Never Trust Your Rinnegan (Tales of Sasuke's Travels)

Chapter 23

This chapter almost made me have to go on hiatus because I couldn't figure out how to write it.

A bit short, sorry. I'd been meaning to add more to it but then there was a medical issue with my hands so typing is a bit difficult.

Aizawa waits for Midnight to arrive before he leaves for the press conference. It's 9:30 in the morning, and the conference starts at around 10 from what Sasuke's gathered.

He's still feeling out of it. A bit like someone has blindfolded him, spun him around several times, and told him there's a pinata somewhere in the room. Only, there isn't a pinata anywhere in the room and now Sasuke's wandering around aimlessly. A bit of an extended analogy, but it sums things up anyway.

"I heard you had a bit of a rough time talking to the police?" Midnight says, surprisingly gentle. Sasuke is wary of her anyway, like he is of most pros in general, but specifically those from Yuuei.

She's wearing a maroon fleece sweater, large and baggy, with sweatpants and wedged boots. It's not a look he'd expect from her, given her whole gimmick, but he supposes everyone has civilian clothes and the whole point of them is to not stand out.

Sasuke nods slowly.

"I know I'm kind of a stranger, but if you want to play a board game or whatever it is you kids like to do, let me know." She pauses. "God, I feel so old."

Sasuke feels very awkward. He's never had babysitters, it was always just Itachi, his mother, or just him by himself.

"I'm gonna read a book," she pulls out a book titled, The Tombs of Atuan. "Let me know if you need anything."

Sasuke nods again, rather jerkily, but she doesn't say anything. He takes that as a win and retreats to his room.

He changes into something different from what he was wearing at the police precinct and summons a clone to take his place, since he's not sure how long he'll need to be gone for.

As far as Sasuke can tell from overhearing people talk at the station, there's a raid that's going to use the combined might of several pro-heroes across Japan. He also learned that Shigaraki attempted to kidnap Bakugou and convince him to join them.

Sasuke might've laughed at one point in his life, but as it stands, he'll settle for wry amusement.

He's not planning on doing a whole lot of fighting. He'll leave that up to All Might and company. All he's really going to be doing is delivering the finishing blow, or finishing the fight if All Might is unable to subdue All for One.

He teleports to a park that's around a block from where the bar is and walks the rest of the way. There aren't any shouts or large explosions quite yet, so he probably has a bit of a wait ahead of him.

The flow of civilians gradually slows due to the roadblocks that the police put in place a few blocks over.

He watches as the police get into position and the heroes begin to swarm the bar. All Might is first, of course, and the other heroes follow after.

The building goes down a few minutes after All Might punches a whole in the door. Sasuke sees Shigaraki scrambling from the rubble and cursing at someone, probably All Might.

Things seem to be going according to plan, in fact, even better than what the raid team had originally planned, by the looks of it. All for One emerges from the rubble, as predicted, and Sasuke can tell that he's still somewhat weakened from their fight.

Sasuke had thought that one of All for One's Quirks would give him faster healing, but there's probably a science-related answer to that.

It's going fine, as expected. All for One can do everything except the one thing he wants most, apparently, but the heroes must prevail.

Everything is good... until it isn't.

Sasuke doesn't know what happened. Well, that's not true. He does know, to some extent, but he hadn't thought it would have such an effect on him.

He's watching the fight go down. All Might and All for One exchange blows and it's quite obvious that All Might is mere minutes away from winning the fight.

All for One's eyes zero in on Sasuke's exact location.

Something tugs on Sasuke's life. It pulls and it pulls, unrelentingly. Sasuke gets over the original surprise and manages to pull back, but a piece of him is torn off. He can't reach out and grab it again, despite his best efforts.

He feels more than he actually acknowledges what happens next. His eyes blur and his ears block out any and all sound. There's the dull ache of his knees hitting the concrete he was standing on. The taste of iron bubbles in his throat and blood pours out of his mouth, but he can't reach his arms up to stop it.

The exhaustion hits him in several waves, each more nauseating than the last. His legs shake and buckle under the weight of his upper body.

The side of his head burns, like it's been scraped, but he can't figure out why.

His vision fades out just as he comes to a semi-understanding of what's just happened to him.

All for One tried to steal his Chakra.

~~~

Sana feels his connection to this world flicker. Something's happened to Sasuke-sama, he realizes.

"Sana?" Eri whispers.

They've been sitting with some teachers from the human school for a while, going from place to place. They haven't met very many new teachers, though, which is probably for the best, considering the circumstances.

"Nothing, hatchling, it's fine."

Eri nods and a small smile graces her face at the term of endearment.

Sana is always so proud of her when she smiles, though the elation that usually comes with it vanishes pretty quickly as he thinks back to his other hatchling.

He made the mistake once of thinking Sasuke-sama was strong enough for anything that came his way. For now, he is still a child. Sana believes in him, he really does, but of course he worries.

He worries when Sasuke-sama forgets things from the time he spent with Orochimaru. He worries when Sasuke-sama wakes from a nightmare, despondent and so unbelievably sad for hours. He worries on the days when it's difficult for Sasuke-sama to look at food, shelter, and basic necessities and believe he deserves them.

He worries and worries but knows that there's nothing he can do.

~~~

Shouta had told her that Sasuke was quiet and wouldn't disturb her. She'd been warned several times to keep her distance. And she knows that she should. She's been doing her best for the past few hours and there haven't been any complaints from the kid so far, but she's unsettled either way. So much so that she might actually feel happy if the kid were to leave his room and complain about things on end.

Nemuri is a teacher first and a hero second. She fucked up at the Sports Festival. She knows she did. She watched the videos and realized that her behaviours were the very definition of villainous. She knows that she's probably lost the trust of many kids across the country, Sasuke (probably) included.

That doesn't mean she's going to ignore the kid. She promised Shouta that she'd check on him and make sure he still had some sanity left in his brain by the time she left and she intends to do that.

After several minutes of contemplation (it took around 10 minutes, she checked), Nemuri decides to check on him. Just the once, and if he tells her to fuck off, she'll listen. As long as he isn't actively dying.

She checks his room.

He's not there.

Fuck.

Next Update: Dec. 19th