Darkness Eternal (Orochimaru)

[Benzaiten Karasu]

Karasu watched the moth flit lazily back and forth in front of the light. It seemed pleasantly lost, as if it knew it had to get somewhere, but in the warm light forgot exactly where and why it was so important to begin with. Karasu nodded at it. It was a good way. It never really mattered where one was anyway. "We all begin in darkness," her father had told her, "And we end the same way. Killing is nothing but and end, and all things must end, if not by your hand than by someone else's. Don't let it trouble you." And it hadn't. Not for a long, long time.

She lazily stroked her tattoo. She had taken to calling it her scar in her mind. She hadn't wanted it. It was the only time she could remember being afraid, screaming, crying. "No, mother no!" she sobbed in her past, "Don't let him hurt me mother, I'm afraid! Please don't let him hurt me!" Her mother had just stood there, quietly sobbing at the pain her child was in. Her father had done it when she was four.

He had been so proud of her that day. That was the only affection she could remember him showing as well. A snake had come out of the bush, prepared to bite her, and she thought she had fallen unconscious. When she awoke, her father was yelling and crowing, "She's got it! She has the true gift of my line!" Her mother just sat with Karasu's head in her lap. Tears were running down her face again. Karasu had wondered why before being lifted up and spun around by her father. That was why she had been marked. Scarred.

Karasu came out of her memories slightly puzzled. She was ten years old now. She hadn't thought of her parents in the two years they had been gone from her.

She knew she was far from home now. She had asked an old man who had given her shelter, and he had said something about Sound. He had been kind to her. She had been almost sorry to kill him, but he was old and would have died alone and in pain anyway. She yawned. She would have to find someplace else to sleep tonight.

[Orochimaru]

The only thing that followed the man in his nightly stroll was a thought - this was a land still in disarray. A place that needed to be guided out of the dark, and a place that thought he was the one who would accomplish as much. To this small country, he was the light. If only its people had known what kind of an illusory brightness that was, hiding shadows darker still than the ones they sought salvation from.

But to him, that was what attracted him there in the first place.

Of course, aside from the need to establish a base of operations slightly more durable than the many others he had abandoned before, or that he still commuted between. If he thought of it, he could even wonder whether it was worth the bother. Perhaps it wasn't if one judged only by material benefits. However… Surely, this country repaid him for his efforts not only in resources and in practicality, but also through the fact that it was enjoyable to work at such a large scale. He had been doing this for the better part of his life, no doubt, wandering everywhere and picking up strays he thought might be of some use to him, or simply amuse him. But never, not even in his years working with Akatsuki, had he had so many people at once depend on him or look up to him.

Akatsuki.

Did Orochimaru miss those years when he had worked for the still inconspicuous organization, partnered with Akasuna no Sasori? After all, they had been very efficient together, and Sasori was not the one to meddle in Orochimaru's affairs. So it would be understandable if he felt some nostalgia for back then. He had pondered on the matter before, but he was convinced enough that he didn't, in essence, miss anything. He didn't have the so-called 'heart' for such feelings; everything he left behind unfinished, to him, became an enemy that he hated, something that must be destroyed. In that respect, Akatsuki was much like Konoha, and nothing pleased him more than knowing those enemies of his were also enemies of each other, and would inevitably make attempts to destroy each other. Though that was perhaps an ambiguous feeling of satisfaction, also bordering close to the discontent that came with playing only a passive role of observer in the demise of either of the two parties. Orochimaru was a man who liked things that moved – when it wasn't him that moved them, he enjoyed a good show, true, but shows could only go on for so long before they became boring. Whereas if he stirred matters himself, they offered double the amount of delight. Therefore, it was only natural that he would have liked to be the one to at least start, if not carry out, the undoing of those enemies.

It seemed he had many idle thoughts tonight, drifting from one topic to another with the same ease that shadows shifted about when the wind swished through the canopy of trees on a summer day. It was nothing new to him, and the process wasn't difficult to put on hold when a small figure caught his eye, nestled at the base of a large tree at the edge of the forest. It was pretty difficult to distinguish in the dark, although Orochimaru's night vision was slightly more enhanced than the regular person's. But chance had it that there were glowing plants in the vicinity, with moths swarming around them, and as he approached more his suspicions were confirmed – it was but a small human child.

Perhaps someone else would have left the discovery at that, but there were more pieces that someone like him was used to putting together very quickly. It didn't take long until Orochimaru connected the presence of that odd child with the death of the old woodcutter in the area. By the accounts of those who had discovered it, the murderer had left no traces that he or she had even been there, but more interestingly, he or she had deemed fit to offer the old man a quick and easy death. To them, that detail hadn't made much of a difference, but it had some importance to Orochimaru. It told him that whoever had killed the old man was not a mindless sadist, doing it purely for the pleasure of the act – that would have meant some amount of torture, no matter how crude. But a quick death spoke of habit and method, told of someone who was, perhaps, used to killing mechanically.

It was thus that he took an immediate interest in the child, walking closer as lightly as before, with unfaltering steps. That curiosity was shown with but a wide smile, constant and confusing, half-amused and careless. The first issue here was to make this child understand that he was far too powerful to be made an opponent for someone such as her.

Although Orochimaru was never averse to the thought of being attacked. That could prove interesting too.

[Benzaiten Karasu]

Despite her previous thought that she'd find someplace to sleep, Karasu felt her small head nod slightly. She'd spent most of the day underneath that tree, staring at the sky and trees and simply wondering idly about what mattered so much to those she killed. They cried, she knew. They begged and pleaded for their lives, even if they had just been complaining at the girl about something or other.

No one sees children as anything more than hindrances usually, she decided, and they think it's their right to bore them with stories of how life is supposed to be. And yet when that unsatisfactory life is threatened, they scream and plead and cry. How curious.

Perhaps she'd let the next one or two go. Just to see how it went. Whether the person would be thankful or simply attack her or just go back to complaining and whining about their life. She wrinkled her nose at the idea. It wasn't prudent. Leaving people after threatening them usually left people to come after her. Not that she minded killing one or two more, it was just messy and inconvenient. It'd slow her down and cut off a few miles she could have covered.

The human race, her next thought received a little nod of approval, is stupid.

Having had these thoughts that were of more or less no importance, the dark little girl stood and brushed herself off and stood to face the weird stranger that was smiling at her. He reminded her of the snake she had killed and she smiled at the memory. It was a smile devoid of any real emotion, simply a facial reaction that she felt she was supposed to offer. Her mother had cried...Why had she been crying so much?

She bowed respectfully, as her father had taught her to do when confronted with a stranger who was older or more powerful than she was. Karasu doubted he was more powerful than she was. After all, almost no one was. She bowed nevertheless, and said in a tone that was supposed to sound polite, "Good evening sir. Do you happen to have a small corner for a lost child to spend the night in?"

Perhaps she could find tonight's lodging with this man. She'd have to kill him afterward of course, but she could perhaps use her kekkei genkai for it, out of nostalgia for the snake that changed Father and Mother and life. It'd be good practice.