Game of Shadows by Adrian King1

Chapter 69

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor The Gamer. I own nothing, really.

Chapter 69

[Hiruzen Sarutobi]

"What have you done with Eiji, Orochimaru?" He asked, his tone holding none of its usual calm and collected nature. No, after all that had happened to his precious village and to the people in it, after all that was still happening around them, this was the last thing he wanted to deal with.

He'd wished it wasn't true, that his Anbu had been wrong somehow.

But they weren't.

When he had been told that Eiji had woken up he'd been elated. That joy died a quick death when the guard that he'd placed in the boy's room had added that he had Orochimaru's eye instead of his. That had brought up fears that he'd buried deep inside himself since the day Eiji had been Marked.

Now, Hiruzen had to sit there, watching the boy he'd trusted with his surrogate grandson lie on a bed, like he'd done for days already. He'd been forced to know that he was there, more scarred than some veterans already so soon in his career, for mistakes he'd made. Knowing that both major scars of his were because of Hiruzen's own oversights, both because of his former student, to add salt to the wound.

Furthermore, he now had to face Eiji, the boy he'd regularly visited, conversed and played with. Hiruzen had to look him in the face and see his only visible eye being Orochimaru's.

The Hokage had many failures in his past already, but it never got any easier to be confronted with one.

"Eiji needs help, Sarutobi."

Of all the things Hiruzen expected Orochimaru to tell him, that wasn't one of them. He was especially surprised that he'd been addressed as "Sarutobi" as opposed to the now usual mocking "Sensei" that his former student loved to insult him with. Shocked as he was with that though, it made him frown. Was that a trick or something else?

"I'm not Orochimaru, or his Shade," Whoever was possessing Eiji said. Hiruzen was pretty sure that this was his student though. It even sounded like him, which made for a terrible cover. That could be intentional though. "I'm Hachi, a construct that Eiji based on the Shade of Orochimaru left by the Mark. I was supposed to keep an eye on his Mindscape and the Shade itself."

Hiruzen blinked at that and turned to Inoichi, who had come for the interrogation, same as Ibiki.

"It... How did he do it?" Inoichi asked, clearly looking out of his depth. It would have been a telltale of a plot, if not for Eiji's knack for doing things that nobody else could.

"He willed a copy of the Shade and then placed as many safeguards on me as he could think of. He regularly goes over them and corrects or adds to them too," The being answered calmly. It was eerie, really, to hear Eiji's voice but knowing it wasn't him. "I'm incapable of going against Eiji, not that I would anyway. Shade and I are entirely too afraid of him to do anything."

"Forgive me if that sounds hard to believe," Hiruzen replied with a scowl.

"It wouldn't, if you had seen what we have. Ask the Yamanaka, although I'm sure he's reported to you the special kind of hell that awaits me or Shade should we try anything," The thing shot back instantly, clearly unimpressed with his distrust.

The reference to the Void as everyone that knew of it seemed to call it, made Hiruzen pause. It was true that he wasn't as impressed with it as everyone that had witnessed it seemed to be. However, after seeing its effects on Kabuto Yakushi, he could very well believe that it was something worthy of respect, at the very least.