Drooling and Starving

Looking at Suguru, whose mouth was visibly watering despite his calm speech, Team 7 watched as their jounin-sensei fell into a dilemma.

'He saw through us at a glance,'

No matter how many masks they wore, Suguru had seen straight through them. Addressing each one by name.

It was terrifying.

The hunger that Suguru repressed felt like a ticking time bomb.

They all felt they would be seen as prey if they so breathed in the wrong direction. Their hair had long stood on end as if expecting sharp fangs to pierce into their flesh.

—Devouring them whole.

Thus, they opted for an uncanny silence where their heartbeat slowed.

...Watching as Akuta gazed into those hungry silver eyes.

"A proposal?"

Despite seeing his students stiffen in terror, Akuta focused on the young boy before him. As per his persona, he straightened up. His gaze sharpened like a newly whetted blade.

With a cursory glance in the distance, his next words alluded to his suspicions.

"Who is your target?"

Hearing Akuta's words, Suguru's smile widened. A drop of saliva almost trickled out of his lips, but he hurriedly turned it into vapor with a burst of flames.

"Who else?" Suguru's question made it clear.

His target was the Fifth Hokage, Shimura Danzo, who had joined the battle in the distance.

Akuta's gaze froze over. Hiruzen's personality bled into the man's façade, making the cold gleam even more intimidating.

Team 7 shivered at the ironically blazing ambient temperature.

With each breath from Suguru, a ripple of heat radiated outward. The ragged breaths that left his lips were dangerous signs of his sanity beginning to slip.

'He's barely holding back,' Akuta secretly clicked his tongue, 'What has this child been up to since he went rogue?'

Although Hiruzen had more or less expected Orochimaru's influence to surface, he did not expect Suguru to have gone to such great lengths in such a short amount of time.

Stifling a sigh, Akuta raised an annoyed brow. "So? What do you want me to do?"

Suguru's next words caused that same annoyed brow to twitch.

"Prevent the enslavement of the Nibi."

Awfully simple, yet tedious in its implications.

***

"Sasuke, Mitsuko, Sakura."

Akuta spoke right after Suguru vanished from sight in a rapid flicker.

"The three of you must remain hidden. However, you must not return to Konoha. Wait for me here," Akuta handed them a scroll. "The village indicated on this map will be our rendezvous point in three days."

Sasuke was the one who received the scroll. After giving it a cursory glance, he memorized its contents.

Handing it to Mitsuko and Sakura, he then looked back at his jounin-sensei.

However...

'He's gone,'

Akuta had already flickered away.

Hearing the explosions in the distance, Sasuke couldn't help but bite his lip. Meeting Suguru had further hammered in his weakness.

The primal fear he felt just from Suguru's glance was bone-chilling. Furthermore, he hadn't been able to read his kouhai's movements.

No chakra emanated from his body.

No presence could be detected even from his breathing.

Every single indicator of existence had been suppressed into a minuscule point, creating a ghostly presence that Sasuke could only admire in awe.

'I... Why am I so weak..?'

His burning hatred seemed so small compared to the fear he had just experienced, drowning out all other desires on top of it all.

Sasuke couldn't help but liken himself to livestock awaiting his slaughter.

With no way to fight back.

No way to participate in the grand schemes that boiled over into his daily life.

—Grip.

Balling his fists, his fingernails dug deep.

'I...'

"Oi,"

Suddenly a tap fell on his shoulder.

"Ah,"

Glancing over, Sasuke realized that a pair of white eyes were looking at him, seemingly reading the expressions on his face.

"We can catch up. Don't worry."

Mitsuko let out a gentle smile.

"As long as we can see, we can find our way forward."

Her eyes gleamed with a mysterious wisdom — something that seemed all the more reliable with the Byakugan she wielded.

"..." Sasuke nodded, slowly regaining his senses.

Seeing this, Mitsuko poured chakra into her eyes and activated her Byakugan without any hand signs.

She, too, had geniuses she couldn't help but compare herself to. Neji, for one, was a cousin she could not ignore.

Luckily, she had a pillar of confidence she could lean on.

Recalling the Suguru she knew in the past, she felt that even the mark on her forehead could be bypassed.

A freedom that she yearned for in silence — oh how dearly she wished to see the world with her eyes.

Unbound by any responsibilities to her clan or the village.

Indeed...

Mitsuko was tempted by the lives of those like Lady Tsunade and Lord Jiraiya — touring the world beyond the village's walls.

In peace or in war. The young Hyuga Mitsuko desired the power to walk wherever she wished.

"Let's go,"

Sasuke, who had finally calmed down, directed the squad to move.

***

"Hehehehehehehe,"

A low, impish laughter bled out of Suguru's lips like the incessant whispers of the devil. The mouth-watering scent that wafted over was growing in intensity as he rushed to the battlefield.

He was like a hound from the streets. Drooling, Suguru could barely control the impulses that his body released.

'I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it.'

He was losing his rationality.

'I... want it,'

Slowly but surely.

Like the eventual starvation that any primal beast would experience, Suguru descended into the madness of hunger.

'I want it!'

He could already imagine the taste — the flavors that he could inhale the moment he appeared before the Fifth Hokage and the jinchuriki of the Two-Tails.

Suguru drooled as his body screamed to be fed.

Exhaling a long, laborious breath, a crazy light flashed in Suguru's eyes.

—Rustle!

Emerging through the leaves and into the destruction of a rampaging Tailed Beast—

Suguru, a rabid beast at this point, went and took a bite into the world.

[Dark Release...]

Then, despite the raging battle between S-rank shinobi...

[...Devouring Maw!]

—Crack!

...Suguru's jaws, snapping from their joints and ripping apart the skin of his cheeks, opened wide.

A splatter of blood painted the air, yet the boy felt no pain.

—Gulp.

A veritable tsunami of chakra rushed into the starving maws of a monster.

One who donned the innocent face of a child.

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