Chapter Text
“Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –”
Static buzzes through his veins, forcibly making him aware of every sensation in his body. The feeling of his bones scraping against each other, the tension in his muscles, the strain on his nerves when he bends any of his appendages.
He exists for secondsminuteshoursdaysweeksyearsdecadesforever before he is able to open his mouth to speak, taking anywhere between no time at all and aeons to open his mouth and make noise.
“What is this?”
The voice that replies is eerie, seeping into skin and settling under the surface, as if it had been there all along.
“A place ignorant of time or context, yet with strict adherence to the laws that be. Here lies the bridge all come to cross, but never more than once. I reign supreme over this realm.”
The voice is unintelligible, the understanding of the words comes after they are spoken, delayed. He understands them as if he had said the words himself, was there for their conceptualization. The nauseating awareness of his body is intensified by the fact that he is, for all intents and purposes, blind.
“I’m dead?” He asks, though he already knows.
He felt the sword sliding between his ribcage and piercing his heart, he felt it tear out of his back as his lungs filled with blood. He remembers the blood seeping out of his body and into the dirt, the eventual feeling of warmth that took over him by which point he’d already accepted that this was it. The end for Uchiha Sasuke.
Or so he thought. Alas, here he is. Stuck between not-quite-alive and not-quite-dead.
“No. For as long as you speak with me, your body on the mortal coil will continue to breathe air. This, however, cannot last. There is something I will have you do. You may choose to make a deal out of it or not, it is up to you. Regardless, you will do this for me.”
“The transparency is appreciated. What is your proposition?”
“There is a swine of a man who continuously pursues that which is beyond him. Having neither the wisdom nor grace to see that there are certain things not meant for meddlesome mortal minds.”
White, hot anger nearly makes Sasuke pass out, if he even could. It floors him, filling his senses and mind with nothing but fury , overriding any of his thoughts on the matter.
Then, as soon as it comes, the anger vanishes.
Despite his initial urge to decline, he doesn’t. He doesn’t have a choice, as has been explained to him. There really isn’t a point in arguing so he might as well get as much information as he can.
“What are the perimeters of the mission?”
The being– one or many, Sasuke doesn’t know– allows its amusement to echo through the void.
He wakes, bearing the exhaustion of an eternity of painfully loud silence.
Straw pricks at his arms and he takes stock of his surroundings.
The barn he’s found himself in is large, as far as barns go. Sasuke is laying in a pile of hay that’s rapidly turning red thanks to injuries that are leaking blood. Strangely enough, he doesn’t notice the telltale signs of blood loss kicking in. His mind is clearer than it’s ever been, a mission in mind and a set goal to work towards.
I’m in Britain? He thinks, trying to project his thoughts outward as was instructed by the voice.
“That was quick.” It says, a humorous lilt to its– their– voice. Their voice is perfectly androgynous and sounds like a chorus of thousands. He can't help but wonder who the voice was, but deep down, he knows. “And yes, you are in Britain. To be more precise, you are 23 kilometres south of Yockleton, England.”
Unbidden, images of where he is, the buildings surrounding him, his coordinates on a map, and other information pop into his mind. There’s so much that it gives him a headache.
He sits up with a groan and coughs until the blood in his throat is gone and he feels less like he’s risen from the dead.
Shuffling from outside alerts him to the fact that someone probably owns this barn and he’s trespassing on their property. He can’t really do anything about it, though. His entire body feels like it’s on fire and he can’t feel his left leg.
The barn door opens and a woman who looks to be in her late 40s or early 50s peaks around the corner.
The woman is short and timid, but she’s going to great efforts to appear like she isn’t rattled by a stranger breaking into what Sasuke assumes is her barn. Her chestnut brown hair is pulled into a tight ponytail behind her head that makes the wrinkles on her face more prominent. Her eyes dart around the barn nervously.
As soon as she sees him, she covers her mouth in horror and screams. Rude .
She runs over to him and starts speaking rapidfire in a language Sasuke knows he doesn’t speak. Well, even if he hadn’t known that he wasn’t going to be in The Elemental Nations, this would’ve been a dead giveaway. Most places are able to speak Fire Country Standard because of the third Daimyo’s penchant for invading other countries centuries ago.
Despite being nearly 100% sure that he doesn’t speak the language the woman is speaking, he understands what she’s saying. She’s inquiring about his injuries, his age, his parents, that sort of thing.
Sasuke is on his feet as fast as he can manage, which given his state isn’t very fast at all, but it’s enough to stop the woman in her tracks. His attention is brought back to his leg, which is absolutely broken, and he’s forced to use the walls of the barn to stabilise himself.
Thanks to Sasuke’s lack of response, the woman eventually comes to the conclusion that he can’t understand her, which would’ve been right in any other situation.
She points to herself and says, slow and exaggerated, “Alena.”
Sasuke does the same, “Sasuke.”
She gestures for him to wait as she runs out of the barn.
Sasuke blinks, concerned that she’s left a complete stranger on her private property without making sure he wouldn’t attack her or her family. Though, he was told that this dimension would be quite a bit different than his so maybe this is a facet of that.
The blood on his clothes is drying and making him feel more filthy, so he decides that he might as well get the shirt off.
He knows what he looks like to a woman like Alena. A crude amalgamation of scarring and mutilation, wrecked skin and, patchwork.
He peels the shirt off and tosses it to the side, eyes directed away from his torso.
Part of him wants to leave but he knows that he won’t be going very far. His leg is very broken and he still feels like he’s pulled himself out of a grave at the bottom of the ocean. He wonders if the voice will get around to fixing it, or if they’ve decided that it’s amusing to watch him cobble around.
“If I wanted to watch you hobble about, I would have removed your leg altogether.”
Sasuke decides to be gracious and ignore that comment.
The door slides open again, but instead of Alena, some very odd looking people step into the barn.
They’re wearing robes, which is very strange, but they look like they’re ready for a fight so maybe this is just par for the course here. Their eyes are immediately drawn to his torso and he can see their already pale faces lighten further.
“They’re Aurors from the Ministry for Magic.”
More information floods into his brain and he nearly falls over from the strain it puts on him mentally, his brain working overtime to sort and understand the new facts.
The Aurors are speaking to him in the same language that Alena was before, One of them speaks of him being a Death Eater (…1980… Voldemort Tom Riddle, Tom Marvolo Riddle, The Dark Lord, Dark Wizard, … genocide… purists, superiority…) and that they have to take him in for questioning, though many of them protest this, firm in their reasoning that “You-Know-Who” is dead. One of the women suggests that they cast a language charm and all but one of the other Aurors agree. The final Auror relents when it’s mentioned that he looks no older than 17 and is severely injured.
They raise their strange sticks at him and say “total interpretation,” which Sasuke suspects is a more literal translation for however their Chakra manifests here.
Now that they think he can understand them they address him directly.
“State your intention,” one of the women says.
Sasuke is about to respond when a strange cracking sound, one that’s eerily similar to what it sounds like when bones break, draws his attention to his leg. His leg that was snapped cleanly in two and is now straightening itself out and coming back together as if it was never broken in the first place. His leg that was hanging limply like a puppet with its strings cut.
There’s no pain, somehow.
The Aurors watch with poorly concealed horror as his bones mend themselves and return to their original position.
Sasuke, not for the first time, thoroughly curses his luck.