I’ve Known Yesterday


Disclaimer: I hereby defer all ownership and rights to the series Naruto to Masashi Kishimoto, bragging and otherwise.
AN: Welcome to my first (posted) Naruto fanfic. It begins around Chapter 311 of the manga and my own plot takes off from there. I hope you enjoy.

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Prologue:

Sai woke. His eyes opened and roamed over the full span of his shadowed one-room flat. Pencils, pastels and brushes lay in their compartments atop his long white working table. Leaning against walls, stacked in tidy piles, notebooks and parchments were set aside. He looked to the west corner of his room. A pot and tea kettle sat undisturbed on top of his stove near a refrigerator that hummed faintly. His gaze returned to the foot of his bed and settled on the culprits. They stood sniffing at him watching for his reaction. Sai sat up. They were his ink mice, but he had not pulled them out, and he had not sent any away that he hadn’t collected and stored back in his scroll. The faux animals stood on their hind legs now, noses pointed, rigid and waiting. Sai took a closer look at them. He hadn’t drawn these type of mice in a long time. He nodded the mice scurried under his bed and there immediately followed a rapid scratching noise. Sai turned to the window narrowing his dark eyes in the swelling light of a high autumn moon. He waited patiently until there returned a sudden silence telling him to reach underneath the edge of his bed where there was hidden a small correspondence scroll. He brought it up to the moonlight and unrolled it. The mice had become Danzou’s neat and narrow script. A single character slanted across the center of the page – Sai, the name given to him, a summons to the Atrium. Onyx eyes gazed down on the parchment un-blinking, the vacant remainder giving no more evidence of other signs to be decoded. The ROOT shinobi rolled the parchment up, the ink already returning to drawings of mice. He rose from bed, readied himself promptly and departed in a spiral of black ink.

The Atrium was empty when he arrived. He crossed into the underground threshold and it was as it had always been: the cool air hung stagnant, the vaulted walls seemed to catch living noises, the muted light and shadows never told the time of day. He remained in genuflection. He would wait for his master to reveal himself presently.

Instead of the leader it was the other’s who arrived, the first being the most recent inductee. Through his peripheral vision, more and more bodies materialized, until the last and greatest position in the room entered. Sai had barely risen to his feet before Danzou began to speak.

(It was part of old tradition that ROOT appeared in order of the hierarchy, from the least to the greatest. One of the far-reaching few and rigid statutes that ruled over them, as anyone who understood its importance also understood the purpose of the organization. The purpose Sai thought he too understood. As a member of the intermediate branch, the time had long past since Sai was obliged to appear first. There was no purpose for this.)


(The assembly discussed trivial details and virtually completed assignments in length. There was even an exchange of praise. There was no talk of stratagems or of revolution in the government. They were simply repeating past reports. Behind his colorless expression, Sai knew he had been unceremoniously demoted, but he didn’t know why. He had not committed any disobedience. He had fulfilled all his missions up to this point.)



What was the meaning of that? What else could he have done? The only difference in his standing had been his transfer to Team Seven and he had smiled again. That he had fun. That he had friends now. But that didn’t affect how he performed. It didn’t hamper his Mission. He was still doing his job. He didn’t believe he had changed so much.

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AN: Don’t forget to leave up a review!