The first thing she noticed about him was his fingers. They were thin and long and slender and they curled when he looked at her, like they were itching to grasp hold. Anko was not frightened. Nothing frightened Anko. And as she stared into his peculiar slit eyes, she smiled.
It was not a child's smile. It was not a human's smile. It was Anko's smile; it was death and bloodlust and in the corners of her mouth and the glint of her teeth there a touch of insanity. And she supposed that was why he ultimately chose her. Because while he and his slender fingers were strolling down the line and the instructor was bitching about how they had to stand up straight, this was a sannin for god's sake, show some respect, Anko slouched and ran her tongue over her lips and wondered what his blood tasted like. And when the slender hands stopped in front of her and his snake eyes ran up and down her body, she decided he tasted like death. And she smiled.
The snake eyes loomed over her and the thin appendages twitched desperately. He wanted her, she could tell. There was silence in the classroom and no one even moved. Because it was obvious; Orochimaru-sama had chosen Mitarashi Anko, the orphaned brat who no one wanted to spar with because she froze you by looking at you and she lunged for the kill, as his student and there was could be no argument. There would be no argument because suddenly the whole classroom breathed a silent, collective sigh of relief. Except the white man with white slender hands and the small girl with a demon smile. Because everyone else was prey and, they, they and they alone were the predators, above fear. And the pale, dark haired, snake eyed man smiled. And then and there she knew that the smile was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Because it was cold and calculating, and he was her angel on wings of ice and death.
He bent down and lifted her up with cool hands, straining slightly despite her slight weight because as she soon learned, he was not a strong believer in the values of physical strength alone. Time wasted on push-ups and sparring drills was time that should have been spent on developing and perfecting his odd and not-quite-legal techniques, some of which he would pass on to her. For she was his only student, the child he had chosen above all others. Really, tutoring a child was a test of the Sandaime, to ensure that Orochimaru was capable of nurturing a young and impressionable life. Finding Anko was as if he had found a hatchling snake in a writhing pool of useless mice. Even before he saw her eyes and the unmistakable tinge of bloodlust he had known she was different. There were other children, yes, that showed promise and he would dearly have loved to wrap his hands around the Hatake prodigy (but unfortunately Jiraiya's blonde pupil had gotten to him first). However, Anko was different. She had no scruples and was astoundingly eager to learn his most… Ambiguous jutsu. A side effect, he supposed of living on the streets for years. Survival overtook priority from morals. After all, she had only become a ninja because it was the only option left to her. There were only so many times a pre-pubescent child could wake up lying in a gutter without memory of the last time they had eaten before they realized that they had to escape or die. Anko had chosen escape.
Training was brutal. Many, many times Anko had been beaten beyond the limit and every time Orochimaru seemed to be coolly calculating whether or not she was worth the trouble of carrying to a medic-nin. She was enamored by the fact that she was. One night, panting on the dirty found after they had worked long into the night, Anko stared up at her sensei and declared, half-lucid, that she loved him. Orochimaru, not a single bead of sweat dripping down his pale face, smirked. Pulling herself up and making sure not to get any dirt on him, Anko weakly pulled at the sides of his mouth.
"Angel smile," she gasped. "Give me your angel smile, Orochimaru-sama." Orochimaru stared at her plainly. Then, he slowly leaned his face in to hers until it was close- far, far, too close to be right but that didn't bother Anko at all.
"You mean," he said slowly, "this…Smile?" He said the word slowly, as if he were unused to it. And then his thin lips stretched and there was a ray of freezing light that sent chills running up and down her aching spine and promised deliverance.
That was when Anko slipped out of consciousness.
She dreamed of snakes. She always dreamed of snakes. They crawled out of her eyes and burst out of her fingertips, she felt them writhing beneath her skin. Ink splayed across her skin, characters that whispered secrets that no one but her and master knew. For moments she was a god and the world lay at her feet as she laughed her demon-snake-Anko laugh that was truly one of a kind. It faded and came back as she drifted in and out of consciousness, hearing broken bits of conversation before she returned to her world where she was god.
"…-Chimaru, you're destroying her body…" Funny, that sounded like Tsunade, Orochimaru's blonde medic teammate. But that couldn't be true, because he made sure to keep her Anko far away from her; he had told Anko that she could be taken away if she talked to Tsunade after she had received some odd looks from the blonde…
"This ISN'T your choice, Orochimaru! If she stays with you she'll die. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?" That had been Tsunade, yelling. Anko remembered that the blonde had seemed temperamental.
"It's of little concern to me. She was a good student but she can always be replaced." Anko's mouth twitched from her stupor as she recognized her sensei's calm voice. "If she's still unconscious than she was weak anyway."
"She's still unconscious because I'm keeping her unconscious. Who knows what the hell would have happened to her if you could take her way again?"
"Tsu- Tsu- Tsu…Nade… San?" A third voice entered, sounding unsure and hesitant to get between to two arguers.
'Ah, what Shizune? Can't you see I'm busy with this asshole that endangers the lives of 10 year old children?" Tsunade sounded annoyed to be distracted from her teammate.
"I- I'm sorry Tsunade-sama, but it's past time for Mitarashi-chans's medication."
"Oh, you see that Orochimaru? Now you've screwed up your student's medication schedule. I don't know what Sarutobi-sensei was thinking entrusting a child into your ca…" Tsunade's voice warped as darkness retook Anko's mind and she was spiraling back into dreams of snakes that coiled around her ankles and wound their way to her thighs.
It was weeks before Anko came out of her dug induced coma. She lifted her eyelids and stared at the gray ceiling of the Konoha hospital. She had been there enough times to recognize the stucco.
It was night and she felt lost. Orochimaru was nowhere near and without her dark sun she was weightless, groundless, off-balance. Useless. She stared up for hours, thinking blank thoughts. When she closed her eyes snakes twined around pale fingers. Every so often, she would glance to the window and consider escaping, but really- what was the point? So the window was a point of non-interest.
Until she heard it slide open.
And there was Orochimaru, the center of her universe, her dark sun, her angel-snake. He was slightly flushed, which contrasted sharply with his pale white skin. His dark hair was bedraggled and he was panting.
"Anko," he began, his voice urgent but so very familiar, "I have to leave Konoha. Sarutobi- he found things- my lab is destroyed- I have to go. But I have a little present for you, Anko-chan. Something to remember me by." Anko trembled. There was an undertone to his voice; something that promised things worse than the most painful training she had been subjected to. Orochimaru stared at her, and his tongue traced his bottom lip hungrily. "Do you want a present, Anko-chan?" And for the first time, Anko wasn't the predator. She was the prey. She was Orochimaru's prey. Held spellbound by his eyes, she slowly nodded. He loomed closer and closer, and everything in her screamed to flee, but she couldn't.
-Even if she could, she knew instinctually that she couldn't.-
He flashed her one last smile, the angel smile- still the most beautiful thing she had ever seen- and bit into her neck.
-She couldn't say no because he was her sensei. He was her world.-
Anko screamed and fell back onto the hospital bed, thrashing in pain beyond anything she had thought imaginable. Orochimaru- how could he do this? How could he do this to her?
-And because he was her sensei, her world, she would always love him. Always. Always. Always.-
The next few years pass in a blur. There are moments she remembers-
/The Sandaime, hand on her shoulder, murmuring empty apologies. She reaches up and grasps his hand, and it's warm and papery, not cold and smooth. She wants to get better. She coming off her demon high, she can feel it. It's frightening. Behind her, the white-haired sanin (Jiraiya, she thinks his name is) watches next to Tsunade./
/The pain, equal to the power. And there is a lot of power. A smile spreads across her face, the old smile, the Anko smile, In a few minutes the area is spattered with blood and she licks some of it off her arm. Afterwards, everyone agrees it was much too soon to send her on a mission. She spends the next few months having seals tested on her. That hurts too, but she's far away in a place even she doesn't know,/
/The mirror, beginning to steam up although Anko can still see her reflection. She's 12 and is slowly gaining the curves that will make her look like a woman instead of the wild demon-child she used to be. On her neck, there is a black mark. It's eloquent. She can't tell if she wants it there or not./
-and far too many things she doesn't.
/There is pain. There is writhing, roiling pains that makes her scream and groan and destroy anything she can get her hands on. Some of it is from the curse seal, and its counter-seal. Most of it isn't. She threw away the pills they gave her. She's sick of people controlling her mind./
There is a memorial for Orochimaru's victims. Lab rats, people he framed for his misdeeds, every innocent Konoha citizen killed for his personal gain is marked on the white plaque, a warning/lesson against complacency, against blind trust. There are nine names Anko has learned by heart on it. They are the nine other children Orochimaru had taken an interest in, and marked with a curse seal before he left. She wonders if she survived because she was the strongest or if it was pure luck. She learns their names anyway, because they were like her; orphans with no one to protect them, to save them from her sensei and his long slender fingers.
She pretends that by knowing their names, she's saving a little piece of them. And a little piece of her. She needs all the pieces she can get.
And she laughs, she flirts, she dresses like a whore –nothing to hide here- she tries to drown out his voice with blood. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. She likes blood better than the drugs, anyhow.
But even though she closes her eyes and chases away the thin, beautiful fingers that tickle the edge of her mind, the horrible fact remains that her angel of death, her dark sun, her failing salvation…
His smile is the most beautiful things he has ever seen.
(And she will always love him. Always, always, always.)