A/N: This chapter originally had formatting issues. Hopefully, I fixed them. I'm really sorry about that.

I woke up under a light fluffy silk comforter on a huge futon sunk into the ground. There was a huge weight pinning me down. I lifted my head up to look. There was a huge white snake resting it's head on my stomach. It gave me an unimpressed look and said a feminine voice, "Orochimaru-chan, your neonate is awake."

I heard a groan in my right ear. I jerked away when I realized the grown came from Orochimaru. He was also in bed.

Orochimaru started to push himself up from when he was sleeping and then he just stopped, flopping himself back into his pillow face down. "No."

"Orochi-chan." The snake slid over my stomach and nudged him in the armpit with her snout. "You have to feed nestlings."

Orochimaru turned his back to both of us and mumbled, "Summoning jutsu." A puff of smoke appeared. I wiggled out from underneath the heavy snake as much as I could so I could get a better look.

A small grey snake appeared in a puff of smoke on the wood floor beside the sunken bed. It flicked it's tongue in the air twice, then quickly uncoiled.

"Hayai, take the child to get food. You know the compound." Orochimaru glanced over his shoulder towards the big white snake. "Are you happy, Hahahebi? Can I sleep now?"

She flicked her tongue over the air. "Very." She lifted her coils enough so I could wiggle my legs out from underneath her and climb out of bed.

Once I stood up I could see she was huge. She coils filled every bit of space around where Orochimaru and I were sleeping, and even then she had coils sitting on coils. Hahahebi could have swallowed me the way an anaconda could swallow a mouse.

Hayai lifted its head a couple inches off the ground. "Follow me please." He flicked his tongue in the air and moved up to the only door. Seals along the rim glowed bright blue, causing the door to slide back into the frame.

Orochimaru had sliding door. He had a sliding door in his bedroom. Who does that?

The next room was a large library with luxurious armchairs for sinking in and panels covered in glowing blue seals that were just bright enough to make out the next series of walls. There were a couple more doorways that looked like the sliding door we just passed through and Hayai brought me through one that opened into a huge, brightly lit laboratory.

The ceiling was covered in fluorescent lights that illuminated the room. Each station had a scientist tinkering with different chemicals and bottlers. Glass flasks and bunsen burners were everywhere. Huge tanks lined the walls, filled with different things. Some easily identified as people attached to life support tube and other tanks had mystery chunks in them. One of the scientists gave me a strange look but for the most part, everyone ignored me.

"Hayai, could we go find Taro? Or Daisuke?"

The snake quickly circled back and climbed up my leg to coil around my shoulder. "Those aren't mission parameters." He said, sounding like a sulky young boy. "Now you have to carry me. Go straight."

We went through the door to a wide room with a dozen different hallways and stair cases leading left, right, some of them were even vertical hatches heading straight up with no staircases or anything. There were ninja walking on the walls and the ceilings while civilians walked on the ground. The walls were all the same grey-blue industrial concrete color, but the people wore bright flashy colors to make up for it. Everyone walked quickly, sometimes rolling huge machines or even livestock in different directions.

"Woah," I mumbled.

Hayai's scales constricted on my shoulder. "There are more people than I remember," Hayai murmured.

One of the shinobi on the ceiling flipped down, landing in front of me without making any sound at all. His bright blue hair puffed out in every direction. He looked unimpressed. "Why aren't you at the Aviary? Children aren't allowed on this level."

"That not our mission!" Hayai protested, his voice squeaking as he said it.

The blue-haired shinobi struggled to hold back a laugh. "Well then, ninja-chan, what is the mission?"

Hayai shifted his coils to wrap his tail around the back of my neck. He was small enough that he couldn't even complete one circle. "Food," he mumbled.

"What was that?" The shinobi leaned in a little.

Time to nut up or shut up. I crossed my arms, straightened my back and raised my chin as high as I could. "I am on mission for Orochimaru for food. You assist me."

The shinobi actually laughed at this. "I will huh?"

I deflated. "Yes, please. I woke up. I'm Wani, what's your name?"

"Deki. Let's get you something to eat then."

The ninja picked me up and tucked me under his arm. Hayai hissed angrily making snapping bites near Deki's face that Deki ignored completely.

"I'm sorry," Hayai mumbled in my ear. "My poison sacs haven't come in yet."

Oh my god, tiny snake, murder is not the answer. Not that I had the vocabulary to say that. I settled for whispering, "It's okay."

Deki jumped straight up at the ceiling and managed to stay there by touching it with his bare hand. One hand. Holy shit, chakra was AMAZING. He pulled himself around until his feet were sticking to the ceiling and took off, taking one of the tunnels shooting straight up.

I closed my eyes and tried not to barf or think about how if Deki let go of my for a second, I would plummet to my other death. Deki was moving at a pretty high speed and I put my hands over Hayai's little body to make sure he wouldn't fly off.

When the wind stopped moving, I opened my eyes cautiously. We were right side up again and walking through what looked like a small indoor mall. There were a dozen different stores filled with ninja gear, food, clothes, toiletries, a music shop, and where we were heading was a staircase that had a kanji written on the wall with an arrow pointing up.

The other stores also has kanji and hiragana characters on their windows and doors. I was officially illiterate. Great.

He brought me up the last flight of stairs and pushed open a heavy wooden door into a wide room with a huge gentle sloping wall of glass. The view from the window was spectacular.

It was a rice paddy field, with the long stalks of rice swaying in the wind as the wild birds swam through the water. More birds flew over heard, fluttering from tree to tree. The wood panels between the glass were covered in delicate kanji seals, glowing a soft blue color. The room was pretty big, big enough to house forty or so kids, running wild with dozens of toys ranging from wooden senbon and kunai all the way down to plush teddy bears hanging from a soft spinning mobiles for the tiny babies.

I tugged at the neckline of my borrowed shirt, very aware of the fact I was wearing someone else's shirt and a grass belt. I looked around nervously. I had never been good with kids even when I was a kid. I was an only child and I spent most of my time reading and hanging out with other single children who were also socially maladjusted. Even when I was a teenager, I took classes way ahead of my peer group. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Uchiha Itachi but I was definitely a little asshole who was a dick to other kids because they couldn't keep up.

Kakashi. I was like Kakashi.

I felt myself shrink back slightly when I felt a kid bump into me. "Keep your hands off me," I snarled. Hayai bared his fangs and bit in the empty air over the kid's face.

The carroty ginger kid leaned back and squinted at my face. "Wani? You can talk?"

I blinked and studied his face. He had bright orange hair that grew in three part mohawk. It was one of the boys from the laboratory. He had normal hair when he first name in, but after whatever medical experiment they did on him, the others took to calling him three fish fins. Literally.

"Oh! Hey! Experiment Sanhire. What happened to everyone? Are you guys okay?" There was something about being held captive in a nightmarish compound that formed bonds.

"My name is really Jiroubou." He put one of his hands on the back on his neck. "Those ninjas that saved us said my family was dead. They brought us back to this village and gave us clothes and beds. Everyone's family is dead."

Whoa. Dark.

I reached over and hugged him. "It's going to get better."

"Hey," I heard a familiar voice above me. All these tall people are getting really annoying. God. I hated being small again.

And then I saw that beautiful stupid face.

"Daisuke!" I shrieked and threw my arm around his leg. "Daisuke I'm so happy I found you. Deki took me here instead of getting food!"

Daisuke put one of his hands down on my hair and ruffled it.

Deki gave me a smug smile. I hated those smiles. Those were the ones adults always made around kids when they talked about the Santa or the Easter Bunny. "Yes. I found this little girl wandering the lowest level on a," Here he did those infuriating quotation marks with his fingers, "...'mission from the Otokage.' You've got to keep a better eye on the pre-genin if you're letting them sneak all the way down to the Otokage's level."

Daisuke paled and gave Deki an appalled look. "Didn't you hear about the raiding missing in Wave?"

Deki nodded. "Yeah, the large scale mission to shut down one of the labs that ended with bringing back all the viable experiments."

"We shut down the lab because the scientist in charge used made a child using Otokage's blood. That's the kid."

Deki went completely still. "She was on the same floor as his living quarters…."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm princess. Look. Hayai. " I pointed at the Summons.

He hissed his agreement and climbed up the side of my neck to rest his head over my ear. Deki paled a little.

"Want udon. A goat. Better this," I added, tugging at my shirt. I gave them my best imperious look.

"And a mouse," Hayai added.

"And a mouse," I added, looking directly into Deki's eyes. "Now please."

Daisuke shooed Deki toward the door. "If he comes looking for her, he'll check here. Get the Aviary's rations and meet us back here. He would have brought her to the Aviary eventually anyway. Go."

I watched Deki leave with the small bitter satisfaction of a very hungry child. My stomach rumbled loudly. "Please snack time."

Daisuke took that as his cue to go disappear through one of the other rooms

I tugged on Jiroubou's arm and asked him to show me where the others were. Well. As close to it as I could manage with my vocabulary any way.

One of the attached rooms was full of bunk beds and a even a few cribs crammed side by side. Inside the walls were covered in brightly colored doodles and splashes of paint. One wall was covered in cubby holes full of all kind of linens, pillows, clothes, cuddly plushies and small softly glowing rocks. Most of the mattresses were bare but there was a group of kids huddled on a pair of top bunks in the corners.

"Hey Fatty! Report." The girl who shouted that leaned over the edge of the bed far enough that one of the long haired blond twins grabbed her overalls from the back.

"Stop calling me that, Tayuya." Jiroubou whined.

Wait. Tayuya? Jiroubou? I looked over to the other kids. Two platinum blonds. One annoyed brunette boy. These were the Sound Four from the anime! These were the kids that picked up Sasuke from Konoha and ...they died.

The boy who must have been Kidomaru started to pick his nose. He was going to die.

I needed to sit down for a minute.

Jirourbou dragged me over to the ladder and pushed me at it. I climbed up and curled up in the middle of the mattress.

One of the twins, Sakon or Ukon, poked me in the face. "Hey. Hey. Hey. You were that kid they dragged off."

These kids were practically babies. The oldest was maybe six and the youngest couldn't have been more than four. They were growing to be pushed into becoming jounin as teenagers and then they were going to die because of some evil snake guy desperate to steal someone's body so he can live three more years.

I couldn't let that happen. I may not have the ability to save the world but I could bust my ass to save these kids from dying for something so stupid.

"Yeah. I'm Wani." I poked at the edge of the mattress. The springs creaked and it seemed like it had gone at least five owners before it showed up here. "What happened to you?"

"Oh my god," Sakon or Ukon said, waving his arms wildly. "So like, after that ninja dude dragged you off all these ninja guys showed up and went woosh and bumphf and the doors were smashed to bit by this super cool earth jutsu! So then they pick us up and we were like flying! In the trees! And the branches were like crack crack crack and Kidoumaru-kun nearly lost an eye!"

Kidoumaru did have a piece of gauze taped to the left side of his eye that looked really impressive.

"Shut up, Sakon," Tayuya groaned and covered her eyes with her hands. "One of the ninjas said we could stay here if we want to be ninjas."

"We should stick together," Jiroubou looked us in the eye, one after the other. "We got through that place together."

"No one got me through that place but me," snapped Tayuya. She started to say something else but then deflated a little. "But I guess that idea's not totally stupid. Or whatever."

We stayed up there sharing stupid details like Jiroubou's fear of birds, Kidoumaru's love of spiders, Tayuya's family's music shop, and the twin's favorite games. I spent most of it picking at my shirt and trying not to say anything. What do you even say to traumatized kids in this situation?

Daisuke came looking for us eventually for food. They brought us to another adjoining room in the Aviary where a couple other people were handing out bowls of food from a giant pot. We had rice in some kind of sauce thing and a mess of veggies. It could have been boiled tofu and i still would have been wild to see it. Deki showed up before I finished the bowl.

"I have to go," I mumbled, standing up from the corner where we all had huddled.

They gave me a couple half hearted waves. Jiroubou grabbed my bowl and helped himself to the left overs.

Deki didn't have a goat but he did take me back to the the entrance to Orochimaru's quarters where there was a goat waiting. The seal door opened wide enough to let me go in with the snake. When Deki tried to follow, the seals made a grid of bright blue lightning

I dragged the goat back to the room where i had woken up. Hahahebi was there but Orochimaru was gone. The goat refused to go any farther than the scroll library.

"I tried to bring you a goat but he doesn't want to come in here."

The large snake slowly moved off the bed and in the direction. "Thank you nestling. That's very kind of you."

"Hayai," she added in a stern tone "You were supposed to have taken her to the food stores. Orochimaru-chan has thought her missing for an hour. Dismiss yourself. You are disgraced. "

The little weight over my ear and around my neck disappeared in a small cloud of smoke.

"Hey!"

Hahahebi used her tail to push me towards a folding screen in the corner of the room. "Get dressed. I will notify Orochimaru-chan of your whereabouts."

She surged out of the room. The goat bleated unhappily from the other room.

I didn't have the heart to protest. If I had to admit it to myself, something had bent inside me, if not broken during my time in captivity. Even knowing that I should run as fast as possible towards Konoha, I was so scared and I wanted to cling to the man who had saved me.

The folding screen was painted with a delicate landscape of trees and birds. Behind it was an open door frame leading to a walk in closet where carefully wrapped hakama and kimono filled one corner, and hanging on various mannequins were variations of Orochimaru's outfits. Even his Akatsuki Cape was carefully hung around one headless wooden mannequin with a pile of rolled up cloth on a shelf above.

In a corner of the room was a re-appropriated small metal drying rack. The kind used for damp paper or ceramic. On the first level there were three small white robes, a mesh shirt tunic,tiny shorts, underwear, and tabi socks. Or maybe they were yukata. Or kimono? I'm pretty clueless about most of the stuff from the show and to be honest, none of it looked familiar.

Oh shit. Now I recognized it.

This was the exact outfit Orochimaru used to wear as a child. He was going to dress me as a tiny chibi him. I let out a small squeak because it had to be the most demented thing I ever heard of. Who takes tiny children for medical experiments and dresses their own like tiny versions of themselves?

I got dressed. It took a bit to figure out how to tie things but once I figured it out it felt weirdly comfortable. The mesh was skin tight but the kimono thing was loose enough to cover up the exposed feeling I got in skin tight clothes.

I took a second look at the Akatsuki robe. i'd always wondered what they felt like. Fuck

It no regrets. I tugged the cape off the manikin and pulled it on over my new clothes.

After getting dressed I went poking around in his evil lair. The main room with the glowing kanji had lots of books and scrolls tucked into bookcases and into the cubby shelving along the back. I opened one of the scrolls to see if I could make sense of it.

Nope. Definitely illiterate.

I opened the books until i found an illustrated anatomy book. At least i could learn the symbols for different bits.

A few minutes later I saw a blur out of the corner of my eye and then the blur hit me.

"Oomph!" I was being squeezed into the tightest hug I have ever had in my lives.

"Mother, I thought I lost you again," Someone whispered and it took me a moment to realize that it was Orochimaru.

Did he just-?

I felt myself go cold. I couldn't- i couldn't pretend to be his- What the fuck

All the stress of the day and the moment hit me all at once and I burst into tears. "I'm me," I whispered.

"I'm not-I'm me." I couldn't help myself. I started shaking.

Orochimaru pulled back far enough for me to see his face. He was serious, not a hint of the smirking arrogance that was hiding in his features. I tried to look away but he gently tilted my chin up until I had to look him in the eyes.

"There is no doubt in my mind that you are the reincarnation of my mother. I have looked so far for you. I promise to keep you safe in this life. No one will ever take you from me again." He had his arms around me again squeezing me tight.

He was a killer. He sent hundreds of his own citizens into a pointless war and slaughtered babies to satisfy his own vendetta. He one of the most dangerous men in this world and he was swearing to keep me safe.

I squeezed his back just as hard and sniffled into his collar. "You are good. I can be good child."

We sat there holding each other until Orochimaru picked me off the ground.

"I need to put a tracking seal on you," He murmured.

I pressed my face into the crook of his neck and tried to pull back my sobs. There was no way I was going to let him put any kind of seal on me. "I don't want it."

"You don't have a choice"

I tried to wriggle out of his grasp. "No thank you. I'm good."

We stepped into the main lab space. Again, no one seemed surprised to see Orochimaru carrying a tiny cosplayer of himself.

"This is not a discussion," Orochimaru tightened his grip to the point I couldn't wriggled out if my life depended on it.

"Then I want one of you. Please." I clenched the fabric on his back. I could feel him relax a little.

"That is an acceptable condition." We made our way back into the big main chamber. I could watch over his shoulder as we went. We took a left (my right) down a long corridor lit by LEDs and into another room that was empty except for piles of scrolls, parchment, small wood boxes of different colors and tons of calligraphy brushes.

He put me down on the edge of a table. I ran my fingers over the wood. The smooth edges and light wood made my skin look pale enough to pass for blue. My skin hands looked horribly dry and felt dry. "I'm thirsty," I said.

Orochimaru didn't even look up from where he had started rifling through the boxes. "If you require something, ask for it."

"I require water," I scratched at my skin. It felt tight and dry. Probably from my last bath being an over powered jutsu. What I wouldn't give for soap and a good bathtub.

"In a minute," He turned back to me, a bottle of ink and five brushes in his hand. "Take off that ridiculous cape and tug the robes down to expose your back."

I shrugged off the Akatsuki robe and let the white robe slid down a bit on my back. "Can I get one black and red in me cloth?"

I heard his laugh right before he touched my back with the brush. The ink burned on my skin, like being touched with an ice cube or the feeling of holding a hot cup at the hottest part. There was a series of lines drawn on my back before a bunch of lines around the area of the circle and what felt like a thumbprint on my back. A couple seconds after the thumbprint, there was a strong searing sensation that made me gasp before it faded to nothing. I pulled the robes back up and turned around carefully.

Orochimaru loosened his clothes sufficiently that he could pull one arm out without exposing himself and then he bent his arm like rubber and started to write on his own back. After a moment, he turned his head back around to watch what he was writing. it was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen what the flying fuck.

"That's so gross," I said delightedly, trying to figure out where his boney bit stopped and the rubber insanity began.

He turned his head back the right way but left his arm bent the wrong way to ask, "Where would you like me to put your reciprocal seal?"

I thought about it and decided to go for easily hidden and saccharine. "Over heart, please."

His expression didn't change but at least I could pretend he found it touching. He drew a series of kanji over his heart and left a circular space at the bottom. "Bite your thumb and smear the blood here."

I made a face. I don't know how anyone keeps cutting their thumbs with their teeth. it seems A) gross, and B) a super fast way to lose a thumb. "Help please?"

He passed me a kunai from god knows where and I pricked my thumb on the point. It took a couple attempts to get blood to come out. I pressed it in place and tried not to squeak when I felt a felt of energy flow right out of my body along a channel in my arm.

"Now your tracking seal."

I left my robes loose and the front and tried not to squirm when he used his smallest brushes to make the tiny strokes over my chest. Once he placed the last stroke I felt the same searing burning sensation and suddenly my brain knew exactly where he was. Kind of like, when you walk into a room and put the keys down by the door, you can turn around and sort of just feel on the back of your neck that those keys are by the door? That was what this tracking seal was like. I knew, beyond a doubt, where Orochimaru was like I had set him there even while I was looking right at him.

"I require water," I said.

He rolled his eyes. "Come along."

We went back out and through another set of doors into another lab. This one had lab equipment and canisters lining the walls, with a huge wide open space in the center of the room. The floor was tiled with a few drains scattered around the room. One of the drains had an ominous red puddle.

"Hn. I'll need to speak with janitorial." Orochimaru grumbled. "Now, do as I do." Orochimaru shifted his position on the floor near the puddle. I took a few steps in and stood there.

"Hold your arms out as I do and move your feet." I shuffled a little in place and tried to make sure I had it right. Orochimaru rolled his eyes again and came over to adjust my arms. "Is this taijutsu?" I asked.

"Not the way you're doing it."

We spent the rest of the day with me trying to learn one single kata and Orochimaru making despairing comments and nudging me into the proper place. When finished going through it once, Orochimaru showed me where the mugs were for drinking out of the faucet. Then he showed me where the ration bars were and asked me to keep doing in the rest of the day while he took care of some business. If I needed the restroom, there was a tiny room with a sink, a toilet, and a chemical shower all squeezed into the same one meter by one meter room.

I kept practicing the same moves while he went through piles of paperwork and making his own commentary in the margins. People ducked in and out, only one at a time, taking swath of paper or leaving new documents for him to review. Every once in a while he would get up to nudge my arms back into position but we went through the day like that and we went back to his quarters at the end of it.

Back in the private quarters, I poked around a bit but Orochimaru just handed me a set of pajamas four sizes too big. I changed behind the folding screen and came out to the bed. it was unmade the way we left it. When I peeked into the main room of the quarters, Orochimaru was sprawled in an armchair, reading a scroll thin enough for me to just make out the ink characters through the back.

"Where do I sleep?" I asked.

Orochimaru looked at me like I was an idiot. "The bed."

It took a second for me to realize he meant the same bed from this morning which was probably his bed. "Oh. Okay."

He rolled his eyes but at least he didn't add any biting commentary. I crawled back into the bed and rolled around to get comfortable.

I couldn't help but stay awake thinking. Oh god. I'm in the Hidden Village of Sound, with more missing nin than you can shake a stick at. I have to get stronger. I have to change the events. I have to defeat the person behind this entire mess, Kaguya, who is... the moon?

The only thing left to do was train.

This entire world is insane. I have to kill the moon.