𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐒𝐮𝐤𝐢 | ɴᴀʀᴜᴛᴏ ꨄ︎ ꜱʜɪᴘᴘᴜᴅᴇɴ

Land of Frost

_________________________________________

✧˖*°࿐

The bleak training room had a stench of musk and iron. My heart was accelerated and my joints were strained. Although I broke no sweat.

There's a permanent tremble in my hands, hidden within my long sleeves. I was not trembling from pain, but shock more so. This was the present Orochimaru had planned for me.

Defeating my 'bodyguards' with my own hands.

It all went so fast. Random shinobi after shinobi were charging my way, all too eager to gain Orochimaru's acknowledgement when the flash of Eyepatch, Beanie and Scrawny were in view. I still feel the ache of my weighing stomach as I cannot tear my gaze from the puddles of their conjoining blood.

"Sacrifice is the most important part about a shinobi." Orochimaru justified behind me, basking in the sight of so many defeated—including the three specific men who held a ridiculous esteem for me. 

I didn't know them for long, but they were always there for me. A month into this hell, I believed isolation would've become my doom. I might as well have been entirely right about that. But future me—present me, would've never expected this.

Killing for isolation. I'm back to where I was in the start.

"How does a jutsu reward sound?" Orochimaru's hand firmly squeezes my shoulder, probably taking complete advantage of my defeated shock. "Or you could always spend a week in the container, maybe I'll find the seal then."

How is this man my father? Haven't you taken enough from me? If I cut my skin and bleed, will it truly be no different from his?

I go to part my lips out of instinct until a shift from below and Orochimaru's snigger makes my eyelids widen. "Looks like one's still breathing." He comments, and I look to the exhausted, bleeding-out shinobi beside my foot.

Orochimaru kicks the black head of hair, making the shinobi's head turn to reveal their face and half-lidded blue eyes. Scrawny. He's looking up at me with a permanent wince. Instantly, I remember all of them.

All the victims blinded by power. All the assassin's and their connections to other's, working the grim job for a cruel living. All the used and to-be-used victims caged behind the cells. And all the current defeated shinobi within this room.

Some who were blinded by power. And some... 

"Hm, I suppose Kabuto's due a new unmarred male corpse." Orochimaru's remark has my blood run cold.

Scrawny's blue eyes waver under my faraway look, and before anything else, I imbue chakra into the cylinder in my grip. This causes Orochimaru to flinch his hand off of my shoulder, taken aback as the bottom of my weapon shoots out and lodges into Scrawny's spine. Making sure to hold my former bodyguard's frightened gaze, I stay locked to his view until the light finally leaves his glistening blue.

Shoichi, I suddenly recall his name when he first introduced himself. Back then I ignored it and stuck to discardable nicknames. I raise my eyes to find Beanie and Eyepatch, lifeless as well on the ground after a fair fight against their will. Zouri, the beanie-hat and Waraji with the eyepatch. These once cruel samurai transformed into shinobi.