Requisition

Warning: Violence, brain-washing, implied sexual situations involving minors. Disclaimer: I don't own any source material.

Summary: AU. Brothels are businesses that are privately-owned, but government-mandated in the hopes of decreasing public crime. Anyone can be claimed for service and people can be sent there to disappear. Anyone can use them on a sliding-scale fee. Anything can be done other than murder. It's not a nice way to live. But it's a business. And a place to hold secrets.

Chapter 5: Permanence

Requisition Class A: Forcible compliance contract. Punishment. Brought back for entrance.

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1.

Ino was terrified. New recruits, among the children at least, were always terrified. And Ino hadn't been homeless like Naruto had been. She'd been living with her father. Until he'd gotten some sort of dirt on the government rule in her much smaller city and had tried to blackmail the leaders. It was a stupid move that resulted in him being thrown in prison and his daughter taken away as punishment.

Her father was sure to be killed in prison.

Ino didn't know what her father had found out and, quite frankly, she didn't care. All she wanted was to go home.

She had lived in one of the other regions before this, one that was near an ocean. Naruto had never heard of an ocean before and even after Sasuke tried to explain it he was still confused by the very idea.

Ino was moved into the room next door with Lindsay, but the girls didn't get along. Lindsay missed Abby too much and Ino couldn't deal with her new life. She'd often leave her room during the night to sit against the wall that led out of the Block. The attendants would move her back when they encountered her during the night, but it wasn't unusual to find her passed out by the door in the mornings.

Naruto tried to make friends with her. He was quickly becoming the unofficial support with the children's section. He was first and foremost Sasuke's caretaker as was Sasuke to him. There was never any change or doubt in that. Naruto was the emotional support and Sasuke was the physical support.

But Naruto was quickly changing.

Two times a week he'd be taken out of the Block to go 'talk' with some adults. He described it to Sasuke one time. It was just hanging out with a couple of men, an older one and a younger one. The younger one was apparently from one of the older categories of workers. The older one said that he was a contractor who lived in the city.

At first it had just been them speaking to Naruto. He'd watch the older man, named Edgar, speaking easily to the younger one, Ian. The two slowly acted closer and after noticing how confused Naruto appeared, Ian laughed.

"I really like Edgar," he explained, "he's my boyfriend."

"He's your friend?" Naruto asked.

"Well yeah, he's my friend," Ian said, "but he's also my boyfriend."

"What's that?" Naruto asked, his forehead wrinkled in confusion.

Edgar smiled, "I love Ian," he said, "I visit him all the time and when he's finished with his work here he's going to move in with me so I can take care of him."

Naruto had heard of love before. Tom had mentioned it, as well as a few other customers. He had a vague idea of what it meant. "When do you finish with work?" he asked. He'd never even thought about work being finished. Being given permission to leave.

"We get to leave when we're twenty-eight," Ian said, "I've got thirteen more years to go."

"I've been here for a year and a half," Naruto told him, "How much longer until I can leave?"

"How old are you?" Edgar asked, "About six or seven?"

"I'm six."

"That's…about twenty-two more years," Ian said a bit hesitantly.

"How much is that?" Naruto asked. He knew nothing about numbers.

Edgar waved his hand, "It'll go by just like that," he said, snapping his fingers. "Don't you worry about it."

Naruto nodded again. Edgar patted his lap, "Come here and sit with me," he said.

Naruto obediently moved to his lap. It felt strange when Edgar attempted to do nothing more.

"Do you like working here?" Ian asked.

"No," Naruto answered immediately.

"Why not?"

"It hurts. And I want to see a garden. And I don't want Sasuke to be here. He hates it here."

"You just haven't given it a chance," Ian said.

Naruto looked at him, "Do you like it?"

Ian smiled and nodded, "I think it feels really good. And it's nice to be loved by so many people."

"I don't like it," Naruto said.

Edgar shook his head, "You really do need to give it a chance," he said, "So many people love you and want to be with you and you get to make so many people so happy."

Naruto nodded, still completely unconvinced. But it was easier to agree with people. And it made them happier with you.

Sasuke got angry when he heard about it. "They're liars," he said viciously, "They're liars. No one here cares about us. And how can it feel good? How could it ever feel good?"

Naruto agreed.

But he still had to keep meeting with them.

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2.

Sasuke had a new injury. He stayed in the infirmary much longer than usual and Sherry was very upset about it. It made Naruto nervous and anxious and when they finally brought Sasuke back Naruto pounced on him immediately.

"Let me see it," he demanded, climbing above Sasuke and straddling him.

Sasuke glared at him and didn't move.

"Let me see it," Naruto insisted, "What's wrong with it? Why'd you have to stay in the infirmary?"

Sasuke finally jerked his head slightly to the side and Naruto's attention was drawn to his neck. It was dark throughout the room, the only light came from the low night-lighting in the common area and Naruto bent closer in order to see it.

It was oddly shaped, clearly made with some sort of knife and it was low on his neck, almost at the collarbone. It didn't look that serious and aside from the unusual design there was only one thing that made it worrisome. "Why's it so dark still?" Naruto asked.

"Shizune couldn't heal it," Sasuke muttered.

"What?"

Sasuke was silent for moment, clearly furious, "She couldn't heal it. They sewed it up instead. So it's permanent."

Permanent was a scary word. It meant forever and it was something terrible to happen to a fulfiller. If you got enough permanent wounds you were transferred to a different ward. None of the kids really knew about it, but they were all frightened of it.

Naruto immediately reached out to touch it, but Sasuke hit his hand away and covered it with his own hand. They were both silent for a moment; Sasuke was clearly furious and Naruto was clearly shocked.

"I've got scars too," he whispered after a moment. "On my face. No one cares though."

"Shut up," Sasuke snapped, "Why would I care about your face?"

"I don't care about your neck," Naruto said, "Or what scars you have."

"I don't care what you think!" Sasuke said and he shoved Naruto off of him. "I want to get out of this place!"

Naruto got on his knees, "We will! Ian said that it's only…22 years and we'll get to leave!"

There was a sudden terrible silence. Sasuke sat up and stared at him with wide eyes. "Twenty-two years?" he finally repeated in a whisper.

"Yeah," Naruto said hesitantly, uneasily. "Edgar said that it was…okay…"

Sasuke took in a sudden broken breath and pressed his face against his knees, his entire body trembling. He starting mumbling something in a clearly torn voice that Naruto couldn't hear.

"Sasuke? What's wrong?" Naruto asked frantically, "What's wrong, what happened?"

Sasuke raised his head and looked at Naruto, his eyes violently red and painful. Then he reached up quickly and ripped the stitches on his neck. It made him wince and cry out, but he kept going.

"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted, "Stop!"

"Shut up!" Sasuke shouted in return, "Shut up! I won't do this! I'm not going to do it anymore! I want out! Now!"

Naruto reached for him, but Sasuke moved away quickly, digging his nails deeper into the profusely bleeding wound. Naruto ran to the wall and pressed the button for an attendant repeatedly.

It was a male attendant that Naruto didn't know. The room was suddenly and lividly bright and the attendant cursed as he grabbed Sasuke and forced his arms back into a safe position. He held him in place as he one-handedly prepared a syringe and then injected it, using the open wound on the boy's neck.

"Take me with!" Naruto demanded, "I need to go with him!"

The man ignored him, using both arms to hold Sasuke in place again.

"Take me to the infirmary!" Naruto shouted.

Sasuke was slowly losing his angry thrashing. Naruto stared at the attendant and then reached out, grabbed the syringe and jammed it into his own neck, tearing it through his skin until the needle broke off in his skin. He choked as his gag reflex activated and he threw up.

The attendant carried the mostly limp Sasuke with him to the wall as he called for another attendant. Naruto put his fingers in his mouth and bit until there was blood. "Take me with him!" he shouted again, blood dripping out of his mouth and down his chin.

"Fine!" the attendant yelled in his face, "Quit it!"

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3.

Sasuke spent the next two days in the infirmary, all appointments canceled. Naruto was drugged out of his mind and delivered to all of his own appointments and was also taken to whichever of Sasuke's appointments that he was able to cover. That night he was taken by an attendant to Kabuto's workroom and he spent the night on a stretcher with wrists and ankles restrained.

Cuts that he'd gotten throughout the day were healed, but none of the bruises and none of the bones that were injured were healed. The medication wasn't renewed and Kabuto gave him something that kept him awake.

The next day was an exact repeat.

Self-injury was absolutely forbidden in their establishment. He was being punished.

Naruto didn't know what happened to Sasuke while he was in the infirmary, but when he returned there was no sign of anger. He was quiet and subdued and he slept as close to Naruto as he could possibly get, his skinny arms wrapped so tightly that at times it restricted Naruto's breathing. Not that Naruto minded. He wanted nothing more than to be close in return.

Those two days broke both of the boys more than anything that had happened in the past year.

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4.

Kakuzu was a nasty monster of a man.

His appearance did nothing to detract from that fact. At some point in the past he'd been heavily injured by some sort of blade and the parts of his body that were visible were all terribly scarred.

He lived in one of the bad areas of the city and it had been rumored that he was worth a lot of money. One of the neighborhood 'patrols' met up with him in the night, threw him against a wall, and demanded that he give them all of his money or else they were going to cut his neck from ear to ear.

He shot three of them in the face, before the fourth regained enough of her wits to turn and run. He shot her with a cold precision. The bullet passed into her back and then severed her spinal cord, just below the line of her shoulders.

When he was questioned by the police, he described, in adequate detail, exactly what he had done. There was absolutely no sign of remorse or any hesitation. It was obvious that he believed that he had behaved correctly and it was the way that he would handle similar situations in the future.

The coldness of his personality was what attracted the attention of the authorities. And after that he worked as a scouter. If the authorities needed someone, he would find them.

It became especially profitable when his skills were needed in the brothel businesses. They would tell him what they were looking for and he delivered. And then he was paid handsomely after delivering his product.

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5.

Iruka Umino hated making visits. He hated it more than anything and he always dreaded going. But the idea that Iruka would avoid work was laughable. That man was incredible at his job and he would go to the establishment when required to check in at the slightest hint of troubling information.

Brothels made him sick.

He hated the very idea of it. Specifically, of people being forced into it and being kept away for so long. He wished that he had nothing to do with the business.

But he had applied for a government position four years ago. The government paid well and he needed money. He was hoping for some low-level position and had requested, his ultimate goal, to be given an assignment as an educator. But after signing a contract the government was free to assign workers wherever they wanted. He unwittingly had signed away ten years of his life to the work of processing people in the slavery of the deviant-control sector.

A government doctor by the name of Tsunade had apparently visited the establishment awhile back and afterwards had lodged a very vicious complaint. He'd heard of Tsunade before. She was a woman of incredible healing abilities and a degenerate gambler and drinker.

The previous night he'd gotten a call from the woman herself.

She was drunk, rambling and slurring. It was only because of his initial shock and his overarching respect for her that he didn't hang up immediately.

"-blond boy. Uzumaki? Fucking liars-"

Iruka had pulled up his records and found one for a boy named Uzumaki. But there was nothing out of place. It made him wince, of course, to see the age of the kid, but beyond that there wasn't anything of notice.

He'd make sure to see the boy, in person, however.

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6.

"I brought you some candy, Naruto. Come here and sit with me again."

Naruto nodded and walked over to Edgar. He was still subdued from the week before, from the punishment he'd endured, and from Sasuke's freakout. He was careful when he walked, whenever he moved. The very idea of being injured was terrifying. The last time that he'd seen his own blood he'd stopped breathing for a moment.

It was a looming equation in his mind. Being injured meant being punished.

It didn't matter how many reassurances others gave him. Naruto knew that if he was injured, he was bound to get punished.

Edgar had chocolates. He unwrapped them one at a time and would feed them to Naruto and his fingers would always brush against his lips and sometimes caress for a moment or two. He rubbed Naruto's back with his other hand.

"Do you like chocolates?" Edgar asked.

Naruto nodded.

"They don't give you many here, do they?" he asked.

"On birthdays and things," Naruto began and then stopped as Edgar raised another chocolate to his mouth.

"See, I like Edgar, because he brings me chocolate whenever we meet," Ian said with a smile, "Or anything else I want. Have you ever gotten anything from a client?"

"I got a bear," Naruto said through a mouthful of chocolate, "and some candy one time."

Edgar patted Naruto on the back and said, "I've got to leave early tonight, but I'll see you next time."

There was a silence in the room after Edgar left and then Ian moved from his place on the chair to kneel on the floor in front of Naruto.

"Do you like to play games?"

Naruto slowly nodded, but there was an air in the room that was making him feel at odds. Ian took one of the remaining chocolates, unwrapped it, and held it up. "How about we split this one?" he said.

"You can have it. It's okay," Naruto said.

Ian shook his head, "No, we're playing a game. Let's see who can get the most."

Ian put the chocolate in his mouth, took hold of Naruto's face, and pressed their lips together.

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7.

"Ino, come and draw with me," Naruto said.

Ino raised her face from her knees, where she was huddled against the wall and she looked at him miserably. He was kneeling down in front of her and smiling slightly. "Come on. You can draw with Sasuke and me. You don't have any clients now, right?"

Ino hesitantly shook her head and allowed Naruto to slowly take hold of her hand and lead her over to where he had crayons and paper set out on the flat table in the room he shared with Sasuke. Sasuke glared at Ino and she flinched slightly, but Naruto seemed completely oblivious and it made it a bit easier.

"Draw a picture of the ocean," Naruto said excitedly. "I wanna see what it looks like."

It was the first real look that Ino had gotten of their room. Granted, there were no doors on anyone's room, but no one went in without permission. Their room was as bare as her own, but there were signs of how long they had been there.

At some point Naruto had dragged in the table. There was a bear in the corner, though it looked dusty, brown fur turned gray. There was a neat stack of playing cards, though they were looking pretty worn.

"Come sit down," Naruto said again, patting the ground.

Ino did. There was a stack of coloring books, and a mound of purely blank paper. She could see another pile of drawings.

There were hundreds of them. There were mountains' worth, their edges creating a brokenly colorful tableau. She glanced at them. The top one was a gray color, scribbled all over. There was nothing else besides gray, nothing more to the picture.

"What is that?" she asked, pointing.

Naruto went over to the pictures. "This is the ocean. But I don't know how to draw it because water is clear. Sasuke said that isn't right."

Ino lifted the picture up and noticed a similar one beneath it. She sat down and started looking at all of the pictures and found that the last several dozen were all attempts at drawing the ocean.

"Here are the gardens," Naruto said, shoving another stack at her.

Hundreds of pictures gardens, uneven green lines with spastic blasts of color. Naruto went through the stack and showed her a picture of an orderly green garden with peaceful looking flowers and trees. "See, Sasuke did this one. I was making them wrong. Do you know gardens?"

Ino shrugged. "We just have fields outside of the city," her breath caught suddenly. Just the barest mention of home was horrific, it was so terribly far away, unattainable.

"When I leave I'm going to have a huge garden," Naruto said, "with all of the different trees and flowers and squirrels and a hundred birds."

"One hundred?" Ino repeated.

"He can't count," Sasuke said flatly. "He just repeats what he hears."

"Hey!" Naruto returned, "You've been teaching me. I am learning."

An attendant entered the doorway, "Naruto, you have an appointment."

"With who?" Naruto asked, getting to his feet.

"Terry Rockwell."

Naruto took hold of her hand and they walked out of the room. Sasuke watched them leave and then he turned with a glare towards Ino. "Get out."

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8.

"Sherry, are my appointments with Edgar and Ian- are they clients?" Naruto asked.

It was the evening and Sherry intercepted Naruto to take him to meet Ian and Edgar. She looked down at him, "No, they're visitors. And these aren't appointments, they're just nice visits."

"I don't want to go to them anymore."

"What?" Sherry asked startled.

Naruto was looking straight up at her. "I don't want to meet them anymore. I wanna stay in the Block."

"Why don't you want to meet with Ian and Edgar? Aren't they nice to you?"

"They're nice."

"Well, then wouldn't it be rude to tell them that you don't want to visit anymore? Especially after they've been so nice to you?"

"They can have a good time without me. They like being together."

"…Well I guess you can have a break for awhile," she said slowly. "But they're your friends and you shouldn't ignore them forever."

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9.

"Who did that to your neck?" Naruto asked, reaching across their bed to gently touch the area around the scarred mark.

"A client."

"One that you see a lot?"

"I hate talking about clients."

"Is it one that hurts you?"

"I hate him."

"He's one you see a lot?"

"We need to sleep. You have an appointment really early tomorrow."

"… Hey Sasuke?"

"What?"

"I'll love you. You can be my boyfriend."

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10.

Iruka felt sick as he saw the little blonde girl being led towards the corridor of doorways. Her hair had been tied into pigtails with lilac ribbons and her eyes were slightly glazed. He knew that customers could request details and he knew that ribbons weren't part of the standard dress.

He hated this place.

The receptionist frowned while smiling politely and nodded him towards the staircase. Iruka could hear the customer speaking at the desk in a quiet voice.

"-I just wanna watch. I don't wanna touch, I'm not a pervert, y'know? I just wanna watch."

"What is it you would like to watch? There are different clients with voyeuristic tendencies."

"I, uh, I wanna watch two girls going at it. Not any clients. Two, uh, y'know… two young girls. Maybe with a boy or something."

"Of course-"

Iruka was a professional, but he covered his ears. It was either that or beat the monster to within an inch of his life. Or to death. It might be better for the workers in the long-run.

There were workers who had joined voluntarily. Some of the older workers that had wanted to get away from their current lives and there was a salary for voluntary workers delivered at the end of their contract. Why was it he had had to hear a request for the children?

Sherry wasn't at her desk. He hadn't really expected her to be, she was a remarkably efficient woman and he had made no appointment. Iruka was allowed to secure heavy fines if he discovered anything out of order and it was his hope to catch one of the establishments at some point.

When Sherry finally did show up she looked flustered and annoyed. "Iruka, a pleasure as always. What have we done to hear about your contempt in person?"

"I need to see Naruto Uzumaki," he said.

"Naruto is with a client and it's for a long appointment. You should really call us before coming on over."

"I have good reasons for not calling, you know that."

"What do you need with him anyway?" Sherry asked, yanking open a filing drawer and rifling through it quickly. "Naruto has always received top-notch care and his files are perfectly in order."

She pulled out an immaculate folder and laid it open on her pristine desk. "Here are the records from his last physical as well as all the subsequent trips to the infirmary. Mild problems at most."

Iruka glanced at the folder. He had an exact duplicate of that folder in his computer records at his office. "There have been some questions about the child's identity. He was a street urchin beforehand, but if there is a way to trace his origin we are supposed to do it. You know the protocol."

Sherry paled though she turned back to the filing drawer before Iruka could see it. "I haven't heard anything about that. What information have you heard? You could have simply emailed this to me."

"You said he'd be finished in awhile? I'll wait. This will give me an opportunity to inspect the rest of the establishment. And are you still employing that butcher Kabuto?"

"Kabuto is member of our staff," Sherry said evenly, "he works night-shifts only."

Sherry's cell-phone started ringing and she breathed a silent sigh of relief as she pulled it out. "Hello?"

Iruka looked up when he heard her gasp. "They made a move against them? The two children?"

There was a silence. "Oh my god, they're coming here. Do you realize what this going to do for us? I-"

She was cut off by more speaking. Finally she nodded. "I'll get the forms right away. Bring them up as soon as they get here. They'll surely be clean enough."

Sherry closed her phone and immediately pulled open a drawer, pulling out blank forms. "You'll have to excuse me Iruka. We're getting new entrants and they'll need my attention."

Iruka's head was starting to hurt. "High profile cases? Who?"

Sherry didn't even bother looking at him. "The two Hyuuga children. Go ahead with your inspection, I'll be right here if you need me."

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11.

They were ransom children. The Hyuugas were far too powerful for the government to make a move against like they had done to the Uchihas, so the government hadn't bothered to make any secret of it. The heir to the main house and the prodigy of the lower house were both requisitioned.

There was a group of officials at each of the requisitionings though they occurred simultaneously. The government had no qualms about playing dirty and they took the two children from the prestigious school that they attended, walking in during class-time. One official presented the startled instructor with the letter of requisition while another walked down the aisle of children's seats and forcibly lifted the pale little girl into his arms. The boy was led out of his classroom by the wrist. Neither of the children had any clue as to what was happening though the girl started crying after only a few minutes.

Their parents were informed through emails.

There was a threat screamed into actual silence.

Stop what you're doing if you want your children back in one piece.

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12.

Another room had to be opened in order to take on the two new children.

The girl was frightened and rarely stopped crying. She seemed so much more delicate than any of the other children in the Block which immediately made Naruto worry for her. But it was Ino that took the new girl under her wing.

"It'll be okay. We've still got parents, okay? They'll get us out of here."

Hinata nodded while pressing her face into Ino's small shoulder. "Okay," she whimpered with a muffled voice.

The boy was furious. His anger rivaled Sasuke's own formidable temper. He raged against the workers, the clients, the other children, and Hinata.

"I thought your parents were supposed to be all-powerful! Why haven't they gotten us out of here? Why haven't they done anything? Are they just moving on to the next heir? Worthless, stupid fool!"

Not even Naruto was able to calm his anger and making people feel better was one of his seemingly natural gifts.

But Hinata and Neji both dealt with far worse clients than any of the other children. Their identities weren't secrets, it was well-known where they were at and who they were. As a result there were many customers who came to use them purely as revenge against their well-known family. Their clients would go out of their way to humiliate them, to cause them intense pain. There had been many attempts to disfigure the two and it was only through the sheer persistence of Shizune and her skill that the children were maintained. Their family or any known worker of their family were refused entry to the establishment.

Iruka had been forced to abandon his attempt to visit Naruto that day, instead his focus was immediately turned to the monumental documentation of such a class of requisition. Incredibly high-profile duo cases with immediate legal action to regain custody of children, though it was completely pointless to attempt anything through the courts. The children faced an unnaturally high likelihood of being killed as well.

It was nightmarish.

The brothel was making incredible amounts of money. It was worth putting up with the boy's horrific anger and the overtime necessary to pay Shizune for her extra time. It was even worth the money necessary to hire new infirmary workers to take care of the other fulfillers. Though the new workers weren't as skilled, nor as thorough.

Which is why no one noticed that the scar on Sasuke's neck was changing.

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Hey everyone, it's been awhile hasn't it? I have a bunch of excuses for you, but most of them aren't interesting. Major one being that there were problems with this account and the story became invisible for awhile. But now it's back.

This chapter is unbeta-ed, I had to either get it out now or else I'd never end up doing it. This is a hard story to write, I have to work at it.

This chapter is dedicated to lil_lo, your words are appreciated a million times over, thank you so, so much. Anyone who enjoyed this chapter should also thank lil_lo.

I'm taking far too many summer classes, with far too wide a time-range, and it's kinda destroying my soul.

Reviewers, you have been awesome. Seriously. I love hearing from you and your opinions on everything. One of the greatest things that you can give a writer is encouragement and feedback.

Review please!

-CR