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Blazing red fires, a distant and lonely scream. You weren't caught up. You weren't caught between the hotness, for you were the one who had caused the hotness. Hundreds of villagers who had hurt you in so many ways were now bowing down to you from beneath choking flames. Their suffering eased your own pain that you felt on the inside, but it was extremely easy for you to hide it; no matter what circumstance. You always remained apathetic on the surface of everything.

"I must say," A voice appeared from behind where you stood amidst the new and first crime that you had ever committed. Although, most of the time, the condescending villagers made your own heartbeat full of misery or like it was a sin in itself. Some days you just wanted to disappear from the back-to-back horrors that greeted you when you woke up in the morning. But the best way, you decided, was to vanish the suffering once and for all. They were all dead now due to your deep and passionate ties with fire. "That you haven't failed to astound me. Izanami Ilshi." Most would be racking their brain to try and find out how one could possibly know their name offhand like that. You simply lacked interest in the pale yet handsome man near you now. The crackling from the fire was enough of a distraction for it to seem like you had other things occupying your mind, and that you weren't ignoring him out of will. "Are you satisfied with your achievements?

Afterall, they probably deserved that, right? The way they have treated you..."

Mechanically, you twisted your head over your right shoulder like an owl. Orochimaru wore a perfectly menacing grin across his slightly-aged face; it was so hard to tell whenever another wrinkle appeared. "The fire..." You stated through dry lips while your voice was level as a meek mouse's. "You enjoy the scene before you almost as much as I do, stranger." Though your tone never wavered, he could tell that your attitude was minutely different than before. And it was. Now that you knew how he felt gazing at the burning buildings alongside with you. It was almost a comfort knowing that his heart was so blackened by the darkest life that he lead. Maybe there was something to be questioned about him and his morals. What reason did he have to live when there were so many living just to obliterate him?

Empathy was key.

"Well, that's one more thing that I've observed..."

Orochimaru walked toward you with that same unmoving grin.

"You are quite perceptive for such a young girl. How did you possibly know that I find your first antic...amusing, intriguing even?" The light shining onto your hair made it look purely black while in reality, it was just a dark brown that went unnoticed until one's eye took a closer look. "If I had been without my unique empathic powers, I would have stated the following blandly..." He drew his head back at this as if even more interested than before. "'You wear your true intentions on your sleeve.'" He was as readable as an open book; even strangers whom hadn't known him for what he truly was would've thought that as well. "So now, I may inquire...what you may want from someone like me?"

Interested now?

Perhaps more so than before. Like crawling around in his skin, you sensed most things about him.

He was no angel.

You were no devil for killing a mere few-hundred people compared to the amount of lives' that he took...

...he was like a selfish child taking candy from an open jar at his will.

Orochimaru scoffed lowly while a hissing noise managed to pass through his front teeth.

"Now, what makes you so sure that I want anything from a girl such as yourself?"

Overly-confident, slightly cocky and his strengths were almost the opposite of yours'

He was about to get his feelings handed to him on a silver platter; you would tell him how it was.

You didn't like being tested.

"There's a tugging at the pit of your stomach. I feel it, too." You decided to turn all of the way around to look at him, and you were surprised to learn that he was much closer than you originally thought.

He could've very-well been breathing down your neck.

A black cat and her kitten suddenly darted out from the direction of danger. She stopped momentarily, sensing your obvious mental instability for having done such a thing, and hissed through the scruff of the kitten's neck.

"There's also a longing in that...big dark mess that you would like to call a 'heart'. I'm actually mildly surprised that you would even refer to it as that..." Orochimaru could've had a swirling hole of doom in his chest for all of the love in which he let escape or lacked in that once soft-beating heart of his'. You had just touched a personal part of him for sure. "Hm. Perhaps I underestimated your strong talent just a tiny bit, Izanami-chan." That grin perked up from the lowered position it had temporarily taken on his pale, amused face just then. He filled in the small gap between the two of you. "But, your reward is my acceptance. You were right. I do long for whatever specialties lurk deep inside of you, and there is a strong tugging at the pit of my stomach." Orochimaru bowed his head to your eye level to look at you seriously. "Tell me," His thumb gently caressed your left cheekbone tenderly. "What is your next plan? Do you run away and never return, finding a small and unsuspecting village far from here to live in?" No, that thought never even crossed your mind as a matter of fact. You honestly lived in the moment and just in the moment. You hadn't woken up that morning and pulled out a match thinking about your...

...deadly plans for that evening to come.

No, you had merely lost control.

And that match just happened to be there on your sudden whim to vanish pain for good.

"Or, do you change your name to something original as well? No one will ever know of the lives' you have taken tonight if you change your name to Cho or Ayame..." His fingers traced up and down your jaw line almost seductively.

His touch didn't phase you much. Yet.

"I do neither of those things. I simply exist from this moment on." Your cupid-bow-like angel lips attracted him like bees to honey; how he would die to taste them. Oh, he would. When the time was right, Orochimaru was determined to have you in that way as well. His only concern was how to gently force you onto his shelf of human dolls in need of training. 'A Keeper' one might call you. In his wanting and selfish terms, you were 'A Forever'. "Tsk, tsk." He moved his touch around your body, almost like how someone would test a dog to see what parts were alright to touch.

He was playing with the fangs, the canines, though. And you wouldn't be too happy if he happened to touch there.

"A life like yours' will be wasted doing nothing with your abilities. Come," Orochimaru held a long strand of your hair to his lips and inhaled. "Come with me and I will make you a promise of a lifetime if you make me one in return..." How had he made this into a sort of...compensation?

You had asked nothing, you had desired nothing.

But inside, you knew it was only because he so desired you.

The one whom you had barely known for ten minutes tilted your chin up to further examine your beauty. "If you join me on my quest to make this life interesting for both you and myself, I won't let your life be wasted. I shall give you more meaning, more purpose." He slid his hand down from your face area to your arm area which was around your 'forbidden' spot. The spot on both of your arms hurt immensely when even scraped with a feather-like touch. Unfortunately, his overall hands and gestures were rough. "But, in return, I would just like you, Izanami..." What was he talking about?

You tore your eyes away from his gaze to carefully watch where his touchy fingers were wandering.

"You would like me to 'what'?" He found your lack of interest and droning sort of tone admirable. As much as it bothered him that he would never truly be able to tell what you were thinking or feeling, he took pride in your strengths. For what was yours' would be his' after that night of acceptance.

"I would just like you. Simply until forever, but the only thing that I am slightly wary of...is if forever does come. So I merely want you and your soul for an unmarked period of time. I want you to live with me and carry out my will, my ordinances." Three of his fingers now lightly danced upon the top of your arm, sending excruciating pain soaring throughout your petite body. You did not react in voice, you did not react by pulling away. Instead, you opened your mouth and bit into the flesh on Orochimaru's arm.

Maybe you did it with the hopes that now they knew how it felt. But another part of you did it only out of instinct and on the assumption that they knew where they shouldn't touch.

"I see." He eyed the strained veins popping out of your neck from your grip on him. Taking just two of his fingers now, he pried your canines up from his arm gently. "I have observed you and your lifestyle for so long...yet it seems that your 'special' spots may have slipped my mind..."

Heat from the fire had died down tremendously since your first act of starting it. Soon, night would be gone with dawn's summoning upon the earth. "I will only tolerate your teeth biting into my flesh this one time. All other times, you may be punished for your actions. But putting that weak factor aside, would you still join me?"

A life...

...unwasted? Could he keep his promise? Maybe not. Right away, you could tell and understand the deceitful ways that often plagued him. Still, you weren't entirely sure why you agreed to forever be under his command and ruling. Hadn't you just come from a village full of mongrels like that?

But you just couldn't deny that one twinge, that one spark at the pit of your being that had never been lit with intense interest such as the new feelings that you now experienced.

"You're playing with fire again..." Kabuto stated from your doorway.

Little had Orochimaru's loyal servant and special subordinate known that he had made one vicious mistake upon mixing himself with your presence; he hadn't knocked, and now he wanted to speak with you? There was no longer a Kabuto on the planet when he said this to you. His words passed through your ears without sticking to your mind long enough for you to care remotely.

"Orochimaru has sent me to you regarding this. You must put that candle out at once, Izanami!"

Sitting expressionlessly was easy. Your fingertips hovered over the flame to the tall candle on your floor where you sat stubbornly. "Izanami, listen to me when I am speaking to you! Put the flame out; he doesn't trust you!" That little twinge, that little spark from before was actually sort of irritating sometimes. It was the reason why you snapped your head around to face him with a bland look.

"Trust? Who's to trust in a place like this, honestly?" Kabuto grew angry with you like he usually did. He just didn't have the patience for your obstinacy. "I won't set this place on fire. I won't set the world on fire, if that's what he's ultimately fearful of." His footsteps approached you quickly before two of his own fingers pinched out the light that you had been so intrigued in.

That was mistake number two. Three would come shortly.

Kabuto then proceeded to take your wrist in his hand and drag you to Orochimaru's bedroom.

It was a pity that he just couldn't seem to remember your strong set of teeth. Salty blood ran to the back of your throat from tearing through his flesh that instant. "--!" He flung you with a decent amount of strength toward the wall in back of you like how one might react when a bug lands on them.

"Foul woman. I'm not sure who you think you are while under Orochimaru-sama's order, but I for one am sick of your childish--" Orochimaru appeared behind him in a ghostly manner. His head full of dark hair was bent down in disappointment of sorts. "Enough, Kabuto. I only asked you to put out any flames in Izanami's room; not to throw her up against walls." Lately, his trusty servant felt slighted by you. Orochimaru would defend, protect and favor you like a father. "You may leave now."

Soon after he left, he situated himself on the ground next to you. There was just a small bruise forming on your forehead from the throw. "Why do you not obey Kabuto-san when he orders you to do something, hm?" You propped yourself back up again and faced him through the darkness. The only part of him visible were his eyes. "..." He cleared his throat to assure you that he wasn't going to wait any longer for a response from you. "...he isn't in charge of me." Is all that you said.

This didn't fully satisfy him.

"If I tell him to, then yes, he is in charge of you!"

There was a short silence. For whatever reason, you retorted "No, he is not." back at him.

Your trusted master for four years awaited anything more you would say.

"Because he isn't you. And until it is you yourself coming to give me a warning, I will not heed."

Even through darkness, you could feel his hand raised to slap you across the face. It had only happened once to you when you had forgotten about the 'no biting' rule with him.

Orochimaru surprised you by lowering his breathing as well as his hand. Your comments temporarily infuriated him. "Izanami..." The back of his hand caressed your face soothingly. You really were his favorite toy of all. Losing you would give him very little to work with. "You are the most silently stubborn woman that I have ever encountered!"

He used one hand to re-light the candle in front of you. Now you could see most of him and his open-chested robe where lean muscles were exposed. "And without me, you must use matches to light anything. I have fire in the palm of my hands." Orochimaru pulled his hand away and let it hover over the flames as a point. "So, that being said...

...you are mine. Do not forget who may light your darkest nights, Izanami. All it takes is me."

He grimaced at the pouty edges of your lips. Slowly but surely, you were opening up more of your emotional doors him.

"Unlike most others, you are not a toy that I play with. Their batteries run dry eventually, and then I trash them once I've finished pulling them apart. But you..." His eyes shifted their gaze back to you seriously. "...are my candle. I hold the power to light you up. So although it may seem unfair and like I overpower you in every aspect of life," Orochimaru sighed thoughtfully as in there were no denying it.

"...for you, I would die. I have protected your burning soul and will continue to do so until my fate arrives."

Everything that he said...

...it was true. Without him you would be along the lines of nothing but a wasted human,

but he lit up your life with his own. He guarded your life with his own. And he combined your life with his own.

Even love finds Satan's Serpent.

"Close your eyes while I try to light you in a different way, Izanami."

As soon as you obeyed, you felt him. His parted lips lingered around your wrist as he kissed up your arm, despite your flinching, to your neck seductively. "Silently stubborn, but earned by my lust." Orochimaru kissed you passionately on the lips, his tongue inching itself as far in as you would let.

That dark swirling hole of doom...

...might just close up soon and be replaced with something that moves the way he moved for you that night.