They don't make it a single step away before the door swings open to reveal the beast within.
"Oh. Hello everyone." Alvarcus calmly says as he steps out.
...
He's a mess. His clothes are dirty and torn. His entire face is covered in grime and his once shiny black hair is now a dull brownish black. None of that is truly abnormal, he's come back much worse from training before and had a smile on his face. There's something that's seriously wrong with him though.
His right arm is gone.
No, not gone. It's slowly reforming. Countless black threads are extending out of his shoulder and weaving themselves into his missing appendage. This is very bad, this means that not only did he lose a limb but it was annihilated. If it was simply cut or torn off then he'd just reattach it but he's reforming it.
"Who did this to you? Where's your arm? Alvarcus what happened?" Sasuke demands with anger and pain in his eyes. He wants Alvarcus to say someone else was in there. He wants his friend to admit that he struggled to barely best an opponent.
"In order of asked questions, me, not really sure but if I had to guess I'd say it's in the dead rabbit in there, and a novice trying to remake a seal that is way out of my league." Alvarcus monotonously responds to Sasuke.
"You idiot!" Sasuke storms up to Alvarcus and smacks him in the back of his head. "This is what happens when you overreach yourself! Seals malfunction in terrible and unpredictable ways when made incorrectly! That's what caused those insane tremors! That's what has the Sound Three so scared! That's exactly what caused you to lose your arm!"
"That's where you're wrong." Alvarcus brushes off Sasuke to start walking away. "You got the first two correct but not the third. I didn't lose my arm to a seal malfunction. I lost it to the seal succeeding, I made it work. It only took another journal from Orochimaru about an introduction to the basic of the basic theory behind time-space seals, a few weeks spent mulling the idea over, a sleepless night, being utterly livid, and three hundred forty seven attempts, but I made it work. I'm going to go clean up now. You'll probably want to use a different field."
Alvarcus walks away from the other four people.
"Holy shit." Kidomaru says from the doorway to the training field. "Come check this out."
Everyone else quickly moves over to him to see the carnage.
It's wrecked. There's the aftermath of various explosions strewn across the entire field, they left behind jagged and rough craters and scattered rubble everywhere. There's not a square meter of level terrain anymore, even the walls did not escape unscathed. They're cracked and fractured, there's countless indents from where rubble smashed against them and one of them is about to collapse. There's even a lot of suspiciously humanoid impressions on the stone walls.
But that's not the most impressive feature of the destruction, that award goes to the gigantic spherical crater in the center of the room. This crater wasn't caused by an explosion, it's too clean for that. It looks like someone hand carved a humongous bowl five meters in radius into the ground and sanded down all the rough spots. There's not one imperfection on it, it's completely round. And laying in the exact epicenter of the sphere is one innocent rabbit with a senbon sticking out of its chest.
"Alvarcus what the hell did you make?" Sasuke softly asks himself.
...
Ten Minutes Later
"Now this is a surprise." A smooth and haughty voice flows out of the only other person in the room with me.
Room is too generic of a descriptor, this is a hospital. There are various state of the art medical tools meticulously arranged along the walls, multiple gurneys with differing levels of blood on them and one arrogant prick enjoying this too much.
"Fuck off. You know I don't like you, I know you don't like me. The only reason I'm here is because if I don't do this now then Orochimaru-sama is going to force me here later. Now heal my damn arm Kabuto."
"That's not a very nice way of asking." Kabuto grins in some strange emotion. "I suppose if there was something in it for me then I would be more than willing."
"Sorry, did you not hear me say 'fuck off' followed by 'I don't like you?'" I extend my black limb to him. "Heal it."
"I will, but I expect payment. What I want is simple really, you see I never got to study it myself." Kabuto stares intently at my black arm while slowly moving towards me. No, towards my arm. He's practically salivating at it. "The Jiongu is just so fascinating! That's my price, you will let me at least study it. At best I ask for a piece."
I lower my arm and turn my back on Kabuto. I'm leaving, I refuse to play his games.
"Oh?" Kabuto smirks, he has a plan. He has something that he thinks he can hold over me. "Are you sure that leaving without healing your arm is a good idea? You know that Orochimaru-sama will just send you back here to me then nothing will have changed. I'm very confident that he might even order you to part with a piece and we wouldn't want to disappoint daddy dearest, now would we?"
"Kabuto," I throw him a glance over my shoulder. I'm wearing a pleasant smile, one that speaks of friendship and warmth, "I'm going to rip that jaw off someday."
...
Prison Complex
"Do you have any... fives?" One of the two guards asks the other.
"Damn! Take it you jackass." He shoves a single card from his hand to the first guard. "Do you have any..." The guard trails off and his eyes widen in fright and surprise.
"Fours." I supply the second guard with a number while looking over the first guard's shoulder to see his hand. "Ask if he has fours. Here's a hint, he's got three. Taking them will give you all four fours then they're your points."
The two guards stare at me in shock for a few reasons. One, I sneaked up on them. Two, I'm blatantly cheating for one of them. Three, I somehow know both guard's hands even though I can only see one of them. Four, I'm here without Orochimaru.
Both guards drop their cards onto the upside down box and leap up.
"A-A-A-Alvarcus-sama!" The first guard stutters out. "We had no idea you planned to visit today!"
"P-p-please let us know how we can be of service! Whatever you need!" The second guard is just as nervous as the first. "We'll be glad to help out any way we can!"
"First off," I state and both guards are raptly paying attention to me, "stop treating me like I'm some revered figure of great importance. Second off, you didn't see me and I didn't see you. Thirdly, and this is the most important one so pay attention."
I dramatically lean forwards and both guards follow suit.
"You both really need to find a better way to pass the time. Go fish? Really? What are you five years old? Play chess or something, at least that is moderately challenging."
"YES SIR!" The first guard shouts.
"RIGHT AWAY SIR!" The second guard yells just as loud as the first. Then he looks confused. "Wait what?"
"If you're going to slack off then at least do something that you can play off as being productive if you get caught." I point at the cards. "Go fish? That's a game meant for kids. But chess? If someone catches you playing that you can spew out that it helps create a more battle ready mind or some other bullshit excuse. See how much better that sounds?"
"You're... not mad at us for slacking?" The first guard tentatively asks.
"What? No, why the fuck would I care?" I scoff out. "The prisoners are behind like three sets of doors. Alarms will blare if they get past one of them, that's plenty of time for you to react. I wouldn't care if you were sleeping as long as you were here to fix any problems that come up."
"Huh." The second guard eloquently says. "Then... if you don't mind me asking... why are you here?"
"Nothing that you need to worry about." I walk past them to enter the Complex. "It definitely doesn't have anything to do with me disliking Kabuto so much that I'm willing to go see if any of the prisoners know medical jutsu just to avoid him and his stupid face. He's the only person on staff here that can fix what I broke and well... frankly we both hate each other. Like I said nothing for you to worry about."
"Uh... sure? Go on in then." The second guard waves me in.
...
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