8th year of Danzo's Rule
A scrawny blond boy emerged from his cell, stiff and tired. Dirty hands rubbed at his blue eyes before being tucked under his armpits. It looked like today would be another day of not going up the tunnel and into the open air. If it was already this cold underground, then it would doubtlessly be freezing above. The compound had three floors of underground cells, with the child's located on the middle floor. The cell was his prison, and his refuge. It was awful when he was locked in with no food and nothing to do, but it also kept him safe from the prisoners who sometimes scared him. Occasionally, there was a short (but still taller than him), white masked nin that escorted him to visit the Hokage or to the testing grounds, but the boy hadn't seen the other in a long time.
The boy decided he wanted some soup from the canteen today. It would warm his hands and his stomach, even if it never properly filled him. Breaking into and awkward sort of run, as his hands were still tucked under his arms, he pattered through the dusty halls and wove in between the masked soldiers to the end of the soup line. The soldiers all mostly ignored him, though the prisoners serving the food almost always sneered. The boy usually just sneered back. He knew he could look fearsome, if he pulled his lips back and let his teeth bite down on his bottom lip, he'd draw blood and the prisoners would immediately glance away. He didn't do it often, only if the prisoners were violent and the soldiers weren't around to stop them. The action made him feel like just what they called him, a monster.
After eating, the boy decided to wander to the fourth level underground. There was usually always something interesting happening on the dark floor. He quietly maneuvered the down-sloping switchbacks before entering the last floor through a heavy wooden door. The light was on in Orochimaru-sensei's lab, and he hesitantly walked down the first hall.
Like all the prisoners, Orochimaru-sensei wore a chakra suppressant collar. The man was thin and would be sickly looking if the gold in his eyes didn't shine so viciously and angrily. The boy didn't like Orochimaru, he was frightening and mean, often telling him stories of the children he used to experiment on, but he also learned plenty from the brilliant man. Plus, Orochimaru was one of the only prisoners that would talk to him.
Today in Orochimaru's lab there was a dark, curly haired teen sitting on a table. A collar was lying next to his hand, which was gripping the table edge tightly. Orochimaru's back was straight as a board, his hands also clenched tightly. The ceiling light flickered once, twice, before steadying and the heavy pressure in the room lessened. The teen was pale and shaking, with gasping blue lips and blood running down his face from his red spinning eyes. The blond froze at the terrifying sight, but before the teen's gaze could lock with his, a violent nudge from the back of his mind forced him to stare at the ground instead.
A thud made him look back, finding Orochimaru on the ground and the teen standing and swaying, his arm reaching toward the blond in the doorway.
"Pleaseā¦help me."
The boy flinched away and shook his head. "What did you do to him?"
"I won't hurt you, I promise. Just please. Please, help me hide." The dark haired teen faltered, and without knowing why, maybe because he sensed honesty in those words or the pure desperation tugged at his heart, the blond boy reached out and shuffled the teen out of the lab.
Angling up the tunnels was a difficult endeavor, and by the time they reached the boy's cell, he was all but dragging the teen from under the arms. Sweat dripped down his neck, and if he was cold earlier, he certainly wasn't now. He pulled the other boy into his cell and rolled him under the cot, stuffing his long limbs in after. The boy decided to make another trip to the canteen and grab some more soup; he knew what it was like to be exhausted and hungry.
The server gave him a suspicious glare at seeing him again, but the boy managed to carefully sneak out and take the soup back to his cell. When he returned, the teen was already awake and bleakly staring at the underside of his cot. He rolled slightly toward the boy, taking the bowl with shaking arms and beginning to eat carefully slowly.
"I'm Shisui." The teen murmured.
But the blond boy just quietly stared with large blue eyes and a downturned mouth, watching the teen eat. Nothing else was said.
Sasuke briefly felt Ino slip behind his eyes and read the inscription on the block of cheese in his hands before he recovered the food with the brown cloth. Takeda-san grinned as he accepted the money Sasuke's client had provided when asking for the D-rank mission. Sasuke spent a lot of time in the market, as Tuesday and Thursday afternoons were now allotted for academy students to work missions, and Iruka-sensei always assigned him grocery shopping. The messages carved into the apples and cheeses, or printed on the steamed buns and small meats were always short, but his peers soon learned it was best to have both Sasuke and Ino read them; the words were easy to forget.
His client today was a strange one, with purple stripes under his eyes and an annoying countenance. Sasuke met him at a park west of the market, where the man was sitting on a bench reading, letting his dog play with the nearby children.
"Aren't you a little young to be taking missions?"
Sasuke squared his shoulders and glared at the lazy but amused man. "Academy students in their fourth year and above can take D-ranked missions on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Besides, there are only three more years until I graduate."
"Hm, I suppose. But, you do seem a little short." Sasuke would have retorted, but the man continued with the exact lines that were his cue to share the message. His half-lidded eyes widened as he stared over Sasuke's shoulder. "Oh my, what a beautiful lady walking a beautiful dog."
Sasuke turned to see a kunoichi with dark hair and red eyes calmly walking a large dog. Sasuke sniffed, "She'll never date you. She's a ninja. Do you even know what chakra is?"
The man sighed. "You're right. I could never keep up with her. But, if there's anything I've learned from my favorite romance novels, it's that you never know if you don't try."
He pulled a piece of paper from his backpack, scrawling a note on it. "Here, give this to the lady, will you? I'm much too shy to talk to her myself."
Sasuke rolled his eyes, handing the man his groceries and accepting the note. He could feel Ino in the back of his mind, waiting this whole time to read the note along with him, and discretely glanced at it. His nose was slightly wrinkled and he sensed Ino shaking as he handed the kunoichi the slip of paper. Her red eyes drank in the words before she gave a short katon to the message, shouting "Pervert!" as she stalked away.
Sasuke paled at her violent reaction, and turned to see how the weird man took it, but there was no longer anyone on the bench.
He pondered the meaning of the two messages on his way back to the academy. To the man: Operation Underground at a standstill. To the woman: Tobi remembers.
