Twiceborn: Adventures of the Red-Haired Menaces

Chapter One: Awakening

Darkness.

That was all which greeted her as she cracked her eyes open in the murkiness. Groggy, she lifted her arms, confusion creeping in as she felt the silky feel of water surrounding her. Where was she? Squinting, she peered through the water, blinking at the three blurry shapes she could see outside of the thick sheet of glass keeping her confined.

Though very soon that wasn't the case as glass shattered and scratched her in places. Water gushed out, the mask covering her face removed just as swiftly, and then she was being carried out of the strange tube. Her mind worked overtime, memories rushing to the forefront of her mind as she tried to remember how she'd ended up there.

Kaguya. Her sealing. But everyone was already dead. Naruto. Stupid idea. Seal. Flare of light. Then—there. Sakura groaned, blinking the last of the water from her eyes, peering up at the three figures standing over her.

Two heads of red hair. One white. Lips moved, voices sounding murky and far away, but as she regained her senses, she realised exactly what the hell was going on. "Is it Sakura?" the one with silky straight hair asked, big black eyes peering at her curiously, three damning whisker marks on either cheek telling her exactly who it was. "She's the only living experiment left... and she's a girl..."

"Really?" the slightly spiky-haired one muttered, rolling his eyes. "I couldn't tell."

"We'll find out soon enough, Naruto-kun," the white-haired one spoke that time, snorting and shaking his head. "See. She's coming around."

Sakura found herself being lifted by the soaking white shift she wore. "Sakura-chan? Is it you? Neh, it is you, right?" Naruto asked, shaking her back and forth as though that would make things better – it made things worse.

She really wanted to throw up.

"Give her some space, idiot!" Sasuke hissed.

It seemed his duck butt had grown out.

There was a pause, a moment of absolute stillness, before the one she assumed to be Kakashi-sensei snorted yet again. "Yep. That's definitely Sakura-chan."

"Hn."

"What's goin' on?" Sakura blinked at the raspy voice which escaped her. Was that a lisp? She found her feet, careful of the broken glass and brickwork which seemed to be littered about the large white slabs of tiling. A quick look around the room now the water had been cleared from her eyes showed it to be a lab of some description, with four large glassy tubes stretching across the wall on one side, including the one she had just been freed from. "Sh'eal?"

"Her file is here!" Sasuke called from a filing cabinet across the room, tucking yet another file into his chest. There were four of them in total now. One for each of them.

"Orochimaru probably has spares somewhere else, so there's likely to be some record of our existence—"

"Hol' up." Her tongue felt like sandpaper. Heavy sandpaper. "Wha's happenin' here?"

"No time to explain, Sakura-chan!" Naruto declared, just as Kakashi scooped her small sodden form off the ground. She was shorter than all of them, annoyingly enough. "ANBU are infiltrating the place now, and we can't afford to be caught... otherwise who knows what'll happen..."

"Danzo got a hold of Yamato from a lab like this one, and I do not want him getting his sticky fingers on any of us. We can bring ROOT down from the outside swiftly enough," Kakashi said, eyes narrowing on all the various exit points. "Come on you two," he ordered, sparing a glance at Naruto and Sasuke before he hurried out into a darkened hallway.