For a moment, the reflection in the mirror scared him. It wasn't him, it was some misshapen mess, the convergence of him and his master into one shell. Kabuto cringed, caught off-guard by the man staring back at him. The figure's cracked lips curled up into a sly smirk.
"What's wrong?"
Kabuto jolted upright at his desk, in a cold sweat. He grasped his pen with one trembling, clammy hand. There was no mirror in sight. The study was built of uniform stone, absent of any light other than that of a candle atop the wood. The flame flickered dimly, just barely illuminating a small white snake resting against a medical journal.
In an instant, Kabuto jumped back, his breath caught in his throat. It surprised him how easily he'd been startled. He was unsettled, on edge.
A hand gripped Kabuto's shoulder hard, and he whirled around, withdrawing a scalpel and setting it aglow with sharp chakra. Upon noticing the serpent resting on the ground beside him, he lowered his arm.
"Lord Orochimaru?"
The man Kabuto faced shook his head slowly before lowering the hood that had shrouded his features. "How much longer are you going to pretend not to recognize me?"
The scalpel fell to the ground with a quiet clatter. After it stopped reverberating, the only sound left to fill the silence was only one man's hot breaths.
"Don't tell me you're conflicted. This power is intoxicating."
Kabuto stared into his own eyes, gazing at the slitted pupils that struck through the deep yellow. There was a pause, and then Kabuto reached a hand around to the back of his head and removed the ponytail holding his messy grey hair together.
"Any man would be nervous to give up his identity, don't you think?"
The hooded Kabuto leaned in to his younger self, pressing a hand to his pale cheek. His painted nails dug into the flesh his palm caressed. "Give in." A snake-like tongue barely flicked out of his lips.
A small smile spread across the face of Kabuto the servant, Kabuto the spy, the man who'd never really possessed an identity of his own in the first place. He complied.