sunshineverse | [Closed] This handbasket is a little more hellish than anticipated.

When he met back up with Sasuke, he was set up for combat, and waved for them to set out, starting off without a word, though his posture was fluidly loose and deceptively relaxed. He flashed Sasuke a grin that was congenial with an edge of sharpness, as they walked lest someone be watching closely enough to note details.

They were off out the west gate before he said a thing. "You gotta work on our pokerface. If it wasn't so early someone might've noticed something." His tone was at odds with the expression, that's for certain.

The sudden end to mock-companionable silence startled Sasuke, though he was no guard enough not to let it show past a slight tensing of his shoulders and tightening of his mouth. The words though, made him blink for a moment at Obito, thrown by the incongruity of voice and face.

"I ... I usually figure people likely don't know me well enough," he said, trying to remember what was normally an unconscious response to a casual reprimand. "I'll try harder."

"It doesn't matter how well they know you. If you're tense, it'll show in your walk and someone will know something is wrong. It's a skill you need to get good at if you're serious about this career you've been poking at lately." He tilted his head, checking to make sure that they weren't being tracked as he circled them toward the seal point. "You have to be conscious of your body language and what it's saying. Relying on people not knowing you is a bad habit that can get you hurt because it shows your inexperience."

This career indeed, as if Sasuke had ever considered a future as anything other than Itachi's shadow. Whatever deviation from that path had been pushed upon him as the result of turns he hadn't even realised he'd made until after the fact. What this was now, where he was headed and what it meant --

He didn't know, and he couldn't afford to think about it now. Instead he merely nodded, taking a deep breath and reminding himself: control of the body is as much willpower as strength. He exhaled as they rounded on the seal point, forcing awareness of each muscle group through his mind and relaxing them with technical, medical precision.

"It's about forty-five minutes by goshawk, sensei," he muttered, low enough that only Obito would be able to make out the words clearly, reminding himself what his own voice sounded like in a normal unexpected morning training. It helped that he'd travelled so quickly back; he looked ruffled enough that it might pass for a teenager rolled unceremoniously out of a warm bed. He just needed to sound like he was emitting the complaining tones of one.

"Less than that if we each take a bird and lighten their load."

He flashed him a grin that from a distance would look more amused than it was, but the warmth of it was real as he saw Sasuke implementing his words. "Of course. Though given the youth of your primaries I'll take my own flier. She's used to my weight and is more experienced in keeping herself concealed from people below."

The chicks were more than capable fliers by nature, but they weren't used to carrying humans as yet, and though their far more experienced mother might have been willing to serve for transport in a pinch, their father would probably require more cajoling than they had any amount of time for. Annoyed though she might be by the request, Kono-hana could probably mimic a magpie's flight pattern enough that they wouldn't be slowed down by wingbeats.

"She'll know the fastest way there," Sasuke nodded, then remembered to roll up a shoulder in a half-shrug to respond to that grin. "Once there, it's a two-level building with an internal storeroom trapdoor. That's where I -- that's where things are kept."

It was a slip, and the recovery inelegant, but he hoped the meaning was clear nonetheless, and it still looked like a natural hesitation. Without realizing it, the attention he needed to pay to keeping his body slouched at a relaxed angle and the pitch of his words was helping to keep him steady, distracting him momentarily from the task at hand.

Self-modulation could be soothing, when applied properly, Obito knew it well. "We'll be over that way quick enough." He nodded and then shook his head, looking up at the sky. "We have to move quick though, my people take guarding me preeeetty seriously and don't like the idea of me skipping out for a bit."

Sasuke nodded as they reached the seal point, body reacting easily to the words before his brain caught up to exactly what they needed to do quickly and tripped him for a moment. Nearly literally; there was a break in movement before he stepped into place for seal activation.

"Right," he said out loud to cover the pause. "Right -- yeah, I want to get home too, sensei."

Thankfully the seal was designed so the person inside pressed the pont of the seal they were gong to as those outside activated it, or there would have been a trail and questions that really couldn't be afforded. He stayed quiet until they reached the other side, giving a little wave to the guards on that side before heading quickly away from the point like be had a goal in hs destination. He only spoke with hs back to them and once he was sure he was out of earshot. "So, which direction will we be headed?"

"West," Sasuke responded, and waited until they were out of sight of the guards before biting his thumb for the summoning jutsu. The enormous mother of his regular juvenile retinue appeared with a sweep of wide wings and a curve to her neck that was -- almost concerned, oddly enough, the wicked beak butting against the side of his head in what might have been irritated affection.

She turned a lurid orange eye on Obito in the next moment, tilting her head skeptically.

"I plan to help him resolve something unfinished." He peered at her solemnly, then shifted away to summon his own bird, who looked around with interest... then rather incredulously at Obito after getting a look at the other bird.

Oh yes, the meeting of a new summon. Whoops.

"Good," Kono-hana rumbled, deigning to lower a shoulder for Sasuke to clamber onto her back before tilting her head in what was unmistakably a look of condescension. Prey was palpable enough in her expression that Sasuke had to lean forward with an urgent hiss under his breath:

"That's the Hokage," he said, which only made her eye flick to Obito again in assessment. "And my sensei --"

"You will keep up," she interrupted, addressing Obito's summons with an imperiousness that made Sasuke slap a hand to his face.

Maboroshino spread her wings for Obito to climb up, tone serene. "I fly with faster than you think." Then she shifted on her feet, clearly waiting for the other to get a move on.

Obito wasn't sure whether to be impressed or worried and gave Sasuke a wry smile. "You get used to it. Shall we?"

Sasuke didn't know this of Obito's summons as well as some of the others -- he could well imagine Akarui's indignation at being addressed with anything less than the respect a scholar deserved, to say nothing of Togatta -- but he counted himself lucky that this was clearly an even-tempered one. He nodded in response to Obito's question, dragging his hand down his face in some continued mortification at his summons' obvious disdain and less-obvious hunger.

Though that hunger probably meant she hadn't hunted yet tonight, a thought that gave him a bit of a guilty pang; his voice was quieter when he spoke to her again. "The same place we left from earlier today, as fast as we can get there."

She gave a single nod before spreading her wings and flinging herself into flight, keeping just above the most complex of the tree canopy for all her talk about forcing the other bird to keep up. Sasuke sighed in relief into her feathers, grateful that she wasn't going to deliberately make it difficult for Obito to stay close.

Maboroshino was perhaps Obito's most level headed summon so it made sense that she kept her nerve and even better in this situation, that she kept pace, keeping close. She also made sure that they weren't spotted, reflexively covering for them.

He kept careful track of where they went and noted the progression of the path, settling himself into the ride otherwise. WHen they landed, he was quiet, only thanking his bird and releasing her to go home.

Perhaps the smaller wildlife in the immediate vicinity of the house had been frightened away by the wingspan of the summons, but the lonely clearing was quiet enough that Sasuke was tense again when he slid off Kono-hana's back. Away from the need to control his body language and the distraction of his summons' sense of etiquette (none; she dispersed with a cursory bump of her head against his shoulder), the weight of what was actually happened pressed in with a terrible claustrophobia.

"This is it," he murmured to Obito, an entirely unnecessary aside; there was only one house in the space, the only lights left on the ones that Sasuke had barely kept it together to light to give the semblance of activity. The Sharingan spun into his eyes as he circled the house, looking for the window closest to the cellar trapdoor.

He reached out, catching the back of his shirt. "Sasuke." His tone was low, careful. He didn't want to spook him. "Make sure to get them under control and off before this happens."

He nearly jumped at the contact, evidence enough that he needed calm without the realisation that he'd allowed his doujutsu to get away with him. Obito's features resolved into the too-sharp definition of Sharingan a few times before he forced the chakra down, red sputtering out of his eyes reluctantly.

With normal vision, the night deepened, the contrast between the shadow they stood in and the warm glow of the light spilling from the window too stark. He swallowed.

"Sorry, sensei." He kept his voice low despite unlikelihood that anyone was able to hear them. A glance at the window, shoulders stiffening before he forced them to ease, and then a frown: "Should I make it look like someone broke in?"

"No, we'll be burning the building down. Just..." He leaned in, examining his face. "No matter what you do, keep yourself tight under control. You don't want to remember this in perfect clarity. You don't."

I will, Sharingan or not: the thought surfaced without reaching his lips. There was memory and there was Sharingan-memory, and this ... this wasn't even going to be a fight. There was no reason to use doujutsu.

This is a butchering, part of Sasuke thought, and he shoved the thought away with a sharp intake of breath -- and a slower exhale. Control. They'd need to burn the building from the inside out, leave nothing for even a shinobi forensics team to tie to Konoha. To do that without destroying a suspicious amount of the area, they would definitely need control.

"I'll go in first to disable the traps I left," he said in lieu of acknowledging the words: better to focus on anything other than the instinctive want for better sight. "After that, there's --" A break in the words, barely noticeable before he continued. "There are twenty people."

"You're not alone." His voice was low and firm. He was steady for him, as it should be. He wasn't going to leave this in his hands by himself. It was bad enough without that. "We'll deal with it."

It was easy to think in steps, from travel to breaking-and-entering, easy to be reassured by the steadiness of his teacher's voice. But within the house were people who should never have been involved with him at all, children and household staff, not a ninja in the lot. Sasuke lifted his hand to the sash of the window, ready to force entry, and then --

Had to stop.

"I've never," he started, fumbled his words and stopped to rephrase. I've never killed someone who wasn't also trying to kill me. "I don't know how -- how I should --"

He looked back at Obito, anguish poorly-hidden.

"The first time is always the worst. Watch me. Not what I do. You already know their faces so don't look at them. It will stay your hand if you look." He reached out, touching his wrist. "THe sooner done the sooner over. Send them a lantern next year."

The first time, Obito said, and Sasuke looked down at his hands, head bowed enough to shadow his face in the grey dawn.

"How many more times?" He asked, halfway rhetorical, voice low. If he had paid more attention, if he'd been more aware; ifs by the dozen and the rational part of him wondering how preventable these situations even were. If people other than him had gotten into them and required this kind of ...

He wanted to ask that, too: how many others? How many failures like me? But there was sunlight cresting over the woods and time pressing, and no time to do much more than reach back up, jimmy the window lock and hoist himself up, tucking and rolling into a loose crouch.

No movement came from inside the house. He hadn't expected any, but it was still -- it was still a place where he needed to focus. The cellar trapdoor was directly ahead, the seal laid over it undisturbed. Sasuke didn't give himself time to breathe and think: he disabled the seal with swipe of blood in the right place, pulling the doors open and letting light down onto the bodies laid out neatly on the packed earth, side-by-side in two rows.

"Too many." He took a careful breath and closed his eyes for a moment as he came in the doorway, carefully packing away all emotion and pulling a basic Kunai. Then he started over to them. "Where are the seals on them and will they dissolve when they die?"

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