“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Akadou Yoroi singsonged, parting the thick underbrush with his hands. Finding nothing, he let the bushes fall back into place, and turned his attention to his partner. “You see anything, Misumi?”
Misumi shook his head. Yoroi swore under his breath. “Damn sneaky bastard,” he said aloud. “Come on, let’s go check his place.”
The two made their way out of the small grove, pausing every so often to check a suspiciously-rustling bush. Directly above them on a tree branch, Yakushi Kabuto watched them go, holding back a sigh of relief when they were finally out of sight. He couldn’t relax fully yet. They might come back. For now, though, he could lean back against the trunk of the tree and curl around himself. He wrapped his arms around his knees and laced his fingers together, idly pondering whether the Academy teachers would ever notice the torment Yoroi and Misumi put him through every day after school.
They had a different reason every time. This time, Kabuto had refused to “help” Yoroi with the theory homework he was too dense to understand. Yes, Kabuto thought, that was the perfect word to describe Yoroi, dense. Misumi, too. One-trick ponies without the brains to keep up in a class their own age, whereas Kabuto, three years younger, was excelling in the same class. Stupid people. It was people like Yoroi and Misumi who deserved to die, he thought, instead of people like--
A sudden sense of something snapped Kabuto out of his thoughts. He froze, then calmly looked around, trying to make it seem like it was nothing more than a squirrel that had startled him. Whoever it was, it wasn’t Yoroi or Misumi--he would have heard those buffoons a mile away. After a moment, his eyes settled on a barely-visible scuff on a branch above and to the left of him. So close; how had this person gotten so close without him noticing?
“Do you hate them?”
Kabuto jerked to face the source of the voice and found it sitting in front of him. She--no, he--was tall and thin, dressed in a black silk kimono with stylized snakes embroidered on it. He had the palest skin Kabuto had ever seen, even on dead people, contrasted by the kimono and by pitch-black hair. The bones of his hands jutted out, creating small shadows in the crevices as he folded them over his crossed knees. His face was sunken, almost hollow, but it was the eyes that Kabuto couldn’t look away from. Slit pupils, golden. When Kabuto looked at them he felt like a mouse about to be devoured. He smiled reflexively.
“No,” he said pleasantly, “I don’t hate them. Why would I? We’re just playing a game.”
The man laughed, a low, gravely laugh that made Kabuto’s hair stand on end. He laced his fingers tighter together and waited for him to finish. There was a strange aura around him; it reminded Kabuto of the time he’d looked into his father’s casket, the Leaf having been so kind as to provide a decent burial for the family they’d slaughtered. He’d had dreams every so often after that day in which he was the one in the coffin, and he woke from every one of them sick and cold.
After a good ten seconds, the man stopped laughing and fixed Kabuto with a penetrating stare. “A good little lie,” he said. “For ten, excellent. I can see why your teachers speak so highly of you.” He paused, apparently waiting for Kabuto to acknowledge the compliment, but Kabuto simply smiled. The man nodded. “Your face gives away nothing. I like that. Some people have to cover their faces to hide their thoughts, but yours is so pretty it would be a shame.”
They stared at each other until Kabuto’s gaze shifted. It was too uncomfortable to look into those eyes. The man smiled and broke the silence. “Yakushi Kabuto, correct?”
“How do you know my name?” Kabuto countered.
“An appropriate question,” the man answered. “Let’s just say I heard about you from Susako-sensei.”
“You spied on her,” Kabuto said without accusation. Truthfully, it didn’t matter how this man knew him. All that mattered was getting out of this encounter alive.
“Why do you say that?”
“Susako-sensei wouldn’t have talked to you about something like that. She’s very perceptive.” As always, the thought led to another thought, that if Susako-sensei was so observant she would have noticed Yoroi and Misumi’s persecution of him. Then again, he wasn’t really a Leaf ninja: she wasn’t obligated to do anything, or even to care.
“As are you, I see.” The man looked down into the glen, and Kabuto contemplated making a run for one of the Academy windows. There should be a teacher in detention. “It’s no use,” the man said suddenly. “I’d kill you before you left this branch.”
Kabuto’s heart thudded painfully, but he forced his voice not to shake. “How--” he started to say, but stopped when the man leaned towards him and traced a finger over his cheek. The skin felt strange, as if the man was wearing it like a glove, but Kabuto said nothing.
“Your face,” the man said, bringing his thumb up to brush the corner of Kabuto’s lips, “is like smooth, clear glass.” He let his knuckles drag gently down the side of Kabuto’s face, then his neck, his eyes following every move. “But,” he continued, his fingers unfolding to cup Kabuto’s shoulder, “your body is a differently matter entirely.” His eyebrows raised slightly, as if he were telling Kabuto a secret.
“Take right here, for instance.” Now the hand slid down Kabuto’s upper arm, the tips of his fingers tracing the lower edge of Kabuto’s bicep. “You tensed your tricep, indicating you were planning to straighten out your arm, presumably to use it to launch yourself off this branch.” The man trailed his fingertips over Kabuto’s lower arm to his hand. “Earlier, your fingers were laced very tightly together, but when you thought about running, they loosened, thus allowing you to unlace them quickly for your getaway. Do you understand?”
Kabuto nodded, and the man continued, placing his hand on Kabuto’s knee. “Your legs were a dead giveaway. Never let them tense until the instant you wish to move, or your enemy will know what you are planning even before you do.”
The man looked up, and Kabuto almost stopped breathing at the predatory smirk on his face. “There is more to it,” the man said, and Kabuto bit down a scream, knowing he’d be dead before any sound came out. “However, you should understand the concept by now.” He leaned in closer. “Let’s move on.”
“Stop it,” Kabuto whispered.
The man regarded him, testing him with his eyes. Kabuto held his gaze as best he could, and after a moment the man drew away. Kabuto took one slow, deep breath, then another, then realized the same smile was still on his face. Another moment’s contemplation made him realize he hadn’t shifted at all--if he had, he knew, he wouldn’t be alive.
“Good,” the man chuckled. “Very good. You’ll do.”
“I’ll do for what?” Kabuto asked, unable to keep his voice steady this time.
The man smiled mysteriously, then looked out into the grove again. “Are you afraid of death, Kabuto?”
Kabuto blinked. The word had made his throat freeze up and the tips of his fingers tingle with tension. A sudden image came to his mind, that of his mother with a kunai embedded in her forehead. Knowing the man was expecting an answer and would know instantly if he lied, he nodded. The man nodded too and rolled up the sleeve of his kimono. “Would you like to see something interesting?”
“Like what?” Kabuto asked warily. The man smiled.
“Immortality,” he said.
Immortality, a word Kabuto had never heard before, but he instinctively knew its meaning. To be immortal, to never die. “That’s not possible,” Kabuto said. “Everything dies.”
“Not necessarily.” The man picked at the crook of his right elbow until a small flap of skin stuck up. “It is possible, Kabuto. I can make it happen.” He held his arm out to Kabuto. “See this skin?”
Kabuto studied the man’s wrist. Though extremely pale, it was covered with wrinkles, cracks and scars. “Yes,” he said.
“Watch.” With that, the man took the flap of skin between his fingers and pulled. There was a sound like tearing tissue paper.
“What are you doing?” Kabuto asked, disgusted and fascinated at the same time. He shifted up onto his knees to watch the man’s skin rip off in a strip from his elbow to the tip of his middle finger.
“Now look at this skin,” the man replied, releasing the strip to let it be blown away by the wind. Kabuto took a close look.
“It’s... new,” he said after a moment. “Where you peeled it, the skin is new. It’s not even bleeding.”
“Yes.” The man nodded. “Would you like to do the rest?”
“No,” Kabuto breathed, but even as he spoke, his fingers worried at the edges of the tear. He watched dispassionately and wondered if he’d be killed for forgetting the earlier lesson. The man looked pleased, though, even excited. Peeling the skin from elbow to wrist was like taking off a coat. The hand was a bit harder, but soon it too was off in one big piece. He let the old skin fall to to the ground and ran his fingers over the new skin in front of him. No wrinkles, no scars, no cracks. Not even hair, not even fingerprints.
“This is just the beginning of my research,” the man said. “The secrets of immortality are already in sight. Would you like to have them too?”
Kabuto looked up sharply. “What do you want me to do?”
The man rubbed Kabuto’s cheek with his right hand. So smooth. “For now,” he said, “graduate. Become a genin. You’re of no use to me as an Academy student.”
“And after that?”
The man smiled and stood up. “There are several things I could use you for,” he said. “Which of them you would be most effective at remains to be seen.”
Kabuto stood as well. He grasped the sleeve of the man’s kimono as he turned to go. The cloth seemed to thrum in his hand. Kabuto felt dangerous, daring, powerful. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“You’ll find out once you’ve proven yourself,” the man said. He was gone before Kabuto even registered the feel of cloth slipping from his fingers.
Kabuto stared at the place where he had been, then slid back down to sit on the branch, shaking. Somehow, despite it all, he’d emerged alive. A small chuckle welled up in his throat as he realized the inadequacy of that word. He was more than alive. He’d made a deal with Death.
