The two young boys reached the bottom after climbing down about twenty feet and noticed that the bleach white hallway was somehow lit, but they could not discern how. The long corridor went for about fifty feet before ending with a door. They traversed the hallway in seconds. When they were finally upon the lone door in the hallway Naruto made a move to attempt to open it. Naruto's hands less than an inch away were stopped by the forceful grasp of Sasuke.
"There is chakra all over this door. If you consider what the bookcase did to me, then I don't think it is a great idea for a non-Uchiha to be touching anything." Naruto merely pouted visibly at this, but acquiesced after pausing for a moment to consider his friend's point. Sasuke took a moment to see if he could tell where the chakra on this door was coming from, and hopefully what it did. Failing utterly to comprehend the various moving colors denoting chakra he simply opened the door.
What lay beyond the door looked like some mangled combination of a laboratory, a nursery, and a library. In the corner of the nursery was a small child, a newborn of all things. The small child could not be more than a couple weeks old, and was hooked up to some sort of machine. Sasuke decided to take charge of his two man 'team' at this point.
"Go look around and see if you can figure out what this place is." Naruto sneered slightly behind his friend's back as he was already doing just that.
Moving over to the desk in the laboratory, Sasuke walked slowly to the little child and noticed a shock of pitch black hair, and the distinctive blue and white footie pajamas favored by the Uchiha clan's upper house families. The child was asleep, so Sasuke decided to examine the machine that the babe was strapped into. It appeared to be some sort of chamber made of crystal and glass, with several small tubes that led from various places to the child inside. After looking around a bit longer Sasuke found a container of what looked like the fluid used at hospitals that was dripped into veins, and a tube carrying the liquid to the baby. On top of the glass was a clipboard. He picked it up and read it quietly aloud to himself. "Saigo Uchiha, male, blood type O negative" His eyes drifted down the page. The mother's name appeared to be redacted and no father was listed. Most of the rest of the document was medical information that Sasuke had neither the skill nor desire to decipher. It was when he hit the third page that he stopped skimming. In bold letters was a statement he could not believe. Born at zero one hundred hours with blood red sclera and what appears to be an active Sharingan. Feed chakra-rich solution through IV until further notice.Sasuke's mind could not comprehend the simple sentences before him.
The Uchiha heir was finally brought out of his stupor caused by a single sentence when he heard a scream. He immediately noticed that the small baby was awake. The child's eyes were open and the Sharingan was present. He also noticed that something was clearly wrong, as the second son of the leader of the Uchiha clan he was extremely familiar with the sight of the Sharingan. He was well aware of many small differences that could occur as the Sharingan matured. The eyes on this baby were nothing like what he was used to seeing, he had only seen eyes like this a single time. On the night his brother broke out of prison.
Upon closer inspection Sasuke realized he was off-mark thinking they were the same as his brother's. Where his brother's eyes had the pupil stretched out to touch the tomoe with curved lines, Saigo's Pupils had straight bars running from them. Itachi's eyes took on a pinwheel-like appearance with three fins. This child's eyes appeared to be almost like a series of circles filling in a triad of triangles.
After gazing into those strange eyes for a while Sasuke finally thought to find his blonde friend. Turning to face the 'laboratory' his friend had engaged in examining he noticed that Naruto was nowhere to be seen. "Dobe, where are you at? If you think you are going to sneak up on me in here I know that you know better." Before going to find the blonde he took one last look at Saigo. As he turned he startled at the feel of a hand cupped over his eyes and a blade at his throat. He flung his hands up and let out a sigh of exasperation. "Ok Naruto you got me, now put away th-" Sasuke was interrupted by the blade cutting into his flesh.
"I am not prone to giving advice but I would recommend that you refrain from talking if you wish to live even a little bit longer." A soft rasping monotone echoed in the room. Sasuke recognized the voice, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins was clouding his thoughts enough to make him forget just whose voice he was remembering. He was suddenly spun around in place and his eyes forcefully opened long enough to see a glowing and spinning red eye.
"I" was the only sound he managed to utter before collapsing to the ground.
Sarutobi Hiruzen, is the third Hokage of the village hidden in the leaves. He was trained by the second Hokage, the brother of the first. Sarutobi was known as the Professor for his extensive knowledge of all types of ninjutsu. He had fought in two great wars, and was even the leader of his village in the latter one. He was the teacher of the Densetsu No Sannin, three of the greatest ninja to ever live. One of the Sannin, Jiraiya, was the teacher of Sarutobi's replacement, the fourth Hokage. Even after his retirement Sarutobi served his village as an advisor, and when calamity struck from an attack by the Kyuubi, revered as the most powerful of the tailed beasts, he himself had lead the force whose job it was to keep the monster at bay long enough for a proper plan to stop it had been made. He had sent thousands of his own friends and colleagues on the missions that cost them their lives. Despite all of his accomplishments there was one great weakness of his. He simply could not properly handle his one female student. He could devise counterstrategies to win losing battles, such that there were no casualties despite scarce resources. Yet no matter how he tried he was incapable of convincing his student to stay in the village for any reasonable length of time.
"Please Tsunade, at least do us the kindness of staying in town. Even just the morale from having you here would help!" The Sandaime Hokage, leader of the strongest hidden village in the five elemental nations was forced to resort to mere pleading.
The strikingly young looking woman pondered a bit and finally conceded. "Look sensei, I'll make you a deal. One hand of poker, you win I'll do as you ask, I win I'm on my way and you pay off my outstanding debts."
Had the old man not known Tsunade her entire adult life he would have thought this a joke. Sadly, however, he knew she was dead serious. The venerable leader opened up a drawer in his desk and pulled out his pipe and an extremely old and worn deck of cards. Tsunade was quite familiar with this particular deck of cards. The man sitting in front of her shuffling had made this deck years ago in order to help her team with chakra control. Every card had a seal arrangement that allows someone with precise chakra control to identify what the cards are without seeing them, utilizing only their chakra. Despite having much better control than her teacher due to her training as a medic ninja, his knowledge of chakra theory and seals have him an edge that made him nigh impossible to defeat when using this deck. With just a touch of his energy he could instantly identify the arrangement of the entire deck. By using precise chakra control and a little dexterity he was easily capable of stacking the entire deck while shuffling.
"Sensei, do you really think I am going to agree to play with that deck?" The buxom blond went from having her feet flat on the ground to a crossed legged position with her arms crossed to mirror it.
"As the one who set the terms of the wager I think you will. I will however concede that it might be unfair, as such I will allow you two minutes to shuffle the deck yourself. After which I will cut the deck twice." Tsunade smiled at this. Two minutes would be more than enough time for the blonde ex-medic to stack the deck in her favor. With only two cuts she really didn't see how he could possibly hope to undo her work of shuffling. As he handed her the stack of cards she closed her eyes to better allow herself to feel the way the chakra in the seals on the cards moved. She began to identify the cards she wanted for her hand. It took her nearly a full minute to re-familiarize herself with the unique seal designs on the cards. Despite her appearance she was well over fifty, and it had been close to a decade since she last played with this set of cards. As she passed the deck back to her one time mentor for him to cut she had just barely manages to stack the deck so that no matter how Sarutobi cut it she would be dealing herself a hand of either an ace high flush, a straight flush, or a royal flush. She had managed to also ensure that Sarutobi would end up with either a full house or two pair. Just as the two venerable shinobi were ready to look at their hands A young mop-haired boy burst into the Hokage's office out of breath and carrying an unconscious Uchiha Sasuke.
"Old man, something is wrong!"
