Konoha, a confinement cell on the lowest underground level of the ANBU facility.
The air was so damp you could wring water out of it.
Patches of dark green mold covered the stone walls, giving off the rotten stench of a place that had not seen sunlight in years.
Overhead, a dim yellow incandescent light buzzed.
A few dead moths lay around the bulb, having battered themselves to death against it.
This was where Sasuke was locked up.
Four dark chakra chains were clamped tightly around his wrists and ankles.
The chains were as thick as a small child's arm.
The rusty iron cuffs had rubbed the skin off his wrists, leaving traces of dried, blackened blood.
His head hung low, his tangled black hair full of dried mud and grit.
Inside the large tear in his clothes, blood crusted where the Wood Dragon had pierced him at the Valley of the End.
The door creaked open.
Its rusty hinges scraped with a sound that set teeth on edge.
Tsunade strode in, wearing her signature green jacket.
Her wooden sandals stepped into a puddle, splashing up two drops of dirty water.
"Sasuke Uchiha."
Tsunade's slightly bloodshot eyes bored into the boy bound to the chair.
Barely restrained fury edged her voice.
"You've got some nerve, knocking out your comrades and deserting the village."
"If that brat Sen Senju hadn't dragged you back because he couldn't be bothered with any more trouble..."
Tsunade slammed a palm onto the iron table beside her, its paint peeling.
The impact made its legs creak.
"You'd probably be floating in one of Orochimaru's formalin jars as a specimen by now!"
Sasuke said nothing.
He did not even raise his eyes.
Those black eyes of his, once always filled with arrogance.
Now, they were as hollow