Hall

Renri rolled over in fitful sleep. Tickle on her face, she brushed at it. It moved. Not hair. Her eyes opened to a dark room. The buzz of insect wings faded, the rude bug disappearing to bother her another night.

It happened more than she liked to admit.

Tired, but, "What time is it?" she mumbled. No response. Aadda usually snapped when woken in the middle of the night. Maybe it was morning? Difficult to tell from the closet she called a room. No daylight ever reached it. Although, Aadda seemed to sense the hour, also complaining when Renri woke too early, first light still too cold for the snake.

Renri rubbed her face into her arm, every hair tickling her skin now a bug. Fabric. Rough fabric with patterns stitched part way up the sleeve. She shifted. Weird. She shifted again, patting down her sides. Her blanket below her, unused, and dressed in more than the yukata she liked to sleep in… Usually she at least managed to shrug off her outer shirt and obi before falling into bed.

She slowly sat up, yawning into her hand as she worked out the mystery.

Earlier, when she got home, she already knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. Too worried. Mind too busy cycling through the possibilities of what could have happened to Anko and the consequences to follow. So, instead of trying and failing to sleep, she decided to sew to distract herself.

This wouldn't be the first time she had been delivered to her room after falling asleep elsewhere.

Maybe… She patted around, fingers finally brushing and flipping the switch to her small lamp. Blinking, even dim light burned in former pitch black. Her room small, she didn't need to search long. Her bag, once abandoned next to the front door, her books, always stacked at the small table she ate meals at, and her sewing materials, strewn about before she'd apparently fallen asleep, everything had been gathered and placed on her desk.

Definitely home.

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in and out. Sense. Sense like it should come naturally.

With her range, she only managed to locate the bug.

She stood before quietly opening her door to peer into the hallway. The only light spilling into the hall came from her room. Definitely night. She left her door cracked as she ventured out.

She had fallen asleep in the lab. Again. The counters let her spread out better than her cluttered desk- and she had made a splintered mess of the larger table that used to be in what had probably been a breakroom.

No light from under the door. No sounds to be heard. She tried to push her sensing ability further, yet she only found another bug.

She wouldn't dare shout. If she interrupted something… Yet passing the windows at the front of the building, the sliver of moon declared it late night.

Probable location number two, then. She walked down the opposite hall. Unless that rumor was true, he probably slept like a normal person in a bed in a room in a house, not in a hole in the ground beneath the foundation of a lab.

Last room at the end of the hall, she hesitated. Quiet as she may be, to behave meant not walking down this hall. To open this door came with consequences, he promised.

She couldn't sense anyone inside.

But standing across from that closed door-

A large book in her hands, resting on her lap as she sat on the floor, she pointed to a character when they stopped talking. "What does this say?"

Heels clicking on the floor, Renri raised her eyes from the book. The Mokume lady crouched down to her level. Her smile wasn't threatening. She couldn't tell if it was fake. Renri angled the book as Mokume leaned in, dark brown hair falling loose over her shoulder, nails iridescent green to match her beetle necklace. Dark glasses hid her eyes. Renri wondered why she wore them inside, no bright lights present. "Dissect." She stood after tucking fallen hair behind her ear. "It means to take apart."

"Why not dismember?"

Mokume's brows raised over the rim of her glasses. "Connotation," she answered, a hint of amusement in her tone. "Dissect is often used in medical and scientific texts to describe taking apart something with a more scholarly purpose. Dismember is more… gruesome, I suppose, with its association with assassination and desecration."

"Word-choice is important," Renri mumbled, puffing out her cheek slightly. She already knew that. She also already knew what dissect meant, she just didn't know the kanji and connotation. Despite the glasses in the way, despite her pleasant smile with maybe a sliver of sincerity, Renri could tell. "I wanted to know why dissect." She didn't miss talking with adults that considered her stupid by default. She'd become spoiled, lately. Pout in place, she looked to Orochimaru with her complaints.

Yellow eyes barely acknowledged her. "Mokume is more than capable of teaching you," he said, dismissive. Renri looked back to her book, biting back doubt before she got herself in trouble. He didn't keep useless people around. And Renri? Renri was quite useless at this point. "I trust you will do well, Mokume. Dear Renri has the potential to be quite useful to me."

"She will be a pleasure to look after, Orochimaru-sama." Mokume laughed lightly, hiding her mouth behind her hand. Businesslike manners clashed strangely with cute inflections more fitting of someone Renri's age. "Though she already seems disappointed that I'm not you." High-heels clicked on wood as she walked.

Renri glanced up from her book again as Mokume paused in front of the door leading somewhere. Were they at least aboveground? In Konoha like he said? She didn't get to be awake on the trip here. Sunlight would burn on contact by now. Probably. She missed outside…

"I will make the necessary arrangements," Mokume repeated and promised. "By the end of the month, she should be cleared to enter the village. Until then, may I keep her here?" Permission blandly granted, Mokume gave a bow. Her hand rested on the handle. She looked back over her shoulder, a soft smile aimed at Renri. "I hope you come to like me, Renri-tan. I always wanted a little sister." She finally opened the door and-

Just a boring hallway.

This hallway. As seen from the opposite direction.

Memory surfacing without prying, Renri swallowed, shifting weight between feet. Something was wrong with her. That was too much to just forget, too much to just remember. The fact Mokume worked for him seemed to have been removed… Or, rather, hidden beneath a blank. The pieces of memories she'd never lost had filled in the gap, like a self-told lie eventually becoming unquestioned truth.

She took a half-step forward.

Nothing. No flickers of memories. Only raw silence.

She shouldn't be here, but she had been in the past. A small room, a study, bookcases lining the walls, a desk and chair, otherwise empty, unassuming in every way, why keep her from it? Why keep that memory buried? But… no. The door along the right side of the hall led to a storage room where she had spent cumulative hours organizing with Aadda whenever Orochimru returned with new material. She had stood in this very spot before, looking curiously at the closed door, no inkling that she had ever been inside.

Something had changed.

Final steps taken in the dark hallway, she reached for the handle. Fingers brushing metal, heartbeat already drumming in her ear-

Tap.

Silence shattered. Wood tapping against wood. Tap timed with a footfall, offset to the other. Panic pooled with dread to lurch her stomach. The sound echoed in her skull, drowning everything. Only tap. Tap. TAP.

Sharp crack, wood striking the floor silenced debate.

"Threats require swift and precise action."

Equally sharp words, but his voice did not raise, nor reveal anything beyond calm rationality. Right side of his head bandaged and hidden, his left eye narrowed severely in an unflinching expression of displeasure. Not just aimed at her as she pretended she could hide behind Orochimaru. Trembling knees, she only remained on her feet because she clutched his hand for dear life. Beside Danzo, the Third Hokage shifted tired eyes from his councilor towards them, towards Orochimaru like he had anything to say for himself.

He had even less to say on her behalf. Because, in truth, this never had much to do with her.

That sound. That face. That voice. Everything about that man had been burned into her memory so he could join the cast of her nightmares.

She shouldn't be here.

She bolted.

Despite running, she felt slow. The steady tap accelerated in her ears, nearing the door, not enough time. They'd hear the door to the right open and close. She wouldn't reach her room in time.

She should have never left. She had been put away for a reason.

The final door swinging open, the first door she dared open-

Trembling hands struggled to silently close the door to the lab behind her. A soft click timed with a tap, she prayed. She sat on the floor, holding her shaking knees to her chest, burying her short breaths in her sleeve to muffle them.

Terse conversation end, an order, a reprimand, "Refrain from complicating matters further," Danzo said.

Orochimaru left no pause. "I would hate for this beneficial partnership to end over such a trifling thing." Contrasting a serious tone, the implication teased. The implication that any matter Danzo personally attended to would be trifling… What had Orochimaru done? Needling remark, "You must agree." To have come with a warning instead of action.

No verbal response. The rhythmic tap, the shuffle of clothing, the footsteps continued. Passed.

She only let out a shaky breath when the tapping disappeared. A set of footsteps remained to echo down the hall with a different sort of menace. If by some miracle two veteran shinobi had missed her clumsy attempts to sense and hide, she knew her open door, light flooding the hall, would be enough.

A leisurely pace prolonged the dread. Purposefully. Always purposefully.

The footsteps quieted outside the door. She returned to hopelessly holding her breath.

"Renri," Orochimaru called when she refused to budge. Not without confirmation.

No obvious anger, no belittling endearment, encouraged her to stand. Hesitantly, she cracked the door enough to peek into the hall, ready to slam it closed like it could protect her. The distant window at the front of the building offered lowlight. Face half cast in shadow, light reflected off yellow eyes to mimic an unnatural glow. A brow raised, a prompt before an order, she hesitated another moment before opening the door enough to slip into the hall.

She fiddled with her sleeve, gaze quickly dropping to the floor. How much trouble?

"You should be in bed," he finally said after dragging out the silence an eternity, watching her squirm.

She could treat it as a dismissal. A step towards her room to accept it, but she stopped. Fingers curling into a fist under her sleeve, a moment to find her courage, she forced herself to meet his eyes. He waited. Her courage withered. She couldn't force out a single syllable.

A sharp grin, viper eyes narrowing, he pitied her effort. "Remember something unpleasant, my dear?"

He knew.

He always knew.

He left her standing alone in the hall. Slowly, retreating deeper into the shadows, form melding with black, he gave her a final command. Rough quality of his voice echoing in her skull-

"Find me when you're ready to ask."

There would be no coming back from that hall. That room.

A/N: Since I like to play with some landmines of tropes sometimes, I can promise that Renri's memory issues will be fully resolved. Been leaving crumbs since chapter 13, though Renri would rather kick them aside than pick them up. It's all a feature of a larger scheme, and amnesia would be the boring answer. This is a chapter that I really didn't know how to format, so excuse me as I try a few things. Yeah, the blockquote seeming like a lie, so lines it is here.

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