Naruto swallowed as his incredibly awesome new sensei told them about his childhood. And he'd thought he'd had it bad! What Orochimaru had put Yamato-sensei through was so much worse that it almost made him start crying. In front of the teme!
". . .so most of us could see each other. We didn't have names, just code numbers. I remember when the kid they called UD-03 died – they injected something into one of his canister's feed-lines, and a few minutes later, the Mokuton just exploded him, filling up his jar, except he was still alive. What remained of his face was pressed up against the glass on my side, with these coiled roots coming out of his eyes, but I think he'd gained a sensory ability, because he oriented on me. . . ."
The teme's hands were under the table's edge but Naruto could tell he was squeezing them into fists, because of how tensed his shoulders were. Yeah, Sasuke might be a huge massive jerk with a totally – ok, mostly – baseless towering pride and all the snide snottiness to go with it, but. . .he was still human. The way Yamato-sensei's story was getting to him, too, proved that.
". . .they called her Little Silver, by then, because of her hair, so that was how I thought of her too. When we were sure they weren't around, we'd push our hands up against the insides of our tubes, facing each other, and try to communicate with our facial expressions. Pretending that we – well, I was pretending this anyway – that the glass was her hands, and we were touching each other. I think the others were too scared to try, or too broken in other ways, so that was only for the two of us. . . ."
On Naruto's other side, Hinata's breathing was getting a little ragged. You couldn't tell she was bothered from her posture or anything, but the ends of her exhales and starts of her inhales had that fluttery hitch to them they sometimes got when she was sparring.
". . .and then one day those of us left started to realize that they weren't just late, but that they were never coming back again. That we'd been abandoned, to either starve to death when the reserves for our feed-lines ran out, like BG-04. . .his face, his ribs. . .at the end, I could see his whole skeleton through his skin. Or be poisoned by our own recirculated wastes when the filters went bad and weren't replaced – EF-01 went that way, and I couldn't keep watching – I couldn't keep meeting her eyes, it hurt too much. I suppose it was worse for her, to know she was dying, drowning in her own filth, and that someone just across from her couldn't even – ah, never mind. Or pass away from slow exposure when the heating elements lost power and the fluids we were suspended in went cold, or some other way. . . ."
Naruto's own breathing was getting pretty darn harsh now. How could Yamato-sensei stay so calm, telling them all this? Orochimaru was beyond monstrous. He didn't know a word bad enough to describe how awful the guy was, and he'd heard a lot of curses over the years. It was evil - to use other people, use children that way, and then just. . .leave them, to suffer and die like that!?
". . .until only the two of us were left, staring into each other's eyes, when we were awake. And then one day I woke up, and Little Silver was. . .gone. Not just her; her tank, the cabling, all of it. There weren't even any marks on the floor where she'd been, and the rest of the room was the same it had been when I dozed off. Her absence was the single difference. I'm. . .still not sure how to describe my feelings at that moment. Had someone come back to save her? But if they did, why didn't they take me? Was she still alive? Was she free? I wanted her to be, I wanted her to be alright; but I was angry at her, too, because I was still stuck there and she wasn't.
"After everything we'd been through together, the horrors we'd seen, everything we'd survived, together, she'd. . .left me. I loved her – I knew the feeling then; I learned the word later - and she was gone and I wanted to be happy for her and but I resented her at the same time. But I couldn't wish she was stuck back there with me, because I knew that was wrong, and. . .it all built up inside me until – bam.
"My best guess is that the stress was enough to trigger my Mokuton, and that's how I broke out. It wasn't until much later - years later - that I realized she could have been a genjutsu, that our. . .relationship, such as it seemed, might have merely been part of my own experimental protocol, to find a usable trigger for the Shodai's power. So to this day I don't know for sure if she was even real or not. And I still have bad dreams, sometimes, where I'm back in my tank, and I watch people come and remove hers, and she's pounding on the glass, looking at them and pointing at me, screaming in the life-support fluid, and they ignore her. And then she's gone with them.
"And other times, worse dreams, she just. . .smiles at them. Like she recognizes them. And they disconnect her tank, and carry her off in it, and she gives me a happy little wave goodbye – and I realize that we never felt the same things at all. That the connection I thought we had, the togetherness, despite the space and glass and fluid between us, was only my own -"
# # #
"Stop," Sasuke said thickly. "Just. . .shut up! Stop talking!"
He hadn't felt like this since that night. The pain, the rage, the sense of injustice, of a fundamental wrongness in the world – like reality had gone liquid around him, beneath him, and he was sinking deeper and deeper into the pool of insanity revealed below – and his eyes hurt, they hurt so much, and he could see everything at once, the glow of Yamato-sensei's chakra laced through the table, and through the raised floor – he looked up to see the dobe's mouth opening before it happened, and then-but-simultaneously after it had, like one of those illustrated flip-books, forward then backwards, repeating a dozen times, a hundred, millions of times, infinitely, forever – like he could see through time, the way the Byakugan saw through matter - Yamato-sensei leaning towards him, hands outstretched, he could see it about to happen/happening/having happened, again and again and again but he couldn't move fast enough to -
Yamato-sensei's right hand clapped over his eyes, while the left pinned the back of his head between them. The agonizing, frantically spinning-twisting-whirling sensation in his eyesockets faded away, as if it was being drained into the man's right hand, while a rush of strange comfort flowed through his head from the left, in replacement. He drew a convulsive, sobbing breath at the relief, and felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment.
Not in front of the dobe! he thought desperately.
"I did not anticipate this, Sasuke-kun," Yamato said. "I had something else entirely in mind. I apologize for the distress. On the positive side, though," he added, "you've awakened your Sharingan. Straight to two tomoe in each eye, too. Not unprecedented, but also prodigious."
"Worth. . .it," Sasuke managed to croak out.
"Sasuke," the dobe said, his own voice shaky, "I think your eyes are bleeding."
"Worth - it!"
# # #
After the brief blood-trickle had been staunched and stopped, Yamato-sensei had wiped his face clean for him with another piece of the bandage he'd been using. "We don't have a mirror in here, Genin," he'd said firmly when Sasuke had protested that he could do it himself, and tried to push his hand away, "and one of the things you will learn from me is to become better accustomed to accepting the assistance of your teammates.
"Also, I'll let your disrespectful outburst earlier pass without discipline, on the grounds of excessive emotional distress directly caused by your superior officer, but open insubordination is something else entirely. If I give you an order, Genin, you will carry it out, with no 'or else' involved. And I am ordering you to lie down on your back, keep this damp compress over your closed eyes, and take a few minutes to savor your accomplishment."
Sasuke obeyed without protest, not even a displeased look. The man had earned that much.
"Celebrate this, Sasuke-kun. For professional reasons, because wins like this will only become more and more rare as your career progresses, and it's important to practice the deliberate emotional control involved in handling them properly. The moments when you think you've triumphed, and lower your guard as a result, are some of the most dangerous moments you'll experience as a shinobi. As the skill of your opponents increases, more and more often they will plan for that, try to deceive you, and take advantage of your resulting lapse of attention. Right now, you can afford to discharge that emotional buildup safely, so you should. Deliberate and measured release is an integral part of professional self-control, and the degree to which you fail to exercise it is a degree to which your self-control is flawed."
On his back, slowly breathing through his nose, Sasuke nodded automatically. As he so consistently had already, Yamato-sensei made good sense. The man wasn't just a planner, or a plotter; he was a strategist. He clearly had good, well-reasoned purposes for not only everything he did, but the order in which he did them. Sasuke didn't like admitting it, but the man had just pointed out a personal failing he'd never once considered, a blind spot in his personal self-assessment.
Ha! Sharingan! Two tomoe! Yesss! he thought obediently, reminded by the visual reference. And a big step closer to the day. The day when he falls to my hand, when my family, my clan are finally avenged -
Sasuke paused. Oh. That's exactly what Yamato-sensei means. That moment – he's preparing me for that fight, already. From the very beginning. How. . .far ahead has he planned our training?
Farther than I still can see, he realized. Even with two tomoe!
He let a wide smile spread across his face. I can learn from this man, he thought. More than just tai- and buki- and ninjutsu. Much more.
Yamato-sensei was right. Repressing, discarding everything that didn't lead directly to that man's death would make him, had made him. . .brittle. His loss of control in response to Yamato-sensei's story proved it. Weak, vulnerable to certain tactics, unacceptable!
Not enough! More training! he thought.
"Permission to continue, please, Sensei," Sasuke said.
"Granted."
Sasuke re-rolled the strip of bandage as he sat up. Yamato-sensei was already holding out a hand for it, and Sasuke gave it to him. The man tucked it away in one of the back pockets of his jounin vest.
"How do you feel?" Yamato-sensei asked. "Good enough for a short usage?"
"Eager and yes, Sensei," Sasuke said. Yamato-sensei gave him a brief, pleased nod.
"Excellent. Cubicle clones, lay out the first and last pages of your stacks in separate pairs on the flooring over there, then dispel. Sasuke, when the clones are gone, activate your Sharingan, and analyze the differences between each character of the pairs. Give us an estimate of any improvement by. . .say, tens of percentage."
Sasuke nodded and stood up. When the last of the clones was gone, he visualized. . .Itachi; he should get used to using that man's name, because refusing to do so was limiting himself, as Yamato-sensei had just shown him. . .in his family home, on that night, standing over his parents' bodies, stalking towards him, his Sharingan spinning. . .
. . .rage flickered through him, and the world evolved before his eyes.
"That pair," he said, pointing. "Just over ten percent improvement. That pair, and that, close to ten percent, but less." He didn't need to think, to analyze; the differences were obvious. The smoothness of the strokes, their size, their relative weight of ink, how all those factors balanced against each other to increase the clarity of the character. . .no wonder they call us arrogant, he thought, with another sudden insight. We are, and it is not undeserved. The pride of the Uchiha is not mere conceit. To see, and to instinctively know, to comprehend, without effort. . .I understand now.
No. Now I understand better.
Unconsciously, his hand rose to his forehead, and he found himself rubbing the spot that ma- which Itachi had so often poked. Was he telling me. . .I lacked the knowledge, the necessary experience, until this moment? Until I awakened this capacity? No wonder he always seemed so far beyond me, so distant. . .he was.
A dozen, a hundred moments in his past flashed through his mind. Little things and large ones; comments in passing from Uchiha at every social level across the clan, twitches and blank faces from shinobi, whether in service or retired; his parents, communicating with even less than a glance, just the tiniest shift of posture. . .all because of the Sharingan.
"Sasuke-kun, does your head hurt?" Yamato-sensei asked, breaking his chain of thought. Sasuke realized what he was doing, and snatched his hand away.
"No, sensei, just. . .old memories."
"Good," Yamato-sensei said. "Nevertheless, turn them off for now, and come have a seat. There's a lot more on our agenda for today they can help with, and it's too soon for stress testing. We want a better baseline before that."
"Hai, sensei," Sasuke said, obeying.
As he returned to the table, Yamato-sensei passed the hangable scrolls out to them, holding a palm towards the grabby, excited Dobe. "Not yet, Naruto-kun. I have a few more things to clarify beforehand.
"First, my name. I don't know what my original name was. My current one, Yamato, was given me by Hokage-sama. It's actually a code instruction he arranged secretly with me years ago. Beginning from the day he addressed me by it, I was to cease concealing my abilities and identity, at my own discretion. It is now up to me to reveal whatever I wish; my Mokuton, my background, anything. I may remain in the shadows, or come forward into public life.
"Now, if you had asked me what my ambition was a day or two ago, I would have given you the standard loyal answer; to be a good shinobi, protect my village and my comrades, obey my superiors, etc. Which would have been true, but not honest. Because I did want something else, something more. I wanted a bigger ambition itself, a personal one, something beyond the dictates of duty.
"And then. . .Hokage-sama swapped me out of my previous assignment - which may or may not have been Senior Captain of ANBU Team Ro, I couldn't say, it would be illegal and stop rolling your eyes at me, Naruto-kun, the insolence! - into this one. And I read your files, and BAM!" Yamato suddenly slapped his cupped hands together, producing an ear-hurting bang! of a clap, "just like that, I had it.
"I want to exceed the Sandaime. Not as a Kage, not as a God of Shinobi, but as a sensei.
"I want to make you three stronger than the Sannin. I want to raise up a team that puts those titans in a clear, and unmistakable, and inarguable second place. That is my ambition. I knew it was possible from the moment I saw this team's composition. I can do something utterly incomparable with these shinobi, I thought. And since I began observing you directly earlier today, I have seen not a single thing to contradict that."
As he listened, Sasuke noticed the other two sitting straighter in response to sensei's declarations – the Dobe more obviously, obviously; but the reticent Hyuuga heiress's spine had stiffened as well. He'd long ago concluded that her shy, retiring demeanor was mostly her true character, rather than a facade like that of the Nara slacker, or the big face Kiba constantly put on to cover his insecurities. This is primarily directed at her, he thought. Sensei knows – everybody knows – what Naruto's target is, and he either knows or has guessed what mine is. But hers? Apart from marrying Naruto, which she's absolutely not going to reveal here and now, what could she say?
"So, Hinata-chan, it's entirely acceptable to write Find my own ambition, or some variation on that, if you so prefer. How can I say otherwise? Until a few days ago, it would have been my answer as well."
Oh, Sasuke thought. Yes. And he's put all this together in just a few days.
'Can'? I must learn from this man.
I know! I was shocked too!