2 Chapter 1: Hidden Motives.

Naruto awoke slowly, groggy and confused. The bed he was lying on was too hard and the light shining in his face too bright. Naruto sat up and slid off of the high table, blinking the dazzle out of his smarting eyes and looking around him. Young though he was, Naruto could recognize a hospital room when he saw one, and this room, with its harsh lighting, operating table, and scrubbed tiling seemed like a bizarre mixture of hospital and autopsy lab, both of which Naruto had previously had the displeasure to experience in his short life within the confines of the walls of Konoha.

There was a large sheet of dark mirror set into one wall, no doubt a one-way window for observing what was happening in this room from the safety and relative comfort of an adjoining room, like the ones they used in the Torture and Interrogation department. Naruto went over to that mirror and tapped on it, reasoning that he wouldn't be in a room with a one-way mirror if no one were watching him.

"Hello?" he called tentatively.

In the next room, Orochimaru watched as his new host sat up and looked around. "Take a look, Kabuto. This is the start of your newest fulltime project." He clapped Kabuto on the shoulder. "Congratulations." Kabuto noticed that the Snake sannin seemed in unusually good spirits.

Kabuto dubiously watched the blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy as he looked around the spartan room. "From what I've been told, the boy is practically illiterate," he said.

"Well, if your plan of depending on the Kyuubi to keep young Naruto alive comes to nothing, it won't matter. Why don't you go and prepare him for his first infusion?"

Kabuto was startled. "So soon, Orochimaru-sama?"

Orochimaru shrugged, smiling playfully as he watched Naruto approach the tinted one-way-mirror. "If he doesn't survive the first operation, there's no need to train him," Orochimaru pointed out. "If he does survive it, then you may begin to bring him up to speed. Teach him to read first, I think. That will make your job easier in the future."

Kabuto strode to the exit of the room but did not open the door yet. His hand resting on the doorknob, he turned back to look at Orochimaru. "The boy will undoubtedly have questions. What do I tell him?"

"Anything you want. Just do not tell him my eventual plans for him or what exactly the experiments we will be performing on him consist of." Kabuto nodded and turned to the door, but stopped as Orochimaru spoke one last time. "Oh, and Kabuto, don't tell him about the Kyuubi. I have plans and I don't need any unwanted problems."

"Of course, Orochimaru-sama." Kabuto left, shutting the door behind him with a quiet, respectful click. Orochimaru shifted his gaze back to the window, a smile manifesting on his pale face when Naruto jumped as the door to the operation room was unlocked and pushed open.

Naruto started around as there was the loud click of a lock turning over, and the door was pushed inwards. A boy entered. He was tall and looked to be around fifteen, old, from Naruto's perspective, but nowhere near as old as Jiji. He wore his mid-length silver hair tied back and round glasses perched on his nose. When he spotted Naruto standing by the mirror, he smiled. Naruto wasn't entirely sure he liked that smile.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked accusatorially.

"Where am I? What happened to Mizuki?"

"I am Kabuto Yakushi, and this one of the labs of my master. Mizuki works for the same man as I do and remained in Konoha while we brought you here."

"Why did you take me here?" Naruto asked, backing up as Kabuto tried to approach him.

"You agreed to perform a couple of tests for us in exchange for us training you to be a great shinobi," Kabuto explained.

"What kind of tests?" Naruto asked suspiciously. However, at the mention of the tests that Mizuki had spoken of, he took a step forward in spite of himself. Encouraged, Kabuto leaned against the edge of the operating table on which Naruto had awoken and patted the surface, inviting Naruto to sit up on it. Naruto did so, perching himself on the edge as far away from Kabuto as he could get.

"These tests are nothing special, maybe a few new vitamin supplements every couple of months," Kabuto said casually. "Probably nothing immediately noticeable will happen, but it can't hurt."

"Why me?" Naruto asked.

Kabuto was growing weary of the incessant questions, but he kept the smile grafted onto his smooth, pale face so as not to alert the boy. "We are interested in you. You have incredible chakra reserves and your healing rate gives you great potential as a shinobi. We only recently discovered you through Mizuki and we want to see you trained right."

For the first time, Naruto stopped focusing entirely on being wary and began expending a bit of his mind to taking interest in what was happening to him. "What will you teach me?"

Kabuto waved a finger at Naruto. "Not yet; that would be telling. And you just got here! There are some preliminary tests we'd like to perform on you before I begin to teach you anything. Nothing of the pass-or-fail variety, I just want to know a bit more about your current skills and limitations before I begin." Kabuto pulled a vial out of his pocket and a small glass out of another. He quickly decanted the liquid from the vial into the glass and handed it to Naruto. "Please drink this."

Naruto sniffed the drink suspiciously, but was unable to detect any but a slight, oily, waxy, scent. It didn't smell like anything dangerous that Naruto had ever drunk before, so he downed it in one swallow. Kabuto quickly slid the glass out of Naruto's slack fingers and laid him face up on the operating table so he wouldn't topple off from his perch on the edge. He ignored the accusing look on Naruto's face as the boy once again fell unconscious.

The door opened and Orochimaru entered, stepping to Kabuto's side and looking down into Naruto's sleeping face. "Well done. Prepare the first infusion and we'll give it to him immediately."

Kabuto walked over to one of the counters along the wall and took out a key. Unlocking a wall-mounted cabinet, he swung open the door to reveal racks of samples and experimental infusions that did not require refrigeration. The more unstable solutions would not have been kept in the room where a valuable test subject was left to resurface from a drugged sleep. Kabuto reached up, gloved fingers hovering before the racks of vials. "Which one, Orochimaru-sama?"

Orochimaru hesitated for no more than a heartbeat. "Konan's DNA first, I think. He can't do much harm with it, and if his body can't handle turning from flesh to paper and back, you'll soon see and know if we ought to scrap this project and start over with someone new." Orochimaru gave Kabuto a meaningful look.

"Yes, Orochimaru-sama." Kabuto's fingers closed around a slim, glass vial and lifted it out of the rack, swinging the cabinet door to and locking it before returning to Orochimaru with the vial. Earlier he had, through methodical trial and error using normal paper, come upon a way to convert paper into a liquid form that it was possible to inoculate one with. Kabuto handed the vial to Orochimaru and, while Kabuto hooked Naruto up to various apparatuses that would monitor Naruto's heart rate, brain patterns, breathing rate, chakra levels, and the like, Orochimaru loaded the solution into a hypodermic needle. When Naruto was all set up- Kabuto had even gone so far as to strap him to the table- Orochimaru approached the boy, holding the needle.

He injected the infusion directly into the main ulnar artery in Naruto's right arm. No sooner than he had removed the needle, the chamber empty, the prick-mark closed up before single drop of blood could spill, healing without so much as a lingering scar. That Youki is useful stuff, Orochimaru mused, stepping away from the table. Too bad I shall probably have to extract the Kyuubi from the boy before I can claim possession of his skin. He disposed of the used needle and gave Kabuto strict instructions to watch Naruto, to keep him sedated until his vitals had returned to normal, and, if he was still alive at that point, to then move him to the room that had been prepared for him. If and when he woke naturally in the new room, he was to be fed. At that point, Kabuto was to use his judgment about when to begin Naruto's lessons, though he was not to begin teaching Naruto to use the powers that his new DNA would hopefully grant him. Those lessons would begin only with Orochimaru's express orders.