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--

And he feels as if he's suffocating.

His chest is tight (so tight, it actually hurts like something is grasping his heart and threatening to drain it dry) and he's hacking for breath but he curls up tight, squeezing himself toward the wall because the only thing he knows for sure is that it's there, it's the only thing he knows is around him and everything else seems so far away, and so dearly he wished to blend into it, and let it hide him from this man he used to and no longer trusts.

He feels like he's blindfolded, stranded on a single rock of land, standing in the middle of an abyssal ridge-- he's terrified, he doesn't know where to move, where to go, so every step and every single movement feels like it'd send him tumbling down to his eternal death.

He wanted to just leap. To scream and take his weapons and just slaughter this man to the littlest little bits he could. But it was dark and empty and he was alone and Orochimaru had the advantage in dark areas.

But somehow at this moment none of that strength is there with him. None of that resolve and confidence he promised himself when he told Anko about his new goal. All that flooded his senses now was just a renewed fear, a blinding flash of old trauma, and the neverending wave of pain that crashed over each cell of his brain and shattered it to mush.

And he remembers.

Needles in his arms, snakes binding his wrists, thunder through his nerves, acid through his veins, and blood through his tears. He remembers the hand reaching out toward him, accompanied by that smile, that smile once so gentle, now seemed only so malicious.

And then, the purple nails on those bony fingers as they tear his fingers apart one by one, revelling in his agony.

He remembers Orochimaru and everything he did to him.

Suddenly he wasn't a soldier anymore.

He was just a weak little crybaby at the mercy of another. Waiting for his death, only able to cry and eventually he would die.

All he can do is shrink and cry and wish with all his heart that the thing would just go away, go away, don't come back.

"Itsuki!"

A pair of smaller, thinner, warmer arms wrap around his neck, strongly and firmly and so protectively he doesn't shoot it right back.

And suddenly everything breaks, everything flashes so brightly into him-- not light. The world was still empty. But something is there. Something that brings him back.

His breath is so quick, he suddenly realizes, so quick, he's barely even noticed. He feels like he'd run a marathon with no rest, breathing so strongly, so raggedly, his head spins and hurts, he feels nauseated and any moment he'd hurl absolutely nothing from his empty stomach, and his heartbeat pangs in his brain tissue like a blaring alarm to tell him to rest.

He obeys. Taking in a deep breath, he forces himself to pause for a swell moment, scowling at the grasping pain for air, then he breathes out shakily.

His breaths are in bits and pieces, pathetic attempts at this apparently unconscious human instinct. Like a baby dolphin first surfacing, he's forgotten how to breathe and was trying to learn it all over again.

He takes another moment-- his body seems to reactivate, booting back up slowly as his cognitive abilities start reeling in more information.

His eyes are wide open but no, everything around him is still dark-- why can't someone turn on the lights already please there's oughta be a lamp in here somewhere! why is it still nighttime, where is the sun?

What breaks him away from the net of information was a nostalgic waft of sugar.

The little figure that lay sprawled across his body (no, this body was little... but so was his own body, by comparison) smells of milk powder and crushed autumn leaves.

"Itsuki, it's okay," the girl's voice-- a child's voice? No, this was definitely-- "it's okay now, no one's hurting you."

The girl was a size smaller than himself, yet she pats his head so tenderly and runs her fingers through his hair so soothingly-- her words speak in a casual sing, just a little calm in the mischief.

"Anko," he chokes out.

Itsuki finds himself leaning into her, head burying into her chest, wrapping his arms around her so needingly even if he doesn't remember her being this thin, nor her waist this small.

But for a moment it just didn't matter at all.

He loses himself in her scent, craving the contact and the intimacy and the meager moment of affection he knows Anko would pull away from soon-- and for a while it really didn't matter how dark it was or how scared he was.

He allows himself to think he was safe despite the ongoing war, and sleeps.