A Monster, From the Right Perspective

A Serious Drabble

by

EvilFuzzy9

The air was still. The warm corpse of the former Root commander, Danzō Shimura, had been taken away by the enigmatic Madara Uchiha for unknown reasons.

Sasuke looked down on Karin, his eyes narrowed in distaste. Focusing chakra into his hand, he generated a chidori. Wordlessly, he prepared to finish off the girl who had outlived her usefulness.

Karin flinched, anticipating the end. She felt the painful tingling of her skin from the mere proximity of the lump of lightning in Sasuke's hand. She had known this was coming... She had known that this man was no longer the Sasuke she had idolized and adored... 'I wonder.... Is this karma? Are the cosmos punishing me for the things I did while serving Lord Orochimaru?' she wondered morbidly.

Sasuke took a step forward, a pulse of energy emanating from his chidori.

Karin coughed, expelling a disturbing amount of blood. It tasted like copper, or maybe nickel... but the taste was, without a doubt, metallic. 'It's likely because of the hemoglobin,' the scientific part of her mind reasonably suggested.

For a brief moment, a strange look flickered across Sasuke's face, but he quickly readopted his normal, emotionless stare.

Karin involuntarily averted her eyes. That look... Those eyes... That blank stare which she had once found so admirable, now seemed... wrong. It wasn't right. Even Orochimaru; even he would at the very least grin sadistically while disposing of an unwanted minion. But this... just looking at someone with that blank expression, even as you prepared to kill them...

It was simply unnatural!

What was even worse, was the glare – the hateful, horrible death glare; the kind of look you might expect from an ancient and powerful demon lord, not a fifteen year old boy – that had peered through at her, however briefly, however momentarily, mocking her from beneath Sasuke's stoic exterior. For that single fleeting moment, Karin had seen through Sasuke's unwavering vizard of derogation and apathy, and it was deeply, profoundly unnerving.

She had once believed that the most terrifying expression was smile of a man who reveled in bloodshed and destruction, but now she knew better. The most terrifying expression, indeed, the most horrific thing she had ever seen before this day, was nothing compared to the enormity of the look Sasuke had given her. It was the same look he had used when talking about Itachi, the same look he had given Danzō before using Susanoo.

And that was the most painful part, because Karin now realized that Sasuke was going to do to her what he had done to them. It did not matter to him that he had, not even a month earlier, saved her from death and even fought to protect her, just as he had done for Jūgo and Suigetsu....

'And they, too, are as good as dead. Hell, those two probably got off lucky, compared to me. … And yet,' came the unbidden thought, 'to Sasuke, we were no more than tools to be discarded the moment we became inconvenient... just like Orochimaru...'

It was not the first time that Karin's subconscious had compared the two renegade Leaf Prodigies, though it was certainly the first time she had compared them in such a negative fashion. It was true that Karin had quite willingly worked for the snake summoner, and indeed, she had done terrible things in his name: she had tortured and killed anyone who had come between him and his goals, she had tested augmented Sound Ninja against defenseless villages, encouraging ruthless, unstable thugs to rape innocents, simply to sort the weak from the strong; she had done everything for him, and she did it with ruthless efficiency... but she had needed to become a monster, simply so she could be able to sleep at night. Even though Karin had always been loyal to Orochimaru, her humanity had always resented the man.

Sasuke took another step forward.

Karin had to bite her lip to keep from crying out in terror at the killing intent bearing down on her, like a lead weight upon her chest slowly bringing her closer to suffocation with every exhaled breath – like an anaconda squeezing the life from its prey.

Sasuke raised his hand ever so slightly, steadying his aim.

That relaxed stance... those hypnotic eyes... that dark and potent chakra... those things had once made him seem cool and handsome... But now, from where Karin sat, her eyes silently, futilely pleading for mercy from the driven avenger, Sasuke now seemed more like a monster.

With a twitch of his finger, Sasuke extended the 'Thousand Birds Sharp Spear', driving it through Karin's heart and forcing the girl into cardiac arrest, due to the electrical currents interfering with her heartbeat.

As the pain began to fade and her world gave way to darkness, this final thought went through the chakra-sensor's mind: 'I guess... I never looked at him from the right perspective until now... and now it's too late.'

… wow. I had originally intended for this to be a humorous oneshot about the latest chapter, where Sakura was only offering to go with Sasuke so he would drop his guard so she could wail on him like any tsundere worth her salt. I suppose it goes without saying that the entire plot sort of got away from me, eh?

For my first real angst fic, I think I did pretty well, but what do you guys think? Should I let DEF666 have his way more often, or should I stick to more lighthearted fare? Give me your opinion in a review.

TTFN and R&R!