[OPEN] The Strange Man's Arrival

[soveryhelpful]

Within hours of finding himself in this new location, he'd removed his Sound forehead protector and buried it in a copse of trees beyond a rice paddy. It was clear that there were no shinobi here, and he had no desire to stand out. What was the saying about the post that sticks up...? If captured, he would need to be able to morph his allegiances to suit, not be branded prematurely by a piece of metal. Purposefully, he'd masked his Chakra and made to blend in, smiling and earning himself the trust of a simple herbsman within the village itself. To even the most trained eye, the young man with the prematurely-grey hair had made himself a home in this so-called Michi no Sato.

Yakushi Kabuto had no home, only cover stories.

Whether this was a test of Orochimaru-sama's or a genjutsu prison devised by any one of their many enemies, Kabuto would survive, would thrive, and would eventually escape to rejoin his master. Any lingering doubts that he might eventually be happy here on his own were quickly squashed. Independence was not an option.

Within a few days, other shinobi began to arrive, some more obviously than others. Through it all, the young man only smiled, collected herbs, mashed poultices, and took careful, careful notes.

The bustle of the Frost Festival provided the perfect opportunity to personally gather more information. The shifting timelines and alternate personalities he'd observed would only be to his benefit here.

Comments

[itachi_san]

This felt nothing like a bath.

His cloak gone, his shirt off, he could feel every edge of rough stone against his skin. His fever was high enough that even tepid water felt like ice.

The more he tensed, the more exposed he looked, until Orochimaru could clearly see the outlines of his bones in several places.

[smallstepstopower]

He sighed, getting what he could reach until he was sure everything facing up was clean. That finished, he used both hands and picked the man to a sitting position, then moved him until he was laying on his other side. Then, he resumed washing, now that the man was out of his mess.

[itachi_san]

He winced as he was moved, but curled up just the same on the other side.

[smallstepstopower]

He cleaned him carefully there too, then hummed, cleaning up the mess on the stone and going to dump the water for fresh, taking the over clothes with him so he could rinse the damp things out while he was at it.

He hung them up in a cavern away from the water and returned a moment later, tugging Itachi around until he could get at his hair, pulling the tie free. "I didn't think you had time to roll around in your mess Itachi-kun."

[itachi_san]

His response was nothing more than a whimper.

"Stop... Make it..."

And then nothing.

[smallstepstopower]

Orochimaru carefully picked through his hair, making him hang off the ledge a bit as he worked and carefully rinsing away the grime. "Shhh."

[itachi_san]

Itachi was silent, but not by choice.

He had passed out.

[smallstepstopower]

Well, that worked out nicely for Orochimaru, as he set about cleaning the man the rest of the way, checking his pants and deeming them clean enough before putting them back on him as he situated him securely on the ledge. A bit of fussing at wind jutsus and the cloak was flicked over the man as well once he deemed it dry enough to do so.

Once he had everything from -that- venture put away, he moved to another room to start assembling what had been saved from his lab.

[itachi_san]

Itachi didn't stir... Not when Kabuto returned. Not for hours... not for days, actually...

But his fever raged, blood dripped from his mouth, his body had all but shut down after violently rejecting that vile medicine.

[soveryhelpful]

By the time Kabuto returned, he'd managed to purchase or steal the basics to a lab; tubes to fashion a makeshift IV, thick nylon for restraints, vials and bottles for mixing and storage, along with anything else that might prove useful. The fever was separate, and he was sure to recommend to Orochimaru-sama that the patient be left to him. That was more like their normal arrangement, anyway. The grey-haired teen lived two lives right now -- the helpful herbalist's assistant and the med-nin trying to keep a valuable subject from dying -- and two lives was hardly something he had to sweat over.

It's the fourth day by the time he manages to stabilize the other's body enough for him to wake, a makeshift IV feeding a painkiller into his veins, restraints holding him to the table. Fortunately, Kabuto was nearby when he heard the other stir, and he moves to glance over, checking the security of the restraints. "How do you feel, Uchiha-san?"

[smallstepstopower]

Having no desire for anything more than regular updates, and a stipulation that the man would need to be turned loose to the village at some point once they were sure he wasn't about to die, with supervision of course, Orochimaru headed out to deal with... other issues within the village.

Such as procuring a new residence outside of his lab space, as well protected and hidden as it was. Not to say he didn't visit, he was obviously quite fond of his pet Uchiha, but... well. He was unconscious. Where was the fun in him being unconscious?

[itachi_san]

Itachi opened his eyes to a rather frightening sight - Kabuto, standing over him. A moment later, upon attempting to move, he realized he was bound to a table, and that there were tubes connected to his arm. Massive amounts of antibiotics, among other drugs, were coursing through his veins.

It took him a minute or two to find his voice.

"... wh..what happened?"

[soveryhelpful]

"You passed out four days ago." Kabuto adjusts a clamp over the IV to increase the amount of painkillers a fraction now that the other was conscious. The other IVs he leaves as is. "Fortunately, with the right equipment, I can now counteract your irritating habit of vomiting what it is I've provided for you. Do be so kind as to not incinerate this cave, will you?"

[itachi_san]

"... Stone is a poor conductor for fire..." he mumbled, turning his head to follow Kabuto. "I... burned that house down, didn't I... I do apologize for that."

[soveryhelpful]

"Naturally. However, I have no desire to test Amaterasu in such a space as this." Kabuto returns to a nearby workstation, where he'd been preparing the next solution to go into one of the IVs. "You did. I'm sure the villagers are properly impressed by their new landmark."

Without looking, he repeats, "How do you feel, Uchiha-san?"

[itachi_san]

"... Tired." he finally answered, coughing a little. "More than anything else. Weak... and tired."

[soveryhelpful]

"After sleeping for four days straight?" Kabuto tsks and holds the mixture up to the lamp he'd strung above his workstation, studying the color before going back to work. "However, that's to be expected. Right now your immune system is being severely strained. I'm doing what I can to prevent it from breaking, but, well... does the saying about the omelet apply here?"

[itachi_san]

Itachi groaned. He couldn't recall any sayings about omelets, but he was still pretty dazed.

"... Now... now what?"

[soveryhelpful]

Why, the saying about making an omelet by breaking eggs, of course. Casting him another glance, Kabuto only sighs through his nose. "Why, you stay here until you're better, of course. I would hate to unrestrain you and watch you merely collapse just outside our headquarters."

[itachi_san]

The longer he stayed there, the more tests Kabuto would be able to run, the more experiments he would be able to conduct, the sicker Itachi seemed to be (for one reason or another).

As several more days passed, they were able to realize one very significant correlation...

Repair and strengthen his immune system and the symptoms of his mysterious condition worsen dramatically. Stifle his immune system, leave him vulnerable, if not outright sick, and those symptoms improve. His disease is autoimmune, or at least behaves like it. But to treat that? That's like continually walking a very fine tightrope between death and death.

[soveryhelpful]

Itachi's disease was like a puzzle. Kabuto liked puzzles of this nature, liked testing the body's endurance and limits as far as he could, bring him to the point of death and back again. All in the pursuit of eventually finding a cure, of course.

The most important thing had been to first repair the damage done to his internal organs. Really, the Uchiha was living on borrowed time as it was, and if Kabuto hadn't been there? Well, who's to say how long he would have survived at this current pace? Modifying existing medications, the med-nin managed to stablize that to the point where he could choke down liquids without them coming back up, though solid food was still restricted to things that were easy for his body to break down.

The stopgap solution was to repress Uchiha's immune system as much as possible; until Kabuto could come up with something to fight the disease itself, he had to make sure it didn't kill him, first. Other infections and illnesses could be treated with his own ninjutsu and knowledge, but this disease...

Kabuto was growing rather fond of it.

[itachi_san]

Of course, forcing the body from one extreme to the other was merciless. Itachi didn't know how he would feel from one hour to the next, if he even had the strength to feel anything at all. Sometimes Kabuto kept him so drugged, that he just slept.

But sometimes, he managed to stay awake.

"... Have you figured anything out yet?" he tugged against the restraints a little as he stretched. He could breathe a little easier at the moment. That, at least, was a good sign.

[soveryhelpful]

"Yes." As usual, Kabuto is at his workstation, wishing for monitors like he had set up in their hideout in the dummy village called Oto. There were only so many things he could steal from the local hospital, a place more designed to treat sprains and broken bones, things that might be sustained in the course of fieldwork, that work of the level of sophistication Kabuto was accustomed to. Still, he'd managed to procure life-sign monitors and kept his eyes on those, rather than on his patient.

"It seems your disease grows worse the more your immune system tries to defeat it. Currently, I've almost completely neutralized it and repaired some of the damage to your lungs. Do try not to get a cold, though. That would be enough to kill you."

[itachi_san]

"That's... what Sasori's medicine did... why it was considered poison..." he repeated, more of a confirming statement than a question. "It suppressed the immune system..."

That, in itself, was a frightening thought. A simple infection really could be enough to kill him.

He took a few more breaths, and realized that it didn't hurt as much as it usually did. Kabuto really had healed a fair amount of the damage, drained the blood. Of course, Itachi knew it couldn't have been permanent healing. It didn't matter if Kabuto had neutralized it now. Without medicine, poison, whatever the man was using to suppress his immune system, the disease would come back. He would have to get the damage healed all over again.

"Were you able to make medicine?"

[soveryhelpful]

"Precisely. If I am to develop a cure for this disease of yours, I must first make sure it won't kill you. I would like to keep you under observation as long as I can."

As if he had been waiting for the other to ask, Kabuto moves to retrieve a small glass vial from the table, stopped by a cork and filled with what looked like blood pills and holds it up so the other can see. "These will keep your immune system repressed, but we are both aware, that will make you susceptible to everything else."

Setting the bottle down with a small clink, he comes over to undo the restraints on his arms. "Can you sit up?"