The shifting echoes alerted Sasuke to the abrupt change in scenery. The blindfold over his eyes was uncomfortable, but he would not get another opportunity to deal with Danzou so easily, so he would endure. He shifted his head slightly, attempting to adjust it so it was a bit more bearable, but to no avail. His escorts would not adjust it if he asked, and even if they would, his pride would not let him.

Echoing drops of condensation hitting the concrete ground on his right side alerted him to just how small this passage was. Did they use an earth jutsu to move a hidden door? He sensed no chakra. They certainly did not enter the sewers; he had not climbed into a manhole.

It would be interesting to find out ROOT's hideout's mechanics once he assassinated Danzou.

Sasuke was pushed into a sharp turn, and the damp smells washed away as the echoes of their footsteps softened. Whatever tunnel they had traveled through had opened up into some kind of larger cavern.

Chakra flickered, and he noted the position of four more ROOT within this network of caverns.

Danzou needs to train her shinobi better.

Sasuke paused for a second in realization. The guards did their duty, but they did not pay any special attention to him. Danzou did not tell them why she wished to meet with him. She did not tell her agents of his capabilities. They did not perceive him to be a threat.

He had to hold back a wicked smile. Danzou's distrust would be her downfall.

A rough shove at his back told him to keep moving. He struggled not to simply turn around and stab the agent. Sasuke kept walking.

He was led down what seemed like a series of winding tunnels. He would bet there were more, or at least false walls, given the faint chakra signatures beyond where Sasuke bet the walls were.

Past the damp air and stony scents, Sasuke was brought to a stop. A click of some kind of lock sounded before Sasuke's hair was buffeted by a small rush of wind and the telltale creak of an opening door sounded. He was marched into the room before the doors closed and his blindfold was pulled off.

He almost wished they kept it on.

Shimura Danzou sat before him, her stern gaze boring into his. The age and wrinkles were still there, as were the robes, but the bandages over her arm were not nearly as thick, and the arm itself was not tucked into her robes. The bandages over her eye were still there, but Sasuke could not detect the Uchiha chakra signature he expected from the bandaged oculus.

No braces on her arm, no Sharingan signature, no massacre. She likely only has Senju cells at this point.

This might be a lot easier than he thought.

Danzou tapped her cane on the ground twice, and the agents behind him vanished.

"I do hope you'll forgive my rudeness, but I believe you understand when I say it is imperative that our secrets are kept, Uchiha-san."

Sasuke sat down in the chair behind him. "Of course, shinobi-sama."

"Please, just Danzou-san is fine. My agents told you of me, did they not?" she gestured behind him with a finger, hand still upon her cane.

"They did," he confirmed, nodding slightly. His eyes shifted slightly, checking the walls. "They did not say why you wished to speak to me, however."

Danzou set her cane down. "I am interested in the left eye you have, covered by your hair. By all rights, it should be impossible for a man to use doujutsu. Why can you?"

Sasuke snorted, breaking his formal composure. He leaned back slowly — deliberately — his visible eye locked with the old woman's. "And what do I stand to gain from this exchanged?" he asked, an air of derision creeping into his voice.

"An excellent question, Indra-san. I will pose to you an offer. Are you willing to swear your loyalty and services to the future of Konoha in exchange for power, wealth and comfort beyond your imagination?"

"I might be interested," Sasuke responded, narrowing his visible eye slightly in intrigue. "Let me think about it for a minute."

He steepled his fingers, putting on a small show of being deep in thought.

Danzou has no plans to place me in any real position of power; I'm more likely to be locked away as an experiment. She'll say whatever she needs to give the Uchiha a believable reason why I disappeared after a day. She's clearly desperate that my secret doesn't leak out, she knows international politics might flip entirely if one country could breed male shinobi while no other country could. It's too much of a manpower increase to ignore. She's struck too soon, however. If she were more patient….

Sasuke exhaled lightly. Another show. He locked eyes with Danzou once again. Her poker face remained unchanged in the dim light.

"I'm willing to except your offer, Danzou-san," he smiled lightly to her. She nodded, as if it was the answer she was expecting. "What exactly would my responsibilities and rewards be?"

The old woman sat forward a bit more and folded her hands on her desk, ready to launch into a dubious explanation to convince the man to take her offer.

"Of course, your responsibilities will be relatively—"

Black flames consumed the woman's flesh like a starving demon, spreading from her trachea across her entire body. The air began to smell of ash and char. Sasuke's Mangekyou Sharingan faded back to its normal coal-black hue.

A seal activated before Danzou burned away entirely, warping the air within the room and sucking it all in towards the dying woman.

Sasuke was ready for it.

A quick turn of his head and a whispered word, and space shifted. Sasuke replaced himself with the door, and it was quickly annihilated by Danzou's final suicide seal.

The ROOT agents attacked.

Sasuke waded past the assassins, ducking and weaving effortlessly past blades as he took down the first few shinobi with precisely placed palm and elbow strikes. He threw the downed agents at their allies to create space for himself. The kunoichi refused to give him that space.

Another squad rushed him, one with fire on her lips and another with wind in her palms. He struck like lightning, breaking the wrists of the fire user and turning her around to face the wind-wielding ninja. She abandoned her attack and moved mostly out of the way of her ally's line of fire. The woman's scream of pain released her fire jutsu right back at her allies, and her teammate was not fast enough. Her right side was scorched, though not fatally, and she quickly put out her burning clothes with a rolling landing, but she was too injured to continue fighting.

The other half of the four-member cell attacked Sasuke from the floor and ceiling, bursting out of the earth itself.

Not a bad plan, but not good enough.

Sasuke stepped into the kunai swing coming from the rising woman, grasping her bicep and throwing her at the attacker dropping down from the ceiling. The two collided in the air. Sasuke summoned a weighted chain from one of the storage seals on his arm and quickly bound the two together before pulling them down to him.

He stepped back and to the side as he whirled into a spinning heel kick. He felt one of their ribs give as his foot impacted their back. The two were sent flying across the corridor. He resealed his chain so it would not rob them of their momentum.

None of their allies moved to catch them, merely moving out of the way. The two landed harshly farther down the labyrinth.

A silent stillness descended. No one made a move.

"Why are you fighting? You attempt to avenge a dead woman who lied to you all. She stole you from your families, your friends, and warped your minds to her whim. She branded you her slaves and took your future from you," Sasuke called out to them. They did not lower their guard, and a few only further set their stances. It seemed he had not talked them down yet. Sasuke exhaled, disappointed.

So be it.

The ROOT members sprang into action once more. Two struck out with their blades. He disarmed one with a shoulder throw and used her blade to cut the tendon of the other agent.

"Shimura Danzou was not Konoha. Your very existence under her marks her a traitor to Konoha. She trained and slaughtered orphans for soldiers that would never question her. She made deals with enemies and traitors for her own personal gain. She would slaughter Konoha's very children if it meant she could rule the mountain of corpses she created!" Sasuke's voice continually rose in volume, rage building in his breath as he fought against Danzou's piteous kunoichi. One more assassin dropped down onto him from behind, intending on crushing his skull, but was intercepted and thrown across the bleak corridor with a newly dislocated shoulder. A loud thud rang out as her back hit a stone wall and she fell to the floor. Sasuke turned once more and took in the sight

They're just victims of the same bastard my clan fell to. They deserve another chance.

The chance my family never got.

Another three struck out at him from different angles. He avoided one to the left and lashed out with a kick, sending her flying. He caught the second by the forearm, smashed his elbow into her head and threw her unconscious body at the third, forcing her to stop her advance to catch her ally.

"How many of your friends, your brothers and sisters did you murder under her orders? Did she not have you kill your own family as she had you kill your souls?! You would stand by and watch as she deemed the death of your country's lifeblood a necessity?!"

More rushed at him. He did not bother to count them.

Shinra Tensei.

They were all flung backwards bonelessly. The message was clear.

None of them could touch him.

"You all served a megalomaniac, not a patriot. The only Konoha Danzou approved of was her version. She did not serve Konoha, she wished Konoha would serve her. If all of you are truly loyal to this country, you will reveal yourselves to the Hokage and explain exactly what Shimura Danzou has done. She is dead; the seals on your tongues are no longer active. Go and follow this country's true leader. Ensure Konoha's families are preserved."

Sasuke stepped past the agents. None tried to stop him.

He made it a good while down the winding pathways before he realized he was entirely lost.

Danzou had designed her labyrinth well. The dark stone tunnels twisted, turned and split in continually more confusing fashions. It did not take long for his unfamiliarity with the area to bite him in the ass. His chakra sensory abilities gave him approximate locations of agents through the walls, but he could not find how to navigate Danzou's underground sanctum.

Breaking out through the ceiling will attract too much attention. I doubt I'll be able to get away without anyone taking notice.

Sasuke glanced back the way he came.

Trial and error, then.

He trekked back and forth across various identical tunnels, only his Sharingan keeping him from losing his sense of direction down various repeat pathways. The cold stone and limited sight were of little concern to him, but he still was no closer to escaping the Warhawk's labyrinth. The lack of progress began to grate on his patience, and his pace slowly became more frenetic.

Minutes passed by, then an hour. The sprawling underground seemingly had no exits. If he took too long, then he would be found by Konoha's shinobi. If even one ROOT member followed his suggestion, they would likely be explaining everything to the Hokage at this moment.

He refused to be stuck in a cell again.

A shift of feet behind him. Two small girls, both barely adolescents, stood at attention behind him. The telltale ROOT masks and blades they wore signified their allegiance. Silver hair peeked through the taller girl's hood. The smaller one's hood was down, revealing neatly cropped black hair.

He stared back at them for a minute. They stayed silent, so he turned and began to walk again. They followed him. The two girls did so diligently as he followed another winding cavern and came to yet another dead end. Sasuke realized he would not be rid of the two without resorting to violence, so he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and reigned in his temper.

The Uchiha turned to the two girls and stared down at them.

"Do you two need something?"

The silver-haired girl nodded slightly and stepped forward.

"Sir, I can offer you a hand in exiting this facility if you are lost."

Sasuke blinked.

"And you want something in exchange." It was not a question.

"Yes."

"What?"

"I want out. I don't want to continue being a shinobi. And I want my sister to be safe," she gestured to the smaller woman.

He glanced back and forth between them. "You two aren't blood related."

"We were raised in the same orphanage. Danzou takes us in pairs and trains us, then has us fight to the death to kill our emotions. Most of the trainees have siblings."

Sasuke's fist clenched. Another sin marring Danzou's soul.

"And you want to be brought back to an orphanage?"

The girl hesitated. She clearly wanted to say something, but it would not come out of her mouth.

The younger girl stepped forward earnestly. "We want to stay with you, please!"

He blinked. He certainly was not expecting that.

"Why?"

"I don't want to be interrogated. We'll be in house arrest forever. If we're with you, you'll protect us," the taller agent reasoned.

"If the ROOT agents tell the Hokage about what happened, they'll know about me. I'll be kept under watch too; it won't make a difference."

The silver-haired girl shook her head in disagreement.

"You're strong. Maybe stronger than the Hokage. It's better than not having any protection. We don't have any leverage without you, and you can't get out of here without help. The real passageways are keyed with seals that we have tattooed on us."

Sasuke paused to think it over.

If I can make it out of this without everything getting out of hand, I might be able to use these two. Extra scouts are useful, and they might have more information on various nukenin. That's if they're fully trained, though. If they aren't, it's a heavy time investment.

I'll see what I can get out of them.

"Fine," he assented. "I can probably get us a place, but you both will follow my orders to the letter if I give them. Make sure you don't attract the wrong people's attention. We're going to be interrogated either way, so say as little as you can about me without sounding like you're hiding things."

The older girl nodded. "We can do that." The younger girl followed suit, though a bit more hesitantly.

Sasuke was led by the hand of the silver-haired child through the dark, winding passageways as he put his faith in this small girl to lead him outside once more. As she passed by certain walls or turns, seals on the wall lit up, matching a small set of sigils on her bare upper-right arm. His cheeks burned with minor humiliation at being unable to find and properly decipher the hidden seals on the walls. Sasuke should have known that fuinjutsu was Danzou's favored method of accomplishing most tasks. Even if deciphering them would have been difficult, he at least could have tried to uncover them.

One of the walls shifted open, revealing a separate set of passageways unknown to Sasuke at first. A breeze flowed through the passageways lightly, brushing past his skin. The air was no longer stale, a breath of freshness washed through his body as Sasuke inhaled.

He had not realized how quickly he could forget the taste of fresh air.

The children led him onward, through further corridors with certain seals lighting up on the walls of each corner. Braking left one final time, they brought him to a mild incline leading upwards and pressed in one of the stones on the wall near the dead end. The wall shifted open, revealing the dawning sun shining upon Konohagakure.

The breeze was much stronger this morning. He enjoyed it.

"Masks off. Seal away your swords, we're going to go get you some civilian clothes. I don't want you two standing out," he ordered them. They nodded and complied without hesitation, sealing away their masks, weapons and cloaks, leaving only their black turtlenecks and pants. The sandals were still a giveaway, but there was nothing to be done about that for now. Sasuke could only hope to find them new clothes quickly and run into as few shinobi as possible before they found a store.

Glancing back, Sasuke did not recognize the silver haired child, but the black-haired girl's paper-white face immediately clicked in his mind.

This is Sai.

Holy shit, she was small. Were all his teammates this small, or was she simply malnourished? How old even was she?

Wait, that could be important. Sai was the same age as us.

"How old are the both of you? And do you have names?" He asked them both. The older child looked back at him.

"I'm thirteen, she's eleven. We don't have names, I was called two-zero-zero-eight-seven in the underground, and she was two-zero-zero-eight-eight."

Sasuke nodded. "You'll need civilian names if you're going to integrate into society cleanly. Pick one and remember it."

They thought about it for a while as Sasuke took the lead, guiding them to a nearby apparel shop.

"…I think I'd like to be Shin," the older one finally spoke up, a small smile crossing her face. "So that I remember not to take my new life for granted."

He nodded in approval. It was a fine name.

He turned to Sai as well. "And you?"

She shook her head, no emotion of any kind in her eyes. He saw little motivation within her.

"Then you will be Sai. Remember it well. Both of you practice calling each other your new names, you will need to learn to respond to them on reflex."

A spark of emotion appeared in Sai's eyes, though he could not tell what it was.

"Seal away my cloak and sword. I'll have to pass as a civilian, they'll pay more attention to me than to you. Stick by my side until we're out of the store."

They clung to him like lost children.

Humans were warmer than Sasuke remembered.

A few purchases and a change of clothes later, Sasuke and his tagalongs swept through the dusty side streets of Konohagakure, taking care to avoid any shinobi lookouts they could and to act as a normal father in front of the surveillance they could not. Normally surveillance was less alert after dawn, as most infiltrations happened just before dawn, but the security around the city seemed to be more aware and numerous than usual. They were seen on every street corner, every rooftop, almost in some kind of manhunt. He had to assume one of the ROOT agents talked. They were likely tracking down any that were attempting to escape the city.

They were hunting his new companions.

I can't assume that whoever talked said or did not say that I was a man. If they did, then it might not be long before my cover is blown. They might be trying to find me already. If not, then most of them won't look twice at a man and two children. Either way, we'll have to stay put and lay low. Trying to escape will raise flags; put eyes on us. I'll have to wait until the alert is down and they think everyone has been found or escaped.

As far as he knew, ROOT had no documentation of their existence, and thus no documentation of their members. Tracking down every member would be impossible. He had to cover Sai and Shin's existence as his own children and operate on the premise that he was not a known quantity yet. If he was, then ANBU would find him, and he would not be able to escape without causing a scene and leaking his existence to even more people, possibly destabilizing the political landscape and painting a massive target on his back. He would have to let himself be taken in in and bargain with the Hokage for secrecy.

A troublesome position, to be certain, but he would rather have to deal with one village than be hunted by all of them.

He brought the girls to the hotel via the back, disabling the alarm seal by slipping a seal between the door and the frame. Sasuke peeked in the door a crack to check for any persons in sight and found the drab employee areas empty.

"Clear. Limit chakra use, we'll have to act as civilians for now. We'll stay in the hotel room, I have it booked for a few days, we can act as civilians for a couple weeks if we aren't a known quantity to ANBU yet."

The dark-haired man waved the little operatives in, sneaking in behind them and suppressing his chakra. They hid behind steel-topped chef's counters and fine wooden desks to avoid hotel staff and security pacing around the building. They had a close call near the end but managed to slip past the employees and make it to the stairs, where they walked up and pretended they were civilians until they reached the door and were in the room.

Sasuke locked the door with a small lockpicking tension tool he had on hand before he sat down and gestured for the children to sit on the bed. Sai and Shin hopped up and sat on the rim of the mattress, their feet dangling off the side as they looked at him curiously.

Sasuke took a breath, deep in thought.

"We stay here for now. We'll get caught if we try to make an escape anytime soon. The village is on too high alert," he told the kids as he peeped out of the window behind the curtains, watching kunoichi of all ranks buzz about like a disturbed hornet's nest.

"Er, Indra-san," Shin pulled at the edge of Sasuke's shirt. He tore his eyes away from the goings-on of the outside to look at his new charge. "What do we do about food? We can go without for a day, but…" she trailed off, unwilling to finish her sentence. Out of embarrassment, perhaps?

Sasuke nodded towards his large travel bag in the corner. "I have rations and dehydrated meals in the pack. Second front pocket. It will last us for today, we can get hot water from the sink. We'll stock up on groceries tomorrow. I might be able to get some from the Uchiha compound, they'll likely be expecting me around anyway." Now that he thought about it, Mikoto might get suspicious if he disappeared for good right after Danzou was assassinated. Best to go back and act like he knew nothing if no one apprehended him.

Now he just needed to explain to his mother that he would not be staying in Konoha all that long.

A thought for later.

Sasuke collapsed on the bed and fell asleep.

He awoke mid-afternoon to the sound of his new charges trying to light an incendiary tag to boil water. The distinctive hissing immediately set him on high alert as his eyes shot open and he leapt out of bed to attempt to mitigate the damage. Thinking quickly, Sasuke used the Asura path to summon a mechanical left arm and rip the tag off of the stove, crumpling the tag in the artificial hand to contain the blast. He promptly stuck his hand into the bowl of the kitchen sink, using it as a makeshift grenade sump, and held his head away from the sink.

Boom.

The resulting blast was loud enough to ring the kids' ears slightly, but nothing beyond the tag itself had caught fire. The metal sink was peppered with small bits of burning paper, but the explosive only truly damaged the artificial hand.

Sasuke let the tag burn out until it was merely hot ashes before he set the remains in the sink to let it cool on its own. Before he could talk to the kids about safe handling of explosives, a sharp knock came from his door.

"Is everything okay in there?!" someone from the hallway asked loudly, concern heavy in their voice. A man, he believed, though the voice was rather high and thin.

"I'm fine," Sasuke called back, trying to sound embarrassed. "I just dropped something heavy, I'm not hurt! Sorry to bother you!"

"Alright, just making sure!" the stranger responded. Sasuke heard footsteps getting quieter outside. He exhaled a sigh of relief before he dematerialized his left arm and fixed the two kids with a stern stare. Clearly they needed to be given a briefing on safety precautions.

Shin fixed him with the best doe-eyes she could muster. "I'm sorry, I didn't know any other way to heat up the water, there's no sparker on the stove. Please forgive us?"

Sasuke kept his gaze on the two of them. Their eyes looked sincere, though it was impossible to tell if they were honest or trained by Danzou to manipulate others, and it would be exceedingly difficult to find out. He debated on it for a bit before eventually deciding not to pursue the subject.

He sat down on the bed, sighing. "My tags are neither small nor precise. They are made to be lethal and destructive. You could have burned down the room with that. Make sure you know what you're doing before you use any seals."

Shin and Sai nodded guiltily, properly chastised.

"Now, do either of you know any fire jutsu?"

Shin blinked. Sai shook her head, adorably wide-eyed.

Sasuke nodded to himself. No time like the present, then.

"Come here, I'll show you."

Their eyes lit up like they had been offered candy. Sasuke smiled slightly. It had been a long time since he had been that kid, so incredibly excited to learn a jutsu from his father after all the years he was overlooked. To be in the teacher's position was an interesting change.

Who knows? Perhaps he would even have fun.