Sasuke watched Naruto follow the doctor down the hall, blue hospital lighting turning both of them the color of old bruises. Even through the glass, even with the institutional air chill and deadened acoustics, Sasuke could see the tension in Naruto's shoulders, the way his hands hovered at his sides like they wanted to become fists and didn't know if they were allowed. The nurse stationed at the intake desk barely glanced at either of them, her gaze locked on the flickering numbers of the blood pressure monitor as if any one of them might be a bomb.
Sasuke waited until Naruto disappeared through the frosted glass door labeled "Exam 3B," then made a show of stretching, rolling his neck, and scanning the corridor as if bored. The hallway was, by design, a neutral zone. He let his feet take him down toward the restroom sign, hands in pockets, breathing even. The nurse's attention snapped up when the phone on her desk shrilled out a double pulse. She snatched it up on the second ring, voice crisp and irritated. "Nursing. Yes? Yes, he's here, waiting. No, I'll tell him." She cradled the receiver between cheek and shoulder, eyes glued to the paperwork as she scribbled something in the margins with a dying highlighter.
Sasuke passed the threshold into the men's room, but didn't stop. He let the door swing closed, then doubled back, careful to keep his footfalls silent on the industrial tile. In the half-light, he could see the dim outline of the records room down the hall. The glass window was covered in wire mesh; the lock was digital but old, the kind that cycled through a six-digit code and beeped quietly with every correct number. Someone hadn't bothered to reset the password in years. He'd seen enough of these in the family business to guess.
He palmed the keypad, eyes flicking over the number pad. The smudges were obvious—repetitive, always the same quadrant. He keyed in "1-9-9-5-0-7" (founders' years and the local area code were a safe bet) and was rewarded with a mechanical click. "Tch. Pathetic," he muttered under his breath. Even a child could have broken in. He slipped inside, closed the door behind him, and let the darkness settle around his eyes until the outlines of the room resolved.
The records room was colder than the hall, full of old electronics and the ancient, ozone smell of arc lighting. Metal filing cabinets lined the far wall, each drawer labeled in block letters, tape discolored by time. Sasuke moved through the aisles, counting his steps, zeroing in on the row marked "N-Q." His hands moved quickly—knuckles whitening as he worked the drawers, flipping past files with the impersonal efficiency of a clerk.
Kurama's file wasn't there.
For a moment, a thrill of panic shot up his spine: either Kurama had never existed in the system, or someone had scrubbed the file clean.
He checked again, slower this time, reading every tab. Nothing. He scanned the shelf for any outliers, oddities—one drawer sat slightly off compared to the others, gapping open by a few millimeters at the far right. Sasuke hooked his finger under the lip and found it didn't move at all. He dropped to one knee, running his hand along the back panel. The metal was cold, but near the bottom it warmed, as if something behind the drawer radiated heat.
He pried at the seam. Nothing happened. He tried pressing at the edges, and felt a faint give in the lower left corner. He pressed harder, heard a barely perceptible click, and the whole back wall of the cabinet slid forward by an inch. A smirk pulled at his lips—of course he'd found it. Uchihas always did.
Behind it, files. Hundreds, crammed with no tabs, just black marker scrawled across the tops: "CANDIDATE 12," "DROPOUT 27," "BURNER 16." He scanned the faces on the clipped photos—most of them were blurry, some in mid-sob, some in that glassy-eyed stupor of overmedication. Amateur security measures, really. Whoever thought this would stay hidden clearly hadn't anticipated someone like him.
He kept flipping until he found it. "Namikaze, Kurama." The photo was old, but unmistakable—the red hair, the lopsided smirk, a glint in the eye that looked both defiant and dead-tired. The folder was three times as thick as any other. Sasuke pulled it out, dropping to the floor with his back to the cold metal to read.
The first page was a checklist, each box marked with a precise check or X:
☑ No living relatives
☑ No permanent address
☑ Beta designation
☑ No registered Alpha/Omega connections
☑ Minimal community ties
☑ Responsive to initial compound
The next pages were observation notes, clinical and detached:
Subject shows promising reaction to Compound A. No witnesses to collection. Proceed. —O.
He snapped a photo of each page, holding his phone steady, thumb never covering the lens. At the end, a signature: Orochimaru, in looping, almost feminine script, on a medical release form that bore a date two months before Kurama's disappearance.
Sasuke's throat closed. That handwriting. His fingers went cold against the paper, a phantom pain shooting through the crook of his left elbow where a needle had once slid in, administered by those same hands. "Breathe through it, Sasuke-kun," the voice whispered in his memory. "This will only hurt until it doesn't."
Underneath, a sticky note: "Possible candidate for Chimera Protocol? Recessive trait activation confirmed. Archive immediately."
Sasuke checked the next three folders, forcing his trembling hands to steady. All marked "recessive trait activation" in red ink, all with the same pattern: intake, a battery of medical reports, then sudden "transfer" or "release" by Orochimaru. The handwriting on the sticky notes changed once, from O's swooping loops to a rigid, almost childlike scrawl, then back. His jaw clenched as he snapped the final photo. I got you now, bastard. After years of shadows and suspicions, here was the proof—tangible, damning, irrefutable.
He slid the folders back into their slot, reset the false backing, and ran his sleeve over the cabinet to wipe any prints. He rose, stretched his neck, and took one slow, deep breath.
That's when he smelled it: a wave of pheromone so sharp it cut through the formaldehyde and hospital bleach like an alarm. For a second he couldn't move—the scent was so pure, so panicked, it made his teeth hurt. He recognized it instantly: Naruto's, raw and uncut, a biological flare in the dark.
Sasuke's hands curled into fists. He killed the light on his phone, left the cabinet exactly as he found it, and slipped out of the room, pulse thrumming in his ears. Down the hall, he could hear voices—one of them Naruto's, the other higher, too smooth, the doctors unmistakable syrupy cadence. The nurse was still on her phone, head turned, giving him a clear run.
He closed in, silent as a ghost, until he stood just outside the door to Exam 3B.
Inside, Naruto's voice cracked in distress: "I pass out at the sight of blood," followed by the intern's, slick with condescension: "Hold still," The scent of panic was a living thing now, filling the corridor, clawing at the inside of Sasuke's skull.
Sasuke pushed the door open, letting it crash against the wall. The sound split the silence like a warning shot.
Both of them turned, but it was Naruto's face that killed him: open relief, as if just seeing Sasuke standing there was enough to pull him out of the undertow. The doctor looked irritated, but not surprised.
Sasuke let his own voice drop to a steady, lethal cold: "Is there a problem here?"
He already knew the answer. He could see it, smell it, taste it in the air.
Kabuto's smile broke first.
Sasuke didn't hesitate or posture; he shut the door hard enough to make the light fixture above them tremble, then stepped in with the kind of deliberate composure that made everything in the room seem smaller by comparison.
"Naruto has a headache," Sasuke said, tone even as a dead battery. "Why do you have a needle?"
Kabuto's gaze darted to the syringe resting uncapped on the metal tray beside Naruto. "That? Just routine," he said, pushing his glasses higher with his middle finger. "Standard protocol." As he spoke, his eyes traveled across Naruto's body—pausing at his throat, shoulders, hands—like someone inspecting merchandise rather than a patient. "We need to establish baseline readings for our records." When he finally looked up at Sasuke, his expression remained placid, analytical. Two slow blinks. Two heartbeats during which Sasuke visualized violence so specific he could almost feel cartilage giving way beneath his thumbs, could almost hear the wet pop of those observant eyes yielding to pressure.
For a heartbeat, Sasuke went perfectly still. A muscle in his jaw twitched, betraying the pressure of teeth grinding together. His hands flexed once, twice—a predator testing its claws—before settling into something almost casual, though the skin across his knuckles stretched white. He crossed the distance to Kabuto in three measured steps, the sound of his shoes against the linoleum like a countdown. "Tell me," he said, voice dropping to a register that seemed to vibrate the air between them, "how many other students have you stuck needles into without proper authorization?" He invaded Kabuto's space with such calculated precision that the older man found himself retreating before he'd made the conscious decision to move.
Kabuto's next smile was thinner, more brittle, his teeth flashing behind lips that never truly parted. "I assure you, it's all perfectly safe. If you'd like to observe, you're more than welcome."
"I'm not here for a tour," Sasuke said. He shifted sideways, placing himself between Kabuto and Naruto, who had scooted back on the exam table until his heels dug into the vinyl cushion. Sasuke didn't touch him, but the gesture was clear: a wall, a promise, a dare.
Naruto's hand shook a little, but his eyes were dry. The pulse at his jaw fluttered like a trapped insect.
Kabuto straightened, gathering the tray with a noise that sounded too loud in the close room. "If you're dissatisfied with the service, I can file a report. But I have work to do, and you're… interrupting."
Sasuke held Kabuto's gaze until the air between them felt brittle. Then he pivoted, his fingers finding Naruto's wrist. One fluid movement brought Naruto off the exam table and onto his feet beside him. Nothing in the gesture betrayed concern—just efficiency, the casual confidence of someone collecting what belonged to him. Only Naruto felt the slight pressure of Sasuke's thumb against his pulse point, a wordless question that needed no answer.
"My roommate is leaving," Sasuke said, his eyes never leaving Kabuto's. "Now."
He guided Naruto toward the door with a light touch between his shoulder blades, then pivoted back to face Kabuto. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees as Sasuke's eyes narrowed to obsidian slits. "Try this again," he said, each syllable carved from ice, "and I'll make sure you never work here again. The Uchiha name still opens doors—and closes careers."
Kabuto's face remained placid, though one eyebrow lifted slightly above his glasses. "How theatrical," he said, his voice carrying the mild amusement of someone watching a child's tantrum. He slid the syringe into his pocket with unhurried precision, then straightened a stack of papers on his desk. "You're quite protective for someone who claimed to be indifferent." The words were for Sasuke, but his eyes slid to Naruto, lingering with clinical interest. "I'll make a note of it."
Rage boiled under Sasuke' s skin, but something else flickered beneath it—a strange, unwelcome urge to stay, to make Kabuto understand exactly what lines he'd crossed. Instead, Sasuke swallowed hard and grabbed Naruto' s hand, his fingers tightening with an intensity that surprised even himself. He hesitated for a fraction of a second, torn between the need to protect and the desire to destroy, before pulling Naruto through the doorway behind him.
They left the exam room together. Naruto's shoulders hunched forward, his eyes fixed on the scuffed linoleum tiles as they walked. His fingers trembled slightly against Sasuke's grip, and sweat beaded at his hairline despite the building's aggressive air conditioning. Halfway down the hall, he finally lifted his chin, but his usual bright grin was nowhere to be found—just a tight line where his mouth should be and nostrils that flared with each careful breath, as if he were trying to control the very air that entered his lungs.
Sasuke kept hold of Naruto's hand as they hurried down the corridor, past the nurse's station and into the chill of the lobby. The receptionist started to rise, mouth open for a protest, but one look at the set of Sasuke's jaw made her sit back down, fingers twitching over the call button but never pressing it.
They burst through the doors and stumbled to a halt at the curb. Naruto's fingers had gone numb, trapped in Sasuke's white-knuckled grip. He stared at the way Sasuke's jaw worked silently, a muscle twitching beneath pale skin. When he tried to wiggle his fingers, pins and needles shot up his arm. "Hey," he whispered, nodding toward their hands where Sasuke's fingernails had left crescent moons in his skin. "Circulation's becoming optional here."
Sasuke released him immediately. His fingers uncurled one by one, leaving five perfect white pressure marks across Naruto's tanned skin that slowly bloomed crimson at their centers. He ran his hand through his hair, midnight-black strands falling back into place like silk curtains as he turned to face Naruto directly, obsidian eyes scanning for injury. The muscle in his jaw twitched once, twice before stilling. "Are you okay?" The question came out rough, like sandpaper over stone, his voice pitched low enough that only Naruto could hear it, intimate despite its harshness.
Naruto give one nod and they started walking, shoes crunching over salt and gravel. The silence between them was thick, not comfortable but not hostile either. More like an energy field, buzzing with everything that hadn't been said in the last ten minutes.
They walked another block before Naruto spoke again. "Thanks. For... showing up."
Sasuke's shoes scuffed against the pavement as he halted mid-stride. His gaze caught on Naruto's face, skittered away to a point over his shoulder, then snapped back like a rubber band. A flush crept up from his collar, blooming across the shell of his ears. He jammed his fists deep into his pockets, the fabric of his jacket bunching at his shoulders. "Of course," he said, the words barely audible. He swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing once. "We're partners." The last word rang clearer, though a muscle jumped at the hinge of his jaw. "Just don't make it a habit."