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Shaking on a leg that shouldn’t hold his weight, Naruto forced himself to his feet, and Kabuto knew his words up until now were worthless. The only thing left to do was make good on his threats.
Kabuto twirled the kunai into position. So slick were his hands, blood mixing with sweat mixing with reluctance that he almost lost his grip. Too bad he’d been doing this for so long, or it could’ve ended there.
Naruto met his eyes, forming the hand sign for his clones and then there were two of him. His bright hair was dirty with blood, the bright smile he’d shown Kabuto when he thought they were friends was gone.
The number didn’t matter. One, ten, a hundred clones wouldn’t be enough to make them equal.
Experience was enough for Kabuto to set his legs to run, but he didn’t. Something far less base than fear of injury or failure stilled him.
Failure was no more acceptable here than it’d ever been. Failure was a luxury people who had someone defending them could afford. Lord Orochimaru was relying on him, and the death of one child was a price Kabuto had paid for his safety time and time again.
Still, he couldn’t move. If Naruto hadn’t backed down while turning a room of strangers to enemies, then what was one traitor? It was the same for both of them. One, ten, one hundred, it didn’t matter.
Luxury. But then again, Kabuto knew better than to think Naruto had a single ally he hadn’t earned in blood. And there he was, with no one capable of defending him, and he wouldn’t go down.
“What are you waiting for?” Naruto asked.
Kabuto didn’t have a great answer. Nothing but the promises of the encroaching evil he’d chosen. For all that he hated Lord Orochimaru, they were all he had. He could learn to live with what he hated. He’d do it a hundred times over.
But he didn’t move.
“You wouldn’t do it.” Kabuto’s kunai hit the ground. “You wouldn’t give in like that. You’d find it repulsive.”
--
Betrayal wasn’t the first thing Kabuto learned to do as a spy, but its lesson had been the most memorable. It wasn’t a surprise Lord Orochimaru turned their ire to him, even Lord Jiraiya had frozen, forgoing their fight at the disruption.
They didn’t need to speak. Kabuto had been there as horrid screams ripped themselves from Lord Orochimaru’s throat and their arms dissolved into rotten flakes and worthless meat. All the care he’d shown them and here he was, having tossed aside their faith in him.
“Two betrayals,” Lord Orochimaru said. “From two people I believed I could rely upon– Over all others.”
Kabuto was a medic. It wasn’t a surprise that, instinctually, he wanted to ease their suffering.
He was also a spy. Four years in Konoha depressing his hate was more than enough experience to push his better intentions too far away to touch.
Kabuto’s words weren’t as steady as he’d have liked but they were unambiguous. “You told me to keep adding to myself until I’d found what I am.”
They were the same in that way, settling into other people’s skin. What was he doing now if not stealing Naruto’s bravado and trying it on like an ill-fitting mask?
The thought annoyed him. He should know better. Big gestures were for kids who didn’t know what they had to lose yet. Sacrifices had to be worth something to someone, and Orochimaru was the only one here who found value in his life.
“I’m trying something new,” he said anyway. “Adding something, to see how it fits.”
Cold killing intent bled from their hunched form and struck Kabuto like a mist, but he didn’t move. It’d be a betrayal of something more sacred than trust to show every other person who’d hated him like this a cold face if he couldn’t do it here.
“You would throw yourself back into the arms of the man who set your Mother against you?”
Kabuto almost looked over his shoulder to see if Naruto was watching, but it’d be spineless. “This time, I’m choosing who I want to kill.”
--
Three days later, Kabuto watched the last of the sunlight fade at the edge of his cell’s slit window. He’d taken to watching the outside’s oranges, reds, and golds slowly eaten by a dark blue shadow as the days came and went.
There wasn’t much else to do. The cell and his cuffs were small, but he wasn’t anywhere near Danzo. For that, he could be grateful.
Lady Tsunade didn’t trust him anymore than she liked him, but she’d kept her promise to protect him, from both his enemies within and outside Konoha. In exchange for safety, he’d given Konoha all the information he could.
Most of it was near impossible to put to words. It wasn’t a matter of wanting in some cases– He still hadn’t told them how he’d started working for Orochimaru.
Yet, he was alive, even safe.
He’d expected to pay for that betrayal with his life. Orochimaru had certainly intended to kill him.
The only reason they hadn’t was Lady Tsunade putting herself between him and Orochimaru. It would be arrogant to think the move was strictly for him, but she’d fought Orochimaru and she’d won.
They’d fled the battlefield. They hadn’t come for Kabuto in this cell. She’d protected him.
If that weren’t enough, on shaking, hobbling legs, Naruto had also put himself between Kabuto and Orochimaru and refused to be moved by Lord Jiraiya or Kabuto. It was a pointless gesture, far less effective than Lady Tsunade’s protection, but seeing that pointless determination was the best Kabuto had felt in a long time.
These people found him worth protecting regardless of what he’d done.
In return, Kabuto healed the fracture on Naruto’s leg. It was as good of an apology as the brat would get. He’d assumed it wouldn’t be enough, but Naruto had nodded at him like it was.
Kabuto’s head came to rest against the cold stone wall. It was a lovely chill, his cell got so hot during the day. It was hard not to feel content. He’d learned something about himself. Stupid steadfast bravery had paid off this time.
-
One of the first things Orochimaru taught him were words not said to Kabuto, but to his Mother. He couldn’t remember their exact phrasing, but he’d memorized the lesson; children without parents were valuable. Valuable enough to steal, valuable enough to bargain with, and their words were proven in Kabuto’s Mother’s blood.
Sasuke didn’t leave long into Kabuto’s detainment. As Orochimaru had said, the boy’s desire for power eclipsed whatever loyalty he had for Konoha. In turn it seemed, Orochimaru’s desire for the power in the boy’s blood out-weighed their caution.
A prickly sensation started the day Sasuke left. Like unseen needles dug bloodlessly to his skull; like it was looking for something.
Lady Tsunade arrived in the morning. From her Kabuto learned that Sasuke was gone, and from him she learned where Orochimaru may have taken the boy. After he was alone again, Kabuto had wondered if the sensation was a premonition
But the feeling hadn’t left. It’d intensified as Orochimaru’s words rang unbidden round his skull.
When Sasuke’s mentor, Kakashi, arrived, sunset’s light had coated the floor of Kabuto’s cell like a fine powder, filtering in like sand between rain clouds.
Their exchange hadn’t involved words, not at first. Kakashi had the look of a man who’d lost more than he’d put up on the betting table.
The light had vanished before Kakashi said the first words. “Where did Orochimaru bring them?”
‘Them’, one word and it was like Kabuto was floating over an abyss. “What?”
“Orochimaru has Naruto and Sasuke. Where are they?”
Years ago Danzo requested a child to make up for a shinobi he’d lost and Kabuto left. Kakashi wouldn’t know– Nor would Lady Tsunade– but Orochimaru? They knew, and so did Kabuto.
Naruto had refused to move out from between him and Orochimaru. He’d never backed down when he should. It’d be so easy– pathetically so– why hadn’t he–?
Kabuto swallowed three times looking for the words lost somewhere in his throat. All he found was a bitter, bile flavour. “Them”.
Why had he assumed he’d be the one facing punishment for his betrayal?