"I can't explain it." He whispered, and before I could reply he'd begun to pace; a tense, frantic dance of cloth which to my eyes appeared hazy, and infinitely beautiful. The candle at my bedside caught the nape of his neck, the gauzy film of hair which tapered downwards, spreading across his skin all silver and dusty. Kimimaro's body…a source of infinite fascination, lying still as well as moving. I could watch it for hours, and lose myself in the perfection of such anatomy. Just then, however, I wanted no more of this conversation. No more movement. I wanted to call him, to have him settle beside me, as he used to. Kimimaro, rest against me, warm my limbs. Breath against my fingers, let me whisper stories…stories…lies and falsehoods. The pretty illusion we created together, of our future, of our love.
Ah, what love? What love had I ever given this precious, earnest boy?

"You don't believe me!" He cried, turning on me furiously. His eyes were wide and clear, illness faint beneath the surface. He stood rigid, hands at his sides, clenching at nothing. In, out, in out. I watched the knuckles contract. Bones beneath the skin…bones, which make a skeleton, which house life and blood. Perhaps a soul…is there such a thing as a soul?

Is that what you've become, Body Jumper? A ghost, flitting from form to form, flesh to flesh. Are you then nothingness? Pure consciousness? What is consciousness?

As the thoughts consumed me, the panic rose again. A quiet, deadly wave of horror, starting low in my bowels, up through the stomach and chest, cold as ice water. As always it struck me slow, and whispery, like spider legs through my veins, and with the spread of nausea, that dreadful conviction that the world about me was unreal, the darkness ominous and unnatural, a force to swallow and consume, to negate and leave empty and horrid. Around me the shadows echoed a deep, abiding certainty. The truth I 'd learned when young, which I long suspected and was now fulfilled:

You…what are you? Nothing…you are nothing…you are unreal…you are unreality.

I gripped the sheets, thirsty for air. My lungs were swollen, heavy with blood, and I lacked the strength to heave them. "It's like drowning," Kabuto had said in one of his more vicious moments, when compassion failed and pragmatism dominated. "Drowning from the inside out."

Drowning from inside, eh? Can there be any feeling more wretched? Oh certainly…what a foolish question. I, beyond anyone, know the variety and intensity of human torments. There is no hell so great as the sensation of constraint. I know—indeed I know. We create our best tortures from personal horrors.

My lungs contracted. I choked, my cough sharp and watery and horrid. The ugly taste exploded on my tongue, darkly satisfying, in a visceral sense. Blood and water and phlegm. The childhood plague. But so much more acute in old age. Old and dying…the husk of a shriveled snake, curling in the sunlight. Ah, I'd never felt so tired! My body had never ached so deeply.

"Kimimaro" I began, trying to recover myself, to force down the pain, and the dreary haze which eddied through my brain. The black dread froze my heart. "Kimimaro…enough. You cannot go with them. Leave the Four to do it, and rest. You need rest. You need—"

No use. Inside my chest, the pain wracked again, this time insurmountable. I grasped my left shoulder, vision swimming red. This is it, I thought. It's over, it's finished. Kabuto…damn him. Hadn't he warned me? I'd waited too long, I'd been too careless. And now my ambitions…our ambitions…! The grand pattern…what would become of it, with my death?

"Kimi…" I fell back, blackness creeping through my eyes. And just as quickly as it assaulted me, the darkness fell away. Scent engulfed me, that faint aroma of flowers, the soft, clean odor of a sick body. Kimimaro's body. He had me in his arms, holding me up, my shriveled, useless form. He pressed me to his chest, cradled my head against his throat, rocking me back and forth like a child. I yearned to touch him. I yearned to lift my arms. But I could not. They were heavy and aching. The bandages oozed gangrene, the rot mingling with that less obtrusive odor of dried flowers. The two distinct smells of death.

"You don't believe me." Kimimaro whispered again. He was crying. I felt his throat tighten, and on impulse, pressed my lips to his jugular. "Oh my darling…my darling," I wheezed. "Gentle one…don't talk to me about this anymore. Please, as you love me, don't torment me this way. Lie down and be still, we'll rest together. Kabuto won't bother us, you may stay all night. Yes…all night. Stay beside me, child. Help me forget awhile more."

[to be continued…(?)]