Monsters

Monsters Aren't People

"... --and then once you get that, you can pretty much do it instantly." Naruto said, in a henge of an adult female version of himself (fully clothed for once). A puff of smoke had him back to his small stature.

The ghost rolled his eyes from where he was cloaked with a blanket. Sasuke huffed silently, not actually really breathing so it was mostly an exaggeration. He put up his hand signs, then closed his eyes and scrunched his brows in focus.

Another cloud of smoke left 'Iruka' with a slightly hooked nose and no scar in his place. Naruto blinked, before laughing awkwardly. "I guess that works? Maybe change your hair and you can pull it off." He advised lamely, not used to having to teach people things, especially the supposed former class prodigy.

Slightly-not-Iruka rolled his eyes before putting up the same hand signs and then his haircut was shaggy and short like Naruto's, but still dark brown.

Naruto smiled and clapped his hands. "Yeah! As long as we're only around civilians, that'll work! Guess we should avoid Hinata though..." He noted, before standing up and dragging the adult-appearing apparition out the door while the sun was out. Sasuke stayed under the blanket, but found some excitement in being outside. Since he usually has to go out when it's dark so no one questions the floating blanket hiding from streetlights, it was a nice.

Sasuke walked through the streets looking for people, seeing one or two that didn't spare him a second glance. The ghost didn't know these streets, though. Naruto seemed to know where he was going, but it was odd to see all these parts of Sasuke's village that he never saw before. It's not that the streets were pretty, far from it, they were all covered in litter and abandoned buildings or buildings that should be abandoned; but it was weird for Sasuke to see how many useless things he never got to see with his actual eyes. He didn't know if he should be sentimental or not, he didn't know parts of Konoha were this ugly.

"Oi!" Naruto barked, effectively snapping the ghost out of his thoughts. "We're here." He said, and he seemed uncomfortable. It made sense, Sasuke was uncomfortable too.

It has been a while since he stood in front of his clan gates.

"I could go in there if you don't--" But Sasuke made a silencing motion.

'My clan, my stuff, my mission.' He mouthed, and Naruto frowned.

He didn't say anything else though, and Sasuke made his first step into the compound.

--

It was empty. Sasuke guessed he should have expected that, but he can't remember ever seeing all the lights off during the day. He'd like to say it was quiet, that the world stopped spinning in this place, but it wasn't quiet. It was Konoha, so there were squirrels running on the trees and houses and birds calling from somewhere he couldn't see. It was a real place, and people could live here, did live here, but now they don't.

He guessed he couldn't live here either, seeing as he wasn't alive.

He isn't alive.

He's dead.

He's not living.

It was a bit hard to remember. Sasuke didn't feel dead, not like he thought being dead was like. To be honest, he hadn't really thought of it. Naruto didn't make him feel dead, Naruto made him feel like he was just on a long sleepover at a friend's house; like he was hiding and waiting for his mom to burst in and drag him back to the compound by his ear to go clean his room.

Huh. His mom was dead, too. He wondered if she was a ghost, or if she managed to go to the next life instead of being stuck spectating this one.

"H-Hey!" Naruto stuttered, and Sasuke's eyes snapped to him from where he had been staring at his aunt's house. "I don't--... I can't--..." He seemed deeply upset, he was shaking a little. "We should go back, you're stuff won't get stolen, no one goes in here."

Sasuke opened his mouth, intent on mouthing that Naruto was a scaredy-cat and didn't have to be here, but then he felt something warm drop down his cheek to his chin, the trail going cold in the wind. He touched his hand to his face. Ah, he was crying.

Instead, he flicked Naruto's forehead and then turned around so his face couldn't be seen.

He had to be more careful.

This wasn't the time for lamenting.

He moved toward his house, the biggest one in the compound and very clearly so. He put his fingers on the sliding wooden door, but he didn't recognize his hands with the transformation.

He guessed it was better. No bad things had happened to this form, this form was bigger than his original. He knew he was already dead, but the different skin comforted him. He himself had failed every last Uchiha, after all.

He slid open the door, and zeroed in on the chalk outlines. They must have cremated his parents, given them to the flames they worked so hard to fan and then returned them to the earth like his mom explained happened to his grandfather before he was born. He missed the funeral.

Did they give his corpse to the fire? He wasn't anyone yet, did they just bury him? Is that why he's like this?

Sasuke didn't think he wanted to be given to the fire, he'd done nothing for it, it would have no reason to treat him well.

He walked up the stairs on autopilot, his steps too large and his eyes too far from the ground but he didn't acknowledge when he tripped, didn't acknowledge the sound of smaller footsteps behind him, just went to his room.

His room was messy, and he picked up his stuffed dinosaur. It was smaller in his augmented hands, but it used to be his favorite.

He looked at the button eyes, though, and he felt nothing. No warmth, no embarrassment at having it even though he was a whole eight years old, no happiness that it wasn't stolen.

It wasn't really his, not anymore.

That Sasuke died with the rest of the Uchiha.

He's different now. He's dead.