The hideout was quiet in the way only Orochimaru's places ever were.
Not peaceful. Expectant.
Sasuke stood near the center of the chamber, arms loose at his sides, eyes fixed forward.
The walls were carved stone reinforced with sealing work he didn't recognize, chakra threaded through the structure like veins.
Northern Land of Fire.
Still close enough to sting, far enough to be unreachable.
Kabuto stood beside him.
Too close, Sasuke thought, but he didn't move.
Kabuto adjusted his glasses with a practiced motion, studying him from the corner of his eye with an expression that bordered on intrigue.
Polite. Almost deferential.
As if Sasuke's presence outweighed his own standing here.
That alone told Sasuke something.
Kabuto had been the one to bring him.
Slipped into the village while it was still bleeding from the invasion, using his infiltration mastery when watchfulness had dulled into exhaustion.
He'd known where to find Sasuke. What to say.
Which wounds to press, and which truths to leave unsaid.
He hadn't needed to convince much.
Only finish what was already breaking.
They'd left cleanly. Too cleanly.
And when Orochimaru's shadow clone appeared later, deliberately visible, deliberately distant, it had been a message as much as a warning to Konoha.
Don't follow.
Now they waited.
The clone hadn't come with them.
Orochimaru wanted this meeting in person.
Kabuto knew why.
He clasped his hands behind his back, posture relaxed, eyes calm.
Outwardly, he was the perfect assistant, attentive, respectful, unthreatening.
Inside, his thoughts moved very differently.
So this is him.
Sasuke Uchiha.
The talent Orochimaru had been watching for years.
Kabuto understood immediately why Orochimaru wanted him.
Not for his mind.
Not for adaptability or patience.
Sasuke was raw potential, sharpened by trauma and rage, a blade that begged to be wielded.
And blades were meant to be used.
Not trusted.
Kabuto almost smiled.
Orochimaru had chosen Kabuto for his intellect. His curiosity.
His ability to understand, to learn, to improve what already existed.
That amused, approving gaze Orochimaru gave him not too long ago after they left Konoha, and entered his main research center, the one that asked "what would you like to explore first", still lingered in Kabuto's memory.
He'd been given autonomy. Real autonomy.
Research topics laid out like a banquet.
Forbidden techniques discussed openly.
Choices offered, not imposed.
And Kabuto had chosen, almost immediately.
Edo Tensei.
The moment he'd seen it, something inside him had clicked.
The logic. The elegance.
Death not as an end, but as infrastructure.
Orochimaru had noticed that spark right away, that strange affinity, and merely nodded, pleased.
That had meant everything.
Sasuke wouldn't get that.
Sasuke was being fattened.
Kabuto knew it as surely as he knew his own pulse.
Orochimaru would indulge him, teach him, push him forward fast and brutally, elevate him to the position of closest disciple in appearance.
Let him feel chosen. Special.
Until the moment he wasn't.
Kabuto didn't know the exact method.
Orochimaru rarely revealed the when until it was imminent.
But the what was obvious.
Extraction. Replacement. Consumption.
Whatever form it took, Sasuke's fate had been sealed the moment he accepted the cursed seal.
That mark was not a gift.
It was a leash.
Kabuto himself had never been given one.
That was the difference.
Pets were marked.
Nourishment was branded.
What Orochimaru truly cherished, he left unbound.
The thought warmed him.
Years of loyalty. Years of obedience.
Years of quiet, methodical service.
It was finally paying off.
He would be the one standing behind Orochimaru when the dust settled, not the pretty, broken prodigy out front.
Kabuto adjusted his glasses again, expression perfectly neutral.
Soon, Orochimaru would arrive.
And the game would truly begin.
...
Sasuke had learned early that everything could be taken.
His clan. His home. His childhood.
All of it erased in a single night, burned into his eyes so deeply that even sleep wasn't safe afterward.
From that moment on, his life stopped moving forward and instead folded inward, narrowing into a single direction.
Kill Itachi.
That was the axis everything turned on.
At first, Konoha had felt like a place to endure rather than belong to.
Classrooms, missions, expectations.
Praise he didn't want.
Sympathy he despised.
He trained because it hurt less than remembering.
He pushed because standing still meant hearing screams that never really faded.
Then Team Seven happened.
An accident, he told himself.
A temporary arrangement.
Naruto was loud, stupid, and infuriating.
Always chasing him, always refusing to stay behind.
Sakura hovered, awkward and sincere, trying too hard to be seen.
And Kakashi… Kakashi watched him with eyes that understood too much and still somehow failed him anyway.
Against his will, something formed.
Not comfort.
Not happiness.
But familiarity.
Naruto's presence became a constant pressure, a reminder that someone was always there, always closing the gap no matter how far Sasuke ran.
That scared him more than he liked to admit.
Rivalry sharpened him, but it also tethered him.
Every time Naruto grew stronger, Sasuke felt both relief and panic.
Because if Naruto could catch up, then what excuse did Sasuke have for still being weak.
Yesterday, it finally broke.
On the hospital roof, Naruto stood in front of him, stubborn as ever, talking about bonds and teams and staying together.
Sasuke heard none of it.
All he saw was the gap closing.
Naruto had grown.
Faster than him.
Stronger in ways Sasuke didn't understand yet.
And as if the past hadn't already carved him hollow enough, Itachi had returned only days ago, breaking him again with a glance, trapping him in a genjutsu that replayed that night until time itself felt meaningless.
He was still out there.
Then there was something else, too.
Something he never let himself dwell on for long.
Seemingly, during that invasion.
Amid the chaos, the screaming, the dead bodies and shattered streets, there had been a voice.
A masked Uchiha woman of unknown origin among the attackers.
She hadn't been speaking to him. Not directly.
She had spoken loudly, deliberately, to Konoha's shinobi, to anyone close enough to hear that she fought at that time.
About Itachi. About the massacre.
About how it hadn't been his choice alone.
The words had cut through the battlefield like a blade. Accusations of orders. Of village leadership. Of secrets buried under necessity and silence.
They had been silenced quickly. Suppressed just as quickly. Dismissed as enemy lies, psychological warfare, poison meant to destabilize morale.
And Sasuke had accepted that explanation at the time.
He had wanted to.
But rumors had a way of surviving even when they were crushed.
Fragments whispered by chūnin.
Half-finished sentences that stopped when he entered a room.
Averted eyes.
Tension where there shouldn't have been any.
And once a seed existed, it didn't matter how deeply you tried to bury it.
It lingered.
Unanswered.
Uncomfortable.
He told himself it didn't change anything.
That truth or lies, Itachi was still his enemy.
Still his target.
But sometimes, late at night, when sleep refused to come, the thought crept back in uninvited.
"What if?"
He crushed it every time.
He didn't have room for doubts.
Not anymore.
There was a reason he didn't confront anyone about it.
Because staying in Konoha meant accepting the answers they were willing to give him. Official answers. Clean answers. Convenient ones.
If there was even a chance that what she said was true, then the village itself was implicated.
And a village didn't confess to its sins willingly.
It buried them under protocol, under loyalty, under the excuse of "necessary evil."
Sasuke understood that instinctively.
If he stayed, he would never be allowed to dig.
Not without permission.
Not without supervision.
Not without being stopped the moment he got too close.
And worse than that, he wasn't strong enough yet to force the truth out of anyone.
Not from elders. Not from missing pieces of the past. Not from Itachi himself.
That realization settled cold and final in his chest.
If he wanted answers, real ones, he couldn't remain inside the system that might have ordered his clan's death.
And if he wanted the power to uncover them, then the village that kept secrets was useless to him.
Orochimaru, at least, never pretended to be righteous.
So, the fight in the hospital wasn't really about anger.
It was about fear.
Fear that if he stayed, if he hesitated, if he let himself be pulled into that stupid, fragile idea of a future with them, he would rot.
He would stagnate.
He would die before ever touching his brother or finding the truth.
So he struck first.
Words, fists, chakra.
Anything to sever it cleanly.
And still, doubt lingered.
Even after Kabuto found him.
Even after the path was laid out in front of him.
Even after he stepped out of the village in silence, leaving Sakura unconscious on the ground.
There had been a moment.
A small, hateful hope.
They would come.
Kakashi. Naruto. Someone. Anyone.
A pursuit. A mistake. A fight.
Something that proved he still mattered enough to chase.
Instead, there was nothing.
No alarms. No pursuit. No pressure at his back.
The village didn't even dare.
That was when it snapped into place.
The realization didn't hurt. It clarified.
Konoha would never give him what he needed, even if they weren't implicit in any way in what Itachi had done at that time.
Not power. Not permission. Not resolve.
They wanted him only as a contained symbol, not as something more.
The last Uchiha polished and displayed.
Useful to have, but not necessary, once he got too troublesome.
In that moment, something inside his eyes shifted.
The third tomoe bloomed without effort, without emotion, as if his Sharingan had been waiting for him to finally understand.
There was no going back.
Not to that village.
Not to that team.
Naruto would chase shadows of bonds.
Sakura would grieve something that was already dead.
Kakashi would apologize and fail again.
That was their path.
His was elsewhere.
Now, standing in Orochimaru's hideout, Sasuke felt the weight of that choice settle fully onto his shoulders.
Kabuto stood beside him, polite, observant, hiding whatever thoughts slithered behind those glasses.
Sasuke didn't trust him.
He didn't need to.
Trust was irrelevant.
The man they were waiting for had given him power.
And a curse.
Pain and clarity wrapped into one mark that burned into his flesh and whispered promises every time he closed his eyes.
Orochimaru was a monster.
Sasuke knew that.
A snake wearing human skin.
But monsters understood monsters.
And Orochimaru had what Sasuke needed.
Strength. Knowledge.
A path that didn't flinch from darkness.
Sasuke didn't care what Orochimaru wanted in return.
Not really.
He would take everything offered, every technique, every scrap of power, and when the time came, he would deal with the consequences himself.
He had always believed he was strong enough to shoulder that.
After all, arrogance wasn't a flaw if you could back it up.
Sasuke's gaze hardened as footsteps echoed faintly through the hideout.
Let the snake come.
As long as it led him to Itachi and the truth that led to his tragic experience current existence, Sasuke would walk straight through hell without blinking.