Chapter Text
For a while, there was nothing but light and the steady hum of machines.
Sleep came without dreams, heavy and drug thick, stretching minutes into days. The world stayed behind glass, blurred and harmless. When he surfaced, voices came in pieces. Sakura’s measured, Naruto’s too calm, and Kabuto’s lighter, almost cheerful tone urging him to try again at the piano. Each time, he sank again before he could answer.
Kabuto stopped coming after the first day. The lesson had ended before it began. From then on, Sakura managed his care alone.
In the first days, he went through the motions. Ate when told, drank when the glass was pressed into his hand, walked when they helped him up. He did what they wanted but said nothing. He never touched the piano or played their games again. His refusals were quiet but absolute, and Naruto didn’t push. He said Sasuke needed time to heal, to find comfort again. It sounded merciful when he said it.
In the control room, Naruto had watched those early attempts with forced calm, telling himself that obedience was progress, that stillness meant trust. But when the cameras caught nothing except quiet compliance, the comments turned flat. He’s boring. He’s broken. Get someone new.
Naruto lowered the sedation, just a little. Enough to wake the spark he swore was still there.
Sleep became easier than pretending.
Somewhere in the blank hours between waking and sleep, thoughts began to lose their edges.
Old memories folded in on themselves, the bedrooms, the pain, and the old men who took what they wanted. Even fear dulled, smoothed into something quieter.
There were no choices here, only routines: breathe, swallow, drift. Each cycle stripped the world down to smaller pieces until even his own name sounded borrowed.
He told himself it was peace. It was just emptiness with rules.
The mind was trained to heal the way it was told to: eat, sleep, obey. It wasn’t healing at all, just a slower kind of breaking dressed as recovery. When the fog thinned, it left only exhaustion and the echo of that last clear thought - find the moment that is yours.
But the moment never came. Only the loop. The same ceiling light, the same voice coaxing him to breathe, the same promise that rest was recovery.
On the fifth day, the silence began to feel louder than the drugs.
The control room hummed with quiet disapproval. For three days the feed had shown only a sleeping body, no dialogue, no drama, nothing to keep the crowd hooked. The chat that once roared now drifted to silence, dotted with half-hearted comments about the coma arc. Sponsors were asking if the project had gone stagnant.
Naruto stood at the console, eyes on the main monitor where Sasuke lay motionless.
“Rest is good,” he said under his breath.
Sakura’s voice came from the medical station. “Vitals stable. Sedation down to 40 percent.”
“Still too much,” he murmured. “They’re bored.”
The quiet that followed felt too large for the room. Even the machines seemed to breathe slower. He stared at the bank of monitors, at the tiny digital clock blinking in the corner, counting the seconds of their stillness.
The hum of the processors filled the air, a faint electric static that crawled along the back of his neck. He had designed this place to feel safe, to look like sanctuary, soft light, even tone, order. Healing, not punishment. But healing was slow and slow had never sold.
His reflection ghosted over the main monitor, eyes rimmed with exhaustion. There were days when he hardly recognized himself, when the lines of his own face looked borrowed. He touched the screen without meaning to, his fingertip resting just above Sasuke’s image.
He told himself this was mercy. He told himself it had to be.
Engagement graphs rippled across another screen, lines dipping like tired heartbeats. He traced one with his finger. “He’s supposed to be healing, not vanishing.”
Somewhere behind him, one of the cooling fans clicked three times before settling again.
Sakura hesitated. “If we drop the dose too fast, it could…”
He twisted the dial down one mark. The click sounded small, but final.
“Gentle recalibration,” he said, as if that made it mercy.
On the monitor a hand twitched. A faint crease pulled between sleeping brows.
Naruto leaned closer to the screen. “Good morning, angel,” he whispered, the practiced warmth sliding back into place.
The air hummed when he surfaced. Not awake, just nearer to it. The drugs still lingered, but thinner now, enough for thoughts to reach the surface.
Light pressed through his eyelids. The ceiling glowed the same amber as always. The camera’s red eye blinked in its corner. Still here. Still inside it.
The dinosaur lay against his ribs. He ran a thumb along the rough seam, counting stitches until numbers blurred.
A chime rose from the ceiling.
Session scheduled in twenty minutes.
He turned his head toward the sound. The motion made the room tilt.
Naruto’s voice filled the air, even and warm. “Good morning, angel. It’s time to get up and try for a new day.”
The word day stayed too long in the room.
He swallowed, throat dry. “No.”
The sound barely existed.
A pause.
“It will help you feel better,” Naruto said.
A small pause, then the same voice, steady and warm. “You’ve been asleep for three days. You’ve haven’t eaten, barely had any water. We just need to get you up, moving, and feeling normal again.”
The words sounded kind until you listened too closely. They weren’t comfort; they were instruction.
“Let’s try to keep our rhythm.”
He stared at the ceiling. The voice was too calm, too bright.
“No,” he said again, clearer this time.
Silence stretched, then the same tone returned. “All right. You can rest a little longer.”
Naruto said something about resting, but the word felt like a command dressed as mercy. Lying still had started to feel like surrender.
The lights dimmed. He caught the dinosaur before it slid off the sheet and held it close. The refusal felt small, but it was his.
He sat up. The effort made his muscles tremble; the air felt heavier than water. The table beside him held a half glass of water. He lifted it, the rim cold against his palm, and stared at the faint reflection rippling on its surface.
He stood. One step, then another. The world bent slightly at the edges, colors too bright, sound too soft.
The door to the living space stood open. He walked through it, the floor cool beneath his bare feet. The air carried that faint mechanical chill that never changed.
The piano waited in the corner, black and perfect. Its polished lid reflected him like a mirror that lied. Beyond it, the window glowed with impossible sunlight.
He crossed the room.
The air shifted with him, artificial currents adjusting to his movement. The smell of disinfectant clung to the walls. Somewhere above, a soft click signaled the cameras turning to follow.
He passed the piano and trailed his hand across its surface. The reflection of his face bent and straightened in the lacquer. The note of one key echoed faintly under his touch, too clean to be real.
He looked toward the window. The sky flickered once, a frame reset that lasted less than a heartbeat. Even the sun obeyed the loop. The bird beyond the glass cried out the same sound again and again, an endless chorus meant to soothe.
He watched until understanding settled in. The world was not alive. It was curated, looped and flawless, a painting that pretended to breathe.
The realization came without surprise. He had known, somewhere beneath the sedatives and silence, that freedom here was only decoration. This was a prettier cage, nothing more.
He pressed his hand to the glass. The chill cut through the film in his head, sharpened everything. Pain, he thought, was proof. It was the one thing they couldn’t fake.
His reflection stared back at him: pale skin, dull eyes, a body that had stopped belonging to him.
He remembered the thought that followed him through a life born under a curse. To survive again and again, long after every reason had burned away. The curse wasn’t dying. It was being kept alive.
Something quiet inside him shifted. The ache eased, replaced by a single, steady certainty. If he couldn’t choose the world, he could still choose the end of it.
He lifted the water glass, set it against the sealed seam of the window, and watched the condensation fade. He drew it back. The glass was smooth, heavy, perfect for what he needed.
He smashed it against the glass.
The crash was sharp, bright, final. The window didn’t break. The glass did. Shards scattered across the floor, glittering in the false sunlight.
He crouched, picked up a fragment. It caught the light, steady between his fingers. His hand had never been this calm.
He looked at his wrists. The veins beneath the skin pulsed, small rivers under ice.
This was choice.
He pressed down on one, then the other. A bright sting, then heat that spread through him, quiet and sure. He dragged once across each, deliberate.
The pain was pure. It rang through the fog like a bell. Blood welled fast, spilling over his hands, running down both arms in bright ribbons. The smell filled the air, iron, salt, truth.
It dripped onto the dinosaur’s paw, blooming crimson through the fabric.
He watched it spread, detached but alive, his heartbeat echoing in the rhythm of falling drops.
Mine, he thought, and the word steadied him.
The room started to spin. The hum in his head went quiet.
Static cracked through the intercom. Naruto’s voice, stripped of its calm, broke through the noise.
“Angel, stop. Please, stop. Stay with me.”
The sound came again, louder, desperate. “Hold on. Don’t close your eyes. Stay awake. You hear me? Stay awake.”
Then silence, followed by the hiss of a door unlocking somewhere down the hall. Footsteps pounded closer.
The door slid open. Sakura entered, coat hem brushing against blood.
“Hold still,” she said, her voice clipped and calm.
He couldn’t. His knees gave way. She caught his wrist, pressing gauze hard against the wound. The sting of antiseptic bit through the haze.
Inside her chest, her heart stumbled once before she forced it steady. The cameras watched. Naruto watched. Weakness was betrayal.
The smell of blood filled the air, thick and sharp. A pulse of nausea crept up her throat. For a moment she saw him as a boy instead of a subject.
Ino’s voice whispered back from some better time: this isn’t what saving people looks like.
Sakura pressed harder, silencing both memory and conscience.
“You’re safe,” she said, the words automatic, untrue. “Hold still.”
The gauze soaked through; she replaced it, tighter, faster. Her hands worked without hesitation, her face expressionless. “I know it hurts,” she murmured. “Don’t move.”
Overhead, the intercom crackled again. Naruto’s voice shattered through static. “Sakura, now!”
He was still shouting when the feed cut out. The screen went black across every monitor. The audience saw the blur of motion, the blood, the body collapsing and then nothing.
In the control room, Naruto’s reflection flickered over the dead feed. “Emergency containment,” he ordered. “Send Kiba to assist.”
In the living room, the cameras powered down with a low hum. The sudden quiet made Sakura’s breath sound too loud.
She tied the final bandage. The dinosaur sat near the sill, paw stained dark.
Her earpiece clicked. Naruto’s voice came again, still uneven, fighting panic. “Take it to be cleaned. I don’t… just take it out of there.”
She hesitated. The toy was still warm from his blood. “He’ll need full treatment,” she said, but the line had already gone silent.
She obeyed. The fabric was sticky in her gloves. “You’ll feel better soon,” she told him, tone smoothing back to professional.
The door sealed behind her.
The sound faded quickly, replaced by the constant hum of ventilation. Memory crept in before she could stop it.
The hallway outside was too bright. The toy felt heavier than it should have, its fabric still tacky against her gloves.
Sakura stood for a long moment before moving. The hum of the air vents filled the space, that same low vibration that had replaced silence in this building. She tried to slow her breathing. Ino’s voice rose again in memory, too vivid to ignore.
They had been standing outside the observation window months ago. Ino’s hair was pulled back, hands shoved into the pockets of her lab coat.
“You know what this is, right?” she said.
Sakura stared at the clipboard between them. “It is treatment. Controlled. Supervised.”
Ino let out a breath that sounded like a laugh and wasn’t.“We promised after the fire that we’d build something better. That we’d make good lives, not hurt people the way we were hurt."
Silence pressed in. Ino’s voice dropped. “You remember Hinata.”
Sakura did not answer. The name landed like a stone.
“She wasn’t a patient,” Ino said. “She was his first captive. Too much, too fast, mixed wrong. She stopped breathing before anyone knew how to bring her back.”
Sakura closed her eyes. The clipboard edge cut into her palm.
“They called it an anomaly,” Ino went on. “Filed it under complications and moved on.”
Sakura found her voice. “He is trying to fix what is broken. If we learn, if we stabilize the protocol...”
“You cannot save someone by owning them,” Ino said. The words were soft, exhausted. “I cannot stand in that room again. I asked for reassignment. I will keep the lights on and the money clean, but I will not watch this.”
Sakura’s mouth felt dry. “I signed the report.”
“I know,” Ino said.
Their relationship had never been the same after that, every conversation edged with questions Sakura didn’t want to answer.
Now, in the hallway, Sakura stood with the same clipboard tucked under her arm. The dinosaur looked small against it, blood-dark along one edge.
She thought about Hinata’s face in the lab report. Eyes closed, skin pale from lack of oxygen and about the boy she had just bandaged, still breathing only because she had not looked away this time.
Her throat tightened. She swallowed it down.
The cameras did not follow her here, but the habit of composure had long since set in. She kept walking until the corridor turned. The toy felt lighter by the time she reached sterilization, as if confession had weight of its own.
Inside, the hum of the vents continued, steady and indifferent.
Sasuke slumped sideways beneath the window. His breathing slowed, the room blurring into color and sound. He pressed his palm over the fresh bandage. Beneath the layers of cloth, the pulse still thudded.
Still mine, he thought, before the dark folded him under.
The door to the suite hissed open again. The smell of antiseptic met the sharp tang of iron.
Kiba paused on the threshold, the silence pressing against his ears. He had seen aftermaths before, but not like this.
Sasuke lay motionless where he had fallen, skin washed of color, blood pooling dark against the tile. The hum of the vents made everything sound far away, as if the world itself had stepped back.
Kiba crouched beside him. The heat was already leaving his skin. He touched the inside of Sasuke’s wrist, careful of the bandage Sakura had tied, and found the faint pulse still there.
“You’re still here,” he said under his breath. It was not comfort so much as confirmation.
He slipped an arm under Sasuke’s back, another beneath his knees. The body lifted easily, lighter than it should have been.
For a second, he just held him there, suspended between the floor and the light. Then he started walking, each step measured, boots whispering against the tile.
He carried him through the short hall toward the private med bay. The cameras in this section stayed off. Somewhere behind them, orders clicked through headsets and the system came back online.
When Kiba returned later, Sasuke had been treated and cleared for rest. He laid him down as if setting something fragile in place, tucked the blanket up to his collarbone, and rested his hand against his chest long enough to feel it rise.
“Breathe,” he whispered, and the word disappeared into the hum.
The door slid shut behind him. The hum filled the empty space again, a low mechanical pulse that sounded almost like breathing.
A few minutes passed before the lock disengaged again. Soft steps crossed the tile, almost soundless.
Naruto entered, hair damp with sweat, sleeves pushed to his elbows. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and metal. He paused near the foot of the bed, eyes on the faint rise and fall beneath the blanket.
For a moment he didn’t move. Then he sat in the chair Kiba had dragged back against the wall.
Sasuke’s hand lay outside the blanket, pale against the fabric. Naruto reached for it. His fingers hovered first, unsure, then settled over the bandaged wrist. The skin beneath was cold, pulse shallow but steady.
“You scared them,” he said quietly. “You scared me.”
The monitors blinked in rhythm with his voice. He brushed his thumb once over the gauze, slow and deliberate, as if testing proof of life.
“You’re still here,” he whispered. “You will always stay.”
His breath caught on the last word. He leaned forward and pressed his lips lightly to Sasuke’s forehead. He didn’t stir. The contact was brief, reverent, almost ritual.
“You belong here,” he murmured against his skin. “You’re safe now.”
When he pulled back, he looked at him for a long moment, expression unreadable. Then he stood, adjusting the blanket so that it lay smooth and perfect across Sasuke’s chest. The gesture was slow, careful, too practiced to be comfort.
He turned toward the door, pausing with his hand on the panel. The soft red light above the camera flickered once, then steadied.
He pressed the activation code into the console by the wall. The hum of the system rose around him. The cameras came alive again, lenses clicking as they refocused on the bed.
“Sleep,” he said, voice almost gentle. “Tomorrow will be better.”
The door sealed behind him. Down the corridor, the hum followed him like a living thing, trailing him into the glare of the control room.
The control room lights burned too bright against the glass.
The screen replayed the last minutes before the blackout, looping the suicide attempt in silence.
The alarms had stopped, but the echo of them still lived in the air. Naruto stood with his hands braced on the console, watching the playback.
Sasuke’s body twitched once, twice, then went still. Blood shimmered under the sterile light. The image looped, silent.
He should have turned it off. He didn’t.
The chat feed blinked in the corner, comments flashing by: anger, pity, fascination, asking if he is okay and when will they see him.
He closed the window, jaw tight. “You’ll see him again soon,” he muttered, half to himself, half to the ghosts in the feed. “He’ll be better next time.”
The silence that followed was not peace. It was pressure, low and steady behind his ribs.
He reached for the comm switch but stopped before touching it. The glass between him and the live feed reflected his own face, pale and sharp-edged.
“I saved you,” he said quietly. The words came out like prayer, like proof. “You’re alive.”
He repeated it, lower, until it became a rhythm.
Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
The repetition steadied him. If he said it enough, it might stay true.
He imagined the chat, the speculation that would fill the silence. They wanted blood until they saw it. Then they wanted redemption.
He would give them both.
He leaned closer to the screen, tracing Sasuke’s frozen outline with his eyes. “We’ll fix this,” he whispered. “You’ll see. Tomorrow will be better.”
The feed flickered. For a split second, the delay caught up. Sasuke’s eyes opening mid-blink before the loop reset. It looked almost like he had heard him.
Naruto exhaled, slow, careful. His pulse matched the hum of the machines.
“Good,” he said, to no one. “We’re still on schedule.”
The broadcast line stayed dark. Only the private feed pulsed red, a heartbeat meant for him alone.
Night pressed against the control room windows. The indicator light on the console pulsed red, steady as a heartbeat.
Naruto’s voice came again, softer now, a whisper meant for the sleeping feed.
“See, angel. Even when you hurt yourself, I protected you. That’s love. When pain overwhelms you, I keep you safe.”
Sasuke did not answer. The dinosaur was gone. The empty space beside him felt colder than the air. His hand rested over the bandage, feeling the pulse beneath it.
He stared at the ceiling until his eyes burned. Thoughts tangled and repeated.
He loves me. He lies.
He loves me. He lies.
He loves me. He lies.
The rhythm dulled the ache. He thought of the sealed glass, the looping world beyond it, the blood drying in invisible corners of the floor. He had failed to leave, and yet he had chosen. That was enough.
Somewhere above him, a motor stirred, the beginning of another cycle. The vents exhaled, cold and constant. Beyond the glass, the artificial dawn flickered to life again, painting the same sky it had shown him the day before.
He closed his eyes. The hum of the system pressed against his ears like ocean noise. For a moment he imagined the world outside was real. The wind, the light, the sound of wings. Then the image broke, looping back to its start.
He thought of the bird caught in that false sky, flying endless circles, never landing. Maybe they were the same.
The line clicked off. The room sank back into its mechanical hum.
The blood was mine, he thought, and let the words keep him awake.
Even freedom looked rehearsed here.
The pain, at least, had been real.