The problem, of course, was him. How could it be anyone else, when the five under him were so strong and Kabuto was so competent and Orochimaru-sama was the genius he was? It was Kimimaro's fault. It had to be.

Lying in that bed, covered in writing and sheets and filled with tubes and wires, surrounded by all the artificial constructs keeping his pathetic heart beating, Kimimaro thought. He thought about himself, and his illness, and his life, and finally came to the conclusion--and, oh, it was hard, but he was too smart for self-delusion--that it was all. his. fault.

Coughing and wincing when he coughed and feeling the warmth as blood trickled out of his eyes and nose and mouth, he knew it was his fault. The only certainty in his life was its shortness, and that was his fault.

He hadn't been strong enough to keep from getting sick. He'd used the kekkai genkai that Orochimaru-sama so loved over and over to protect and further his master's ideals, and in the end he'd been too weak to keep it from destroying him.

Gentle fingers wiped the blood from his chin, from under his nose, from the corners of his eyes where it oozed like sluggish, red tears. There was no emotion behind the movement. It was merely an automatic motion, something Kabuto did because, on the off-chance Orochimaru came to see the broken prodigy who still idolized him, it wouldn't do for the snake sannin to see Kimimaro's face streaked with blood. Orochimaru knew Kimimaro was sick, but he didn't need to see it trickling out of him in red trails, didn't need to see the Kaguya's body expelling its own lifeblood in an attempt to remove the virus.

Kimimaro had long since stopped responding to Kabuto's touch, even though some distant part of him screamed that it was wrong for anyone but Orochimaru-sama to touch him like that. He belonged to Orochimaru-sama, and it felt wrong to let someone else put their hands all over Orochimaru-sama's property. Kabuto was his doctor, though, and had to touch him. He'd drawn the line when Kabuto had, one slow day, trailed his fingers down Kimimaro's bare chest while grinning in a distinctly catlike manner. Said line had been drawn with the snap-pop of Kabuto's broken wrist, and Kimimaro had proved that sick though he may have been, invalid he was not.

For the longest time, Kimimaro had hoped he would get up. He'd promised Orochimaru-sama that he would, that he would stand and fight once more. After a few months, though, he didn't make any more promises. Not to Orochimaru-sama, anyway, who wouldn't visit him anymore. He made promises to himself, and broke them one by one by one.

But after Kabuto was done talking, done telling him about Orochimaru-sama's new vessel and how it was late and how his--Kimimaro's, of course, because everything was his fault--subordinates were basically helpless incompetents, Kimimaro kept one of his promises. He kept his first promise.

He stood up, and he fought.