Author's Note:
My first Naruto story ever, so be gentle when you criticize – not that I'm opposed to it much. Yes, I know I run a huge risk of making my character a Mary-Sue by making her Oro's daughter but this will be a realistic take. Besides, how can you ever imagine a child of Orochimaru ever growing up to be normal?

If this story receives well, responses, I might post the other SI stories I have in mind.

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize.

Summary: AU, Being reborn in the Naruto-verse? Cool. But as Orōchimaru's daughter?... Yeah, insulted one teacher too many. SI. Self-insert.

Genre: Angst/Adventure/Family/Friendship.

Warnings: Death. Violence. Language.

Word Count: 1, 988 – not counting A/N and non-story contents.


Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ


Serpent's Eye

Written by: Riseha

Arc I: Nightmare.

Prologue.


Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ


Taipan – the snake with the most toxic venom of any land snake in the world.

And I was named after it. My name – Taipan – but shortened to Tai.

But some days, I would lie on my back, breathing heavily after another gruesome beat-down, and wonder who's name it was.

The name of this girl's body or the mind in the body.

I remembered the true owner of this body well. We fought for dominance often – she, against a foreign intruder in her body; me, against death what would come should I leave her body. It wasn't until the body hit the age of four, did I feel her control slip.

She grew weaker with each passing day. I, on the other hand, fed on her weakness; I grew stronger when she weakened.

It was cruel and vicious to feel such joy at having won the bitter battle.

I'd died once – there was absolutely no way I was going to give up this magnificent chance at life again. Pan, as I'd come to call the true owner of this body we share, was but a voice – a passing thought – to me now. But there were times she'd take over the body and walk about.

I try to wrestle control every time.

It took awhile but she'd eventually lose and recede into the deepest recesses of my mind – where she'd see every memory of mine from my past life.

You heard me right.

Past life – it didn't take me long to realize I knew far too much, remembered too many things I was sure I'd never seen with this new eyes, did things this body never experienced and feel things this new body had never touched.

I came from another world; one filled with sunlight, where it rained once in a while, where four different seasons visited, where the very air was polluted – all the good and bad things.

That world was lively, loud and alive.

How unlike this world.

Not that I could compare anything as I had yet to step foot out of this enclave my father calls home. He was the only parent I had, the only blood relative I know of in this world.

Pan admired him in every way – down to his oily, long black hair, slitted golden eyes and death-pale skin. But most of all what made us toddle after our father with no argument between our two minds: his power.

I could sense it, I could feel it: this dense, fiery thing within him, glowing far brighter than everyone else in this underground place.

Pan analyzed his every move, memorized his every word, watched his mannerisms. I'd say this was borderline obsession and I don't understand her fascination, but I always remembered what she did.

We do, after all, share the same body and a connection within our minds.

Strange though, Pan never tried to get rid of me when she managed to weasel a meeting with our father, never tried to sell me out and get me out of her body.

She saw everything I saw, felt everything I saw, had the same thoughts but different perceptions.

She realized something I had seen but hadn't bothered to give it much thought: our father was a mad scientist. If she ever told about a second soul with a past life in her body – daughter's mind or body – he'd throw me (which includes her) in as one of his experiments.

We'd seen what that man could do to his experiments and neither one of us want to be volunteers if we could help it.

And we could help it.

Yes, we argue, over different opinions and that she hated the fact I was in her body – she called me a body-stealer. Typical thing to say for a kid, I'd think and proceeded to ignore her because I deserved to live as much as she did – so what if I was selfish?

I'd died when I was merely twenty-six, too young – far too young – and was that fair?

It wasn't, I told myself whenever some sliver of guilt came at the thought of stealing someone else's body.

As years came and pass, as my father and his helpers taught us things, I came to a realization: it was a good thing Pan wasn't in control of his body because I couldn't imagine the horrors she'd bring upon this world.

I know her as well as I know myself.

When we were first introduced to the prospect that people killed people everyday – their job – I was shell-shocked, disgusted even.

My thoughts would usually influence Pan, but she despised my guts, so she'd always chose the exact opposite of whatever I liked.

She loved the prospect of killing, hurting and generally causing a mass amount of terror. She loved and craved power.

Power drew us in like moth to a flame.

I licked my lips hungrily every time I was to be taught a new method of killing.

I tried to tell myself it was Pan's thoughts influencing me but – seeing the terror painted on others' face, seeing how they get on their knees to beg for their life, how easy it was to have control over someone – who on earth could ever deny such a thing –

I turned my head away, wondering how one whole life's morale and motto went down the drain so easily, from the massacre before me – father's experiments in a battle royale to gain a better standing in this hierarchy my father set up.

This hierarchy, needless to say, Pan and I were fucking high up even though we're just brats – just below our father and his advisors.

To Pan, even though she was stuck within me, life was pretty okay but whenever I reminded her we're still stuck together, she'd start using the large library of foul words I had stored in my brain on me.

It was an alarming development.

She could understand my real, first language – English – and all the other languages I had learned in my past life, in my old world. It was disconcerting to share everything with her – she saw and knew and felt all my old memories from my past life, remembered some of them even more clearly than I do; all the embarrassing things… she would never fail to remind me.

But this memory and knowledge from my past life, she brought up, voice serious and lack the cruel teasing lilt I'd gotten used to.

You used to watch a manga, an anime series you call it, in your world.

I blinked. So what?

Remember this pale chick that could elongate her tongue and mark this Uchiha-something guy?

Yes. So?

Don't you get it? Pan hissed, irritated at my stupidity – never mind that we share the same body, and thus, she was calling herself stupid. We're – youare – in that world!

My first and automatic response: Impossible.

For a few reasons such as a) I wasn't so lucky to land in the world of my favorite manga and b) I wasn't so unlucky to be the kid of who I thought to be.

I blanched, turning a shade whiter than my already alabaster skin – my skin that had never seen the sun, never felt the beating of rain and snow, never brushed the falling leaves. I sprang to my feet, pushing my long legs (for my five years of age anyway) to run to where I could sense my father and his advisors were.

He was my father – so different from the father I had in my past life – and I just knew we looked alike with pale skin and black hair.

I just didn't bother with little details that Pan did for the lack of anything to do but think and notice.

The man who was my father turned, annoyed when he saw my little form, out of breath and trembling. His slitted pupils narrowed as he waved away the white-clad men surrounding him – all of whom were trying to remove me.

"Taipan," He spoke our name – not noticing my stiffening and Pan's bristling – in his usual, dry, slithering tone: like sandpaper rubbing against one another. His golden eyes were intense and calculating – every time he saw me, it was like he was judging me. "Is there something you need?"

I found myself tongue-tied.

Oh, the irony of it all… as if I could be tongue-tied –

"Orōchimaru-sama," one of my father's advisors spoke, eyeing me with distaste. "May I remove your daughter? She is nothing but a disturbance to our plan and we cannot risk it –"

Orōchimaru looked coldly amused.

"Do you think my daughter, who had never spoken to anyone else but us and had never seen the outside world, would betray us?" He scowled – not a pretty sight. "Don't be foolish." He turned to me, impatience growing behind his brewing gold eyes. "Speak, child, I don't have all day for your childish – "

"It's nothing," Pan insisted through our voice.

If she could speak through me so easily, that only meant how emotionally unstable I was. She could only move the body and speak whenever I was unsettled, upset or deeply troubled.

"We'll – I mean, I'll come back when you're free," she – we – bowed low and deep; like he was our master instead of father and knowing him, why was I so surprised. "Good day." Then she turned and ran.

But not before our ears caught a hissed statement: "What a useless child," and god did it stung – but not as bad as the next: "Why did I even let her live? I thought she could be useful."

Here was our dad, calling us useless to our face – well, our backs, but he must've known we'd heard him – and wondering why he'd never killed us in the first place to spare him the trouble.

Thinking back on it, Pan's thoughts filtered in through my mind: My first reaction to this world was cry till I tire myself out.

So? You're a baby, that's natural.

I was weak, then. You are stronger than me, then –

And now.

She ignored me. In the manga, the anime – whatever it was called – there was never a daughter of Orōchimaru… Pan didn't continue but she sent me images instead.

Of our sire, kunai up and the distaste of his words – "Noisy, sniveling child, you are no use to me being a lousy child who only knows how to cry" – and wow, did I see the truth in her imaginations.

You took over, you stopped our body from crying, you stared back at our sire – something a normal infant wouldn't do, you made us seem special, you saved our – my - life, Pan laughed bitterly – an ugly lilt that no child her age should ever know or have. It was a laughter cynical me had, only me – the me who had lost faith in the world and all the good things when my brother was bullied into depression and –

Pan pushed the thought away, irritated by past sentimental – but I know that she was as affected as I was, we do, after all, share the same body and connected minds, what she felt I felt, and vice versa.

What do we do about our father? I questioned, biting my lip – a nervous habit of mine that Orōchimaru and Pan utterly despised, they said it made me look weak – as Pan pondered.

Yes, we share a body but we still had different opinions and perceptions of the world. Her – sometimes, deep and reasonable – insight might be useful.

Get stronger, Pan murmured, emotions – hate, disbelief, anger, grudge, determination – rolling in between us. She was oddly subdued and I almost pitied her when she added, very spitefully: Think you can handle it, weakling?

My pity was cruelly squashed as I flopped onto my bed, my body aching from the bruises I'd gained from training.

I sneered.

Just you wait.


Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ


Don't be too deterred by the length, this is just the prologue.

I read SI's and I noticed that not one has an inner voice – the original character in the anime. I find it unbelievable someone like Orōchimaru don't have his fair share of trysts and it's a surprise to me that neither he nor Jiraiya had a bastard child running about. I hope this is realistic; I'll delve into character development, flaws and whatnot in the later chapters- but pointers will be seriously helpful.

I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, and will leave a review!

QUESTION: If you're ever born into the Naruto-verse, who's kid do you want to be?

Reviews are loved.