Chapter Text
Maybe he is still sleeping, Sasuke wonders, unnerved, eyes darting between Talking Fugly and Talking Pug. Sure, having animals talk to you felt like an out-of-body experience already, but then again--Guy guy's Posh Turtle could speak, and not in the bizarre, weirdly-pitched voice that Lanky had; as a final slap in the face to make Sasuke's life even more miserable, he just needed Magic Animals to start to understand him.
It's fucking fascinating. And a little terrifying.
Sasuke kinda feels like he is in some kind of uncanny valley theme park right now.
"Shut up," Fugly hisses, and Sasuke had seen the cat do that before, stilling and tensing up to jump in a surprise attack to scratch Naruto's eyes out--Sasuke readily reels back to press himself into a warm side of the dog that was silently watching over Two Speaking Animals, a solid and unmoving presence behind Sasuke's back. "You don't realize how much time I had spent waiting for his return. And now he is back."
Sasuke opens his mouth, then closes it again.
If cats could have thumbs, Fugly would probably be strangling the pug by now.
"It took me a while to re-learn the human speak and retrain the recalling ability--especially after those damn snakes had ambushed me--but," and Fugly finally moves its disfigured snout to Sasuke, half-blind eyes somehow intently focused on his baffled face, "I'm back now, Master, and we can proceed with following your Will."
Pug regards Sasuke with a look that says something along the lines of I'm sorry you had to witness this.
"Don't ask, pup," the pug scrunches up its snout in irritation.
Sasuke is asking. He wants to know what is going on and whether he should seek out Magic Ninja Nuthouse on his own, now.
"Um," he starts, trailing off, because Fugly is now uncomfortably close to Sasuke's face--it's a flash of movement, and then the cat appears on top of the growling red dog, aggressively batting pug's paw away from Sasuke's hand.
"I knew you'll be back, I knew it," Fugly quiets down and then breathes out, sounding reverent, like it's something of a revelation that must shock everyone around it: "Indra-sama."
Sasuke glances questioningly at the pug again, the dog looking like it is thinking about what to say for a second, and then silently shakes its head.
As far as Sasuke is aware, he has never been called Indra-sama. A bastard, an idiot, Sasuke-kun and, on one horrifying occasion, Sasu-chan, but never something that was either an insult or a completely different name.
Ah, he thinks, so Fugly mistook Sasuke for some other guy.
That is very unfortunate, and sadly, literally the last thing on the list of his concerns right now.
Sasuke blinks at the cat sceptically as the pug groans like it's some kinda discussion it had been hapless enough to participate in before.
"It's him!" Fugly hisses back at the pug, back arched in offence and anger again; the cat raises its paw to go and try to scratch the pug's nose, only for the dog to nonchalantly dodge the onslaught. "I knew he was still here after I was never re-called back! Master couldn't have left me!"
"Tora," the pug says, sighing. "Last direct descendant of Indra had been dead for sixty years now, and Indra had been dead for quadruple of that. You have gone mad after spending so much time out of the realm. And you're scaring the pup."
Sasuke wasn't scared. He was just feeling like he's third-wheeling a conversation that somehow both involved him and left him the fuck out of it.
He grunted, going to cross his arms over his chest only to wince at an uncomfortable tug at his shoulder, letting his limbs drop back down.
"It's him," Fugly's uncomfortably convinced stare moved to Sasuke now. "It's you, Master! See, you even smell the same way you used to!"
Should Sasuke be offended at that? He probably should.
He squints in irritation, grunting out a huff.
To his horror, Fugly's expression turns into something akin to fondness, and then the cat goes through the already painfully familiar motion of rubbing itself at Sasuke's side, stomping over the red dog's head as it growled, Fugly shedding its tangled fur all over Sasuke's bandaged arm.
Sasuke struggles for a bit as much as the puppy pile and his still-stiff limbs allow him, but Fugly insistently presses its body into Sasuke, letting out guttural purrs that could've been cute if you were both deaf and blind.
"Oh Sage, I missed you," the cat says, looking at Sasuke with unhidden devotion. "You're smaller and much more naive than I remember, but we can fix that. Same as your stunted and idiotic attempts at talking, Master--that won't do, I'll fix you, you can rely on me."
"Tora!" the pug actually goes to jump up and slap the cat over its head with its paw now, sounding stern--the poor red dog that Sasuke was not so long ago trying to calmly doze off on decides to roll away then, clearly done with being used as a substitute for a stool, sending Fugly to the floor, pug somehow leaping up, twisting in the air, and landing on its feet.
After going through the motion of jerking its entire body as if the pug was shaking off water after bath, it looked at Fugly like the cat had just bit off the tiny squiggly tail off of pug's behind.
"Fix him?" the pug growls in frustration, tiny eyes narrowing on its face. "The pup has some trouble talking and suddenly he requires fixing? I knew you didn't like cubs, but you are crossing the line."
Wait.
Are they arguing--in a language Sasuke understands, after maybe-confirming they can understand him back--about Sasuke right now?
Sasuke--well, he was a bit offended at getting called dumb again, but he didn't need to be comforted by a tiny ninja dog.
Comforted by a big dog, though. That's a thought.
He tugs back at the red fur, eyes forever fixed at two hissing and growling animals in front of him, the big canine agreeably shuffling around, covering yelping Sasuke with its body, ignoring his flailing attempts to swap the positions and rest on top of the dog instead.
"Master wasn't like this before," Fugly scoffs, body lowered like the cat was about to attack. "I know how he should be--I can make him into who he was before, shape him to his previous glory."
The pug lifts its paw to cover its eyes as if the dog is currently pinching the nonexistent bridge of its nose.
"Tora, look me in the eyes and tell me you do not seriously think that this pup is your long-deceased silver-tongued summoner," the pug solemnly says, and Sasuke feels so out of his depth right now because there are so many things wrong with the pug's sentence, Sasuke is reeling at where to actually start to ask questions.
Fugly looks unusually determined as the cat moves its milky eyes back at Sasuke, regarding him with an assessing gaze. "He is. I'll fix him."
Sasuke doesn't feel very broken to be fixed. Sure, he had just been chased through the forest by a ninja murderer, and sure, his neck keeps aching, half of the skin feeling burnt off, but it's not his naivete or lack of knowledge in Magic Japanese that is some kinda disease that needs to be mended.
If anyone needs to be cured of their credulity and dumbassery, it's half the population of Magic Ninja World--and they can start with Naruto.
Both animals look expectantly at Sasuke as if awaiting his contribution to the discussion regarding picking on his brain. He scowls back, headache slowly starting to tug at his temples--a pretty much permanent fixture since he woke up a day ago in the forest under Spiky Medic's glowy hands.
Sasuke thinks of what to say. There's a lot of questions, like who are you, and how did you learn to talk after inviting yourself into my house two months ago, and why do you understand me, and do they make ninja clothes in dog sizes, and why can't none of you assholes just abide a singular captions' rule to make Sasuke's life easier--
Sasuke goes an easy route, unable to express all conflicting feelings at once.
"Hn," he says, hands clutching the red fur of the dog draped over him, eyes minutely shifting between Fugly and the pug.
The pug snorts, making Fugly growl out something that sounded broken.
"My Master is crippled!" Fugly shrieks, voice mixing with a distressed cat-like yowl. "That is all because I wasn't there to serve him when he needed me!"
Sasuke would really appreciate it if everyone would just shut the fuck up and stop calling him names on an empty basis. He was used to loud noises--being in a team with Naruto, loud screeching was a given--but it was never amplified by a headache, caused by figuring out what kinda fairy-tale he had ended up in this time.
Sure, not being able to be understood for a long time, having to resort to grunting and punching and awkward gestures was--a trial. It left Sasuke with a strong sense of loneliness--he could understand people if he focused on their faces at the right moment under a right angle, which was also a feat to manage when facing multiple speakers, but people didn't understand him, Magic Captions evidently a persistent feature exclusively in Sasuke's life.
He had learnt to manage, though. Sasuke started finding words onto which he could latch on--first things that sounded mildly English, then things that were repeated in one- or two-word sentences, then some more complex concepts that were untranslatable like village names or Hokage or stupid Ninja Army ranks. Sasuke was adept enough to pluck these words out of a sentence and not require as much intent focus on the subtitles, being able to either read every other word instead of following the entire text, or piece things together from letters in especially horrible Forehead cases, knowing how the word should sound and having an approximate idea of what was being told.
Not speaking was--alright. It was alright and it wasn't at the same time, but Sasuke got used to it and it didn't feel like much of a burden when he was with Team Seven, all of them somehow picking up that they need to be turned Sasuke's way for him to hear them--which was still annoying sometimes, Naruto once spending an entire hour poking at Sasuke's shoulder after the Idiot had dropped him into the hot sprint while they were trying to learn water-walking, Sasuke purposefully avoiding looking at Naruto and dodging away from the Idiot who was trying to shove his face too close to Sasuke's--plus they got somewhat proficient at wildly gesturing his way whenever talking was not an option. Other times, picking up important information was made virtually impossible, like classes with Creepy Bandanna Teacher and instructions from Scarred Bandana Proctor, but Sasuke was managing. Sakura occasionally had been reiterating what some people had said to him, her face always turned in his direction, and it was--nice.
It was nice.
He hadn't relied on speaking for a long while, and letting out frustrated curses or half-formed sentences had died down quite a long time ago, too--first, because Sasuke was afraid of getting locked up and prodded by the creepy-looking Blond Ponytail man, and then just because there was really no use to vocalize coherently when Sasuke could get by just like this, using minimal vocabulary, stressing newly learnt words only when he couldn't explain himself by gestures alone.
So, talking animals? Talking animals that wanted him to respond to them? A completely new concept that Sasuke was wary of.
It was harder to push out words now than it was before, long ago, in a half-formed memory of past life that Sasuke didn't really know what to make of.
Even currently, whenever he thought there was a tiny space to insert his 'what' and 'explain' in-between Fugly's and Talking Pug's angry growling at each other, he found himself stalling, words already half-formed on his tongue but never quite reaching their ears.
The pug regarded Sasuke with a pensive look and moved closer, silently extending its paw to Sasuke again.
He grunted and took it, pink pads soft under his fingers.
"Tora, you've gone truly mad if you think this way," the dog sighs. "I knew you won't be in your right mind after what others had told me about you going off-kilter and agreeing to that eternal soul-bound contract, but you can't just will into existence whatever insane belief staying in this world had put in your demented furry head."
The pug moved its face to look at Sasuke again.
"Just take your time, kid. Boss didn't speak much when he was a little puppy either--hell, I didn't learn to speak until much later after he had first summoned me. Maybe you'll get better at it, maybe not--no one is there to fault you at what you can and cannot do."
That was--surprisingly nice, albeit still confusing.
Also, Sasuke really did not want to imagine Lanky being a puppy ever again, even if it was just the dog-speak for 'child'.
"But he smells like Master," Fugly sounds kind of broken now, its half-blind eyes scrunched together. "He can't be anything else."
"Maybe you should accept your punishment," the pug says mildly. "They will let you return back after, you know. Your summoner is gone, and--"
Fugly hisses again, its spine twisted, thinning fur taking a porcupine-like look.
"Never," the cat spits out. "My contract is still signed, and the Master is back again--I don't need to return back, not when he is alive, not when I can serve him--"
There's shuffling, and the door slides open, letting Glasses Girl in.
She was stripped off of her dirty clothes, wearing a tunic with wide sleeves, bandages peeking from beneath the cloth, covering her arms up to the tips of her fingers. The headband was gone, too, and her glasses were switched to another pair, replacing the cracked lens she was sporting back in the forest.
There's a giant band-aid slapped right above her eyebrow, and as soon as her eyes land on the pile of animals on the floor--a bunch of massive dogs, napping around Sasuke's half-hidden body; a hissing cat watching her with murder written across its features; a passive-looking pug still holding out its paw for Sasuke to clutch on--her expression turns puzzled, face red again as she ducks her head down, fringe falling over her eyes.
She straightens up then, lifting her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, eyes still firmly fixed on the floor--but her voice is sure and bright when she vocalizes what is written on an unobscured part of her forehead.
'Sasuke-kun,' she says, voice quiet and shy.
Sasuke lets out a questioning sound.
'Houshou-san had asked me to bring you to the examination room,' Sasuke reads out, captions getting much more free space to stretch out on the skin with her forehead protector gone. 'They are going to look at the seal now.'