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(teamwork) progression drabble
This one happens between the first kyuubi-on-male-fox dream and the one where he lists the Konoha guys' attributes. It's a lot more evil, though. Also, it insisted on being told in "you" POV. i'm not questioning it.
As always, not betaed, and some sentences could do with some tweaking to be more effective. Will appreciate any help you can give.
When B-rank missions turn into S-rank, you don't pause and wonder about unnecessary stuff, like the dreams you keep having or the sudden inability to decide if your nighttime fantasies would be worse or better if you added your pissy, wiry teammate to your harem of pretty, curvy girls. (at least it wouldn't be ugly.)
When "possible missing-nin using genjutsu to scare people into submission" turns into "slender, dark-haired, red-eyed high-level missing-nin making people die of fright", you don't pause and swear at the bad intelligence report. You make sure to keep up with Sasuke. You watch his back. You don't lose sight of Kakashi-sensei and Sakura-chan, though -- ever. Bad things happen to people who lose sight of their team. Bad things happen to their team.
When you lose sight of them anyway, when even their scent disappear and it's suddenly dark, so dark -- you don't panic. This is a genjutsu user you're tracking. You can't panic. They're still out there. They're out there, and you are...
... in a cage.
You are in a cage and it's dark and eternities pass in loneliness -- no one comes to get you. No one cares. You don't care (or do you?) but you still hate it. No one comes. And that drip drip drip sound, driving you crazy. You want to rip off the bars, but nothing works. You're powerless, and it is the most awful thing to be.
No one comes, because they're outside getting on with their lives...
... their mission...
... no one comes, because they're dead. They're dead and fighting is pointless now, useless -- it's too late. You deserve to be there, in this cage. You deserve it. Deserve to see your teacher with his stolen eye gouged out and the girl you love broken on the ground and your rival-best friend torn apart, thrown away, last to join the pile of bodies that all look like him.
You should just stop screaming and accept it. You're worse than useless. There's a reason no one wants you around; there's a reason you deserve the cage.
You should. You're not going to.
What you're going to do, is slaughter the person who killed them -- locked you in. The person who took away what was yours. (dead man walking.)
You could slip between the bars of the cage. You break it instead. Splinter it in a million shards of shrapnel. You've wanted to do that for so long.
You open your eyes, and you snarl. You forget that you own weapons. You don't need them. Your hands (your claws) are all the weapons you will ever need.
You track him down and you don't bother to dodge. Nothing he does can hurt you (more than what he already did, what he already took, your freedom, your team). You can hurt him.
You do it.
With hands and claws. With teeth.
There's something strangely soothing in clamping down your jaws on an enemy's throat, feeling his pulse flutter wildly under your tongue, and then -- tearing.
Blood splattering your face, your enemy in his death throes underneath you. It is a victory. You are free.
... they're still dead though -- they're still dead and gone and nothing's going to change that, nothing, oh god, you want them back, you want them, you want them. You'd even accept the cage again if they could come and visit you sometimes, but there's no compromise with death -- you plunge a claw-tipped hand in his ribs, tear out his heart, (you're not crying). He is not going to compromise; you'll make sure of that. You take him apart.
You reduce him to a messy pile of meat and organs and broken bones. (you're not crying.)
And then she's here. She's here and she smells like salt and stomach acid; it should be disgusting. You blink up at her. She's pale, grimacing. She's alive.
She lets you cling to her, even with the blood all over. (now you cry.) She rocks you; she's humming something you've never heard before and you wonder if that's what a lullaby is. She sounds shaky; you don't care. She's warm.
Your teacher and your best friend don't say anything; you still feel stupid for falling for it, for trusting them so little. Your best friend looks more like your worst rival right now. There's not a lot left of the body.
You cringe, even though you're not really sorry.
It isn't Itachi.
It should be wrong to feel so relieved, with a man's blood on your hands -- your arms, up to your elbows -- with bits of his flesh still between your teeth. It should be wrong to be relieved that you killed (devoured) the wrong sociopath.
It isn't Itachi.
The world slides back into its proper place. Sasuke calls you a moron. Sakura-chan grimaces and berates you for getting her clothes dirty. Kakashi-sensei sighs and promises lessons in breaking out of genjutsu he should have given you years ago.
You make yourself throw up, even though you're anything but disgusted by the taste of human meat, because you know you should be.
On the way back, Sasuke is... different. Silent, but not really pissy. Colder than that. Remote. He stares at you. He wants to hear that you won't steal his prey, when the time comes. That you won't get in the middle -- even if his brother kills him.
You won't lie to him. You say you'll try; this is all you can give. (you don't say anything about how hard.)
(you are not letting go. ever.)
As always, not betaed, and some sentences could do with some tweaking to be more effective. Will appreciate any help you can give.
When B-rank missions turn into S-rank, you don't pause and wonder about unnecessary stuff, like the dreams you keep having or the sudden inability to decide if your nighttime fantasies would be worse or better if you added your pissy, wiry teammate to your harem of pretty, curvy girls. (at least it wouldn't be ugly.)
When "possible missing-nin using genjutsu to scare people into submission" turns into "slender, dark-haired, red-eyed high-level missing-nin making people die of fright", you don't pause and swear at the bad intelligence report. You make sure to keep up with Sasuke. You watch his back. You don't lose sight of Kakashi-sensei and Sakura-chan, though -- ever. Bad things happen to people who lose sight of their team. Bad things happen to their team.
When you lose sight of them anyway, when even their scent disappear and it's suddenly dark, so dark -- you don't panic. This is a genjutsu user you're tracking. You can't panic. They're still out there. They're out there, and you are...
... in a cage.
You are in a cage and it's dark and eternities pass in loneliness -- no one comes to get you. No one cares. You don't care (or do you?) but you still hate it. No one comes. And that drip drip drip sound, driving you crazy. You want to rip off the bars, but nothing works. You're powerless, and it is the most awful thing to be.
No one comes, because they're outside getting on with their lives...
... their mission...
... no one comes, because they're dead. They're dead and fighting is pointless now, useless -- it's too late. You deserve to be there, in this cage. You deserve it. Deserve to see your teacher with his stolen eye gouged out and the girl you love broken on the ground and your rival-best friend torn apart, thrown away, last to join the pile of bodies that all look like him.
You should just stop screaming and accept it. You're worse than useless. There's a reason no one wants you around; there's a reason you deserve the cage.
You should. You're not going to.
What you're going to do, is slaughter the person who killed them -- locked you in. The person who took away what was yours. (dead man walking.)
You could slip between the bars of the cage. You break it instead. Splinter it in a million shards of shrapnel. You've wanted to do that for so long.
You open your eyes, and you snarl. You forget that you own weapons. You don't need them. Your hands (your claws) are all the weapons you will ever need.
You track him down and you don't bother to dodge. Nothing he does can hurt you (more than what he already did, what he already took, your freedom, your team). You can hurt him.
You do it.
With hands and claws. With teeth.
There's something strangely soothing in clamping down your jaws on an enemy's throat, feeling his pulse flutter wildly under your tongue, and then -- tearing.
Blood splattering your face, your enemy in his death throes underneath you. It is a victory. You are free.
... they're still dead though -- they're still dead and gone and nothing's going to change that, nothing, oh god, you want them back, you want them, you want them. You'd even accept the cage again if they could come and visit you sometimes, but there's no compromise with death -- you plunge a claw-tipped hand in his ribs, tear out his heart, (you're not crying). He is not going to compromise; you'll make sure of that. You take him apart.
You reduce him to a messy pile of meat and organs and broken bones. (you're not crying.)
And then she's here. She's here and she smells like salt and stomach acid; it should be disgusting. You blink up at her. She's pale, grimacing. She's alive.
She lets you cling to her, even with the blood all over. (now you cry.) She rocks you; she's humming something you've never heard before and you wonder if that's what a lullaby is. She sounds shaky; you don't care. She's warm.
Your teacher and your best friend don't say anything; you still feel stupid for falling for it, for trusting them so little. Your best friend looks more like your worst rival right now. There's not a lot left of the body.
You cringe, even though you're not really sorry.
It isn't Itachi.
It should be wrong to feel so relieved, with a man's blood on your hands -- your arms, up to your elbows -- with bits of his flesh still between your teeth. It should be wrong to be relieved that you killed (devoured) the wrong sociopath.
It isn't Itachi.
The world slides back into its proper place. Sasuke calls you a moron. Sakura-chan grimaces and berates you for getting her clothes dirty. Kakashi-sensei sighs and promises lessons in breaking out of genjutsu he should have given you years ago.
You make yourself throw up, even though you're anything but disgusted by the taste of human meat, because you know you should be.
On the way back, Sasuke is... different. Silent, but not really pissy. Colder than that. Remote. He stares at you. He wants to hear that you won't steal his prey, when the time comes. That you won't get in the middle -- even if his brother kills him.
You won't lie to him. You say you'll try; this is all you can give. (you don't say anything about how hard.)
(you are not letting go. ever.)
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Wow. That was.... Intense is the word I'm looking for. The cage and the feeling of loss and his reaction to it. Death to those who take away what is his. And the fact that he is willing to go back into a cage just as he got his freedom to get them back is lovely.
*purrs* I also like that bit where he doesn't say how hard he'll try to stay out of the middle when the fight between Sasuke and his brother happens.
Wow. A completely awe-inspired wow.
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Very nice. Poor Naruto. *petpets him*
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heh, you talk of being emotionally attached. you know how I know if i've written angst or wangst? when i make myself cry. XD;;;;
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(Anonymous) 2005-11-08 06:53 pm (UTC)(link)instead of like this
More like this.
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^^
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You don't ever mess with the team. XD
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EEE killua-kitty!!!
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I just love the way whenever he gets that look, someone's about to be playfully tortured. =D
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I may be the only one who thinks this, though, in which case please feel free to consider me deviant data and ignore me. ;)
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You were definitely inspired for this on. You should be proud. It seemed, to me, very apt for the characters and the world you're writing them for.
I'll admit that it did not make me cry, for I am a evil ho that way, but it was still very good.
...
And that's all you get because I haven't been awake long enough to formulate a longer review.
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Uh oh.
... no one comes, because they're dead.
Noooooo!
You break it instead. Splinter it in a million shards of shrapnel.
YES!
You reduce him to a messy pile of meat and organs and broken bones. (you're not crying.)
And then she's here. She's here and she smells like salt and stomach acid; it should be disgusting. You blink up at her. She's pale, grimacing. She's alive.
Yay!
It isn't Itachi.
Damn.
(you are not letting go. ever.)
Damn straight!
Ja, -n
(You're sure it wasn't Itachi? *hopeful*)
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seeing as he shows up in teamwork 2 at some point, yeah, rather. :p
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(Anonymous) 2005-11-09 12:24 am (UTC)(link)The genjutsu used by the bad guy in here seems similar to the genjutsu Kakashi used to knock out Sakura during the bell test. I wonder; does it require the user to know the target's weaknesses or does it pull them out and play to them regardless of whether the user knows anything about the target? Itachi's use of Tsukiyomi on Kakashi, with 72 hours of getting stuck with swords, is a sufficiently generic trauma that it would work on anyone, whereas 24 hours of watching the clan get massacred is a trauma personalized to Sasuke. Therefore, Tsukiyomi doesn't seem to "pull" anything; Itachi must create the horror based on what he already knows. When Kakashi uses his genjutsu on Sakura, he's already aware that she has a crush on Sasuke. In this story, the missing-nin is an anonymous generic bad guy, and we don't know what he knows about Naruto; so did his genjutsu "pull" a horror so personalized to Naruto? Or am I overanalyzing this?
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Another possibility - a genjutsu specialist would naturally have a strong motivation to be as skilled as possible at reading people... and it's not like Naruto's particularly subtle about his feelings at the best of times.
And diving from there into the whole Sharingan question, is it just me or is the way the Mangekyo's been presented in the latest arc -completely- out of line with everything else we've ever seen or heard about it?
Follow my logic: All along, we've seen the Sharingan shown as having exactly -two- abilities in varying degrees - one active, a form of suggestive hypnosis (showcased in the Tsukiyomi and Kakashi's first fight against Zabuza), and another passive, what you might call a form of somatic eidetic memory.
Neither of these has a goddamn -thing- to do with warping space and time.
So, my conclusions? First, the Uchiha Sharingan isn't actually a single bloodline - it's two completely different ones occuring in unison. The 'Mangekyo' is actually the imbument of a sort of 'force supremacy' onto the half that has to do with hypnosis. (which, in turn, might suggest that the Sharingan has -two- ultimate modes, one per base bloodline) Probably the original hypnotic bloodline didn't have the drawbacks (pain, power consumption, damage to vision) that we've seen from the Mangekyo, but its 'safety features' might've been compromised by the addition of the perceptive bloodline.
Second, the space-warping thing has fuck-all to do with Kakashi's -eye- and -everything- to do with the fact that he's a Hatake.
But then again, I think Itachi's a scumbag chunin with a fancy trick and delusions of grandeur, so what do -I- know?
Ja, -n
(Rationalization for his power levels in the face of the fact that I hate him: Rurouni Kenshin Volume 2, Act 13, Page 134.)
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I thought about that kind of genjutsu like a broad thing -- he provides the feeling and the general thoughts of helplessness and despair, the victim provides the scenario that fits the feeling. it's all the more powerful because you're building it with images that are personally important and meaningful to you, thus reinforcing it.
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It's always a sign of wonderful prose when I feel the placed emotions that way - feel angry and upset and completely imersed in what's going through a characters head.
You did that here and BEAUTIFULLY. I especially loved the peices about being anything but disgusted by human meat, the description of the team dead and of tearing 'Itachi' to bits.
This is incredibly well done, fantastic. Thank you.
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what was it mikke-chan said? ah, yeah. "i made you cry? yay!"no subject
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teamwork!
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I think this is one of, if not THE, best fic you've written. Not only are the characterizations spot on, but this fic really makes the reader feel what Naruto is feeling.
I think this is one of the best examples of showing, not telling that I've seen in the past few months...and by the way, the last example was in a novel by my one of my favorite authors.
This is just such a powerful piece...I've got to agree with icedark_elf, this fic is intense.
The parts that really hit me were:
There's something strangely soothing in clamping down your jaws on an enemy's throat, feeling his pulse flutter wildly under your tongue, and then -- tearing. Such a wonderful description...made me feel slightly ill, but captures the rage, the almost berserker state that Naruto enters when he and the kyuubi meld.
also...
You'd even accept the cage again if they could come and visit you sometimes, but there's no compromise with death -- you plunge a claw-tipped hand in his ribs, tear out his heart, (you're not crying). He is not going to compromise; you'll make sure of that. You take him apart.
You reduce him to a messy pile of meat and organs and broken bones. (you're not crying.)
And then she's here. She's here and she smells like salt and stomach acid; it should be disgusting. You blink up at her. She's pale, grimacing. She's alive.
She lets you cling to her, even with the blood all over. (now you cry.) She rocks you; she's humming something you've never heard before and you wonder if that's what a lullaby is.
;_____; This passage just...gah...tore me right open. It so perfectly captures so many things--Naruto's loyalty and love for his team, his need for them, his need to be loved in return, sakura's acceptance of who and what he is, her willingness to love him, her ability to understand...
I was just...dumb-struck, awe-filled, totally affected by this piece. Bravo.
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And this is why you don't freak out the guy with a demon-fox living inside him.
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And what I love about this is how Naruto’s first clear thought is that the person he ate wasn’t Itachi, because he know what that would do to Sasuke, and- and- SQUEEEEEEEE! Just so much love.
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*waits for her heartrate to return to normal*
that was so good. i can't even... man. your prose writing is amazing. i really felt wrapped up in what was happening- naruto's emotions were a strong driving force that dragged me along for the ride.
and i really like how you ended it. (you don't say anything about how hard.) (you are not letting go. ever.)
*sigh* so sweet and perfectly in character for him.
great job!!!!