Original Characters of Note
Mifune Daisuke – Still Kabuto’s understudy, though some time has past and now he’s a Chuunin

---

Click.

The overhead lights flicker on one by one, a pale yellow light bathing the room and the bloodied corpse lying on top of the operating table like the light of dull street-lamp shining on an empty alleyway; flicker-flicker-flicker-on. Kabuto's hands -- oddly pale in the light, veins and tendons showing when they shouldn't have; oddly quick at drawing away from the body's chest despite the task at hand -- taper down the corpse's front and stop, frozen, as if he were an animal caught in the headlights of an on-coming truck.

"What are you doing here so late, Yakushi-sensei?"

Kabuto turns to face his pupil, his eyeglasses flickering in the light, and then: "Daisuke? What are you -- why did you turn on the light?"

The chuunin takes a step forward, clipboard and pen in hand, tilting his head to the side. Something is wrong here, he knows -- Kabuto should have known that he was on rounds tonight; why did his teacher look so surprised to see him? Why were his hands shaking? – but, out of respect, he says nothing; Kabuto's secrets were of no importance to his student.

Swallowing once, Daisuke shows his sensei his watch. "It's time for rounds, Yakushi-sensei. This is my first stop for the night."

Kabuto opens his mouth and then closes it, running both of his hands down his face hard enough so that the bags underneath his eyes -- so prominent, like his age; what was wrong with his sensei? Was he tired? – stretch, making his glasses rise up the bridge of his nose. "So it is," the medic-nin says, making a noise that doesn't quite reach his teeth. "So it is -- let me get out of your way, then."

Again, Daisuke says nothing. Taking a step forward, he minds his sensei's presence and continues with the task at hand, his eyes flickering from Kabuto to the man on the slab.

Every nuance of the man's ribcage and the outlying bone-structure surrounding it stands out oddly prominent in the darkness, the flesh stretched taught across the bones like thick bars of iron stuck trying to jut out of a too-small sack of wet leather – he swallows. It’s not the first time he’s seen something like this, but it’s the first time that he’s has the...pleasure of heading an autopsy with his sensei right next to him.

"...Location: Area D, The Morgue of the Experimental-Subject Ward; Room-Number three-two-oh-five. The time is One-oh-two in the a.m. and...," a pause, and his eyes flicker over to Kabuto, who leaned against the counter-top where the medical cabinets were with his eyes cast down at the floor. "...Head Neurologist Yakshi Kabuto is presiding over tonight's examination...?"

Looking up at him, his glasses glinting in the light so that Daisuke can't see his face, Kabuto nods, once, and as Daisuke turns back to face the body, out of the corner of his eye he can see it -- Kabuto's ring-finger twitches very, very minutely. "Continue," Kabuto commands, gesturing with his hands as if to hurry things along. "We haven't got all night now that you've roped me into this."

Daisuke nods and began to walk around the body, his tape-recorder leveled with his lips. "--Tonight's test-subject, Experiment five-nine-seven, died at approximately nine forty-five p.m. of asphyxiation brought on by the immediate and total collapse of the subject's trachea while sparring another member of the Ward." Trailing off, Daisuke pretends to examine the wound on the subject's neck, looking over to Kabuto when he was sure the man couldn't see him, gauging him.

What was wrong?

He still can't see his sensei's eyes because of the light reflecting off of his glasses, and his lips were still held in that straight line of a half-smile he always wore, making it even harder for him to-- "Daisuke," Kabuto interrupts, tilting his head to side so that the light stop reflecting off of his eyeglasses; the sound of his voice cutting through the silence like a knife. "I am in no mood to test you on your medical procedure tonight, so would you please stop watching me for it?"

"I was just--" Daisuke starts.

Kabuto makes a sound in the back of his throat half-way between a sigh and growl, crossing his arms at his stomach. "Please continue with the examination," he asks Daisuke, his voice more command then question. "It's getting late and I want to get to bed before dawn."

The Chuunin swallows a small amount of spit and continues after then, ignoring the small surge of fear that ran up his spine. Kabuto always made him nervous, and this was no different -- even if it it's only rounds, he tells himself, cringing on the inside, that bastard is still testing me. How in the hell can we do twelve other wards before dawn?

"Daisuke."

The medic-nin lets out a low sigh that barely makes it past his teeth. "...Due to the severity of the aforementioned injury -- which was brought on by a kunai strike -- Immediate reconstructive surgery was needed and given approximately twenty minutes after the incident, though approximately three-to-four-hours upon treating the wound, the subject's stitching reopened, causing him to drown in his sleep."

Setting his tape-recorder down for a moment, the Chuunin marks off the requisite boxes on his chart while he began to prepare the body for cremation. "Cause of death was recorded as both asphyxiation and misfortune, and the time of death was recorded at one fifteen a.m," Daisuke paused and checked to see if the cremator in the room was functioning, and, finding that it was, moved the body onto the gurney next to the operating table so that he could push it to the mouth of the thing.

"It is now four thirty-five a.m.," he continued, looking at his watch as he pressed the button that made the table rise until it was level with the cremator, "And with Orochimaru-san's permission and Yakushi-sensei's supervision, I will now dispose of the body."

Kabuto nods towards his student, looking bored, and Daisuke pushes the button that makes the gurney elevate until the body slides off of it and into the cremator.

It is in this moment that, by pure happenstance, Daisuke notices something he hadn't seen before.

What in the?

On the inside of the subject's armpit, there are a series of small, nigh-invisible incisions cut into the skin in such a way that they resemble a circle. Daisuke doesn't have enough time to analyze the wound before the body falls into the cremator, but he knows enough about his craft to realize that a person, no matter how depressed they were, just did not cut themselves when they were dead, let alone in their armpit.

"Kabuto-sensei," he begins after a few minutes, watching the body burn and hating how his voice echoes in the silent room. "I think someone may have--"

"Aspiration," Kabuto interrupts, causing Daisuke to pause -- the meaning of the world and what it implies making his entire body going rigid for a moment before he forces himself to calm down.

"E-excuse me?" Daisuke asks, fighting his usual stammering while trying to feign ignorance. There was no way Kabuto knew about what he had done; no way he could have known unless he had...

Oh shit.

The silver-haired medic-nin slowly closes the distance between them, walking over towards Daisuke with that same damnable smirk plastered across his face. "The subject died of aspiration, not asphyxiation, Daisuke-kun," Kabuto murmurs, clicking off Daisuke's recorder with his free hand and trapping the teenager between the burning corpse and himself.

"There's an innate difference between the two -- suffocation is when you cannot breathe because of an outside force, and aspiration is when you cannot breathe because of an inner obstruction."

Daisuke backs into the warmth of the furnace as Kabuto's knowing gaze -- so...so vividly intense -- sears into him; through him, like the kunai that had gone through the dying man's neck, and, without meaning to, he places his right hand onto the mouth of the furnace, burning it.

"Ah-!" he hisses, instinctually grabbing at his hand as, without even hesitating, Kabuto grabs him by the mouth and slams his head against the gurney next to the both of them – his thumb pressing into the side of his face, cutting into his skin as sharp and as hot as a--

"The next time you bring a personal vendetta into my medical wards, child, you lose that other hand -- do you understand?"

The pain is so jarring; so sudden that Daisuke barely registers what Kabuto has said, tasting blood in his mouth and tonguing at loose tooth as he tries to form a coherent reply. "Kabuto-sensei, I--"

The medic-nin holds a small...brown thing in front of Daisuke's face, and though his vision is blurry, Daisuke can make out the smallest of his Summons instantly. Kabuto, seemingly realizing this, picks Daisuke up by his head and then slams it back into the gurney, grinding the heel of his palm into his face.

"I trust the cockroach I found crawling out of the man's throat was the cause of his stitches coming undone?"

Daisuke says nothing, Kabuto’s breath becoming oddly cold in the space between them. If he doesn't admit to it, then--

"Answer me, Daisuke," Kabuto demands, squeezing the space underneath Daisuke's right eye-socket hard enough to make the Chuunin to scream out in pain, “Because I am in no mood for the Sound, and you can still function as an orderly with one eye and no mouth."

Daisuke again, says nothing, and Kabuto presses in harder, this time at the center of his right temple; the cockroach in his hand squirming. “These walls are sound-proof, so if you happen to be a screamer, no one will hear when I drive my finger through your cranium."

The Chuunin bites his bottom lip, closing his eyes as Kabuto's thumb begins to glow a pale, pale azure.

"Fine. Have it your way, then."

This…This will not be pleasant

XXX

By the time he's confessed everything to Kabuto, his jaw is sore and his mouth is so bloody that his teeth have been stained red. Kabuto neither feigns sorrow nor tries to baby Daisuke as he patches his understudy back up, his every movement rougher than it needs to be.

"You should have told me what I needed to know after I broke the skin."

Daisuke nods, cringing and hissing loudly as Kabuto runs his sapphire-hued finger across the underside of his jaw. "I apologize for my disobedience, Yakushi-sensei," he murmurs, feeling his skin lace back together. "It...I will never let it influence our work again."

The medic-nin shrugs, pulling Daisuke's arm out as far as it will stretch. "There's nothing to apologize for Daisuke-kun," he answers, tilting his head so that he can take stock of how badly his student had burned his hand. "I never said I was angry at you for acting human."

Daisuke's eyes go wide. "Wha--."

Kabuto runs his hand across the tender pink flesh of Daisuke's palm, pressing down even harder once the chuunin sucked in air. "You did what was expected of someone your age -- someone wronged you, and, instead of being stupid, you waited for your chance and you struck back with what was available to you. It's natural," Kabuto paused, here, and closed his eyes, the color of his chakra taking on a slight teal hue. "The only thing I don't condone is your use of a summon -- it's too blatant. Betrayal is something you should not broadcast."

"Yes, Yakushi-sensei," Daisuke replies, almost automatically; taking his lip between his teeth as Kabuto finishes whatever he had done, his hand still burnt but...numb, somehow. "I'll...I'll take your words to heart."

"You shouldn't have killed him for something so well-known, either," Kabuto continues, rubbing the edge of his chin as he took a step back and admired his handiwork. "If word got out, somehow, that he died of medical "misfortune" the night before you had rounds, the more observant of his friend's will make the right connections -- the other Jounin, especially."

"I...well, if the medical records weren't private, then I guess you'd be correct," Daisuke admits, his eyes going slightly wide before he let out a small laugh. The other medic-nin almost had him there, for a moment. "--It's a good thing that isn't the case, right, Yakushi-sensei?."

Turning to face the door, Kabuto chuckles, and, though the sound is almost certainly mirthless, Daisuke is too pleased with himself to catch it. "Exactly, Daisuke-kun," the medic-nin drawls, smiling that same damnable smile that made all of his students freeze solid on the inside as he reached for the doorknob. "You're learning how to cover your tracks -- good. Very good."

The chuunin laughs, again, taking a seat on the same counter-top that Kabuto had been sitting on. "I learned from the best, sensei! Who else but you would have caught what I did?"

"I don't find it all that wise to ask myself that," Kabuto replied, turning the doorknob. "It's better to simply think you're the best at what you do, in the Sound."

"That doesn't mean you don't know, Kabuto-sensei." Daisuke replies, too quickly and too sharply for Kabuto's tastes.

The medic-nin's hand freezes above the doorknob as he let the corner of his mouth curl up.

"...You've really been pushing it these last weeks, Daisuke-kun," Kabuto says, almost congenially. "You should be more careful."

"Why?" Daisuke replies, folding his arms. "I fooled every single medical examiner except for you, and you only found out about what I did because of a stupid summons; what am I supposed to be scared of?"

Kabuto says nothing for a moment, and then "Nothing, I suppose."

Kabuto doesn't turn around as he begins to close the door to the morgue, but he does go out of his way to show Daisuke his personal medical-recorder hanging off the edge of his finger. "But, then again, I'm not the one who killed one of Orochimaru-sama's favorites, am I?"

Daisuke leaps to his feet, already making for the door. "You wouldn't! Sensei--"

"Of course not, Daisuke-kun," Kabuto offered, waving his free hand at his student in a slightly placating manner. "Why would I ever do the same things that my teacher did to me, to you? You would learn nothing of use."

The chuunin nods, then, visibly relaxing as his smile returned to his face. "I...Thank you, Kabuo-sensei."

"You really shouldn't," Kabuto corrects him, shrugging. "The Leaf taught me everything I know about covering my tracks, not Orochimaru or the Sound."

Daisuke's eyes go wide, at that. "That's...Oh. Oh. Alright, Kabuto-sensei, I get it," the teenager laughs, "You're making a joke! Funny!"

The medic-nin shrugs again, his face neutral. "If knowing that makes you uncomfortable, Daisuke-kun, you can always go back to Konoha."

"I'm not..." Daisuke replies, harshly. "It doesn't."

"I wouldn't hold it against you," Kabuto says, crossing his arms across his chest as he leaned against the wall just outside of the doorway. "When I ran away from that Village, I had similar thoughts. It's natural for someone like--"

--The door closes in his face, and Kabuto smiles. The most convenient part about having a personality built around constant distrust and subterfuge was that, whenever he told the truth, people had a habit of not believing him; especially Daisuke. He hears the teenager curse from behind the door, once, and then, the hallway is silent.

XXX

- Fin

XXX

(Students) may forget what you have said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.