pay no mind what other voices say
On your way to a mission, you find yourself walking along a path in the woods, or through the gates into a city street, or along the main road through the forests surrounding the village, and you come across a figure in the road. They smile at you, and upon exchanging greetings you tell the figure where youโre headed. They nod, wave goodbye to you, and as you turn aroundโฆwait. Where are you going again? You could have sworn that you were headed somewhere, looking for something. You turn to look, and see a figure on the road. They nod, smile, and assure you that they are not the person you are looking for.ย [Genjutsu +1] (starter for @reflamme)
Sasori was not the sort of man who counted his steps. There had never been such a need - he arrived at his destination in prompt time, and then he left without wasted time, and scarcely looked back or bothered to return. Distance was a fair thought, but the mental map that he kept of his surroundings in his mind was sufficient for nearly all errands, and unlike some of his cohorts, getting lost was an impossibility.
However, as the rocky spires of the gorge and mountain valley wended upward with increasing frequency and intensity, he had begun to note each shuffling step, the distance it dragged Hiruko forward - and more importantly, the distance that remained behind him.
There were no fucking mountains near here.
And he was going to kill that little shit.
If his return to the borders of Kusa had been less timely and punctual, perhaps he might have avoided the figure altogether, but it was to his detriment that he happened upon the same path at the same time as a sprightly little boy.
He had ignored the boy, and shuffled past, caring nothing for whatever the empty head of a child would have to offer, and having less patience for whatever might have come out of his mouth.
The boy, for his part, had turned, grinned, and waved.
And instead of soft grass and unfolding sky, the terrain grew more rocky, the air dustier and dryer and denser with clouds, and the incline sharply more steep with every crunch of stone beneath his sandals.
The jaw of his real body clenched, and he seethed at the shift in the fog; another figure, the first that he had seen for what felt like hours, what better have been minutes, and while he did not increase the speed of his gait, he fixated Hiruko's eyes on the shape and focused, and prepared himself for a useless kill.
the first revolution of coming and going, there's nothing out of ordinary.
he's on his way back from another desired whim of orochimaru's, the scroll's in his sleeve, the sun beats down on sasuke's raven head, across the thin white cotton of his shoulders. it's a foggy afternoon, spreading an obfuscating white smokescreen all over. he passes beneath the stone archway, making his leave of the ruins, starting his entry into the wilderness he traversed to get here. the paces that come after are filled with tree and bush, into bush and tree. again, nothing. nothing un-ordinary. but then comes the rearing head of an anomaly: its very first sign.
" teehee. the man you're looking for isn't here, y'know. "
a lone, smiling, nonsense-talking boy is the only indicator of life; the only one for miles. sasuke narrows his eyes, just for a fraction of a second, before he closes them in an unspoken display of 'don't bother me' and walks past. what does it matter if there's a demented child calling out to strangers in the wilds? landing just a hair shy of the mark in words? it's a coincidence, and sasuke has had more than his fill of head-on-wrong loose cannons, albeit the kind that was a little older, a lot clingier, and a lot more orange. and, that's that - or it should have been.
the second sign, it's like an invisible hourglass tips over; onto the lighter, soon to be heavier, side. again: he's on his way back from another desired whim of orochimaru's, the scroll's in his sleeve, the sun beats down on sasuke's raven head, across the thin white cotton of his shoulders. it's a foggy afternoon, spreading an obfuscating white smokescreen all over. he passes beneath the stone archway, making his leave of the ruins, starting his entry into the wilderness he traversed to get hereโ
sasuke's feet stop once more before the lone, smiling, nonsense-speaking boy. he's not alone; not sasuke, and not the boy. a large hunched man in a black cloak stands beside him. black cloak. red clouds.
that is the third and final sign.
" akatsukiโis this genjutsu your doing? " sasuke asks, voice as hard as the blade he points, tip at chest-level. he doesn't aim to kill; he's aiming for answers.
