Parallel Lines | Naruto

Throughout the past couple of years, death had followed him like a loyal pet; willing to travel to the ends of the world and always eager to obey his commands.

Sasuke had always known that the pursuit of power was a dark and strenuous path, and that was what enticed him to begin with. To embrace the opportunity to entirely lose himself along the journey, to ensure that the point of no return was an inevitable destination.

At times he did wonder if he would ever reach a point where there was simply nowhere else for him to go, that if he ever chose to abandon the trust Orochimaru had in him and made his own way— karma would run its course and find a way to punish him for the sins that he had committed. But even then, karma or even divine retribution, could not hinder his plight. His path began with revenge and it would end with it as well.

After all, he had the power to dictate the future of another, to see the outcome of an event before it had even occurred. Some thought of it as a curse, he had once thought of it as such as, ultimately, he had been the reason as to why his mother committed suicide.

It was the first vision to have bestowed upon him. A nightmare he dreamt of purple bruises tainting her skin, a tight noose squeezing her neck, depriving her of oxygen as her eyes rolled black, the inkling of doubt she felt as she called out his name but he didn't hear. He found out about her death almost a week after it had occurred. Sasuke realised that after seeing her body burn on the funeral pyre, that he could see his reflection in the hues of the bright, ravenous flames.

And it felt fitting, that destruction danced at his fingertips where a single touch felt like sharp needles prickling the skin and drawing blood. He stopped counting the amount of times he accidentally touched someone and saw that the cause of their demise was him and instead, embraced the ramifications instead.

The moment the blood moon emerged from the dark clouds, he felt the effects of its presence. Sasuke was thrown back to an early period of his life during his teenage years, before he immediately pushed the memories aside and focused on the task at hand.

A rare benefit of working with Orochimaru was that he rarely gave instructions on how a mission was executed, only that it was to be done swiftly and with no evidence left behind of his presence- though, despite the two rules, Sasuke always failed to abide by them. He wasn't a ghost or a reaper, he liked to make his presence known, he liked the look of realisation when his victims see his face for the last time before he killed them.

Surprisingly, entering the Howling Wolf Village wasn't the issue, it was maintaining obscurity. The reason why Shinobi from the Alliance had failed to reclaim the village was because unlike any other rogue hoard, this one was different. They were more organised, in numbers and in management, they refused to dabble in morality and completed discarded all that makes a human- much like how he did- but, there were a couple of exceptions. While Sasuke tethered himself to emotions, they discarded it entirely. It was difficult to reason with someone who destroyed the capacity to even give a shit to begin with, let alone a whole army of mindless pawns.

"We're here." Sasuke announced, his eyes latching onto the wavering, orange lights that illuminated the village in the distance. "According to the intel Orochimaru had gathered, there's no probable security system. This means we can enter without any sort of identification, but for the time being you'll make your presence unknown. Once you've scoured the interior, you'll report back to me. Understood?"

"Yeah." Suigetsu nodded his head.

Another apparent issue was the location. The Howling Village had previously been located on northern terrain up until the storm had completely consumed it, it relocated to the outskirts of the Fire Lands where vegetation and lively fields had been replaced by molten stone, large shards protruding the ground, fumaroles creating the effect of fog and the occasional tremors in the ground lasting for minutes or even hours.