There was no point to stealth anymore. It was only out of habit that Kakashi silenced the sound of his footsteps, but both he and Kabuto remained in view as he crossed the width of the cavern, blade abandoned behind.
Kabuto's smile grew fixed as Kakashi came closer and closer, but otherwise did not move.
He stopped only inches away from the slender boy, close enough that he could see the fluttering beat of Kabuto's heart in his throat, close enough that stink of fear and excitement overwhelmed nearly everything else, except for the coppery tang of Raidou's blood.
"I am willing to heal your own injuries as a demonstration of my capabilities," Kabuto said, licking his cracked lips. "I understand your hesitations, of course. But these are the terms of my services."
Kakashi closed Obito's eye.
Bolstered by the absence of the Sharingan, Kabuto's eyes glittered. "I even came with a modified biosynthetic prosthetic suited to match your own. You need only to give up this one thing, in order to save your teammates."
Kakashi tilted his head.
"Will you let them die just for the sake of your reputation?"
"Who do you work for?"
There wasn't any hesitation as Kabuto smiled slowly, the only movement he made under Kakashi's stony gaze. "Every second you waste, the more difficult it will be to render care," he said silkily. "Decide quickly, Hatake Kakashi."
"And if I decide to keep it?"
Kabuto stared back boldly, belying the sour stench of fear leaking from his pores. "Then the lives of your comrades rest upon your shoulders," he said very softly.
Kakashi sighed and rocked back on the balls of his heels. "Alright," he said, looking down blindly at his feet. "Alright," he said again, fingers clenched into a tight fists. "I'll do it."
Kabuto straightened, hands coming up to clap as a beatific smile crossed his face. "Excellent choice, Hatake-san. My master will be very pleased with your cooperation." He stepped forward, arms spread as if to embrace Kakashi.
Kakashi snarled and made his move.
Raw chakra exploded from his right fist as he punched straight through Kabuto's invitingly open torso, blood and fat vaporized into a fine mist. His hand tore through layers of muscle like wet tissue paper, instantly cauterizing the flow of blood even as soft wet organs burst under the pressure of his strike.
Kabuto's young face, still round with baby fat and pink-cheeked, looked up at Kakashi uncertainly.
Chunks of flesh dripped unsteadily from Kakashi's clenched fist as it emerged from Kabuto's back and onto the floor, an odd counterpoint to the soft patter of rainfall outside.
"But the profile," Kabuto said blankly, as if the pain from the blow had still not quite registered with him. "The profile said...that the odds of you accepting...were very high."
Kakashi gave him a grim smile. "The profile was wrong," he said, voice deadly, and drew back his fist.
Kabuto gasped and his legs suddenly collapsed underneath him, as if the strings controlling his limbs had been cut. There was a harsh crack as the back of his head snapped back to hit hard rock, glasses skittering away on the ground like a frantic spider.
"No-!" Kabuto breathed raggedly, one hand scrambling madly for the lenses. The other clutched at the ragged hole in his stomach, glowing a faint grass-green under the lurid coating of blood.
"None of that," Kakashi said quietly as he stepped on Kabuto's wrist, feeling bone snap. The fingers froze into a mockery of a human hand, fingertips curved into claws. He ground the glasses into a fine dust underneath his heel, watching Kabuto's face grow winter-pale.
"You won't be needing those anymore." Kakashi hunkered down into a crouch and pulled a kunai out of an thigh holster with his left hand. His right hand hung uselessly by his side, skin burned to a crisp and still dripping blood. Carefully, with neat economical motions, he used the blade to angle Kabuto's glowing green hand away from his body and pinned it down onto the ground, kunai buried to the hilt through his palm.
"They will die because of you," Kabuto whispered faintly, voice rough from pain. "You will live with your Sharingan and with their lives forever hanging over your shoulders."
"You're right, that would have worked on me," Kakashi said, looking down at Kabuto's face. It looked even younger without the glasses, dark eyes round and fearful.
"But you see, I'm not the same person I was a few months ago," Kakashi said, pulling out another kunai. "I know who you are, Kabuto."
The boy's face whitened even further, the black of his eyes stark against his pale skin.
"And I mean to eke out every ounce of pain I can from you, for deeds past, present and future." Kakashi leaned in, pressing the razor sharp edge of his blade against the tender skin of Kabuto's throat. A thin line of blood welled up, trembling, before trickling down into the hollow of his collarbone.
"Tell me who you work for," Kakashi said, leaning in close enough that he only had to whisper to be heard. The kunai slid down, scraping Kabuto's skin before it hit the bone of his broken ribs, flesh stretched taut between the jagged edges. "I'll know when you lie."
Kabuto gave him a sickly smile. "You can try."
Shadows wrapped serpentine arms around Kakashi's eye, instantly blinding him. He growled and scrambled forward, hands clamping tight around Kabuto's throat through instinct. "What did you do-"
He pitched forward into darkness and knew no more.
"Shodai's saggy balls, I'm getting too fucking old to be doing this at my age."
A hot gust of air ghosted over Kakashi's face; he could smell old pipe smoke, ink and the faint remnants of last night's curry, filtered through the blood-stained mess of his mask. And underneath it all, a deeply familiar scent that lit up his fog-stuffed mind like a beacon.
"I promised the kid bodies and I got him bodies," the voice continued to mutter, cotton whispering quietly as a body settled down next to his side, radiating heat. "Intact mind is another thing entirely."
Kakashi's eye snapped open and he caught the fingertip hovering just inches away from his mask.
"Oho, guess who decided to join the land of the living," Jiraiya rumbled as he gently disentangled his hand from Kakashi's shaking grip. "You know who you are?"
"You're dead," Kakashi said, blank.
"Ah." Jiraiya scratched his head and slapped his thigh. "Damn it, I really did scramble your brain."
Kakashi struggled to sit up, flinching away when Jiraiya tried to lend him a hand. His wide eye absently took in the wet tile floor he was lying on, covered in hundreds of seal characters winding circuitous routes throughout the room. The effort took the wind out of his chest and he hunched over, wheezing.
"Easy there, kiddo," Jiraiya said, rising from his crouch and hovering worriedly over Kakashi's head. "Didn't bring you back just to have you expire in front of me."
Kakashi looked down at his shaking hands, at the battered metal backing of his ANBU issue gloves. Grit and mud caked his nail beds, old blood flaking in the lines of his fingers.
"You're not dead," he said, wondering.
"Right in one." A heavy hand settled on his shoulder and Kakashi looked up at Jiraiya's battered old face. There were less lines than he remembered, but the Toad Sage looked much as the same as Kakashi last saw him, ten years in the future.
That was right, Kakashi was in the past, and in the past Jiraiya was alive. Kakashi swallowed hard and clasped Jiraiya's hand with his own.
"It's good to see you," he said, voice hoarse.
"Has it really been that long since we last saw each other?" Jiraiya asked, a little bemused. "I thought we bumped into each other at the old man's office a couple of months ago, during one of the festivals. The one honoring the new shrine consecrated in the village grounds."
Kakashi gave him a lopsided shrug; perhaps his old self would have remembered, but the last Kakashi had seen of the man was at his own funeral, face grim and lined in his official portrait, draped with black ribbons.
"But first, a couple of questions to make sure I didn't knock your head too badly around during the summoning. Who am I, what is the last thing you remember and what is the last date you can recall?"
"Jiraiya-sama, interrogating Kabuto and the fifteenth of the Harvest Moon," Kakashi reeled off instantly.
"Ah, so that's the mysterious gray-haired fella we found," Jiraiya said, leaning back on his heels with a thoughtful look. "Not exactly part of the summoning ritual, so it was a surprise when he popped in with the rest of you."
Kakashi traced the curve of a seal character by his knee, coolly admiring the strength and clarity imbued with every stroke of chakra-imbued ink. Jiraiya's work was as masterful as always, carrying a more than striking resemblance to Minato-sensei's old work. It was comforting, to be surrounded by such familiarity. The characters for space-time, stabilized by the horse and crescent construct, the curves of a summoning contract magnified a hundred times and altered to accommodate subjects in the physical plane, instead of astral.
"You summoned us across half a country," Kakashi said slowly, a sense of awe mounting deep inside his chest. "Maybe more. Are we in Grass?"
"Clever boy," Jiraiya said, fond.
"But how did-?"
"Timing, as you know," Jiraiya informed him, eyes glittering madly, "is everything. Imagine my surprise when I popped by the outpost, cooling my heels with a spot of tea, when a half-crazed ANBU drenched in sweat and dead on his feet from chakra exhaustion hurtles into the building, demanding a battalion of troops as reinforcements for a stranded ANBU team in Earth Country."
"He made it, then," Kakashi said, shoulders sagging in sudden relief. "What about the rest of my men?"
Jiraiya's face stilled for a moment too long before it smoothed out into a fierce grin. "Alive, which is more than I could say for you when I caught sight of your sorry ass."
"Ah," Kakashi said, and let him have his lie. Alive was enough for now. It had to be.
"Didn't sound like there was enough time to gather up men and head all the way back. So I thought, why not summon you all?"
Only Jiraiya was nonchalantly think of summoning an ANBU team across half a country. Why not indeed.
"What did you even use for a focus?"
Jiraiya stood up and trotted over to the center of the room, where three circles were outlined in a dark reddish brown- dried blood. "Your dogtags," he explained, pointing at the first one. The second circle: "Tenzou's medkit, stocked and stitched personally by Genma." In the last circle lay a heap of tattered black fabric, dark with blood and sweat.
"Namiashi was tough. No obvious material available, so your boy stripped his clothes off in hopes that maybe even a little of Namiashi's blood was on it."
"Risky," Kakashi said softly.
"It worked," Jiraiya shrugged. "They're upstairs right now, being seen to."
Kakashi's left fingers curled into a tight fist, nails digging blood-red crescents into the meaty flesh of his palm. "And Kabuto?"
"You were holding onto him pretty tightly, which is how I'm guessing he was pulled along for the right." Jiraiya's dark eyes were hard and unreadable.
"He's not to be trusted," Kakashi hissed, bringing his fist up in a tight arc in half-remembered motion.
"Kind of gathered that, judging from the way you were choking what little life he had out of him," Jiraiya said, voice dry as a Wind Country desert. "He's in max security, with every kind of chakra suppressant they have in this place."
Kakashi forced in a deep breath, ignoring the agony flaring up deep inside his lungs. "Good," he said, as steadily as he could manage. The Grass outpost meant resources, a hot bath, food, and time to regroup and think about his next move. There was time enough to focus on Kabuto and figure out who was controlling him and what for.
"Rough mission?"
Kakashi gave him a lopsided grin under the mask. "I guess you could call it that," he said.
"Keep yourself together, alright?" Jiraiya straightened his back all the way, wincing as joints popped and crackled. "I'd like to know that the next time I see you won't be at the wrong end of an ANBU mission. Take some time off, put yourself on the teaching rosters and take on a team. Live a little. My newest book just came out last year, you know. Branching out into a new genre, I think you'll like it. I'll get you a copy once we get all sorted out from this mess."
"I know," Kakashi said, deeply enjoying the gobsmacked look on the older man's face. "I've read it a few times over by now. It's good."
"Merciful heavens," Jiraiya muttered, rubbing the stubble on his weathered face. "Are you even old enough to read that kind of stuff?"
"I'm-" Kakashi hesitated, wondering now how to even calculate his age. Was he still thirty? Or twenty? Or perhaps the trick of it was to add up the numbers? "-old enough to drink, even," he compromised.
Jiraiya humphed, crossing his arms over his chest, sharp eyes missing nothing. "Like the law ever mattered to you," he said. "Alright kiddo, let's get you upstairs and into the hands of a medic-nin, don't want you bleeding out on this damned floor. And once you're settled, I've gotta get going. Old man's probably gonna chew my ass out for being late."
"Are you going back to the Village?" Kakashi winced as Jiraiya placed a steady arm around his shoulders, grateful for the support as he struggled to get his legs moving. His right arm dangled helplessly by his side, chakra coils completely blown out; his left was hardly better as he used it to lean against the wall.
"Politics," Jiraiya spat, his thick bushy tail of hair nearly blinding Kakashi as he turned his head. "Looks like it's gearing up to be a real nasty fight between the Council and the Uchiha."
Kakashi's heartbeat stuttered to a stop. "What do you mean?" he asked thickly, mouth going numb.
"Uchiha Sasuke, Fugaku's second son-well, sounds like he's gone missing and the Uchiha are blaming Danzou. The old goat's denying everything of course, and the Uchiha aren't happy, the Councilors are upset with the Uchiha for making baseless accusations, knives are being pointed everywhere and the old man's convinced that Danzou's gonna use this somehow and blow up the whole village, maybe even engineer his way into wearing the old hat." Jiraiya blew out a gusty sigh, wooden geta scraping loudly on the tiled floor. "It's a fucking mess is what it is."
"Sasuke's...gone missing?"
Jiraiya clattered to a sudden stop, gripping Kakashi's shoulders tightly. "Oi, oi, stay with me here. What's wrong?"
Sasuke was missing.
Kakashi closed his lone eye and felt the entire world vanish beneath him.
"Oi! Brat! I did not risk my life to save your fucking ass only for you to die in front of me. Kakashi!"
He'd come all this way and it was going to be for nothing.
"Kakashi! Snap out of it, damn you! Is there a medic out there? Medic!"
Sasuke was most likely dead, Danzou was going to have his massacre and the pack that he had killed himself to save was gone. He should have never left for this godforsaken mission, never let them out of his sight, how could he have been so stupid as to fall for the trap, with Kabuto lying in wait-
Kabuto.
He opened Obito's eye, tomoe swirling lazily in a pool of blood red. Jiraiya's face moved in slow motion; the span between each eyeblink was a small eternity, each breath containing a universe of meaning. Hundreds and thousands of possibilities sprang forth into being, until past and present and future became one amorphous being, held in the spinning infinity of Obito's gift.
"Let go of me," Kakashi said softly.
"Are you mad? We need to get you to the infirmary-"
"Jiraiya," Kakashi said, his voice deathly cold. "Don't make me repeat myself."
Slowly, reluctantly, Jiraiya moved away. Kakashi read a thousand emotions in the old man's face and dismissed them all instantly.
"Kakashi, what are you doing?"
Kakashi looked down at his charred right hand, still clenched in a bloody and blackened fist. "I'm going to finish what I started," he said. "Tell me, where is the prisoner being held?"
"Captain!"
Kakashi didn't bother to slow down, trusting Tenzou to catch up with him.
"You're leaving behind a trail of blood," Tenzou said, voice pitched low enough so that Jiraiya, who was following behind at a distance, wouldn't hear.
Kakashi didn't bother to answer, instead giving his subordinate a quick once over to make sure the medics cleaned him up. His hands were freshly bandaged and there was a little color to his cheeks, though the great purple bruises under his eyes nearly took up half his face.
"Did you get your medkit back?"
"What?" Tenzou's hand moved automatically to his waist. "Yes, of course, but-"
"If I could borrow it for a moment." Kakashi held out his left hand.
"Captain!"
There was a long silence, filled up by the sound of Jiraiya's wooden geta clacking against the floor.
Tenzou unclipped the pouch at his hip and slowly handed it over, deep furrows etched into his brow.
Kakashi came to a stop as he accepted it and flicked it open as best he could with the same hand. He dry swallowed two soldier pills, spitting out the plastic wrapping onto the floor, then picked out a tiny vial of stimulant and a hypodermic needle.
"I'm going to need you to assist me with this." He caught Tenzou's wide brown eyes and added calmly, "I will make sure that they see fit to restock your supplies."
Tenzou sputtered. "That's not the point! Captain, you haven't slept in days, your chakra reserves are probably running low, your fist is a bloody mess and you've just been pulled through a long-distance human summoning! The backlash from that kind of space-time manipulation should put you in bed for days, let alone all the other injuries you have. You need rest, not- not whatever it is you're doing right now!"
Kakashi looked at him and said nothing.
Jiraiya snorted from behind. "Face it, kid. Kakashi's gone off his rocker."
"Jiraiya-sama," Tenzou said wretchedly. "You've got to do something."
Jiraiya opened his mouth, paused and then shook his head. "I don't think anyone can stop him at this point," he said, in a very different tone of voice.
Kakashi gave Tenzou a level look. "Well?"
Tenzou swallowed hard. "Promise me you'll see a medic," he said. "After this."
"Yes, I will," Kakashi lied and watched in silence as Tenzou drew up the vial with steady hands, golden liquid pooling in the glass tube. Kakashi hardly noticed the prick of the needle as it sank deep into the muscle of his arm, instead focusing on the smoky streams of artificial chakra starting to flow through his body.
"It's done."
"Good." Kakashi gave back the kit and flexed his left hand, controlling the fine tremors that were already beginning to surface. It was enough.
They had stopped at an intersection, white walls physically unmarked to confuse possible intruders. Kakashi flicked Obito's eye open, checked the chakra markers, and turned the corner to face the broad expanse of an empty wall.
With the Sharingan, he could make out chakra burning deep patterns into the wall, twisting and turning like phantom clockwork gears. Another time, he might have stopped to study the magnificent sealing work, the tiny intricate arrays that ticked in happy concert, each part adding to the greater whole.
There was no time for finesse any longer.
Kakashi drew his mask down and bit deep into his thumb, drawing blood. It glowed an iridescent blue, imbued with his chakra.
Tenzou and Jiraiya had discreetly inclined their heads away when he pulled down his mask, a fact for which Kakashi was distantly grateful for. Stretching up at far as he could go, Kakashi moved his hand in broad sweeping motions, each stroke made as thick and strong as possible.
It was only a single character, as tall and wide as a man:
Release.
Kakashi slammed his hand on the wall and imbued it with as much chakra as he could spare. The character lit up instantly like a torch, blinding the Sharingan. Kakashi let the tears drip down, unheeded.
Cracks splintered throughout the wall everywhere the seal touched it, chakra patterns fracturing under the weight of Kakashi's command.
Behind him, Jiraiya pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered something along the lines of "miserable little son of a bitch."
"What did he do?" Tenzou whispered.
"Imagine you are in a china shop," Jiraiya said, not bothering to lower his voice at all. "Imagine hundreds of delicate porcelain dishes worth more than you own life in all these nice glass shelves. In this metaphor, by the way, the wall is the china shop."
"Jiraiya-sama-"
"Then imagine taking a sledgehammer and crushing everything."
The wall shattered, chunks of plaster and wood and stone falling to the ground in a cloud of dust. Chakra crackled and flared in bright blue bursts like sparks of lightning in between the billowing pillars of smoke. It was as if a small thunderstorm had suddenly formed in the middle of the hallway, foreboding rain in the end of the hallway.
"Ah," Tenzou said. "I see."
Kakashi picked his way around the rubble, ignoring the warning sirens blazing over his head. A gape mouthed Yamanaka clutched a stack of paperwork to her chest as Kakashi stepped into the hidden room that was revealed by the broken wall.
"Where is he?"
She stared at him uncomprehendingly.
"Where is he," Kakashi said again and let his killing intent wash through the entirety of the room.
"You broke the seals," the Yamanaka said stiltedly, blue eyes wide.
Kakashi snarled.
Jiraiya breezed past him and took the woman about the shoulders, smiling broadly. "Hanako-chan! Well, you've only grown more beautiful since I last saw you!"
She shuddered and seemed to wake from her daze, cheeks flushing a bright red when she caught Jiraiya sneaking a look down her shirt. "Jiraiya-sama!"
Jiraiya rubbed his cheek where she'd slapped him, grinning. "And just as strong as I remembered too. Sorry about the mess, Kakashi's just a little over excited. You know how it is."
Hanako swallowed and looked at what used to be the wall separating the interrogation cells from the main outpost. "No, not really," she said. Her eyes flicked over to Kakashi briefly.
"I know it's a pain, but we're looking for the newest prisoner brought in just now. Goes by the name Kabuto, gray hair."
"He's not fit to be questioned," Hanako said sharply. "He's been seriously injured and I haven't even been able to give him the full patdown physically, let alone mentally. He could have a cyanide tooth or a mental genjutsu planted on him. It's not safe."
"He won't kill himself," Kakashi said flatly. "I won't let him."
"But-" She swallowed her protests as Kakashi looked at her, Obito's eye wide and unblinking. "He's in Unit 6A."
Kakashi swept past her and through the doorway lodged innocuously in the corner, marked only by a small discreet seal. The rest of the room was filled with filing cabinets and desks; the only other doorway in the room had a very large and ostentatious padlock that Kakashi suspected to be just for show.
The seal on the doorjamb tore like wet paper as he applied a smaller release seal, thumb still dripping with blood.
The overwhelming stench of bleach was the first thing he smelled when he opened the door. Everything was scrubbed meticulously clean, until he could hardly tell the wall from the floor from the ceiling. There were no windows, nor clocks nor even pieces of art on the wall to differentiate place or time. Not even light. Kakashi stepped into the small piece of eternity and headed for the only occupied cell.
Kakashi pressed his bloody hand against the seal of the cell door, blasting through rice paper and ink through sheer power. The cast iron door swung inward silently, revealing a metal cot bolted to the wall, with a chamberpot secured to the ground next to it.
Kabuto lay shackled to his bed, medical seals hiding the gaping hole in his middle. His chest rose in shallow, gasping motions, eyes closed as if in sleep.
Kakashi bent over the sleeping boy and drew down his mask.
"Hello, Kabuto," he smiled, baring his fangs.
Kabuto's black eyes snapped open and Kakashi reveled in the sickly sour scent of fear.
"We were very rudely interrupted before," he said and drew out a fresh kunai. "Why don't we begin again?"
Even evil masterminds kept tidy offices. Shisui slipped into the room in full uniform, mask loosely secured to his hip. The desk was unoccupied, with a tidy set of invoice boxes that Uncle Fugaku had in his office as well. Bookcases filled with philosophical treatises and dusty tomes dating back to the Shodai's time lined the walls. No windows, which said a lot more about the man than any kind of book he read or the type of office furniture he used.
"Uchiha Shisui, isn't it?"
"Councilman!" Shisui automatically went down on a knee, fist pressed against his heart.
A cane tapped steadily on the floorboards and from the corner of his eye, he could just make out deep black folds of cloth sweeping along the ground.
"You may rise, Agent," Danzou said formally and Shisui pulled himself back up to his feet in one fluid motion, careful not to make direct eye contact with the man.
"Allow me to congratulate you on your successful admission to the Corps, Uchiha-kun. I'm sure your skills would be of great use to the Hokage and the Village."
Shisui inclined his head deeply. "You honor me with your words, Councilman."
"You must be wondering why I've called you to this meeting."
"Sir-"
Danzou held up a hand and Shisui instantly fell silent. "No, let's not beat around the bush here." He gave Shisui a creaky smile. "I'm afraid since my retirement I've grown rather tired of shinobi circuitousness."
Shisui swallowed.
"The Sandaime personally nominated you for service," Danzou said, quiet. "I want to know why."
Shisui looked up and at Danzou for the first time, black eyes hard. "I asked him," he said simply.
"Asked-?" For one brief moment Danzou looked astonished, before he threw his head back and laughed, shoulders shaking. "You asked him- Sage Willing, this sounds exactly like something Hiruzen would agree to."
"Sir," Shisui said stiffly.
"No offense meant on your part," Danzou smiled and clapped his one hand down on the table. "Just an age-old philosophical disagreement I've had with my friend. Well then, young Uchiha-kun. What drove you to ask this of the Hokage himself?"
Shisui's hands instinctively clenched into white-knuckled fists. "I felt that I had the opportunity to serve the Village with the skills that I had. ANBU would have better use for my talents than any other mission available through ordinary channels."
"Oh?" Danzou leaned forward in his seat, face unreadable. "And why not wait until you were properly nominated and presented as a candidate?"
"I…" Shisui looked away. "My cousin," he said slowly. "Perhaps you've heard of him?"
"Uchiha Itachi?" Danzou made an unintelligible noise. "Yes, I suppose you could say I am aware of him."
"He has already been nominated and sworn in to serve the Corps," Shisui said, distantly observing the fine tremors in his shaking fists, as if his hands belonged to another man entirely. "At the age of twelve."
"Commendable."
"I am useful as well," Shisui said fiercely. "I am an Uchiha as well. I have unparalleled mastery of the Sharingan not found in elders thrice my age, let alone my age mates. I too wish to serve the Village in my own way. I knew that my clan would see Itachi in the Corps and be satisfied, and the rest of the Village would know no better. Is there not room enough for more than one Uchiha in the service?" Shisui shuddered and looked away, down at his ANBU-issue boots. The leather was smooth and uncracked, still yet to see blood or fire. "Can they not see beyond their own illusions?"
"Ahh," Danzou said and Shisui looked up, startled. The old man's eye was glittering, bright as a beetle's flashing carapace.
"Oh yes," he said softly. "I think you'll do very well indeed, Uchiha Shisui."
"I'm sorry, I just don't have a lot of time," Shisui mumbled, running a hand through his greasy hair. He stared numbly at the rumbling washing machine.
"Two cups of detergent," the woman said kindly, pointing at the orange bottle sitting by his feet.
"Oh, yes of course." Shisui bent down, fingers fumbling against the plastic handle. A thick syrupy blue liquid splashed on the ground and onto his toes, but he hardly felt it, busy pouring it straight into the drum. After a bit, it looked like two cups had gone in, so he dropped back onto the floor and shut the lid.
"Are you sure you're not being followed?"
Shisui jerked his shoulder over to the back, where an Aburame was busy folding his pile of jackets.
The woman stiffened, metal flashing in her hands.
"Don't worry," Shisui said, wiping his sticky hands on his uniform pants. "I've convinced him that nothing really is going on right now. Just doing my laundry on my offday like any other rookie operative desperate for clean clothes."
"Are you sure?" she asked, voice tight.
Shisui gave her a tired smile. "I have to be, to do this kind of stuff." He rolled his shoulders, stretching out the kinks in his muscles. "It's a thing I do," he said, waving vaguely at his eyes. "I build truths and sell them to people to believe. I'm pretty ok at it, I guess."
At her incredulous look he added, "I try not to do it on people I like. It's not very good at maintaining healthy relationships, you know."
"Ah," the woman said and turned back to unloading her own load of laundry. "So, how's life in the Corps?"
"I'm adjusting ok," he said, stuffing his hands into his pocket and staring at the washing machine. "My new friends just took me to a nice club down by the warehouse district. Creepy atmosphere, but it was worth it for the great mixed drinks."
She raised an eyebrow.
"I've never lived by myself before," he informed her. "It's fun. I've even been cooking for myself now."
"So, ramen?"
"Baby steps." He kicked the base of the machine with the tip of his foot. Pain burst in his toes, razor sharp and clarifying. Shisui tried to hold onto the feeling. "I still haven't figured out who's dating who and all the gossip about the members keeps flying over my head, but it's always like that when you join a new group. I feel like I'm gonna be playing catchup for awhile."
The woman slammed the door to the drum of the machine shut, picking up the laundry basket at her feet with a huff. "Sounds rough. How're you doing with the mission quota?"
Shisui's breath caught in the back of his throat. "I'm getting there," he forced out. "I just need a little more time."
"Don't forget about the bigger picture," she said, hitching the basket against her hip. She tossed her long wild hair over her shoulders, giving him a coy smile.
"See you later, shinobi-san," she winked. "Maybe I'll take you up on that offer sometime."
"Call me," Shisui said dully and handed over a crumpled piece of paper. The flirtatious look on her face smoothed into solemnity for a brief second before she turned away, swaying her hips.
"Now that's a fine ass honey," a man observed as he drifted up to the dryer the woman just vacated, laundry sack casually slung over a shoulder. "You get her number?"
"I saw her first," Shisui said and his eyes flickered red for a brief instant. "Right?"
"Who?" the man said blankly as he set his laundry down. "Are you talking to me?"
Shisui's mouth thinned out into a flat line. "Sorry, I thought you were someone I knew." He turned away, walking blindly towards the exit.
Just a little more time.
Shisui bowed his head.
At the sound of the morning bell, he shuddered awake and the ache in his head came back again. It was a round kind of pain, if he thought about it, big and crashing like the waves of the ocean he'd seen once on TV. But he didn't like thinking about it much, about anything at all, because it would just make the pain worse.
Sleep was better.
He closed his eyes.
"You have to get up or they'll take away your food again." Something latched onto his shoulder and shook him hard.
He curled up tight into a ball and tried to ignore it.
"Hey!"
The blanket suddenly disappeared and cold air swept over his skin and made his teeth hurt, like the time he'd tried biting on aluminum foil.
"New kid!'"
He hissed angrily and swiped at the hand.
"You've got to get up, I know it sucks. But you've gotta start eating or they'll take you away somewhere else. Somewhere bad." Something warm cupped his face. "Alright?"
He cracked open his eyes, soft blurry shapes slowly coming into focus. It was a big kid's face looking right at him, with strange white hair the color of snow.
"Good," the big kid said and he smiled, extra big and wide. "Time for breakfast."
For a brief moment, it was like having him back again, even if the hair was all wrong and the big kid had brown eyes instead of black. He scrunched up his eyes tight so the tears wouldn't leak out.
"Is he sick, nii-san?"
"He will be if he doesn't get his butt out of bed," the big kid grumbled. "Here, grab his arm, I'll get the rest."
He felt himself dragged out of bed- he flailed wildly before his leg hit the cold concrete floor and he yelped, the crashing waves in his head nearly drowning out all the other noise.
"Aw, I thought I told you to grab his arm!"
"I did!"
He quickly wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve and peered up blearily at the two boys standing above him. The other kid was smaller and had dark hair and black eyes and pale white skin, like his cousins. Like his family.
"Who are you guys?" he croaked.
"I'm number sixteen," the big kid with the white hair grinned. "And this-" he jerked a thumb towards the dark haired boy. "This is my little brother. He's number twenty two. What about you, new kid?"
"I'm-"
You no longer have a name. Tools do not require them.
"I'm thirty six," he said.
In the darkness, under the cover of the blankets, he told them stories of the world outside.
"Like on TV, there's this show about samurai, 'cept they're all different colors and they have swords and stuff."
"TV?" sixteen asked, curious. "I thought it was that box they show all those boring lessons and stuff on. Like how to sharpen your kunai and stuff like that."
"That too," thirty six said, waving his hands in the air. "But it's like a box for videos and stuff and then every Saturday morning, a video comes on about these samurai guys."
Twenty two gave the two of them a warning pinch. He was the one pretending to sleep like a boy while thirty six and sixteen pretended to be the blankets at his feet, talking excitedly. Tomorrow, it would be sixteen's turn to sleep and twenty two's turn to argue over the stories thirty six was telling.
"Sounds boring," sixteen said and there was a brief scuffle as thirty six tried to punch him underneath the blankets.
"If it's so boring then you can go back to sleep," thirty six threatened.
"Aww I'm only kidding," sixteen said and they quietened. "So, what about these samurai guys?"
"Well, they're like warriors, only they don't have chakra, they just have swords and they all have their own color. And the red one's the leader. And they're traveling throughout the world to fight evil monsters and save the world and bring honor back to their old country."
"Huh," sixteen said.
Twenty two slowly drifted to real sleep, lulled by the stories of the Super Sentai Samurai Warriors and their adventures in saving the world and protecting the peasantry. Just before the finals waves swept him away into darkness, thirty six told sixteen a different story, strange and scary enough to keep him anchored to this world.
"Do you remember your real name?"
"What?" For the first time in his life, twenty two heard the fear in sixteen's voice.
"Not the numbers, but our real names," thirty six persisted. "Like how the instructors have names like Iwato or Kazuhito."
"I-"
"I'm sorry," thirty six said suddenly. "I shouldn't have said anything.
There was a long silence, long and deep enough that twenty two almost thought that they had all fallen asleep before sixteen finally spoke up.
"I don't remember," sixteen said quietly. "Only the number I had at the old place, before they brought us all here into this big building and renumbered us all. I was eight before and twenty two was fifty six. I don't think he knows either. Maybe." Sixteen sounded unsure.
"I know my real name," thirty six said, so soft that twenty two almost couldn't hear him at all.
"They'll make you hurt for that!"
Twenty two could feel thirty six shifting around, hand brushing against his leg. "They took my ear away from me," he whispered, fierce. "But they can't take my name away."
"You're one of the dumbest, stupidest and bravest little kids I know."
Twenty two silently agreed. He squirmed a little, wanting to know, but if nii-san wouldn't ask-
"Can you tell me?"
Thirty six shivered. "Promise you won't tell?"
"I promise," sixteen swore.
"I am Uchiha Sasuke."