barrier as if it was being absorbed. Something clicked behind the doorway, and I felt my body freeze at the probable attack. Kimimaro stepped back as the door swung inwards. I peered inside, getting ready to materialize elsewhere on the first sign of something wrong. When nothing burst out from the new entryway, nor did some unseen enemy strike while my guard was down, I finally gave some semblance of relaxation. Not as much as I would around Hinata or Itsuki, but it was a noticeable amount of ease that Kimimaro noticed enough to shoot me a smile. "I'm glad you finally feel at ease, Sasuke-san." Kimimaro said, probably trying not to make that sound as threatening as I thought it was. He opened the door further to reveal a large room with rows of wooden shelves full of bottles of medicine some of which I had never even heard of. "I think we'll have what you need here, right?" Dully, I nodded along. "Yeah…" Kimimaro smiled at my awestruck appearance, taking his time to look at the labels of the closest bottles. "Now let's see… you definitely need something to disinfect that man's missing arm, and something for hematopoiesis, too. That should be around…" He looked back at the labels, frowning a bit. "Isle seven, I think." "And what are you two looking for exactly?" A voice behind us said, appearing from nowhere. I reacted on instinct. My katana unsheathed in a practiced arc, edge dancing along my fingers as it cut through the air behind me. While I was nowhere near as proficient as Hinata in using swords, I was still trained by a man who claimed to have been part of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. That being said, there was no hesitation in my movements, and even though I made it a rule to not kill when someone was already beaten, that didn't mean that I wasn't prepared to take a life in the heat of the moment. Whoever had snuck up behind us wasn't the most lucky of individuals either. I was cautious and paranoid to a fault, and that didn't mix well with my current environment. As such, when I struck, I attacked with the intent to cut my target down. A hand caught the naked blade, blood spilling beneath closed fingers. However, the sharp edge never made it past the bone. It just seemed to jar to a halt as the metal screeched to a halt on the terrifyingly hard phalanges. "I'm sorry about him." Kimimaro said, his hand still clutching my blade. "My friend here is a little on edge from the trip here. We were just on our way to find some medicine for his injured companion." "And so you brought him into our base?" The clear Shinobi stated, and now that I had a better look at whoever was behind me, he was definitely a Shinobi. A lightweight vest protecting his torso, thick pants and a pair of sandals that exposed his disturbingly well trimmed toes. Oddly, he wore a weird head protector that had a metal strip with a music note on it. "Does Orochimaru-sama know about you bringing strays into his base?" I tried not to show anything as the bomb known as Orochimaru was just nonchalantly dropped on the conversation. They didn't seem to be the type to attack me out of nowhere, and I didn't want to give them any more reasons to. Kimimaro helped by continuing where he left off, "No, he doesn't. But I didn't take him anywhere, and he looked like he needed help. Was I going to leave him there when Orochimaru-sama picked me up when I was in need?" "Tsk, fine." The Shinobi replied to my ever growing confusion. Orochimaru was some kind of saint in their eyes? As much as I wanted to call bullshit to everything in front of me, I didn't want to earn the ire of two Shinobi. One of whom apparently could shrug off sword attacks with bone stronger than steel. Shinobi were bullshit, I reminded myself in a familiar mantra of sanity. "Thank you." Kimimaro said, bowing and removing his hand from my sword. The cut was gone in a couple of seconds. "Do you know where the disinfectants and drugs that increase blood production are?" "Those should be isles two and seven." The Shinobi said, turning to me after he finished. "And you should keep quiet about this place, okay? I don't care what little sword-wielding troupe you come from, but Orochimaru-sama has better things than to spare his attention to some no name samurai." I nodded, not correcting him. I liked to think my smile was one of absolute innocence. "Thank you, Shinobi-sama. Please give Orochimaru-sama my thanks as well." "Right, right." The Shinobi said, waving us off like the kids we were. When we were hidden behind the isles of medicine, I finally let out a breath of relief. Kimimaro looked at me weirdly, but he dutifully grabbed the necessary bottles from their positions. Now I had time to muse. This was a hidden base of Orochimaru. My luck was truly out of this world; not even a week out from a fight with some insane Kiri-nin, and I now find myself in a base of a man who played a part in the future destruction of my home. Or a place that I was slowly growing to associate myself less with. I still had no idea what I wanted to do besides make sure Hinata got home safe. Now, maybe helping Itsuki deal with being one arm short, but that shouldn't take that long. However, thinking of Konoha as my home was slowly becoming less and less pleasing. A place where I wouldn't be running for my life against insane Shinobi, definitely. Honestly, after everything I had been through a couple of annoying civilians were the last thing on my mind. Konoha was slowly just becoming another stop on my journey to somewhere. Wherever that was, I had no idea. In fact, I was beginning to think that I might have better prospects anywhere but Konoha. I certainly didn't want to be caught up in some plot that bet thousands of lives. However, that meant leaving Hinata by herself... My mind struck to another topic before I could dwell too long on my confusing future. Now what was that Shinobi? He wore a headband like he was from one of the hidden villages, but he clearly showed fealty to that snake. Was he brainwashed, or was Orochimaru hiding his true colors to gain their complete obedience? Some sort of splinter cell that he made to do his dirty work maybe? The questions kept piling up as Kimimaro moved beside me. No, I decided as I watched him. If anything Orochimaru must have done something that suited his own goals, but had the added benefit of helping these people, gaining their trust. Kimimaro seemed too nice to willingly go along with whatever that snake wanted. However, I had been known to be wrong, and my paranoia hadn't failed me yet. "So," I said. "Do we have everything?" Kimimaro nodded, putting the last of the supplies into a large bag. I frowned as the bag was at least the size of a large dog; there was no way I could hold that and carry Itsuki at the same time. Hinata, while stronger than any four year old had the right to be, probably would struggle with this bag as well. She fought with precision instead of strength in the end. "I don't think I can carry all that." I clarified. "Of course you can't." Kimimaro said, slightly bemused at the confused face that I was most certainly making. "That's why I'm giving you a couple storage seals for you to use." He proceeded to grab a few literal scrolls of paper, roll them out to reveal a circle of random japanese kanji that spread out into lines of script, and placed the bag of medicine into the middle of the circle. His hand touched the top of the bag, and suddenly it disappeared with a puff of white smoke. Turning back to me, I noticed how there was now a large kanji in the middle of the circle of writings as if to state that it was filled. "That's…" I couldn't find the word for it. This seemingly normal piece of writing and paper had just gave a huge middle finger to the fabric of space and time. "What happened? Was there some kind of pocket dimension that spontaneously formed within the paper? A teleportation to an alternate universe that works on some frame of the writings? Did your Chakra somehow facilitate a reaction in space-time?" I was in awe as I grabbed the scroll in my hands, turning it up and down. Even the weight of the material seemed to be neglected by the occurrence. Maybe the paper had nothing in it, but my spectreal Byakugan eyes had peered into the earth when Kimimaro began to channel Chakra into the paper. Somehow the white-haired boy had created some sort of tunnel that connected the paper with something. I had no idea what that soemthing was, nor if these writings helped guide the Chakra like handsigns, but I wanted to test everything right now. This was perhaps the most interesting thing -besides ninja magic- that I had found in this new life. However, Kimimaro just nervously laughed to my questions. "I'm sorry, Sasuke-san. I don't really know much about the Fūinjutsu that goes into making it, but you can ask Orochimaru-sama about it if you want." "Ah," the winds in my sails were abruptly taken out. "That's fine then. I don't want to disrupt him anymore than I should. Though, this was called Fūinjutsu, right?" Kimimaro blinked at my question. "Yes, I'm told that it is a wonderful tool in the art of being a Shinobi." I wanted to say that calling it a tool would give it injustice. There was only a couple of times that I had run into said techniques, and all of the times were what screwed me over. The first time being the Hūyga compound when they froze me in place after I had taken their scrolls. I now wanted nothing more than to decipher just what made the storage seals work. Ninja magic was one thing, but actually putting an object with mass inside another without calling upon a singularity was something that put that bullshit to shame. Fūinjutsu was now something that I was marking up in order from my book of stuff to learn. "Right, well," I announced, cradling the scrolls tightly to my chest as if they would be stolen by some unseen foe. "Let's go back to the town." "Of course." Kimimaro answered. We were gone in a couple of minutes. Kimimaro had spent a few of those locking up the door, and we even passed a couple more Shinobi wearing headbands with music notes on them. However, other than asking where we were going, they seemed to care little for me. Maybe it was the nonexistent Chakra within me, but I was barely a blink on their radar. Is this how paranoid normal Shinobi are? This is kind of pathetic really. Was something that just made it seem like I had no Chakra really all it took for them to let their guards down? Or was it just that it was Orochimaru's hideout? Whatever questions I had were never truly answered as we easily made our way back to where we came. I had been expecting to fight for my life on the way back, or maybe materialize away from the place while making a run for it. It was like when I was trying to find a place for Hinata and Itsuki after beating up mean old Katsura; something in me was just itching for a fight. However, I clamped down on my need for violence. Inside the den of my most probable enemy would definitely not be the best of choices to start anything, either. Especially when Kimimaro had been so nice to me as well. I had no idea how to handle brainwashed people, but I certainly disliked the idea that Orochimaru was lying to him. Clearly some otherworldly being had other plans for me, and just as soon as we reached the surface, some Shinobi rushed out from the hideout. His face was flush as if he had just been running a marathon. Words were strained through rushed breathes, "Jūgo… he's gone... on a rampage again!" Kimimaro's face went as pale as his hair. He turned to me, visibly panicked. "I'm terribly sorry, but I need to help my friend. Can you make it back without me?" My lips curled into a frown as I bid him farewell. Someone had gone on a rampage? He had said 'again' as well, so this must have been a common thing. Apparently this was also a friend of whom Kimimaro was worried about, and from the context this is probably not a natural rampage… Or, as unnatural as rampages can be. Still, this left me to leave without anyone following me as they would be preoccupied. Was it a little scummy? Yes, probably. Okay, I was feeling a little guilt for Kimimaro. He had treated me so well, but I had used some unnatural occurrence from his own friend as a barrier to hide my escape -or tactical retreat away from a highly hostile area. It wasn't in my original escape plans, and I felt rather horrible after walking a little ways away from the hideout. Internally, I kept repeating that it was just a hideout for Orochimaru to do who knows what. Of course, that didn't stop me from sending my split through the walls of their defences and spying on them as Kimimaro proceeded to explode into a cage of bone. What… Both of my halves stilled as I watched Kimimaro duke it out with some unholy monstrosity in a large room filled with wrought iron chains. The creature was wreathed in dark brown almost black scales that seemed to flow and shift with every movement. Its body was almost human having two arms, armored up with flesh that grew past normal human limitations, and two digitigrade legs on which clawed toes did it stand with a pronounced hunchback. The back of the creature is where I knew that it was no longer human. Pipes of some kind jutted out from its back, and, most importantly, they glowed within the Byakugan's vision. I had to blink the nonexistent spots from my eyes at the sheer magnitude of Chakra being concentrated within them. Its face was twisted into some kind of maniacal rage that laughed as it punched a fist through some unwilling Shinobi that stood too close. I was appalled at the gore, but it seemed to revel in the carnage. The laughs of the creature were probably the most obscene thing I had ever heard. Then Kimimaro came flying in, and I do mean literally flying. A large spike the size of three grown men flew forth, impaling the rampaging monster through his stomach and boring into the earth beneath it. I then watched as Kimimaro himself swirled out from the spike of white with something jutting out of his palm. Blearily, I realized that the spike was actually his bone that he had weaponized. He stabbed it into the monster's arm, easily passing through the abnormal flesh of the beast, and nailed it to the ground. The monster tried to swipe at him with its other arm, but Kimimaro swerved underneath it with otherworldly grace, breaking the bone that connected him with the ground while he left. The white haired Shinobi then formed another spike of bone that burst from his skin with a small dribble of blood as he rushed it again. The monster looked like it was having none of it, and roared defiantly at the approaching master of bone. The pipes on its back curved unnaturally towards Kimimaro as orbs of pure Chakra concentrated themselves into being in front of their bulbous lips. Its roar was drowned out as a beam of concussive force and super condensed Chakra made physical seared itself into being along Kimimaro's path. The beam of energy drilled through the area, sending gouts of dust into the air. I gasped as the dust cleared to reveal a huge chasm of destruction that burrowed into the wall, and went on in a circular cutout until all I saw was darkness. Stone, dirt and even human remains stood no chance against that beam. Everything was unnervingly still before the air cracked back into the area from where it had been denied with a chorus of falling rock. The creature was laughing maniacally, different tones jovially screaming in unison. I hadn't known Kimimaro for long, but he was the most sincere person besides Itsuki that wanted to actually help. However, I could do nothing but watch as he burnt to ashes in the wake of that monster's attack. It began to get to work on breaking the bones that held it prisoner. Focusing one entire pipe to blast the hardened material to shards, and then ripping its way free in gory actions. Its wounds were sealing closed as it worked, once broken and marred flesh being overwritten with clean, unmarked skin that bubbled up from within. I nearly gagged at the scene. All that work, and it was all for nothing. Not even a scar remained under the punishment that was dealt to it. Now, I was beginning to feel like those who I had fought before. I wanted nothing more than to go down there, and beat that beast into submission for killing someone so nice. However, I had a job to get back to Itsuki and Hinata. We had to get away from here if Orochimaru was lurking around. The creature going on a rampage would certainly be a cause for the snake to come back, and I certainly didn't want to be around when he did. Just when I made my decision to recall my split, the floor where the monster stood broke apart into forest of large spikes. A white expanse of sharp underground spears burst into the area faster than the creature could even think. I gaped as I realized that all those were bones, and there was only one user of bone that I knew of in the area. The beast screamed in pain as several brambles of white lanced into it, goring their way through flesh like spears. It was thoroughly trapped within a prison of bone that kept on growing with a sentient motive of constraint. Kimimaro flowed out from behind a tree of bone, only the odd mark on his body every proving that he was even in a fight. "Jūgo." Kimimaro said, his tone soft. Spikes of bone slinked away, revealing the distorted face of the monster. "Please, listen to reason. This is not you." Jūgo didn't seem to find talking up its alley. It roared, screeched and warbled maddening phrases that had to do with killing or ripping everyone limb from limb. I had to force myself not to balk at the sheer amount of rage in its voice when I noticed something I hadn't earlier. There was a certain tint to Jugo's skin. As if another layer was being added on, but I don't think Kimimaro noticed. I leaned my specter in for a closer look as I felt as if I had seen this before. Then my specter touched it. I felt like I understood something that I couldn't quite get a grasp of, but I could understand the gist of it. Something was killing Jūgo, however, he was regenerating faster than whatever it was that was killing him did so. This then caused the surrounding cells to take control of the dead ones as if to offset the load in some form of false reanimation. He then would change due to those reanimated cells being so pliable, but the reanimated cells in his brain would send him into delirium as dead cells running an organism wasn't the most conducive for mental health. My specter form still had quite a bit of secrets to it, and I still wasn't sure how I was able to yank away that Jōnin's Byakugan eye. If it was only because it wasn't his, then, going by that logic, I shouldn't be able to take away Jūgo's reanimated cells. Was it something that had died? Something that rejected death? I was certain that the theme revolved around death, but I could feasibly test out my theories. As such, I didn't really understand what he was doing, nor what he was absorbing. I did know that whenever I removed something, the target would experience pain. If it removed some of whatever energy that Jūgo was using, then I was willing to bet that it might be enough for Kimimaro to calm him down. If not then I can just kept removing it till he eventually stopped. So I yanked as hard as I could, but it wasn't like the time I had easily ripped away the Jonin's eye. Instead, it felt like I was trying to wrestle a bear to the ground with only my bare hands. It obviously wasn't fighting back, but I got the sense that it didn't really want to leave. Wondering if I was actually making a difference, I looked back to see that Jūgo's face was now twisted into something other than rage. He looked in pain. Kimimaro saw through this instantly, and began spouting a tirade of embarrassing thing that I chose not to listen to for Jūgo's sake. I focused back on removing whatever hold this random energy had on Jūgo. Getting nowhere fast, I decided on biting down on it with my fancy new teeth that looked very similar to a wolf's. The front bits, that were not occupied with holding my knife, sheared into the phantasmal flesh with a sort of tantalizing crunch. My tastebuds were flooded with something that I would only describe as pure sugar. Whatever I was biting into was probably the sweetest thing that I had ever tasted, and it was wholly addicting. My split half seemed to rip and tear into the stuff with a vicious glee that I wasn't too sure about. I nearly let it continue before I noticed that Jūgo had long since shrunk back into a human, and started to bleed through the pores of his skin while becoming a shivering wreck. His reanimated cells had long since been deprived of their fake life. However, my specter self was still gleefully chowing down on whatever it was that Jūgo had. I couldn't really see a sheen around him now, but that made little worry to my specter. It only wanted to devour the life out ot the now bright orange-haired child. I hesitantly stopped it, feeling some sense of unnatural horror from something that I had grown to trust. There were still things I didn't know about, and that first specter hadn't been too clear on the details. Now I was just about to eat the soul of a child whose had a hard life. I watched as Kimimaro comforted a crying Jūgo, and suddenly felt like throwing up. Instead, I hurried my way back to the town where Hinata and Itsuki weren't in trouble. The sun was just cresting over the horizon, splaying beautiful colors that didn't really fit with my current mood. My mind was filled with hypotheses for my split. Jūgo's predicament helped me understand something was most certainly not human about the thing in general. If I was to continue using it, then I needed to learn how it worked exactly. I had no want to end up like Jūgo for not really taking the time to understand what was wrong with my abilities. Whatever was wrong with my split was put on hold as an explosion blasted the town ahead of me. A stone pillar rose up from somewhere within the small town, and then I heard a familiar creen of a thousand birds. Wondering why it sounded so familiar to me, the knowledge hit me like a ton of bricks. My legs picked up speed as I sent my specter full speed ahead in the hopes of getting there before they ruined anything. Another explosion, followed by a chorus of screams, shot that hope to hell. Damnit, Kakashi!