Chapter Text
No no no no no, Tenzō wanted to say. Tried to say, but couldn’t. He could no longer feel the sharp fangs embedded deep in the meat of his hand, but he could feel the acid burn of poison. It was a bright wash of agony, white hot and gaining power. Paralyzed. Couldn’t even control his own movements. Couldn’t form words. Couldn’t even open his lips to try. Captured and incapacitated, now forced to listen, meekly and silently, to the dastardly things they planned to do with his body.
Failed.
The last thing he saw before his vision winked out was the reptilian grin of a person that had once been Kabuto. He called himself a ‘dragon’ now, but in truth he was just a scientific abomination. Just another person as lost as Tenzō himself, seeking the best identity he could imagine. Not at all unlike himself in that respect. Yet Kabuto’s design was repugnant and artificial.
Tenzō could have done better. What would he have imagined for himself, if he could? I don’t know, he realized. His spirits sank when the miniscule significance of his answer sank in. Soon enough, it won’t matter anymore. I’ll die known to the world as Yamato and leave everyone behind. They’ll remember me by a name that isn’t even mine. And for failing.
Shameful. Tenzō was one of the most successful Anbu captains in history. Yet there he was, trussed up by a teenager with an identity crisis, immobilized by fabricated snake venom.
He couldn’t feel what they were doing with him, but he could hear the liquid sound of cells shifting, his body rearranging itself, fusing with cork. There was a shape hovering over him, but the black and grey blurry spots obscuring his vision kept him from knowing what it was. His mind was fogging over. Panic rooted. For that flash of an instant, he was certain he was dying. If his consciousness slipped, he’d be gone forever.
No no no no no, his mind screamed, fighting with what little he had left. His heart dropped to his stomach. He had zero control. There was no hope. Entirely at the mercy of the enemy, and about to be used to fuel whatever nefarious plan they had in motion, and all because of the Mokuton, the Wood Style.
Always because of that. His most precious gift. His fatal curse.
With a sigh of resignation that stagnated in paralyzed lungs, he succumbed to the blackness and knew nothing else.
Kakashi, I’m sorry.
Somewhere, deep in the recesses of his mind, a thousand identities warred for dominance. Who am I? He wondered, lost in a dark sea of shadows without a star to set his compass. He was the barest spark of consciousness in a shrinking, black corner of somewhere. What am I? His own voice didn’t have a sound. It was only a whispered thought, carried along on the currents of blank space.
Out of the inky blackness, a tiny dab of green broke. Green, he mused. It’s a color. An important one. He felt something that might have been happiness to know this scrap of knowledge. The green smudge expanded, stretched and curled like a line of scripture. He watched it, fascinated, blown away by the simple beauty of it. It glowed faintly, lit from somewhere, though there didn’t seem to be a light source. It unfurled and stretched out, like a growing thing.
Yes! His mind supplied. That’s what it is! His consciousness reached for it, and he saw what must have been his hands. Is this me? he wondered, pausing to stare at the fingers. Four fingers, one thumb, broad pale palms. These are mine? He wiggled the fingertips, noting with satisfaction how they responded to his command. He closed and opened them, pleased. These are mine, and so is that. He reached out again, sliding his fingers beneath the new leaves of the plant in the darkness. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, he knew of a certainty. It was his and he loved it, so he brought it close to protect it from whatever threats might lurk in the suffocating shadows around them.
The awareness that he was human filtered in slowly. It frightened him, knowing that he was real, yet trapped. He blinked—I have eyes—and looked around for an exit. There wasn’t one. Where he was was nowhere. There was no up, down, or around. There was only an endless ocean of nothing. No solid ground to stand upon. Just him and his beautiful plant, all his own.
When the beginning of the question of his name began to form, his mind was assaulted with a list. Hashirama. Shodaime. Clone. Experiment. Last. Survivor. Anbu. Kinoe. Tenzō. Yamato. Taichou. Kakashi. Senpai. A dozen others. Which one is me? With his hesitation, the words and sounds assailed him, a kanji storm, and he panicked, curling protectively around the fragile green shoot he must have made. Mine.
Hashirama.
It was the one word among them all that seemed most important. Tentatively, he reached for it. The sense of the word filtered in, diffusing through his skin, deep into his body, pervading his senses and his mind. It distributed its essence evenly throughout, like a cloth wicking up a puddle of water. But when it was completely his, it felt all wrong. No, he decided. This is not me. He rejected it, pushed against the force. Banished Hashirama. But it would not go. It clung to him like a parasite, refusing to be released.
Hashirama.
No! His mind shouted back, scared of this thing that didn’t belong that wouldn’t leave. No, I’m not! I’m—I’m—I’m—He sank to his knees and hit more nothing, accidentally crushing the delicate leaves he’d tried so hard to save in a suddenly clenched fist. His heart constricted, realizing what he’d done. Who am I? he wondered again, if not Hashirama? His fingers opened slowly, revealing the abused new life there, dark with the leak of cell matter, crinkled past repair. A cold tear trickled down his face.
How could he have forgotten so much?
The darkness kept telling him he was the name that wasn’t his. Somehow, he understood that the confusion was frighteningly real, as if he’d struggled on this particular point before in a time long past. And somehow, he also comprehended that he’d had trouble settling on a different name before, too. Maybe he didn’t have a real name.
Maybe this nothing land was his reality.
The darkness was encroaching again, reaching for the damaged plant cradled in his hands. Broken and dying it may be, but the plant at least was definitely his, and he wasn’t going to let anything take it away. His fingers caged around it, minding its fragility. He hunched into a tight little ball around it and let the evil smog take him. It was dark in the center of his human cocoon, but the fitful glow of the leaves gave him the tiniest bit of comfort.
We’ll get through it together, he promised.
Around them, a quiet whistle like wind rose. As it came closer, it grew into an empty roar, and whoever he was, he knew that the end was coming for them both. We’ll make it. We can.
The shadow swallowed them whole. Invisible needles stabbed him all over. He gritted his teeth and hissed with pain. When the needles stopped stinging, whatever energy he had started bleeding out. He hadn’t known how alive he really was until his life began draining out from a billion tiny pores, draining into the nothing and shrinking his consciousness with it. The name he’d found in the middle of it all started to fade. The memory of eyes and humanity and the other names went, too. It was just him—a spark of awareness, nothing more—and this tiny plant.
Don’t you leave me, too, he begged, fighting the sucking pressure at his heart and soul. The slow drip of his life force hurt like all the fires of hell, but not as much as the ache in his soul, the something missing he couldn’t find. The glowing leaves darkened, injured by his own careless infraction. He wanted to scream. Don’t you dare leave me here alone!
The light grew weaker.
And weaker.
Weaker.
Panic.
Dark.