There was a quiet house at the edge of Konohagakure no sato. A beautiful garden stretched out infront of white washed walls. Flowers danced merrily at the edges of the garden. A grand entrance, spacious kitchen, two bathrooms and a vast living room; every part of the house screeched of riches and wealth. It was well kept too, the tatami mats were well taken care of and the shoji was of excellent material.
Orochimaru wondered why no one else noticed that the place reeked of madness. He could smell it in every corner and in every room. It had soaked itself into the mats, stained the walls, tucked itself under the futons which no one used anymore and hidden itself in the cabinets. One of his neighbors smiled at him and told him that he was doing a good job and Orochimaru looked incredulously at the older man because why could he not smell the repugnant scent of insanity and paranoia.
He did not mind the house that much. He spent most of his time outside, training with Sarutobi-sensei or running missions with his teammates. It was just a building made of opaque sheets and tough bricks that could not raise fingers and call him a traitor if he abandoned it. He worried because it was already too late. He had lived in that infested air for too long, and now the madness had sunk into his very skin. It had shaped itself into a monster that sat at the back of his mind and wove fantasies which kept him awake at night. It was like constantly being under an enemy's terrifying genjutsu.
There were two things in his mind. There was him, and there was the monster.
Orochimaru thought that the outsiders really were clueless. They said his house was clean, and they said that he was a smart boy. He was a fool, because he was playing a game that had no rules and no boundaries with a monster that was as cunning as him and offering his sanity as the prize. He reckoned he had no choice in the matter either way. He was going insane whether he played the game or not.
So they played, dancing around a never ending litany as they created and broke cages. Orochimaru wove a cage and threw the monster in before pointing his finger at it and laughing and laughing and laughing because he had trapped it. Then, holes and flaws he had not noticed would appear and the monster would crawl out, grinning menacingly and triumph shinning on its wretched face.
Orochimaru would create another cage, or slam blocks into the holes that appeared. So, he watched as an insane eternity stretched out in front of him.
His eyes scanned over the scroll, and he took in the words like a starved and greedy child. The monster was asleep. It was always asleep when Orochimaru was learning new jutsu. He grinned slyly. The monster had broken his last cage days ago and since then many sleepless nights and moments of panic followed as he wondered if he was a bad person, if he ought to have paid more attention to that odd chakra he had felt earlier, if he had said something to Tsunade because the other girl had not come to training.
He had found his new cage, and it seemed to be more effective than the others. It kept the monster occupied for both its and his own cunning was needed to break the jutsu apart and master it.
Yes, this cage would do.
Years later Orochimaru wondered when he and the monster had fused together...
More importantly, who had won the game?