Charles Darwin: "Physiological experiment on animals is justifiable for real investigation, but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity."
Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto, but this fanfic and the stories and OCs within it are mine.
Summary: We've all seen the stories where someone is transported to the Naruto world, so what if things are switched. How is our world going to handle Naruto? Non-crack
Note 1: This start of this story is set pre-Sasuke betrayal, post-Godaime. It's about the time that Sasuke is released from the hospital, but before Sound gets him.
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Humane Studies
Chapter 2: Freaks and Geeks
5:42 pm, Day 0, America, Area 51, Complex D7, Technological Experimentation Area
Raifu, Head of Tech, got busy making belt-shaped suppressors so that the subjects could not use their energy against Shia or her team. Shia left him after he started working to share their discovery with the other Heads. Instead of going next door to the Psychology EA, she went across the large complex to Kerisu in the Physiology EA first. He was, unsurprisingly, very intrigued by the news. He ordered his team to finish up the physical examinations and went to look at the results on the screen of the Atom Splitter, and Shia followed him back to the Technology EA, curious about what he had to say and wanting a second opinion.
"I can't believe it!" Kerisu exclaimed repeatedly, pressing buttons on the Atom Splitter to get more readings. "It's not even possible, by all standards! For a human body to be able to split an atom, not cause a nuclear reaction and instead harness the energy to use as some kind of power source? It's a break-through in the history of break-throughs! I'm not even sure what fields it renovates, but--"
"It won't renovate anything if we can't do the same thing," Shia interrupted his blabbering. "There is obviously strong evidence to suggest that these people are simply anomalies: exceptions to the rules. But I agree, it is shocking," she concurred, though she'd already gotten over the shock (or at least pushed it aside to deal with later) and moved on to more pressing matters, like how to handle the situation with this new piece of information. "The idea behind the belts that Raifu is making is a safety measure. It's very probable that all the subjects can do what the one displayed with radioactive energy, so one belt shall be made for each subject. What I want him to work on next is a machine to read the levels of this energy and figure out what atoms are being split, exactly."
"So after the belts are done, we can let the subjects wake up?" Raifu asked from his place with a screwdriver, not looking up from his work. His assistance crew and two technical experts were hanging around him to see how he made the contraption. They would then be able to make more once he was done, speeding up the process of creating thirteen of the belts.
Shia nodded in affirmative to his question and thought Kerisu would have squealed with glee were he a girl, he was so giddy. She could hear a suspicious keening coming from his direction. "How much longer, Raifu?" she asked.
"Give me a couple more minutes to finish this one and it should only be ten to fifteen minutes 'til we have enough for all the subjects," he murmured while looking for a different tool on the rack in front of him.
Shia resisted the urge to sigh. "Kerisu, go tell Kire about this and then make sure your team is finishing those physical reports. I'm gonna go tell Ukire and check on his progress with that bulky subject."
Kerisu readily agreed and swiftly disappeared to the left into the Psychology EA where Kire and his team were doing cat-scans on the subjects. Shia herself went to the right, passing by the metal stairway and into the bleached clean feel of the Medical EA. It smelled like disinfectant. Shia spotted Ukire, the Head Medic, standing in front of one of the SRs. It had been moved down into an outpost, but the other four in the area were empty. The walls of the SRs were specially made to serve as one-way looking panels, two-way windows, or a solid wall. Ukire was standing in front of the SR, and it was made to be a two-way window at the time. As she came up next to Ukire, Shia noticed the boy bound inside the room. He was strapped to a bed in the center of the room while doctors and nurses milled about him. Ukire was watching through the glass, holding a clipboard that he frequently looked down at.
"Have you figured it out yet?" asked Shia, nodding towards the brownish-red haired boy on the bed.
"No, I haven't, and the minimizing continues at an alarming rate. He may still look big, but apparently he was twice this size when he first got here. I'm running tests on his internal organs as we speak. Maybe they'll give us a hint as to what is going on."
Shia nodded thoughtfully before explaining about the dangerous energy discovered to be the berserk boy's weapon. Ukire, predictably, did not look surprised in the least. He made a slight grunting noise, still too focused on his work with this "patient" to think about another. Shia left him to his conundrum and went back to the Technology EA to check on Raifu. He was finished with his first belt and now all the technicians, numbering 8 when counting assistants, were working on their own belt. The three experts, which included Raifu, were working a lot faster. All they really had to do was create the chip, and then implant it into the pre-made belt. These belts were left-over from a former experiment of Raifu's that he had never finished. It was meant to repress nervous impulses so that pain was not felt, sort of like modern-day acupuncture. He still claimed he would get to it one day, but with him, you never knew.
Shia endured the stress of waiting in that room until the belts were all made and tested for functionality. They were then taken around the third floor and placed on the subjects. The assistants were also ordered to stop sedating the subjects.
By the time Shia and Raifu had gotten all the belts on the subjects, the initial profiles for the subjects were done and Shia was ready for the walk-around she had planned with Kerisu. She went to the Physiology EA but he wasn't there, and she instead found him with Kire in the Psychology EA. She approached them cautiously but Kire gave her an apologetic smile and she relaxed enough to ask them both to come with her on the walk-through.
"I'm going to head up to the metal balcony to check on all the subjects' initial reports," Shia explained. "Kerisu, if you could read off any abnormalities that the subjects have as we go, it would be a great help," Shia said, and Kerisu looked all too happy to explain the results of the various testing. He had apparently already read through a lot of it while waiting for her to arrive.
Kerisu already had a print-out of the Subject Profiles, so he and one of his Physiology experts, Kire and one of his Psychology experts, and Shia all headed up the metal stairwell to the third floor. Once there, Shia pressed a few buttons on the main panel by the door that led into the foyer. The walls of all the SRs currently still on the third floor changed before their eyes into a series of one-way windows that revealed the inside of the SRs. Another button had all the beds moving into vertical positions so that the subjects could be plainly viewed. It woke most of them up. Kerisu led them up to a specific SR and they could see a young boy strapped to the upright bed in the room.
The boy, the subject, was groggily opening very large black eyes, having been woken up by the movement of the bed. He was soon staring around the SR in wonder. The walls, being one-way looking windows such as those used in Police Stations for observation, prevented the boy from seeing them. All he saw in front of him was a wall. Shia observed that they had changed all of the subjects into plain white, form-fitting outfits, and that the boy had very defined muscles. The Repressor Belt hung around his waist, the red light on it signaling that it was functioning properly.
"Subject A1," Kerisu started the introduction. "His age is estimated to be from twelve to fifteen, as are all the other adolescent subjects. It has been noted that when the tranquilizer teams first tried to move him, he hadn't budged. They discovered that he was wearing ankle weights equal to around 500 pounds total. Once they were removed it was relatively easy to transport him. In the x-ray, we found his muscle mass to be largely concentrated into an average sized body. The closeness of the muscle cells alarmed my team, but it doesn't seem injurious as of yet."
"Damn," Shota, Kerisu's under-expert Physiologist that had come with them, said. His excuse for coming was that he had followed Kerisu from the Physiology EA to hear the reports, but Shia knew better. Shota and Kire, Psychology Head, were longtime friends, having known each other longer than she had known Kire. Shota ruffled his messy blond hair as he grinned. Anyone who knew him knew about his tendency to be the first to make his opinion known, even when it wasn't asked.
"Tell me about it. That doesn't sound possible," Kire said, going along with the excuse of professionalism.
Shia just frowned as she watched the slightly odd looking boy. He had glossy black hair cut into a bowl-shape. As they watched, he stopped his investigation of the room to look down at himself, and that's when he began acting strangely. She ordered the sound to come through one-way so they could hear what he was saying. Kerisu pressed a button in the wall panel and the speakers popped to life.
"The, the—" the bowl-haired boy was sniffling, "The Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha is….white!!" And then he promptly burst into rushing tears. The team looked on, wide-eyed and speechless.
"….I'm thinking of the possibilities of a diagnosis in mental instabilities," Kire said, not taking his eyes off the bawling genin. "What do you think?"
"I think it's time to call in a professional," Suki, Kire's under-expert who had followed them from the Psychology EA, answered from behind him, voice shocked. Not that anyone could blame her, especially when the boy started sobbing for a particular "Gai-sensei" repeatedly.
"We are the professionals," Shia replied dryly before sighing. Suki could sometimes say things before thinking them through when she was caught off guard. It made for wonderful blond jokes, but could be a liability.
Shia looked at Kire and Suki. "Alright, I officially want a full analysis of mental stability and capabilities all around. There are 13 of them; divide them up among yourselves as you see fit." She rubbed her temples for a few seconds, one hand on her hip, before shooting a withering glare at the blond male of their group. "Shota, could you be serious for one second here?"
Shota was too busy laughing his ass off to oblige.
"Don't allow him to do this subject's exams anymore," Shia told Kerisu before dismissing everyone else. Kire and Suki left to go plan their sessions, dragging Shota away due to his inability to not add commentary throughout the overview.
"Anything else?" Shia asked Kerisu once they were alone.
"Um, well, due to the boy's apparent ability to move with over 500 pounds weighing him down, we made the restraints for all of the subjects with a test of 5000 pounds. See how those straps are metal?" he motioned to the strange boy, who was still acting wretchedly.
Shia nodded as she turned the speakers off again, glad at the silence that fell. That kid was damn annoying. "Find out how his cells can be so compact," she told Kerisu, who jotted down the note for himself. Shia and Kerisu then moved on to the next room.
"Subject A2," Kerisu supplied as she peered through the glass, "the only adult in the group. We've estimated his age to be mid-twenties, though with the mask it's difficult to tell…."
Shia frowned and said sternly, "Why wasn't it taken off?"
Kerisu gave the white-haired man an intrigued look. "Well, when we tried…there was no end to the masks. They keep coming, in different colors, but still there all the same," he said.
Shia tilted her head, giving the unconscious man a thoughtful look. "Hm….for the moment, put it down as a physical anomaly, we'll look into it later." She looked at Kerisu questioningly. "He's been unconscious since his arrival here, correct?" she asked, remembering the situation as described in the reports.
He nodded immediately. "Yes, there hasn't been any change in his brain waves to suggest his awakening," he informed her. "When we removed the headband he had covering one eye, we found that his eyes were different colors. The exposed one was a gray-blue while the hidden one was red with three tailed pupils that circled the normal pupil along a black circumference independent of the pupil."
Shia pulled her head back slightly in a sign of surprise as he showed her a picture of the described eye. It was indeed very strange looking (though slightly comical with someone holding the lids of the man's eyes open).
"Hopefully, Raifu can get that Scanner done quickly. I think it's going to tell us a lot about the subjects' various abnormalities," Kerisu said.
Shia nodded and, after making notes to examine this eye more closely, they moved on to the next window pane.
"Subject A3. This one was intensely strange in the x-ray. It revealed that he had over a thousand bugs within his body, species unknown. We have removed the bugs from his body and placed them in the next Subject Room for monitoring."
The boy, from what Shia could see, was staring blankly at what he perceived to be a wall, but was really their one-way-sight glass panels. He had surprisingly bright golden-brown eyes reminiscent of Shia's own family eyes.
"How were the bugs situated in his body?" she asked, wondering how someone could house bugs without side-effects on either side. It sounded like parasitism seen with other bugs, such as tapeworms.
Kerisu flipped a page on his clipboard. "…it seems that the largest portion of the bugs were located in the chest cavity below the heart and lungs. We found several holes in one of the boy's cheeks that we suspect to be the common exiting and entering point of the bugs. We are still studying their physiology as well as the boy's to determine how this symbiosis could be possible," he concluded, reading over the notes of various doctors and other personnel.
Shia "hm"ed thoughtfully before saying, "I want his genome mapped out. If the species of bug is unlisted, I want to know the closest relative you can find from what are known." Kerisu nodded as he jotted down the instructions.
"And lastly, he was one of the five to stay standing after the initial round of tranquilizers. It took three darts to bring him down, and he was the first of the five to fall." Shia mulled this over while they moved passed the fourth window, where the bugs were being kept in a glass enclosure, and onto the fifth SR.
"Subject A4, one of four girls. The only oddity with her is that there were many weapons hidden on her person. We had to scan her with a metal detector to make sure we got them all. Some were invisible to the naked eye." At the look Shia sent him, Kerisu quickly supplied that they had not yet figured out how this was possible.
The girl was still struggling against her metal bindings, as fruitless as the attempts were. She had brown hair and eyes, her hair having been pulled into a small bun at the base of her neck. Shia had to give her credit for perseverance, at least.
"Look into that," Shia said, referring to the ability to make weapons invisible. "I want to know how they do it. Put it down for a question in their sessions." Maybe they'll tell us a little about them instead of making us do all the work finding out, she silently thought as they moved on to the next viewing window.
"Subject A5, the apparent 'ring-leader' of the group based on police reports. It's also been reported that he dubbed himself 'Shikamaru' while interacting with one officer: Gene Torim of Police Unit 7. Nothing special about him in initial studies," Kerisu said, starting to sound a bit bored and put out with this particular subject.
Shia stared at the boy in the enclosed room. He had a distinctly Asian look about him, that was for sure. She gave a questioning look at his hair and glanced at Kerisu to ask about it.
"Uhm, haha," he started in amusement, "it was actually kind of funny. We tried pulling his hair down, but it seems he's had it in that style for such a long period of time that it refuses to flow the other way. We ended up having to put it back in its original state."
She silently allowed that, having seen such things happen before, though it was usually with girls who wore their hair in ponytails too often. Turning back to her scrutiny of the boy, she studied his expression. He had a barely distinguishable pout on his lips, his eyes half-lidded. Every so often they would ceiling-search before he'd sigh and grumble something she couldn't hear through the muted glass.
"What's he saying?" she asked Kerisu, knowing there were voice monitors in each room to pick up anything they might say.
"Reports from the audio room say his mumblings suggest that he wishes to at least be looking at the sky if he's going to sit still for so long." Shia smiled at that. It sounded quite familiar, rather like Ukire or Raifu in a boring situation.
"Put the audio speaker on and double-side the glass," she suddenly said, stepping up to the voice-box that reminded her of drive-through fast-food ordering.
Kerisu looked a little surprised but he quickly obeyed and opened two latches to flip the switches beneath them simultaneously. The boy in the room was soon looking at them directly, his eyes suddenly sharp.
"Hello," Shia broke the silent standoff with the boy and his full attention was then on her. She crossed her arms, as was habit, and gazed back at the boy, wondering how to approach this. "Your name is Shikamaru?" she asked, and the boy slowly nodded after hesitating. "Well, Shikamaru, we'd be interested in knowing about you and your friends."
Before she could say more, Shikamaru cut her off with a drawl of, "Where are they?"
Shia held up a hand in a pacifying gesture, sensing the undertone of urgency in his voice. "Not to worry, the group you were found with are all safe and under my care."
"You said 'we' before," he pointed out, giving her a lazy look.
Sharp kid. She felt a small smile wanting to tug at her lips, but held it back for appearance's sake. "Well then, I may as well tell you that you are currently under the surveillance of the American government. We want some answers pertaining to your…abilities."
The boy was eying her warily now.
"….Like what?" he asked, frowning deeply and managing to look like he was pouting again.
"Like the strange energy you can create and harness…among other things," she said, leaving it open ended. With all the new information they were taking in from this group, it wasn't easy to name or categorize everything.
Shikamaru's face fell into another lazy expression as he watched her idly. Shia waited patiently for him to answer her, and answer he eventually did.
"…It's called chakra," he finally said. "Most people where we come from have it, but here no one that we've encountered does. I'm guessing that no one here does." Right on the ball with that observation.
So, "chakra" was the name of the radioactive energy made by their bodies. She saw Kerisu jotting the word down out of her peripheral vision, and Shikamaru did too, if the movement of his eyes was any indication. Before jumping on this subject of chakra, she instead asked "And where is it you come from?"
"Konoha, Fire country," the boy said blandly.
"Where is that?"
He wouldn't answer, so she filed this question away for sessions as well. "Could you explain anything else about chakra to me?" she asked, moving back to the previous topic and trying to sound kind.
She was quite satisfied that the boy was willing to comply with most of her questions. "Chakra is a combination of spiritual and physical energies, as far as the books tell it," the boy droned.
When he didn't seem to be offering any more on the subject, Shia raised an eyebrow. "Where do these energies come from?" she asked.
Shikamaru sighed. "I just said: the spirit and physical body make them. Both energies are combined through hand seals—" he paused here, as though he might have wanted to say something else, but swiftly broke off into an obviously new direction (Shia was inwardly frowning at this avoidance. What was he keeping from her?). "—then expelled from the body in the form of a jutsu."
She put her current thoughts aside for this new topic. "Techniques?" she thought back on the reports she'd read. "Have you…used these techniques since you arrived here?"
The boy was watching her critically again. "Were you there?" he asked.
"No," she answered shortly, wondering what the boy was getting at but deciding the truth was better for now.
Shikamaru remained silent for quite a while, and just when Shia was ready to move to a new topic, thinking he was refusing to answer the question, he said, "Yes."
She kept her surprise hidden. "Could you perhaps tell me them?"
"No," he replied in the same tone of voice she had used when she said "no" to his question of whether she was present or not.
Her frown was visible this time.
"…Thank you, Shikamaru. Perhaps we'll talk again." She motioned for the glass to become one-sided once again and for the speaker to be turned off.
"Wait!" Shikamaru said, and it was the loudest she'd heard him so far. It was almost a shout.
"What?" she asked over the speaker, watching him as he reciprocated the action.
His look was severe. "Where are they?"
She didn't need to ask who. "They're safe," she answered shortly, and the boy didn't protest this time as the glass became one-sided again.
She looked at Kerisu and told him to have a recording of that conversation sent to her three expert psychoanalysts (Kire, Suki, and Rina) to use in their sessions before moving to the next window.
"Subject A6. He's one of two who have no indication of an iris whatsoever," Kerisu supplied to her, shifting the papers in his clipboard.
Shia raised both eyebrows and stared at the boy who was looking around the SR in agitation. He kept squinting his eyes, or closing them and then opening them wide before trying again, and she could see that it was true—the boy's eyes were completely white.
How eerie.
"Is he blind?" she asked.
"We used a blinking light in the room to test this. He turned his head toward it whenever we turned it on, so we've conjectured that no, he is not blind," Kerisu answered.
"Alright, I want his genome mapped as well. Find out if it's a genetic mutation."
Kerisu nodded as he jotted down the note.
"Anything else?" Shia asked.
"Uh…from police reports, this was one of the five who managed to stay up after the first volley of darts. He was also the one reported to have created a dome of blue light around himself that acted as a shield. Then he threw four darts back that tranquilized two of our personnel before being the fourth of the five to fall; one tranque' took him out," Kerisu informed her. While he marveled over the boy's achievement, Shia moved closer to the glass to peer in before she turned abruptly and headed farther down the hallway.
"Next, then," she told Kerisu as he hurried to catch up. She couldn't wait to find out more about this "chakra" and what it was capable of, and by his eager look, neither could Kerisu.
They were such geeks, it wasn't even funny.
"Subject A7—" Kerisu started only to abruptly stop. Shia looked at him questioningly as he brought the papers closer to his face, as though to make sure he'd read them correctly.
"Um…this is the one who caused the most damage at the site. He stayed standing the longest of any of them, having taken 23 tranquilizers before going down. He totaled the first four police cars he came across and the last one needed new tires badly. The first car he attacked was thrown into a building, crushing the officer hiding behind it, and the third car was smashed from above, the resulting shrapnel fatally injuring another officer. He is also suspected to be the cause behind the unnatural fear at the site. Those who were able to watch say he was surrounded by a red smoke-like substance before going berserk. Some report a….um, well, we have an audio tape from one of the vans at the scene, would you like to hear it?" he asked, seeming at a loss of how to describe this particular part (obviously he didn't like the diction used, overachieving love-able bastard).
Shia nodded and after a quick talk with someone over her walkie-talkie, she was allowed to push a button to start the recording.
It started out as distant, unintelligible voices. Then abruptly there was silence in the area before a loud sound like grating sandpaper rang through the area. There were shouted commands and several awed exclamations and more of the sandpaper sounds. This hadn't lasted any longer than ten seconds when the sandpaper soothed off and stopped completely.
Then there was the sound. It was a scream so loud and rumbling that it couldn't possibly belong to a teenage boy. That sound was…of an animal; an animal in danger. She'd heard it plenty of times in her studies. It was the sound of panic, tinged with a rage that only a human could initiate.
And then the smashing and screaming started, the loud footsteps and shouts and crunches. In a small lull in the crashes there was a single bullet-shot, almost unheard in the rest of the noise, but after that the screaming lessoned considerably and the footsteps stopped sounding so frantic and erratic.
She stopped the recording there and turned to look through the glass pane.
Shia had already read the reports and now heard the recording, but she couldn't quite place the rampaging creature described in them as the same boy in front of her. He looked so innocent. Shia couldn't spot a thing about him that looked even vaguely threatening. He also didn't look an inch Asian; she had to wonder what the population was like where this strange group came from.
If she thought the brown-haired girl had been struggling, then this boy was having a seizure. He was pulling at his bindings so hard that he looked like he might be popping his sockets out of place. The tendons in his neck strained and his teeth were bared—she could see the elongated canines from here.
Kerisu continued with the boy's report as she moved closer to the glass to see the boy better. "Physically, he is the healthiest of the group, and the only one without scarring—besides the unusual marks on his cheeks. He is one of only two blonds in the entire group, and he's also the shortest male. There is a minor dispute over his eye color—one of the officers, the same Gene Torim from before, reports that his eyes were red. A7 was also one of the boys involved in their short internal skirmish." As Kerisu concluded this monologue, Shia debated whether to talk to the boy or not—his movements didn't look particularly healthy.
She finally decided to at least try to get him to stop attempting to free himself so vigorously, and had the speakers activated and the glass cleared. But he didn't notice the change, so wrapped up in escape attempts was he, so she cleared her throat loudly and his head snapped over to her, blue eyes widening in surprise.
"…Hey baa-chan!" She raised an eyebrow at the terrible attempt at insulting her. Her vanity was virtually non-existent. "What the hell is this?" he screamed next, his voice echoing down the hallway as he glared at her. He sounded like a temperamental child.
"This is a facility," Shia answered his question calmly, a sign of disdain or distance to anyone who knew her. Kerisu was starting to look sheepish for whatever reason.
"Who are you?" the boy demanded, looking for all the world like he was the interrogator and she the criminal. Shia's eyebrows drew together in confusion. This was certainly not what she expected.
"That is none of your concern. I am here to find out about you and the group you were found with," she informed him calmly, stuffing her hands in her white overcoat's pockets as she spoke. His eyes were too piercing.
His reaction to this was similar (though much louder) than Shikamaru's. He wanted to know where they were and she told him much of the same thing she'd told Shikamaru: that they were safe and under her care. Only he reacted differently than Shikamaru.
"And why should I trust YOU to look out for them? What is this place? Why don't you have chakra?"
He was jumping topics so quickly that she couldn't understand where the connections were, and she was not about to divulge information when it wasn't necessary, so she only told him as much as she'd told Shikamaru—that they were under surveillance of the American government. As to his question about chakra, she replied with a short "We just don't," which he didn't seem satisfied with at all, if the cursing was any indication. But she'd accomplished her goal, he wasn't struggling so violently anymore—just cussing up a storm—so she bid him farewell (which he ignored) and had the glass re-tinted and the speaker turned off.
She set off down the walkway again with Kerisu, who looked quite amused. "Not a word," she told him sternly as they came to the next room.
Kerisu just gave a stifled grin before announcing, "Subject A8, second female and other blonde. The only thing we picked up on the scanners was unusual activity in her brain. It has yet to be looked into further, on your orders," he quickly added, seeing the hard look pass through Shia's eyes at this information. But she accepted it quickly and had him plan an extensive brain-scan for the girl. This done, they once more moved on. The girl had no other extraordinary appearances.
"Subject A9, reported to be the second fighter in the internal match mentioned earlier and one of the five to stay standing after the first round of tranquilizers—he was the third of the five to fall after being hit by a stray tranquilizer."
Shia observed the boy in the room as Kerisu spoke. He had dark hair and eyes and a suspicious look about him as he eyed his surroundings, nothing like the last room's girl, who had been flickering between annoyance and boredom. It took her a while to realize that had she been his age, she might have found him attractive. He would probably be a very handsome man some day. Other than a slight blue tint to his hair and his good looks, he was like your average Japanese boy.
"Some of the officers from the site of encounter conjectured that he was using a flame-thrower, though one was never recovered," Kerisu said, giving Shia a pointed look.
Shia didn't have to think about what he was hinting at for long. "You think he was using the 'techniques' A5 mentioned, don't you?" she asked, and he nodded. "I guess we'll have to wait for Raifu's Scanner and the psychoanalysis sessions to know for sure." She planned questions to be raised in this subject's sessions and then they moved to the next room.
"Subject A10. This one, like A3, had an animal with him—a puppy, to be exact," Kerisu said, lifting a paper. "The dog, like the bugs, is being held in the adjacent SR to be monitored. It shows no extraordinary characteristics, but its owner here seems to have a very canine-influenced appearance, as you can see." She could. Shia noted the wild looking hair, fangs, claws, and slit pupils. The boy also apparently had an anger problem, as he was muttering curses and growling, gnashing his dangerous looking teeth. "The triangular marks on his cheeks are tattoos," Kerisu finished.
"I want his genome as well. Find out why he has these canine traits," she ordered effortlessly. "Oh, and keep a close eye on the dog," she added before they shifted passed the puppy's room to the one after it.
"Subject A11, third female of the group with the same white eyes as A6. She's the last of the five who remained standing after the initial volley of tranques' and the second to fall after getting hit by one. Upon scanning her, we found that she has trouble with her heart—suspected cause is internal damage of some kind, we have yet to figure out what."
Shia frowned. "How much damage is there?" she asked, eying the fearful looking girl whose eyes appeared blind.
Kerisu flipped several papers. "…the Medical team said it's a kind of internal puncture that has healed over like a scab and opens sometimes. They don't fully understand how she could have survived this without open-heart surgery. The surgery leaves signs that are not found on her body."
Shia nodded thoughtfully at this and, after throwing out a few possible ideas and reminding herself to talk with Ukire, Head Medic, about it later, they proceeded to the next window. However, there was only empty space, indicating that the room was in one of the EAs for study. It must have been the large boy being looked at by Ukire.
"You already know the problems we're having with this one," Kerisu said as they walked by the empty space, not pausing. They came to the last occupied SR. "And finally, subject A13, fourth female and…well, as you can see, with nothing extraordinary that we can find except for apparently natural pink hair."
Shia was staring. She knew it. But come on. Pink hair? And it was natural??
That was the last straw. "Just get me all their damn genomes. I want every gene mapped, anomaly or not." With that said (read: spat), she stalked away, leaving Kerisu to jot down the note and hurriedly follow her, knowing he'd won that bet with Ukire.
She'd snapped before the end of the introduction, however close the cut was.
Kerisu made a mental note to do something nice for the blond male subject, A7. It wasn't until after him that Shia had started displaying signs of agitation.
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6:23 pm, Day 0, Complex D7, Subject Room of A5
Shikamaru considered himself a very patient person, accounting his ability to put up with Ino's talking habits, Chouji's eating habits and Asuma-sensei's smoking habits on a daily basis. However, he had to draw the line here. He had been hanging on this semi-uncomfortable vertical bed for a while, in a room he did not recognize, without his clothes, weapons, the ability to move his hands together, and most importantly, without the sky to gaze at.
That just plain sucked.
So now he was stuck in this boring, silent room all by himself, wondering what had happened after he blacked out, where he was, where his team was, and how much trouble he would be in if he survived this. Judging by the straps that were currently holding him down tightly, he suspected that they had been captured by enemies. However, exactly how he had managed to make enemies so fast in this different world was still a mystery to him. Perhaps it was simply for being on someone's territory without permission—that was a universal excuse to attack someone. And now they probably meant to interrogate him. Shikamaru was simply waiting for someone to come and try to torture the information out of him.
He sighed and looked up at the white expanse of the ceiling for the umpteenth time. "They could have at least put a picture up," he mumbled. Even an unmoving picture of the sky would suffice right now. The waiting was maddening.
And then something new finally happened. The wall in front of him, which was plain white one moment, was suddenly translucent, and Shikamaru found himself looking at two people—a man and a woman. He waited with baited breath until the woman finally broke the stretching silence.
"Hello," she said, and Shikamaru studied her critically. She was wearing a white overcoat that reminded him of a doctor, which created a whirlwind of activity on the surface of his thoughts. If she was a doctor, then she knew enough about the body to cause extreme pain with the least prodding and poking. It also meant that she knew about the brain and how to pick it successfully. It seemed that his ideas of torture and interrogation were correct.
She crossed her arms and then asked him to confirm his name. Shikamaru paused on this strange question. Why would she care for his name? Perhaps she was trying to make him relax so she could get information out of him. Perhaps it was a psychological maneuver to manipulate him, or even just a way to ID him. In the end, he decided that if she had already heard his name, then there was no reason to deny what he'd already said once. He nodded.
"Well, Shikamaru," she said in a conversational tone, and Shikamaru was immediately on guard due to her casual use of his name. "We'd be interested in knowing about you and your friends," she finished.
His friends; his team. "Where are they?" he asked, trying to keep his voice even. He had been put in charge of the genin, and he had failed—he had let them get caught. Now it was his responsibility to free them.
The woman held up a placating hand and assured him that his team was safe. She said they were under her care. That, of course, did not add up with what she had said earlier about a "we" being interested in his and his team's abilities, and he told her as much.
Something in her face shifted after he said this, but then the muscles relaxed again. "Well then," she replied, "I may as well tell you that you are currently under the surveillance of the American government. We want some answers pertaining to your abilities."
American government? So there was a whole system behind their capture? This was not good news in the least—this meant that more people knew about their existence and capture, and that meant there would be a lot more security and people to kill to get passed that security and escape. Ah yes, escape was looking very difficult at the moment, especially with their obvious intrigue to the differences that Shikamaru and his fellow ninjas presented. Shikamaru could tell that this woman had never before encountered anyone like them.
He asked her to clarify on what abilities she meant in order to stall for time. He needed to censure what he said carefully. These people were the enemies now.
She mentioned energy of some kind and then left the question open-ended. Well, that at least told him that these people had no idea what they were up against. This would make things easier. Now he just needed to decide what they should know and what they shouldn't.
He decided to tell her the name of the energy she mentioned, chakra, since the knowledge of its existence was much more poignant than its name; it made no difference what she called it. He hoped that giving them some information would make them believe that he had given them all the information and then use the untold facts to outmaneuver them. With this in mind, he also told her his theory about this world not having chakra—it was obvious from what she said that it was a foreign concept, so it was better to tell the truth there. She would expect him to know it.
In response to his comment about no one "here" having chakra, she asked where he'd come from. If this was truly another dimension, as Hatake-sensei had said, then their knowing about Konoha was of little use to them. He readily gave the information, but ignored her attempt to force him to expound. He wasn't about to reveal that they were from a different world entirely.
When she asked about chakra again, he decided it was harmless to tell her about something she could not control or use. Besides, if she hadn't ever heard of it before, then the information about its technicalities would go over her head completely.
He explained to her the basics of combining spiritual and physical energies to create chakra. She wanted to know where these energies came from. That was something he didn't quite want her to know, so he only repeated himself, though he did mention hand seals on a moment of inspiration. He mentioned hand seals, yes, but he left out the fact that some people could manipulate chakra without hand seals. That may prove useful later. If he let them believe that the only way to manipulate chakra was through the use of the hands, then they might underestimate the shinobi. He then mentioned how the chakra was then turned into a technique, which he suspected her to already know if she knew of the energy.
Unfortunately for Shikamaru, he seemed to be incorrect in his assumption, for she jumped on the topic of jutsus and asked if his team had used them already. His defenses went up immediately and he was intimidated when he realized how much he had let them drop. He had been too lax before; this was serious business.
"Were you there?" Shikamaru asked, deciding that her hearing about the techniques and her seeing them were very different things. Shikamaru didn't know what had happened after he blacked out, but it was likely that those he had seen still conscious had resorted to jutsus. If any of them had used a technique without hand seals, then that could jeopardize his earlier claims. If she hadn't been there and hadn't seen…
She said she hadn't been there, and her tone was blunt enough for him to believe her. Whoever had informed her of chakra—or energy, as she had called it—would probably also be able to claim seeing some of them using hand seals. In all the chaos that had happened, it was doubtful that anyone had noticed the few techniques that did not use hand seals (if there had been any used in the first place). Shikamaru's claims to their necessity, added to the reports of actual use of hand seals, would cause this woman to believe hand seals an essential part of chakra manipulation. So he told her the truth—that yes, they had used techniques already.
She asked for elaboration, and he declined telling, purposefully using her own tone against her so that she got the message of blunt truth. He would not tell her, end of story, and that was the truth. Her expression soured.
"…Thank you, Shikamaru. Perhaps we'll talk again." And then she waved her hand at the man present, who Shikamaru had all but forgotten about, and he recognized the dismissal for what it was.
"Wait!" He said, going above his usual volume level to make sure she listened.
"What?" she asked, watching him again. His eyes never left her.
"Where are they?" he asked in as serious a tone as he could manage. He knew she would know who he meant.
"They're safe," was the only reply he got before the glass became cloudy and rapidly solidified back into a plain white wall.
Shikamaru sighed and glanced heavenward once more. "Troublesome woman," he muttered in annoyance, again and sincerely wishing for the presence of the sky. Or a good game of shogi.
He tried to find a more comfortable position within the metal straps, wishing he could move his hands into his thinking position. He somehow managed to clear his mind without the habitual position and thought over the information he had just been presented with.
A group, size unknown, was currently aware of the shinobi's presence and ability to use chakra. Unless she was lying to him. But assuming she was indeed telling the truth, then this group now believed that the only way to use chakra was through hand seals. Unless the woman had played him for a fool. The leader was most likely the woman he had just talked to. The whereabouts of his team was unknown, but considering that they had yet to torture Shikamaru, the woman's claims to their safety were probably the truth. Shikamaru mulled over this fact for a moment, wondering at their inhibitions in not using torture techniques to get information out of him. Perhaps…well, they obviously weren't shinobi, so perhaps they didn't use torture as a means of obtaining information?
Shikamaru glanced at his surroundings before deciding that this could not be true. This enclosed room was torture enough.
He went back to his contemplations and concluded that the only thing there was left to do was wait. Wait for a sign of his team, a chance to escape, another interrogation—anything that would break the monotony of this room—because only one thing was for certain.
This was a damn troublesome situation.
--
6:44 pm, Day 0, Complex D7, Subject Room of A7
Naruto considered himself a very patient person. Of course, everyone and their uncle would tell you otherwise, but in Naruto's mind, he was patient. After all, he diligently waited the three minutes for instant ramen to cook every time he made it, which was quite often. How much more patient could you get?
When Naruto had first woken up, it was to find himself strapped to a bed that was—he couldn't be sure, since his vision was still uneven—moving into an upright position. He had shifted his eyes around groggily and taken in the sterile, white room he found himself in. He could only see what was in front of the bed, so he had no idea how big the room was or what was behind him, but he was not impressed with what he could see.
It had taken him a while to sift through his sketchy memories. The biggest thing he remembered was Sasuke. Sasuke had been prepared to use the Chidori on him. Naruto's anger rose just remembering the mad look of Sasuke's Sharingan, the tomo spinning wildly. That bastard, his best friend, had been ready to kill him. Naruto's memory grew fuzzy after the memory of sharp pricks of pain all over his body and the sight of his comrades falling to the ground limply.
Naruto had thought they were dead, and the idea made his blood boil a hundred times hotter than the anger Sasuke's betrayal had brought on. There was a drowsy feeling trying to envelope his body, and as he began to sink into the farthest depths of his subconscious, an irrepressible rage had joined his own. And then the strange red chakra that Jiraiya had helped him bring out had enveloped his vision, and he remembered very little after that. Screams, frantic footfalls, loud bangs; he had smashed a "monster" at one point, and pushed another. His last memory was of terrified eyes set in a dark face, and then an intense pain in his gut that numbed into nothingness.
He had started to return to consciousness once, had heard jumpy, nervous voices and then another prick in his arm and the fuzzy white of his vision had faded back into black.
And then he had woken up here. It was then that Naruto had realized that he was a prisoner. There were no injuries on his body, and no one had come to hurt him yet, but he knew that he was no longer free due to the tight metal straps on his body.
He had patiently waited three minutes for someone to arrive, the same amount of time he devoted to his precious ramen, and had then started struggling to escape his bindings. His shoulder bone kept popping in and out of place, but the pain receded within minutes every time, so he continued his escape attempts. Unfortunately, he was getting no where fast. His mobility was severely limited with metal bindings molded to his jaw, wrists, elbows, abdomen, knees, and ankles. His arms were held out to either side of his body and his legs were spread apart from each other so that his thighs couldn't touch. The position was slightly uncomfortable, but Naruto didn't notice—he was too busy trying to free at least his hands so he could do a jutsu and find his friends.
A voice abruptly broke the silence, and Naruto looked up in surprised to see that the wall which had once been in front of him was no longer a wall—and that there was a woman and a man standing not ten feet from him.
His anger rose when he saw her expression of detachment. It reminded him of Sasuke. She only looked to be about Shizune's age, but he knew the best way to annoy women, so he made his address to her as insulting as possible.
"Hey baa-chan!" he called, and watched with annoyance as she did nothing but look even more haughty. The expression was flavored so strongly of Sasuke that he abruptly changed the subject, hoping to startle her into a different expression. "What the hell is this?" he asked, anger layering his words.
She told him it was a "facility." And she sounded infuriatingly collected, which reminded him of Sasuke again.
When Naruto asked who she was, she brushed his question off and said, "I am here to find out about you and the group you were found with."
Naruto made sure to glare extra hard at her as he asked where they were, and was completely dissatisfied with her answer.
"And why should I trust YOU to look out for them?" he asked. After all, what good was her word? She was probably the one who had tied him down in this boring room! "What is this place?" he asked next. It was just a plain white room from what he could see, but before, he had been in the midst of those huge buildings and the chakra-less people. "Why don't you have chakra?" he demanded. These people were not going to get away without giving him some answers!
At least her expression was more focused now. Sasuke never looked like that when looking at Naruto. He was instead always dismissing Naruto. But what was this crap she was spouting about a government? She barely said anything about her chakra-less state, and she didn't even bother acknowledging Naruto's first question! He was so mad about her expression and tone, that reminded him too much of Sasuke, that he simply started cursing anything he could think of. He cursed the woman and the white room, and the stupid "government" she had mentioned, and chakra in general. Then he cursed the black ground of this strange world, and then the strange world itself and everything in it. Then he cursed Kakashi-sensei for bringing them here and Shikamaru for letting them get caught, but he took that one back because then he remembered that Shikamaru had stopped Sasuke from attacking and trying to kill him. And bringing Sasuke back to mind just managed to make him even angrier and reminded him of the woman, so he looked back up to start yelling at her again. But the white wall was back and he was alone again.
He cursed the color white all the way to hell and back at least a hundred times and then finally fell silent, muttering occasionally about stupid teachers who took you to different worlds and stupid teammates who tried to kill you. Did Sasuke hate him now? Was there a reason for him to attack? Naruto tried to remember everything Sasuke had said, but the image of his blank black eyes was filling his mind too much for other thoughts. Indignation and sorrow rose at the thought of his teammate—his best friend—trying to kill him without hesitation. And now the bastard wasn't here for Naruto to beat some logic into. Instead of his brooding ass of a teammate, he was stuck with a clinically white room that was far too silent for his taste.
Which is why Naruto continued a muttered stream of curses. At least the room didn't feel quite so silent and lonely, then.
--
7:09 pm, Day 0, Complex D7, Psychological Experimentation Area
Kire, Head of Psychology, sighed. Shia was performing her own version of venting—which meant she was stalking around silently with a forbidding expression. Eventually she metaphorically curled herself into a secluded corner and stared at a wall, which Kire knew from years of experience to mean that she was going over information and making decisions.
Of course, the only reason he knew any of this was because Kerisu, Head of Physiology, had just finished the overview walk-around with Shia and was here to tell Kire what his next job was, and that he'd won the bet with Ukire. On top of psychoanalyzing all of the subjects, Shia also wanted him to do an extensive scan on the brain of the eighth subject and review the tapes from all of the subjects to see if they had said anything important. She claimed this was for the purpose of finding out more about them, but Kire had a suspicion that she was just asserting her agitation.
Kire had just moved to call subject A8 down when several alarming beeping noises rang faintly through the area. He jumped at the sudden sounds, turning around to find their origin. Looking above the middle office structure, he could faintly see green lights on the other side of the complex, in the Medical EA. This was a beacon for the leader, Shia, only used when she was needed immediately in an area.
His stomach churned uneasily at the foreboding sign, but as much as he wanted to go find out what had happened, he couldn't abandon his own assignment. With great reluctance, Kire turned back to the Subject Room wall and went to punch in the code for the eighth subject.
Hopefully, the Emergency Call was bringing good news about the bulky subject. Hopefully.
--
Bikenu Shia: Main Head
Mante Raifu: Head of Technology
Vinlo Kerisu: Head of Physiology; Experts: Masayo Shota
Enmaro Kire: Head of Psychology; Experts: Setano Suki
Minamo Ukire: Head Medic
Subjects/Shinobi: A1—Lee, A2—Kakashi, A3—Shino, A4—Tenten, A5—Shikamaru, A6—Neji, A7—Naruto, A8—Ino, A9—Sasuke, A10—Kiba, A11—Hinata, A12—Chouji, A13—Sakura.
AN: Alright, second chapter out. Took a little bit longer than expected, but I didn't hit the two week mark, so I feel that I accomplished something. A big thanks to all my reviewers and viewers, and anyone who bothers reading my long ANs.
Not much to say about this chapter. We only got to see Shikamaru and Naruto's reactions. Don't worry; I'll get to the others as we go along. I don't want to jump from ninja to ninja unless they have another purpose within the chapter. The hardest things to write in this chapter was that last tiny little bit with Kire and Naruto's POV—yeah, he was really difficult. I tried to catch his unpredictability and randomness, as well as his rashness. And for Shikamaru, I tried to mix lazy and sharp—which is rather oxymoronic. Troublesome lazy geniuses.
Even I have trouble remembering who's who when it comes to the ninja's Subject names (A#), so I'll put them under the revealed OCs at the end of each chapter.
Questions for this chapter:
1. Is it clear who each subject is?
2. Were Shikamaru and Naruto in character?
3. Do you think I missed any unusual attributes about anyone?
4. Any theories on how I may explain some things?
Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you next chapter, when we finally find out exactly what's wrong with Chouji, and perhaps encounter problems with another ninja or two. Until then.
-Itallia
