DiSCERN (Naruto Fanfic)

Chapter Three.

When Itsuki wakes up, his eyes snap open. The darkness is all he sees, so he shuts them warily, realizing that he was at war, unconscious, if he didn't know where he was at the moment the best option was to play dead.

In a second he realizes his weapons are nowhere to be seen, and the surface he lay on was abnormally soft. He bites down the panic that threatens to choke him, and he subtly feels around with his palms hidden under the sheets.

Softer than the dry mats in the medic tents. Softer than even the limp futons in their home base, but he knows he's nowhere near the area. No way-- was this a mattress? He feels a gentle weight over him-- a blanket. And by the cooling winds on his cheek, there is a working fan in the room. How long had it been since he slept under one?

His hands clench over the sheets under him, and for the first time in forever, he feels cold fabric smooth over his palms.

His palms, numbed by years of calluses and scars and thickened by hard training-- yet, the feeling comes so easy to him, as if-- as if his hands were soft and squishy and able to feel warmth again.

What?

"You're awake," a voice comes beside him, "I can tell, Itsuki."

He flinches, because he knows that voice. His eyes snap open and still, everything is nowhere to be seen. The darkness suddenly seems like the belly of a giant snake, and his heart squeezes itself in-- he's trapped, surrounded, encased, no escape.

That voice.

He's spent years wishing to never hear it again. It was the voice that plagued his nightmares and the very voice he spent his childhood swearing to kill-- then he couldn't, because Uchiha Sasuke got to kill him first, apparently.

The rippling waves of a familiar chakra signature floats before him, and although it emits none of that eerie, lusty nature now, Itsuki knows whose it was. But he's dead. He's supposed to be dead unless- unless again he's alive and again he's going to try and--

Why?

Why is Orochimaru-sensei here?

His hands strain. Realizing he's still lying down, all his senses pivot to shove his body upward, flinching back as his first instinct demands his immediate escape from the situation.

There's a wall behind him. To the left of him, too? Oh no, he's in the corner of a room. The only escape was... forward?

A sharp pain spikes through his head, and a groan escapes him with a hurt whimper, and he crumbles, curling up as he reaches up to his head, squeezing his eyes shut as the agony burns through his skull.

"You're safe here."

Safe?

In what manner at all did Orochimaru have grounds to say that word? Why would he even dare imply that? Is this a trick? Am I captured? Am I his next test subject? His next vessel? His next--

"No need to be so wary," Orochimaru speaks again, gentler this time, and a hand (oh god his hand his hand he'stouchingme nononogoaway) lands softly on his shoulder, snaking across his waist, and wraps around his shoulders.

In a discomfortingly fatherly manner.

His legs raise, shoving a strong kick forward but from the way the hands on his shoulders swerve, he can feel that the man dodges it.

Is it just him, or are his legs... shorter?

He screams, because anything, anyone, get me away from this man, he shoves the arms right out of him and he curls into the wall, still failing to find an escape route nearby and he doesn't think he can find one if the world is still so dark and small and trapped and--