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“You’re out,” Kabuto hears, and he doesn’t believe it.
He doesn’t believe it, because he’s been waiting so long to hear it and he’s known for so long that his sentence would be extensive. He is not an innocent man, even by Shinobi standards; Orochimaru’s right hand man, perpetrator of the Fourth Shinobi War, assisting Uchiha Obito in nearly causing the collapse of not only the Shinobi world, but the world at large.
Despite being taken in by the Foundation. Despite Danzo worming his way into Kabuto’s mind at the ripe age of eight years old, breaking Kabuto down just to work him back up again into a perfect intelligence gathering weapon, just like his mother. And Kabuto, so eager to please, was happy to help if it meant securing funding for the orphanage that both saved his life and gave him a purpose – the same purpose that, these days, he isn’t even sure what that is anymore. And he would carry each mission out to completion, infiltrating the other villages, major and minor and miniscule alike, reporting back to his new master. His new purpose. The very purpose broken upon the murder of his mother by his own hand.
He’s a broken man, by this point.
As if he wasn’t already.
Two years, he’s been locked up. Two years he’s sat in his cell, under the chakra blocking seals that prevent him from acting out, prevent him from attacking his guards where it would hurt them the most. The coronary arteries, to cut off blood supply to the heart. The vagus nerve, halting nerve activity to the brain. The trachea, disrupting oxygen to the lungs. Dislodging joints to hinder movement, detaching muscles to stop movement altogether. Ensuring his escape.
Kabuto thinks about it to pass the time, but he does not act on impulse.
He can pinpoint the places on his guards where it would be most effective to kill them. Their faces are hidden by the animal motif masks of Konoha’s ANBU force, but that doesn’t matter, not to Kabuto; he’s well trained as both a medic and an assassin, and his time in the Foundation only solidified his natural-born talents. He doesn’t need to see their real faces to know where their eyes sit, should he need to gouge them out to secure his fictional getaway. He doesn’t need to see the fine contours of their bodies to know exactly where the heart is, or where the lungs sit, or where the spinal cord is at its weakest and most vulnerable and easiest to pierce.
Two years have passed like this. Incessant thinking, intrusive thoughts telling him to kill, disrupt, get away while you can.
He does not listen. He allows the thoughts to have their moment, he thanks them for their contribution, and he sends them on their way, unacted upon.
A marvel, really. Maybe the little therapist was doing something after all, in between the annoyed looks and the notes that Kabuto’s caught glances of over his shoulder: Uncooperative, but trying. Insufferable. Broken. Potential to heal; patient has to want it.
Kabuto wonders if he does. He wonders, in the recesses of his mind, if he wants to heal from this. He does, he thinks; wants to escape his cell on good terms, wants to step into the village as a new man, a citizen and not just some war criminal.
And he can’t deny that that is exactly who he is. Kabuto is, at the end of the day, a war criminal.
He doesn’t think that should stop him from enjoying a little bit of freedom.
So, he decides, he’ll work towards it. He’ll work with the little therapist he’s been assigned to the last two years, tell him his plans and his wants and his goals. Maybe he has, he can’t remember; he’s sure it’s come up before, but he’s unsure whether it will be acted upon or brought up again without–
He hears the words again, and wonders how long has passed since the first time he heard them the first time.
“You’re out, Yakushi.”
And he swears he sees the sun when he looks at the mouse motif mask standing in front of his open cell door.