Konoha, T&I room 5
Hiruzen Saturobi was feeling the weight of old age creep up on him more and more often 'If only it were 10 years more..., no, 20 years less at least' By now he felt that he should be in retirement enjoying raising and passing on the knowledge to the next generation of the Sarutobi but life was never that easy.
"I'm so sorry to wake you at this hour Inoichi" Hiruzen apologized even though he too had been resting at this hour after a long week of work and was now in the Konoha Torture and Interrogation building "Your presence was urgent."
"There is nothing to apologize for Hokage-sama" A grown man with blond hair replied respectfully "But I didn't get much information on the way over so I'd like to know what you know so far before I can interrogate you."
It was a large room and there were 6 children tied to the chair and blindfolded "These 6 youngsters were found by the Jonin Hatake Kakashi..." Started the Hokage "About 5 hours ago approximately in the training ground 17."
Hiruzen took some time to see the children, although their injuries were numerous none of them were really serious, a group of ninjas with knowledge in medical ninjutsu were enough to recover them, the one who arrived worse was the first boy that Kakashi found and although he had a lot of damage in his throat he never had his vocal cords in danger so he would have no reason not to speak as long as they were not complex sentences.
"They came in with multiple injuries but nothing we couldn't easily treat" The door opened and out stepped a tall man with a scar on his face that made him look scary "Hibiki, have they answered anything?"
"Heh" The scary man gave a wry smile "They said a lot of things, I must admit that girl" Hibiki pointed to a girl with green hair "I like her, her name is Maki Zenin and according to what she told us she belongs to the secondary branch of the Zenin clan."
That caught the attention of the two ninjas "Zenin? I haven't heard of that clan in all of Konohagakure or its surrounding nations" A bitter memory came to his mind "Kumo?"
"If there was a clan big or important enough in Kumo to have a secondary branch by now we would have heard about it" Inoichi replied with a frown.
"He's right" Hibiki chipped in "With so many Kumo ninja we've interrogated and tortured here someone would have said that name at least once. We have no record of a clan named Zenin and what is more interesting" He pointed to the silver haired boy "He is called Toge Inumaki and is also part of a clan, in this case even with a Kekkei Genkai" Hiruzen's eyes widened in surprise upon hearing this.
"Thank you very much for your services" Hiruzen said calmly despite the situation "We will take it from here, I want you to have a report ready for later in the afternoon, write down everything you have heard and make your conclusions".
"...Silly, we just have to-" The girl with the brown hair was talking towards a boy with pink hair when Hiruzen and Inoichi entered the room "Just, shut up for a while."
"Good evening" He greeted with a smile of kindness "Sorry for the inconvenience, I know you must be wishing you could rest, maybe feed a little" The boys nodded slightly "You have cooperated well and if we can find out what village you belong to and why you came to ours then we'll let you go" A lie.
If they found out they were spies from other villages, especially if they were from Kumo or Iwa, then they would not be able to get out of here alive no matter how horrible the idea of killing children was.
As many questions as Hiruzen had about things like the clans they belonged to or the Kekkei Genkai that Inumaki boy possessed it was quicker to use the jutsu to read Inoichi's memories.
The questions would come later.
"Boy, what's your name?" asked Hiruzen to the boy with pink hair.
"Nobara, should I?" He looked at his companion for a moment "Ouch!" But a kick from the girl told him all he needed "My name is Yuuji Itadori sir, first year at Tokyo academy!"
The Hokage ignored the name 'Tokyo' though he saved his name for the future. "Inoichi" The blond man nodded before offering a kind smile to the Itadori boy.
"To speed up the process so that you can go home as soon as possible I will use a special technique" The boys tensed up when they heard those words "It's not painful at all, at least you shouldn't feel any pain other than a slight headache. I will enter your soul so I can access your mind and therefore memories, like this."
"NO!" shouted a boy with black hair, if he wore a similar uniform he could even pass himself off as an Uchiha "You must not enter his soul!"
Inoichi looked at him in surprise "You can rest assured, I assure you that I will see nothing but what is necessary. Nor will I share your secrets except with the Hokage" But that didn't calm him down.
"You don't understand" Said the girl, Nobara "He's not like others, if you enter his soul-"
"We don't have time for this" Hiruzen's stern voice quieted the girl and the rest who were about to speak up to complain "Inoichi, you've explained enough to them, do it!"
He just let out a sigh and apologized "It will be quick, I assure you" He made a couple of seals with his hands and accessed the soul and head of the child Yuuji Itadori.
Something he would regret all his life.
'W-Where am I...?' The place had an ominous presence, Inoichi couldn't help but shiver as he realized this wasn't like the hundreds of times he entered other people's souls "Blood..." A puddle, no, as far as he could see there was only blood on the floor, as if he was walking on the ocean.
"Hoh" A deep voice calls the ninja's attention "I didn't think anyone in this world would have the ability to enter here" His malevolent presence flooded the whole place and forced Inoichi to kneel "No one besides the brat of course."
His presence was suffocating, he was standing on a mountain of skulls and bones of multiple animals and humans 'Itadori...?' It was similar but at the same time not, it almost brought back memories of that fateful night when the Kyuby attacked the village.
"I must admit that in all my years alive I have never seen anything like this" The being said with an amused voice "A new world to explore and conquer".
He wanted to say something, so many questions and no answer. He wanted to be able to do something, to stand up and threaten this thing, to make some attempt to defend himself against something that had not yet made a move to attack him but he knew that sooner or later he would kill him.
"Alright, now you can go back to your Hokage, tell him that these guys are from another world or whatever you want to make up. But don't tell him what you have seen here" He raised his hand and felt his soul being torn "For your misfortune and mine I am trapped in the body of this brat, if he dies on his own I don't care but if you do something to him..." And then he moved his hand and felt his arm being cut by an unknown force, indescribable pain and a lot of blood came out even though it shouldn't be possible as it was only his soul. Inoichi could do nothing but scream "...And ruin my fun in this world".
He got up from his 'throne' of skulls and bones and started to walk, Inoichi just screamed in fear and closed his eyes trying to cut the connection "I will destroy your weak little village" And before he could do anything else he felt his consciousness vanish.
"AAAAAH!" Inoichi woke up screaming, his body covered in sweat and seeing nurses rushing over to see him.
""Inoichi!"" Two voices he recognized came to him worriedly, one was his best friend Shikaku Nara and the other was the Hokage he had been with "Relax, you're safe now" His friend assured him as he grabbed his shoulder to calm him down.
It took a couple of minutes but finally the nurses realized that he had no medical complications at first glance, dismissed the screams as night terrors and left him alone in the room with Shikaku and Hiruzen.
"What-" He began, not quite knowing what to say "What happened to me?"
"You fainted after using your technique, we couldn't wake you up but you started screaming and releasing a lot of chakra so we rushed you to the hospital" The third Hokage summarized the facts.
By reflex he wanted to raise his left arm to wipe the sweat from his forehead as he remembered everything that happened "What-" But he couldn't, his arm didn't respond even though it was there "No..." The same arm that thing cut off.
"What happened there Ino-" Shikaku started but was interrupted by 3 ANBU who entered the room.
"Hokage-sama, we inform you that Uzumaki Naruto entered your office and stole one of the forbidden scrolls" Informed an ANBU with a Tiger mask "We already put the alert and he is being searched all over the village".
Hiruzen let out a heavy sigh and looked at Inoichi "Everything just got a lot more complicated didn't it" It wasn't a question but he still nodded.
"I'm afraid you have no idea how much, Hokage-sama."
Thanks for reading, any comments, critiques or recommendations are welcome.
My first attempt at writing to Sukuna, I kept it short because he doesn't really talk much unless he is completely in possession of Itadori or Megumi. And yes, I decided to start the story at the beginning of the original manga, I feel more comfortable having that starting point.
The time in Jujutsu is a month before the Shibuya arc starts.