Traitor.
A word that characterised so very, very much of the shinobi way of life. The loyalty of a ninja- especially one from a hidden village- had to be utterly, totally without reproach. Thus, it was tested, over and over again, throughout their education. In the academy, students were so regularly checked in so many thousands of different ways (all so subtle many students didn't know they were being tested) that your average Konoha-Nin had a file so thick you could kill a puppy with it before they'd even graduated.
And if they found a student wanting, in even the slightest sense- perhaps a susceptibility to pain that would be too useful to a torturer, or a tendency towards resentment that could lead to treachery or murder- then that student was gone. The lucky ones were expelled.
No-one was entirely sure what happened to the unlucky ones.
The problem was, this system (for all it's thoroughness) failed with if not regularity then at least a certain degree of reliability. Because they weren't training soldiers, they were training ninja, and a ninja lies like a fish swims. If you were smart enough, and a good enough liar, then you could get your genin headband with murder in your heart and a record so clean it glowed. The problem had never been solved- partly because it's hard to teach a student total honesty and instil a liar's tongue at the same time. The ANBU made up for it by keeping more accurate records of their own, but they tended to keep them to themselves.
Sasuke had known about the loyalty tests; it was one of the upsides of being a prodigy. He hadn't lied- not outright at least- but he had weighted his answers a little, to make his life simpler. It was easier to learn when your loyalty was unquestioned, after all.
He hadn't known about the ANBU files. But as he sat, so tightly restrained it was a miracle he could even breathe, staring at Danzo as the old bastard read from a brown cardboard binder, he started to suspect.
"Infiltration," he said, quietly. Danzo nodded, without glancing up.
"Yes. We have plans for you, Uchiha-San. You've got a bright career ahead of you, if you want it. But you need a certain degree of education we are ill-equipped to provide. You need to learn from a Sannin, to truly reach your potential, or at least have a chance of it. Jiraiya's already chosen the Uzumaki boy, and you're not the sort to do well under Tsunade, even if we ignored the fact your team-mate's the one she's got her eye on. And that," he said, as he finally met Sasuke's eyes, carefully blank, "leaves one."
"Orochimaru." The name hissed through the air, cutting the silence apart.
"Yes."
There was an uncomfortable pause.
"Kakashi-"
"-is an excellent ninja and a poor teacher. Even if he was, he couldn't provide what you need."
"I haven't done so bad recently," the young Uchiha growled through gritted teeth. Danzo smiled patronisingly.
"Really? Your brother wiped the floor with you, boy. And that impromptu little fight with the Uzumaki you had in the hospital only reinforced the fact that he's swiftly becoming better then you."
The last three words dropped into Sasuke's consciousness like dull weights into flour. He glared furiously at his tormentor, teeth bared.
"Why so angry, Uchiha-San? It's the truth. I'm trying to provide the means to remedy that fact. All you have to do is go with the envoys he's sent and learn as much as you can about Sound. He'll teach you anything you ask him."
The silence went dark, and contemplative.
"What's your angle?" Sasuke bit out.
"I'm sorry?"
"You're not going to risk a mission like this on an untried genin unless you have to, and I'm not buying this 'charity' shit. What do you get out of this?"
Danzo looked at him for a moment, and then struck him brutally across the face.
"I'll not tolerate insolence in an operative, Uchiha-san, no matter how important his clan might have been. But you're not incorrect. I do have a motive." The old man leaned forward, his face intense.
"The greatest enemy at our gates right now is Sound and Orochimaru. He is insanely powerful, and that village of his is a breeding ground for all kinds of fanatics, all of them ninja, and all of them devoted as he is to bringing this village down. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that it provides him with resources and subjects for his experiments. He could be discovering anything, Sasuke. Horrors beyond our comprehension- and weapons to use against us. This is a dangerous situation, but what makes it terrifying is the fact that we have almost no intel beyond what we've managed to pick up from the attacks and the bingo books. We have no informants in his camp. We have no idea as to his location. We don't know what his operations are, and where, and why. We know, quite literally, nothing about Sound beyond hearsay and gossip. You're going to remedy that.
"While you're there, Uchiha-San, you will provide me with all of the intelligence you can provide on the village. Every mission you take, you'll inform us of. Every shinobi you work alongside, every person you train, every place you stay, everything you eat for breakfast- you will tell me. You're going to be our insider, Uchiha-San. As for why you? Because Orochimaru wants those eyes of yours, and he'll do anything to get them. That makes him desperate, and desperation makes him stupid. He'll want to believe you're on his side, so he'll overlook things. And quite apart from that? We're sending you because they're already coming to get you. They think you're in a position to go Missing, and that's something we can use."
Sasuke went very still. All of a sudden, death was sitting in the room with them.
"They think I'd go Missing?" he asked, carefully keeping his face blank.
"Yes." Danzo's face and tone gave nothing away.
"Do you?"
"The question will not arise, Uchiha-san. After all, if you're not interested in taking this mission, we'll simply deal with his envoys. They'll not be too difficult for the ANBU combat team we have standing by."
In Sasuke's head, wheels turned furiously. It's not just Sound, he thought feverishly, HE thinks I'll go missing too. If I say no, they'll pull the plug on this mission, and all of a sudden I'm a liability with no redeeming factors. And the ANBU don't like liabilities. They won't kill me, not outright, but there'll be an accident on a mission, and I'll be given the full funeral, and somewhere in a file just like the one in that motherfucker's hands right now, someone will write something like "terminated." And that'll be all.
If I say no, I'm already fucking dead...
"So where do I sign?" he asked, his tone casually insolent.
Danzo smiled. "We'll arrange the paperwork later. For now, Sasuke-sama, you'll need a little training."
"I'm already fucking trained."
"Not like this. Tell me, Sasuke," Danzo said, carefully pushing back his chair so it didn't scrape against the ground, "what do you know about infiltrators?"
XXXXX
Tsunade sat in her office, a glass of sake in her hand, staring out at the dark skyline, and thought about the crop she was going to have to reap. It had been three days, now, since her conversation with Danzo. It had been half an hour since Uchiha Sasuke had successfully been extracted by the Sound Four. Danzo had only just left her office, politely informing her that Uchiha Sasuke had exceeded his expectations, passing Infiltration training with flying colours (which is hardly surprising, considering the little shit's a prodigy, she thought uncharitably), and the communication system seemed to be working well enough. Uchiha Sasuke was dropping his location in the tiny chakra taints the ANBU used; if you didn't know the frequency, then you wouldn't even know what you were looking for.
In the morning, she was going to have to authorise a retrieval mission, and she'd already half-drafted the team she was going to send. They'd fail, and they'd come back beaten and with their tails between their legs, and Uchiha Sasuke would go to Sound and get the training he needed.
And she was going to spend the rest of her life second-guessing her decision today. She knew enough of her wayward team-mate to know that any village built by Orochimaru's hand would disillusion a ninja very quickly. For all his talent- for all his harshness and resilience- Uchiha Sasuke was still a twelve year old boy with almost no combat experience and a single figure kill-rate. He would be exposed to things that even she would baulk at.
Even if Sasuke Uchiha came back, he would never be the boy she'd sent away from Konoha. A part of him would never come home at all.
Tsunade sat in her office, a glass of sake in her hand, staring out at the dark skyline, and thought about the crop she was going to have to reap.
XXXXX
Okay. So there's chapter two. I spent a while deliberating over this one, because the first scene started off as a montage of Danzo training Sasuke, but it really, really, REALLY didn't work. So I wrote the above instead, and left the training montage off-stage. I think this works better, but any constructive criticism is entirely welcome.