CHAPTER 4
The next morning – was it even morning? It was still dark outside – Sasuke was woken by someone roughly jostling his shoulder.
His eyes fluttered to half-mast. The hand shoved him three more times and he groaned, burying his head in the pillow. He didn't want to wake up yet. It was hard enough to get to sleep, he needed more.
"Get up," a voice commanded. "Come on, kid, hurry."
The unfamiliar voice gave him pause. Sasuke rolled over to the edge of the bed, his arms stretching and cracking his back, elbows and neck. He yawned loudly, the bed creaked, and the person's hand shook him harder. Sasuke grunted his disapproval, pushing the hand away as he tiredly sat up.
"What's it…" he mumbled, eyes still clamped shut.
"Sasuke Uchiha, please come along quietly."
Sasuke felt drowsy unease in the pit of his stomach. He peeked his eye open, wondering if this was a dream, met with the bright white of an ANBU mask, the only thing not shrouded in darkness, as if floating in mid-air. He blinked several times, mind disorderly with sleep.
"Huh?" he asked, looking around. Kabuto was still asleep, but as his eyes adjusted in the dark, he saw the crumpled, vacant beds where Shin and Sai should have been. "Is there a fire?" he asked, panicked.
"No," the ANBU said patiently, arms folded. "Your other roommates are in the entrance hall. Please do not keep them waiting."
"Waiting? But…" Sasuke scratched his head. "Should we get Kabuto?"
"No," she replied.
Sasuke sat on the edge of the bed, head beginning to slump. The ANBU sighed, nudging him towards the ladder. Too sleepy to protest, he crawled to the end of the bed and climbed down, feet landing softly on the cold floor. Standing firmly behind him, the ANBU pushed him towards the open door, and Sasuke padded along without complaint. He heard the door click shut softly behind them, halfway down the hall before his mind began to wake up.
"Where are we going?" he asked, voice less slurred, eyelids lighter. "What time is it? How come you're here?"
"Do not be alarmed," the ANBU said soothingly, placing her hands on his shoulders to keep him moving. Sasuke felt something warm and comforting pulse through his body, his surroundings glazing over. The dim candlelight adopted a shimmering halo and things grew less precise. The unease swirling in his stomach was washed away with each wave of warmth, and he sighed.
The woman shepherded him into the entrance hall, where Shin and Sai sat on their knees in the presence of a hooded figure. The housemother stood to the side, her eyes filled with sorrow. Sasuke thought it was strange, because he really didn't feel anything wrong with this situation with the warmth flooding through him. The ANBU pushed him to his knees beside Shin, who didn't even blink.
The moment the ANBU's hands left his shoulders, Sasuke felt like he was jolted awake. The unease returned, and looking at the hooded figure, he felt fear prickling alongside it. There was so much sudden awareness and confusion, like being woken from a realistic nightmare. He glanced at the housemother, her hands wringing hard enough to crack knuckles. She was doing nothing to stop this, but clearly it bothered her.
"What's going on?" Sasuke asked, voice croaky.
"Don't worry," Sai whispered from the corner of his mouth, head staring straight forward. Sasuke looked at him in surprise. It was the first time he'd spoken to him. "They're taking us there. To the special orphanage."
Sasuke looked at the two ANBU flanking the cloaked figure's sides, remembering the conversation he overheard between Kabuto and Shin. Right now, the two boys were doing their best to cover their excitement, fingers twitching in their laps. Sasuke grew considerably more relaxed knowing the others were okay with this. The fancy orphanage must have been very small, reserved for those with superior bloodlines and potential. That's what Kabuto and Shin said, right? They choose people who will make good ninja. Did that mean Sasuke was still heading down the shinobi path? In that case, he was fine with it.
What he didn't understand was why they needed ANBU around, or why they had been gathered in the middle of the night.
The hooded figure coughed, drawing Sasuke from his thoughts. The housemother grimaced. Like some kind of stock character villain, the figure raised his hands to the hood of his cloak and, in a marginally suspenseful gesture, peeled back the fabric to reveal a strikingly familiar bandaged old man. Sasuke's large eyes blinked in the sight of the one who brought him here – Danzo.
"How can you be back already?" the housemother asked, fingers tangling in the front of her apron. Danzo's eye was half-lidded with disinterest. "Just yesterday you took one more. Now you're taking three? Just what are you forcing these children into? Why so many?"
Thumb running over the scar on his chin, Danzo answered in a low tone. "It would be unwise to delve into this discussion in front of the children. Wouldn't you agree, Megumi?"
She grunted, glancing to the doe-eyed questioning looks of three clueless orphan boys. "You think you can do what you please because your money provides a little food and hot water. The Hokage wouldn't stand for this… why do they have to be orphaned children? Why can't you—"
"Enough." Though quiet, Danzo's voice was commanding. Megumi, apparently the housemother's name, snapped her mouth shut with an audible click. "It is you who accepts the money in exchange. Everything we do is for the benefit of Konoha. These children are in good hands and will be well equipped for what the future holds."
Sasuke wasn't sure what they were talking about. The more he looked at Danzo, the more his excitement at going to a nicer orphanage ebbed into caution. There was something off. Something about the vacant stare, that same something that had niggled in the back of Sasuke's mind when he first met Danzo in the hospital, the stillness of midnight and the ANBU with their spines ramrod straight. What do you call that thing? A hunch? Instinct?
"…At the moment, this orphanage cannot function without proper funding," the housemother said resignedly. "However, without children in need of our care, money means nothing. Ever since you sought Nonou's help, it seems there have been more and more children accompanying you to your special orphanage. You cannot make such frequent visits. As a hidden shinobi village, Konoha children are orphaned regularly, but that doesn't mean you are free to swoop in whenever you like!"
The two ANBU didn't respond to her bristling tone, and Danzo merely allowed a flicker of amusement to pass through his eyes. Sasuke swallowed.
"Of course," the man agreed cordially. "Like I said, this is for the good of the village. Inconveniencing good citizens such as yourself is the last thing we aim to do."
Sasuke wondered who 'we' was exactly. For the first time, Danzo broke his steady gaze to look towards the shadowed hallway. Sasuke craned his neck to see a glimmer of silver hair just disappear out of sight.
"Come out, young man," Danzo ordered gently. There was hesitation, Kabuto's shiny glasses reflecting the dim candlelight, before he straightened and approached the low table at which Danzo sat.
Kabuto put on a brave face, expression resolute. Even with rumpled bedhead, old pajamas and his hastily donned crooked glasses, you could see the determination and wouldn't question it.
"I want to come, too," he said, voice unwavering.
"Kabuto!" the housemother said warningly. Shin and Sai exchanged enthusiastic looks.
Danzo very slowly raked his eyes over Kabuto's lanky frame, taking in the thin layer of muscle, scrawny, not very promising kid. Their eyes met. "Oh? And what can you do?"
"I – I can use a bit of medical ninjutsu," he stammered, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose nervously. The eyes bored into him sharper than a kunai, and Megumi was silently pleading. He ignored her. "When Nonou was still our housemother, she taught me. I helped heal shinobi during the war as a kid."
Danzo raised an eyebrow, the first real expression of anything Sasuke had seen him make. "I see," he said. "Very well. If you are certain you are capable, you may embark on the path of a shinobi."
Sasuke thought it was unfair Kabuto got a choice and he didn't, but the thought was quickly thrust from his mind. He didn't have many options here. Besides, Sasuke didn't want to stay in this orphanage so long that he was behind everyone else at the academy and never amounted to anything. It was his duty to defeat Itachi, restore the clan and cleanse the Uchiha name. How could he do that stuck in a dingy old shack in the slums of Konoha with no financial support or mentor to guide him? This was an opportunity for Sasuke to get his life back on track, achieve his goals, and hopefully find a way to move on. Gradually, Sasuke felt himself bubbling with excitement, too.
Kabuto nodded fiercely in response, and Danzo had that vaguely amused glint in his eye that could almost make you shiver. As long as his mentor wasn't Danzo, Sasuke was sure everything would be fine.
-x-
He was in hell. A genjutsu. Some form of torture. A nightmare.
Razors rolled against his temples and pulsated thick chakra into his brain, mouth and collarbone. His eyes were wide and unseeing, mouth parted in a silent scream as he was pumped full of enormous, unbearable chakra. The chakra writhed inside his brain, with each passing second he felt less like he was alive. He was only conscious for a minute before someone cursed and injected his bicep with a clear solution, and seconds passed before Sasuke was lost in darkness.
-x-
an: I'm not even really sure what I'm writing.
