Sarutobi Hiruzen wasn't sure what to expect when his old student Orochimaru requested vacation time. Considering his past history of "time away from training and study is a waste of time that directly obstructs progress, Sensei," Hiruzen was tempted to send the jounin to T&I.

But he didn't. And now his cute (?) little student was off somewhere (he was too much of a ninja to let anyone know where) doing something (Hiruzen almost didn't want to know).

Hopefully Jiraiya hadn't rubbed off on the snake sannin.

Hiruzen rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighing, before turning back to his paperwork. It was well over two feet thick, and he couldn't wait to dump it on the next hokage so that he could finally take a vacation of his own.

Orochimaru was quite pleased with himself. While the idiot Danzo was skirting danger by abducting preexisting children, he had discovered (and perfected) cloning. All he needed was a large enough sample of DNA, and he could grow perfectly functioning soldiers and test subjects from the safety of his lab. Forget his initial (and idiotic) plan of implanting children with DNA - the failure rate was unacceptable, and even if Hiruzen allowed him to collect subjects from surrounding areas, Orochimaru didn't care that much about the overpopulation issue in the cities.

He had his own problem, and that was achieving immortality in order to learn every jutsu ever created. And, as if a gift from Kami (if he believed that Kami gave out gifts), he found that so long as the body grown was kept catatonic for the formative years, he could implant a foreign personality into it in a strange brand of reincarnation. It was a ticket to learning bloodline limits, and he needed to get samples for later.

No one would miss the bodies, either, seeing as a few of the graves he had unearthed were likely to have predated the founders' era.

Orochimaru sealed away another coffin, used a doton jutsu to close the grave back up, and slipped away into the night. He still needed to visit Kiri, of course.

Arashi Asuka was not expecting to wake up again. Especially not as a munchkin baby in the arms of some creepy guy with bandages all over his face. She frowned and studied him until he handed her off to some blank-masked minion. She could feel the dullness of other minions' chakras on the edges of her senses a few metres away, and frowned at her significantly reduced range. She needed to fix that and get out of this weird underground cavern. Arashi were never meant to be trapped, of course.

It was far too troublesome to have to deal with brats again, but here he was, stuck as a brat. Nara Shikayoru, clan head (or at least he had been the clan head) of the Nara and mortal enemy to one Hyuuga Hitori. That woman made his blood pressure rise like no one's business. His half-lidded eyes took in the creeping underground hallways he was being carried through. It would be too much effort to try and escape, so he would see what was going on first.

Uchiha Izuna was not happy. The Senju bastard had killed him - why was he here? And where was his brother!? He wanted out of this place but all he could make were annoying screaming noises - listen to him! He wanted out!

Senju Tobirama was done. He had helped Hashirama build the village, completed the paperwork in an acceptable manner after Hashirama died, had given his life to save his genin team, and now he was here. Wherever "here" was. If this was some idiots attempt at using Edo Tensei, then he was going to have words with them about why exactly he had labelled it forbidden. He took a deep breath and raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, only to freeze midway. His breathing accelerated as his nausea increased two-fold. Whatever jutsu this was, it was far worse than Edo Tensei. He was going to get out of this underground nursery base and murder whoever invented it before he died this time.

Hyuuga Hitori was dignified. She was. Even as her diaper was being changed, she was dignified. She would stab anyone through the eye with a smile if they dared to even consider thinking otherwise.

Uzumaki Reiko was interested to see that she was finally living up to her name. She had been reincarnated, right? What else could this be? She was excited to see what would happen in her new life. Was there a reason for her to be kept underground? Was the surface of this land dangerous? Had the summons taken over? Was Asuka around here somewhere? Reiko giggled to herself and waved at another of the funny masked nin. They were so awkward it was actually cute.

Hatake Sakumo didn't want to be alive, but here he was. And the more time passed, the more he felt ashamed, realizing that he should have set Kakashi up with a relative and killed himself on a mission instead of likely traumatizing his poor son. He could at least apologize now.

(Sakumo was not expecting to see that he was a baby, and the caretakers were at a loss of what to do with their continuously unreactive charge - Danzo wanted the children that survived Orochimaru to be useful, of course.)

Yuki Eiji knew he wasn't in Kiri when a bandaged man all but cooed over his sloppy ice jutsu. Eiji was quickly moved to a new room and more tests were done. He was concerned that his caretakers were throwing around his clan name now like it was normal, but he figured that considering the lack of aggression on their part, he was safe for the time being.

Hozuki Mangetsu was grateful to see that there was no green spandex in sight. He didn't need to have his defeat rubbed in his face so soon. Especially considering that he still couldn't find the strength to sit upright. He resigned himself to Kisame's future teasing and rested.

A hoped that all the shinobi that tried to take Kumo were equally as miserable in the afterlife. He couldn't think of any situation worse than being force-fed mashed vegetables.

The Third Kazekage spent his time planning the demise of one Akasuna no Sasori. (His dreams were sweet, and his caretakers were resigned to wait until the ball finally dropped. It took him two months to notice his newfound "youth," and they had to call an emergency medical check-up to make sure he wasn't having a heart attack at the tender age of 16 months.)

Danzo was very disappointed in Orochimaru. How dare the sannin leave him with babies to take care of. Root only hired as young as four, and these piles of uselessness were barely past their first birthdays!

And they were defective, too. Some were nearly catatonic at all times, while others made every effort to be spiteful little shits to the Root babysitters. Danzo couldn't raise them all - mainly because he didn't want to. So he decided to pick the most promising of the group to keep and train as a special strike force.

The only problem was that he had no idea what genes Orochimaru used for each of the babies. At this point in time, they were all little flabby balls of flesh. Useless and helpless. Only five had been positively identified as one clan or another. There was a Hyuuga (the byakugan would be invaluable in the future). There was an Iburi who died during transport after turning into smoke and dispersing. A Yuki with promising signs of prodigy-hood (Danzo was definitely keeping that one). A Hozuki (the number of times he had to stuff that child into a giant jar to keep him in place after he turned into water was not something Danzo wanted to think about). And, finally, an Uzumaki - he was almost certain of it. The tomato-red hair and water nature was a dead giveaway. As was her personality. (He was not shuddering, damn it!)

The others, he wasn't certain about.

There was a girl with grey hair and gold eyes, three black-haired boys (2 pairs of black eyes, one pale lilac), two boys with grey-white hair (one with red eyes and the other with dark grey - his mind niggled at him as if to warn him of something he was forgetting), and a darker-skinned boy with blonde hair.

So he had an Uzumaki, Hyuuga, Hozuki, Yuki, and seven unknowns. Eleven total out of the twelve initial (he suspected that Orochimaru was planning on having four teams of clones). Danzo only wanted half - the rest would go to the orphanage for him to pick up later.

But. He thought. Orochimaru would not have cloned just anyone - maybe it would be best to soldier through and keep them all.

Danzo handed his best Root agents their next assignment. He would need to rotate them to prevent any attachments from forming.

If only he had waited a few more years to frame Orochimaru, he could have skipped the babysitting, but the snake was too dangerous to leave alone.

Danzo breathed out evenly. The picture of poised control.

He now had to order his personal strike force, more extensively trained and drilled than ANBU, to babysit 11 infants.

Somewhere in the Land of Fire, Orochimaru sneezes as he wonders who the DNA he found in random graves was from.

He had been curious - he wanted to know who had been respected enough to be put in graves, of all things (instead of burning the body or otherwise disposing of it). He also wanted to know how some of Konoha's more famous members would grow up if raised in a different environment.

Oh well. He would spy on Konoha to see how things with his twelve were going.

(Much, much earlier)

"Hello? …Why is there a baby over here?"

Jiraiya looked between the baby and the completely empty clearing. No footprints. No kunai marks. Just a little brat staring at him. (Judging him.)

"What are you looking at-"

The baby frowned (adorable!), and then there was only smoke in the clearing. Jiraiya froze. A moment passed. Then he panicked.

"Uh, kid?! Where are you kid?! …My face isn't that horrifying, is it?"

The smoke puffed away even faster and Jiraiya scrambled after it. "Come baaack! Tsunade will kill me if I leave a kid out here alone."

He shuddered.

"She always finds things like this out. I don't know how. It's terrifying and there's no escape." (It's definitely not because he babbles about things like this when he's drunk off his ass. Nope. That never happened that one time.)

And so Orochimaru accidentally succeeded at life.

(Needless to say, chaos ensued.)