Chapter 9: Abrupt End, Anew Start

[Hidden Lab's Restricted Sector – Southern Borderlands]

The room had gone still.

Not the kind of stillness born of peace, but the kind that settled after something irreversible had taken place. The sort of quiet that didn't rest gently—but clung to the walls like dust that would never leave.

The scent of scorched stone lingered faintly in the air, mixing with the scent of old books, iron ink, and the fading chemical sharpness of sterile experiments. On the table, the world map still lay unfurled—half curling at the edges, the paper warped by age and candle heat. The seal lines across the cabinets glowed faintly, residual chakra humming like a heartbeat that hadn't caught up with the brain yet.

Kabuto stood across the room, arms folded as his eyes traced the perimeter of the vault. Not scanning. Not cataloging. Just… watching. As if he expected Orochimaru to slither out from behind a column and declare it all an elaborate test.

Sasuke leaned against a pillar, silent. His arms hung loose at his sides, shoulders neither tense nor relaxed. He stared at the floor—not because it interested him, but because it was the one thing in the room that didn't look like it might still speak.

Neither spoke.

It wasn't the kind of silence that begged to be filled.

It was the kind that existed when there was too much to say—and not enough will to break the dam.

Then, finally:

"So that's it, huh?" Kabuto's voice sounded strange in the space. Like it didn't belong. "No final experiment. No betrayal. Just… a coat, a chuckle, and a walk into the dark."

Sasuke didn't look up. "Would've made more sense if it ended with poison."

Kabuto smirked faintly. "You had money on poison too?"

"Second bet was clone war. Maybe something involving genetically engineered centipedes."

Kabuto gave a small breath of amusement. It didn't last.

The room didn't laugh with them.

He stepped forward, slowly approaching the map table. His fingers hovered just above it, but didn't touch. The borders, the regions, the vastness—it all felt heavier now. More real.

"He really just left it all behind," he muttered. "All this knowledge. All that danger. All of it... for a teaching job."

"Not for the job," Sasuke said. His voice was low, but steady. "For the freedom."

Kabuto tilted his head. "Freedom?"

Sasuke met his gaze, eyes sharp. But underneath—something softer. Something distant.

"He didn't leave us power," he said. "He left us something worse."

Kabuto raised an eyebrow. "Worse than power?"

"Choice."

And there it was.

The truth neither of them had said out loud.

Because for years, everything they'd done—everything they'd become—had been under guidance, pressure, survival. They were products of consequence, of circumstance. The world made sense when someone else gave them the rules.

But now…?

There were no rules.

No master.

No mission.

No mythic goal to chase or burn down.

Only themselves.

Just Kabuto and Sasuke—standing in the middle of a vault built for something long gone, staring at a map that no one else knew existed, with nowhere to be and no one left to follow.

The weight of that freedom pressed harder than any command.

They had wanted this.

And yet—

They had never felt more lost.

---

Kabuto finally sat on the edge of the map table, letting out a long breath that wasn't quite a sigh.

"I always thought it would end... violently," he muttered. "Some bitter experiment gone wrong. Maybe he'd lose control of his body, or I'd be forced to end him myself. You know, dramatic. Earned."

Sasuke didn't respond right away. He stepped away from the pillar and took a slow walk around the room, his steps echoing slightly. He wasn't pacing. Just… floating through thought.

"And instead?" Kabuto continued. "He just said goodbye. Gave us compliments. Told us to take care of each other. That was never on the board."

"It was too simple," Sasuke said. "Too… human."

Kabuto scoffed. "He was never just human."

"No," Sasuke said quietly. "But maybe that's what made it hit harder."

The silence crept in again—but now it wasn't heavy. It was reflective. Like they were still expecting someone to call them back to their task. But there was no one left to do that.

Kabuto leaned back, hands bracing against the edge of the table.

"You ever think about before?" he asked suddenly. "Before him. Before all this?"

Sasuke blinked. "Sometimes."

"Same" Kabuto said, voice distant. "I think about what I might've been. If I hadn't been used up by the Foundation. If I hadn't had to play chameleon in every room just to survive."

He looked to the ceiling, one leg swinging absently.

"I used to think I could live quietly. Maybe find someone. Have a house. Start a family. Something small. Something that didn't require dissecting anything. Something normal."

He gave a humorless laugh.

"Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?"

Sasuke didn't answer.

Because he was thinking of his own answer.

A quiet life? He'd never even considered it. His path had always been bloodied—by his clan's death, by his vengeance, by the weight of legacy. Even after walking away from that path, he hadn't found peace. Just new burdens.

He glanced toward the sealed cabinets. The stasis pods. The locked research.

"Now that he's gone," Sasuke said, "we're the ones left holding the ledger."

Kabuto followed his gaze.

"Yeah," he said. "Victims. Weapons. Clones. All of it."

"We could free them," Sasuke added. "The ones who can still be saved."

"And then what?" Kabuto's voice was suddenly sharper, but not cruel. "Let them go and pray the world forgives us? We're both criminals, Sasuke. That's not going to change because we do the right thing once."

Sasuke didn't flinch.

But he didn't argue either.

Kabuto stood now, walking toward one of the nearby cabinets. He didn't open it. Just rested a hand on the cool metal surface.

"You know what this feels like?" he said. "It feels like coming back to square one. Like I've just circled the whole damn world only to end up where I started. Alone. Wanted. And wondering if all of this was ever mine to begin with."

Sasuke looked at him carefully.

"You're not alone."

Kabuto chuckled without humor. "You're not exactly warm company."

"Neither are you."

They shared a glance.

And for a moment, that was enough.

But the weight of the question still hung in the air:

Now what?

---

Kabuto circled back to the map, this time dragging a chair with him. He slumped into it sideways, one leg thrown over the other, chin resting on a fist as he studied the parchment like it was a riddle that deserved better answers.

"You know," he said, "we're probably two of the most informed men on this continent."

Sasuke looked over without moving. "And the most wanted."

"That too," Kabuto smirked. "Makes us dangerous and irrelevant at the same time. Not a bad combination if you want to shake the table."

He tapped a thumb against the outline of the Sable Dominion, where the curved borders spiraled like coiled ribs.

"This thing," he said, "this map… it's not just a diagram. It's a revelation. And if we were anyone else, we'd already be planning how to leak it. Quietly. Anonymously. Maybe through a merchant broker in the Black Expanse. Let the truth seep out just enough to light fires under the major powers. Watch the shinobi world scramble to rewrite its history."

Sasuke didn't speak. His gaze followed the lines of the ink.

Kabuto continued, voice slow and thoughtful.

"We could do it. We really could. Start something without ever showing our faces. A revolution through information. A war without blood. At least... at first."

Still, Sasuke said nothing.

"And if not that," Kabuto added, leaning back, "we could always check out that sealed chamber. The one with the chakra suppression layer and the triple failsafe?"

Sasuke blinked. "The one that hums."

Kabuto nodded, pleased that he remembered. "Yup. That's the one. The pulsating one."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "You're seriously suggesting we open the room with the sex clone in it?"

"Suggesting? No. I'm saying at this point…" Kabuto gave a long shrug, "…why the hell not?"

Sasuke let the silence sit.

Then he leaned both hands on the table, let out a slow exhale through his nose, and—against all odds—smiled.

"Honestly," he muttered, "I don't even know anymore. Maybe I'll try something interesting for a change."

Kabuto raised an eyebrow.

Sasuke chuckled once, the sound dry and brief.

"Maybe one of us gets laid."

"Now that's progress," Kabuto grinned.

But the humor didn't last long.

Sasuke stood straight again, that ghost of levity already washed away by a returning weight behind his eyes.

"I joke," he said quietly, "but we both know what's waiting out there. The fallout. The responsibility. The people Orochimaru left behind. The ones he hurt. The ones still trapped in stasis or hiding."

He looked at the map again, this time not like a rogue or a fugitive—but like someone standing at the edge of a cliff, unsure whether to leap or build a bridge.

"I don't know where to start," he admitted. "But doing nothing… that's not an option anymore."

Kabuto nodded slowly.

For all his theatrics, all his cynicism—he understood that part better than anyone.

---

Sasuke's gaze lingered on the map, fingers trailing along the borders that stretched far beyond the Five Great Nations—into curves and symbols even Orochimaru's private library hadn't fully translated.

"How did he know all this?" he asked quietly. "About Aetheris. The Skydweller. The Sable Dominion. I've read through his materials more times than I can count. The books were fragmented. The theories speculative. But this map—this is certainty."

Kabuto didn't look up. "You're asking how he confirmed it?"

Sasuke nodded. "We already know he came into contact with outsiders. He said it himself—the Land of Freedom, the universities, the trades. But I haven't found any records of any conversation. No letters. No decoding scripts. Just… the results."

Kabuto leaned forward, resting his arms on the table's edge. "Which means it all happened verbally. Or... intimately."

Sasuke looked over. "Different languages. Different cultures. Entirely different systems of thought. He shouldn't have been able to understand them—let alone speak with them."

Kabuto tapped his temple. "You're assuming he used his own voice."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow.

Kabuto continued, "You know what he was. Mimicry, replication, sensory precision—he could copy the cadence of a heartbeat and reproduce a dialect off a single overheard phrase. He probably constructed a method of interpretation without ever needing translation."

"Or he found a common thread," Sasuke offered. "Something beneath language. Maybe the trade itself was the language."

Kabuto nodded slowly. "Knowledge. Blood samples. Seal matrices. Anatomy. Forbidden techniques. He probably offered our world's secrets and in return, received theirs. Quietly. With just enough humility to be let in."

"And still. No records that I haven't found yet" Sasuke muttered. Sasuke's eyes narrowed on the map again. "Or is it?"

Kabuto glanced over, raising an eyebrow. "You're saying the snake still kept secrets from us?"

Sasuke gave a small shrug. "We didn't exactly tear this place apart. There are wings we never opened."

He paused, then gave Kabuto a sidelong look. "You still want to break into that room with the Tsunade clone?"

Kabuto smirked. "Tempting. But I think I'll pass. I came for this—" He held up the map and the folded schematic of the handgun. "And now I'm leaving with it."

He took a step back, glancing at the scattered research scrolls. "Oh—and you might want to grab that notebook on Void Release before you go. Looked like something you'd brood over. Maybe it's about your long-lost brothers."

Sasuke's gaze lingered briefly on the scattered scrolls before sliding back to the map Kabuto held.

"You really think the snake left something behind for us to find?" Kabuto asked casually, cigarette spinning lazily between his fingers. "I thought we already knew everything he wanted us to."

Sasuke's mouth twitched, something between dry amusement and quiet frustration. "You said it yourself—he mimicked everything but honesty. It wouldn't surprise me if we've only seen the pieces he wanted us to."

Kabuto huffed a faint laugh. "So you're saying we've been pawns even after he left the board."

Sasuke glanced at him sidelong. "Isn't that how he always worked?"

There was a pause—long enough to feel like it could've ended there—but Sasuke spoke again, voice quieter, thoughtful. "And maybe that's the problem. We've been staring at the moves he made. Never asking what the game really was."

Sasuke returned his gaze to the map.

"You think there was ever a war?" he asked. "Not between nations. Between philosophies. Chakra. Mana. Spirit. Tech. Bio-circuitry. Memory inheritance. All of it."

Kabuto didn't answer at first. Then, while returning the map to the table for both men to see: "I think there was conflict. Not necessarily with swords—but ideas. Systems trying to overwrite each other. Maybe it started as curiosity. Maybe it ended in catastrophe."

"Or fear," Sasuke said.

Kabuto nodded. "Which led to distance. Division."

Sasuke stared harder at the borderlines. "Walls."

"Drawn on purpose," Kabuto agreed.

Sasuke murmured, "You think they even acknowledge us? The other nations? Do they know the Shinobi World exists?"

Kabuto gave a dry chuckle. "Oh, they know. Orochimaru didn't sneak in unnoticed. But I think to them, we're… isolated. Obsolete. Clinging to chakra like a sacred crutch."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Then why let him in?"

Kabuto leaned back. "Because even if they see us as primitive, he was different. He wasn't selling myths—he was selling truth. Which makes you dangerous. And valuable."

Sasuke exhaled. "Solid Snake."

Kabuto smirked faintly. "Still don't know where they got the name, but I like to think it fit. He left no paper trail. Only trade goods. Truths with weight."

"Pure intel," Sasuke muttered.

"Clean. Sharp. No emotion. Just clarity."

Sasuke looked at the map again, quieter now.

"And what does that make us? Left behind. Staring at a world we were never meant to see."

Kabuto tilted his head.

"That depends," he said slowly. "On whether we think this knowledge gives us purpose—or leaves us rootless."

Sasuke didn't answer.

The silence returned—but this time, it wasn't heavy.

It was thought.

---

The corridor leading out of the vault was quiet—an echo chamber of soft footsteps, clicking fingernails, and thoughts neither of them wanted to voice.

Kabuto twirled a cigarette between his fingers, though he made no move to light it. Just a nervous tic, maybe. Or a ritual to keep the silence manageable.

"You're thinking something," Sasuke said.

Kabuto shrugged. "I'm always thinking. But go ahead. Pitch me."

Sasuke took a slow breath, steadying himself like a man preparing for surgery.

"You and I," he began, "we're not aligned in personality. That's obvious. But we do share something—information. Fragments of a larger picture. We've both seen the cracks in the world."

Kabuto gave a dry smile. "That's the worst pickup line I've heard in years."

Sasuke didn't flinch. "I'm not here to charm you. I'm here to ask: What happens to everything we know if we split paths?"

Kabuto shrugged. "It scatters. Like it always does. Same as history, same as truth."

Sasuke stepped closer, voice calm, but focused.

"Do you believe that knowledge serves no purpose unless weaponized?"

Kabuto frowned. "Not necessarily."

"Then what's its function?"

Kabuto leaned against the wall, one brow raised. "You're trying that questioning method on me?"

"I'm trying to understand what would make you stay."

Kabuto exhaled. "Purpose. Direction. Mutual benefit. Trust. You're offering… what? Friendship?"

Sasuke tilted his head. "Understanding. A shared mission. A chance to do something with this map before it turns to myth again."

Kabuto scoffed. "You think uncovering lost truths fixes anything?"

Sasuke nodded. "No. But it stops the lie from becoming the only story told."

Kabuto paused. "You sound like him."

Sasuke's gaze didn't waver. "No. He was always chasing legacy. I'm not chasing anything. I'm just walking forward."

Kabuto turned away slightly, pretending to be unimpressed. "Let's say I agree. What makes you think you can build something? A network? A safe house? You can't even hold a conversation without sounding like you're preparing for a war briefing."

Sasuke smirked—barely noticeable. "That's why I need someone like you."

"Oh, now I'm the people-person?"

"You are. You know how to talk, manipulate, read a room. I know how to break it down."

Kabuto scoffed. "You're trying to win me over with honesty now?"

"I've tried logic," Sasuke said simply. "Didn't work."

There was a pause.

Kabuto crossed his arms. "Let's say I agree to this… vague, undefined non-organization of yours. What's to say you won't abandon it the moment it stops serving your ideals?"

Sasuke was quiet.

Then he exhaled through his nose, his posture relaxing—not slouching, just uncoiled. "That's fair," he said. "You've seen how I am. How I think. How I carry this… everything. You've probably got a dozen counterarguments prepared."

"I do."

"Then I'll stop trying to win," Sasuke said.

Kabuto blinked.

Sasuke's tone didn't change. It wasn't soft, but it lacked the sharpness he usually wielded like a kunai, or his signature chidori.

"I've always pushed people away by being unreadable. Cold. Strategic. Because I thought being anything else was weakness. But I think... if I'm asking you not to walk away, I need to stop pretending that I'm untouchable."

Kabuto narrowed his eyes, studying him.

There it was. Not in words. In the way Sasuke's shoulders subtly lowered. The way his voice had lost that rehearsed cadence. The faintest twitch of a smile—not smug, not wry. Just human.

"I'm not Orochimaru," Sasuke said. "I don't want followers. I just… don't want to be alone. Not now. Not with everything we've uncovered."

Kabuto stared at him. Really stared. "You're not very good at this," he muttered.

Sasuke shrugged. "Then teach me."

That did it.

Kabuto laughed—an actual, unguarded laugh. Not loud. Not cruel. Just tired. Amused. "You are the strangest bastard I've ever met."

Sasuke cracked a smirk. "Likewise."

Kabuto shook his head. "Alright. You win. Not because your arguments were convincing—because I finally saw you."

Sasuke said nothing. But he didn't need to.

Kabuto turned and gestured vaguely back toward the vault. "We'll need to make a copy of the map. Encrypt it. Lock it away somewhere neither of us can get to alone. Standard deadman's fail-safe."

"Agreed."

"And if we get caught?"

"We burn it."

Kabuto chuckled. "You're getting dramatic."

"Just prepared."

They walked again, side by side, not quite in sync, but no longer opposing.

Not comrades.

Not enemies.

Just two men who stopped pretending.