Chapter Text
By the time Sasuke realises his mistake, it's too late to go home.
He'd thought he was used to loneliness, before. He's spent five years on his own, after all. Living alone, cooking his own meals, looking after himself; it should have been easy to go back to his self-imposed isolation.
But it isn't. Three months on, almost to the day, and it still aches.
He runs his fingers across a new scar, freshly healed, raised across his left pectoral. The skin feels stretched, all shiny and pink. He's homesick. There is no other word for it.
He misses his friends. He misses Naruto's idiocy and Sakura's quick temper, and Kakashi's lazy drawl as he tells them all to behave. He misses ramen after missions and bickering with Naruto and scheming with them to see under Kakashi's mask. He misses their clumsy way of showing that they cared.
There's not a damn soul in this place that cares about him; not beyond his role as Orochimaru's favourite.
Orochimaru disgusts him. It hasn't taken long for Sasuke to realise exactly what kind of man he is: One who toys with life, and walks all over the weak to make himself stronger.
He's just like Itachi. He's everything Sasuke doesn't want to be. And Sasuke had walked right into the palm of his hand.
He curls into a ball on his side and squeezes his eyes closed. Wishing he'd made a different choice won't change the fact that he didn't.
So he doesn't.
At three months, Orochimaru calls him to the training grounds. He stops dead when he sees the girl.
"What the fuck are you doing?" He demands, glaring at his teacher. He's not afraid of Orochimaru, like everyone else here. Orochimaru wants him to become his next vessel—he won't damage Sasuke's body. And there's nothing he can do to his mind that Itachi hasn't already done worse.
"Look what we found, Sasuke-kun." Orochimaru jerks his chin to the terrified girl on the other side of the field.
It's not the real Sakura; Sasuke knows that immediately. For starters, Sakura isn't the kind of girl who cowers on the ground anymore; Orochimaru is basing her behaviour on what he saw in the Forest of Death. But he thinks of the brave girl who stood between him and Shukaku, who deliberately got herself stabbed when trying to fight off three shinobi of vastly superior skill to protect him and Naruto, and sneers at the pale imitation.
"S-Sasuke-kun? Is that you?" Her voice is a damn good copy, but, Sasuke realises, he knows Sakura better than whoever is impersonating her. Her eyes are wide, and her hands are trembling where they clutch at her clothing. She looks like she's expecting him to crush her.
Sakura has never been afraid of him, even at his worst with the cursed seal. There's no way she would cower like this, he thinks venomously. He's offended they thought he'd fall for it.
"That's not Sakura." He looks through her before turning back to Orochimaru.
"Oh?" Orochimaru's eyebrows rise.
"She's not that weak." He sneers at the copy again. "Don't waste my time."
And he spins on his heel and stalks back the way he came. He has no time for mind games.
"So I heard," Kabuto says as he heals Sasuke's wounds in the fourth month, "that Sakura-chan and Naruto-kun are both training under Orochimaru-sama's former teammates."
He doesn't let on that he's interested. He'd been told that Naruto had trained with Jiraya before the chūnin exams, and that he'd also gone on the trip to find Tsunade, so finding out that the moron has landed an apprenticeship isn't a huge shock. It's Sakura who is the bigger surprise of the two; what had she done to get the attention of the Godaime?
And what about Kakashi? Where is he? Why isn't he training the remainder of his team?
He doesn't ask.
Instead, he keeps his voice detached, even as the ache of their absence in his life throbs under his ribs. "So?"
Kabuto is a master of mind games, Sasuke had realised early on. A competent spy, Sasuke suspects that Orochimaru has ordered him to keep an eye on Sasuke to ensure he doesn't harbour any thoughts of running back to Konoha.
Not that he could. He's a criminal by now. Genin or no, defecting from one's village is a death sentence. There's no going back.
He nearly breaks at five months, when he's served ramen for dinner.
"What the hell is this?" He snaps at Kabuto when the med-nin brings him his food. The scent causes his heart to constrict even as his mouth waters. Thus far, he's been restricted to soldier pills and field rations; all optimised for nutrition while compromising completely on taste and texture.
The smell makes him think of dinners at Ichiraku, after finishing a mission. Of Sakura's high laughter and pink cheeks, of Naruto's loudmouthed bragging to Teuchi and Ayame behind the counter, and of Kakashi always taking his to go and making them pay for it. He stands immobile as a stone.
"Dinner, Sasuke-kun." Kabuto pushes the tray into his hands. Even after six months, Sasuke is not allowed to mix with the rest of the base for anything other than training. He's Orochimaru's next vessel, after all. The man has so many enemies; he keeps his prized assets under lock and key, to protect them. Or to prevent anyone from stealing them away. "You've made significant progress; Orochimaru-sama decided you deserved a taste of home. One of our spies in Ame was instructed to pass through Konoha on his way home and pick some up for you from that stall you and your old team liked so much. He froze it so it would keep on the trip back."
Despite himself, Sasuke refuses the tray, pushing it back. He's been here long enough to know that this is a test: If he accepts a comfort from home, then he hasn't fully assimilated into Oto. "I'll pass."
He knows he's made the correct choice when Kabuto smiles. "Very well. I'll come back in a little bit with something else for you."
The smell lingers after Kabuto takes the food away. Sasuke grits his teeth. He curses his brother for taking one more thing from him—because he wouldn't be in this situation if Itachi hadn't killed their clan. He'd still be home, if not for him.
Except, a little voice whispers in the back of his mind, that this is a mess of Sasuke's own making. He was the one who made the choice to leave, after all. Even when his whole team tried to stop him.
The field ration that Kabuto brings him ten minutes later tastes like ash.
He's allowed to wander the base by his sixth month.
There's not really a lot to it. There's the infirmary, where Sasuke has spent more time than he'd care to admit; the mess hall, where he never takes his meals, because he's on a special diet; Orochimaru's private quarters, which Sasuke only visits when the man wants to speak to him; the laboratories, where he's not allowed to go; and the dungeons.
There are at least a dozen men in the dungeon, the first time he visits it unsupervised; captured shinobi from surrounding nations, based on their hitai-ate, awaiting experimentation.
Sasuke almost starts when he sees the symbol of the Leaf among the captives. The man has an ANBU tattoo on his arm, and is glaring at him through the bars of his cell. "Uchiha. I remember you."
Sasuke's eyebrow raises, but he doesn't speak.
"All that work we put in, watching you during the exams." The man sneers. "What a waste. You're a traitor just like your brother, but the Hokage won't even declare you a nukenin."
Sasuke's rage at being compared to Itachi is superseded by his surprise. "What?" He should have been declared rogue the moment he stepped out of the gates.
"Fucking bleeding heart of a woman." The ANBU spits on the ground at Sasuke's feet. "She let the kyūbi brat talk her into classifying you as a kidnapping victim, even after you nearly killed him. Did you know that?" Sasuke merely shakes his head, palms beginning to sweat in his pockets. "Guess that's what happens when you're from one of the great clans; you people get so much special fucking treatment."
Sasuke bites his tongue to prevent snapping back. Instead, he demands, "Name?"
"Excuse me?"
"What's your name?"
"What's it to you?"
He shrugs. "Nothing."
He and the Konoha-nin stare at each other, not saying a word. Then, Sasuke turns and leaves the room.
His mind races for the next three days. He's not a rogue. Naruto argued for him, even after everything he did.
He could go home, if he wanted to.
He'd face consequences, of course—he's not naïvely optimistic enough to believe he wouldn't. There's no way the Godaime wouldn't rip him a new one at the very least, and he'd probably spend some time in I&T if only to be pumped for information on the enemy.
But he wouldn't be the first runaway student of Orochimaru's to be allowed to go home. The Sandaime had allowed Anko to return. And if Tsunade was really set on having him executed as a rogue, she wouldn't have allowed Naruto to talk her into a more sympathetic version of his departure.
The plan is slapdash, made on a whim—not unlike the decision that led him here. He packs a bag and seals it inside a scroll. He slips it into his clothing. He plans to walk straight out the front door and into the night with confidence and not look back. Most people avoid his eyes now; no one will question what he's doing. So long as he isn't caught by Kabuto or Orochimaru, his path should be clear.
Except… there's the Konoha-nin in the dungeons.
Gritting his teeth at his own niggling conscience, he turns back the way he came. The trek is short; he places the warden under a strong genjutsu with his eyes and finds himself standing outside the man's cage in a matter of minutes.
"Back, traitor?"
Sasuke looks down his nose at the man sitting on the floor of his cell. "Are there any other Konoha-nin here?" He demands. He jingles the keys he stole from the guard to get the man's attention. He doesn't care about the shinobi from other nations.
The man looks taken aback. He stares at the keys. "Not that I know of."
Sasuke examines the man through the bars. He seems healthy enough. He's probably not been here too long. A few weeks? A month at most, judging by the beard. Orochimaru keeps his test subjects in good condition—how else will he get accurate results? The man has probably been fed chakra inhibitors in his food, but that only matters if he tries to use any ninjutsu stronger than an E-rank.
Sasuke unlocks the cell and pushes the door open. "Come on." He turns to leave.
"What are you playing at?" The man demands, making Sasuke turn back. "Disobeying your master, are you? Guess your loyalty is just as fickle as I thought."
He doesn't acknowledge the sneer. "Stay if you want. I don't care." He keeps moving toward the door.
He's almost to it when a large hand grips his elbow. "Is this some kind of joke?" The man hisses under his breath.
Sasuke looks at him over his shoulder, face impassive. Silently, he unseals a kunai from the wrappings on his wrist—a trick Orochimaru taught him in his first month—and hands it to him. The man's fingers uncurl from around his arm, accepting the kunai with a trembling grip. Sasuke turns away and starts up the stairs. "Come. Or stay. Your choice."
The man follows.
The walk is utterly silent. It's late; everyone is asleep. Sasuke casts genjutsu on anyone who encounters them along their walk, leaving three shinobi in crumpled heaps where they fall. The ANBU slits their throats for good measure. Sasuke ignores the crimson pools that bloom under them in their wake.
They emerge aboveground, the ANBU squinting into the night. "What now?"
"We return to Konoha." Sasuke informs him casually.
"I don't know which way it is. I was drugged when I was captured." The man's voice betrays a wavering hope. Sasuke finds it unbecoming in an ANBU, even as he feels his own heart buoyed by the same feeling.
"South-west." Sasuke points. "A little under three days journey. When we get into the trees we'll use a henge."
They don't stop until the next night.
Their disguises—Sasuke as a little girl he conjured from somewhere deep in his memory, and the ANBU as a woman who could pass for her mother—mean that they're granted a room in an inn with little fuss. Sasuke has just enough ryō on him to pay for a night. It's the best chance they have of getting some sleep undetected.
Orochimaru will have noticed them missing, by now. He'll be looking. Furious, probably. He'd thought he had Sasuke.
"You sleep first, kid." The ANBU fingers his borrowed weapon. The fierce expression he wears looks at odds with the sweet countenance of the woman whose face he's adopted. "I've got a few hours' worth of watch in me."
Sasuke grunts. "Wake me in five hours. After you sleep, we don't stop until we reach the gates."
If the man is perturbed to be taking orders from a thirteen year old, he doesn't show it. He simply nods.
Sasuke lets the henge go and quickly falls into a dreamless sleep.
"My name is Asahi, by the way." The man tells him as they prepare to leave the next morning. Sasuke is tired enough that he could probably sleep for another twelve hours, but he's alert enough to change back into his little girl face and move on. "Higuchi Asahi."
Sasuke nods. He takes the ANBU-turned-woman's hand to complete their ruse as they move downstairs to check out. There's no need to tell the man his name; he already knows it.