Hatred.

There's no better word for the feeling that I hold for the man I once respected more than the Gods themselves. Pure, blinding, hatred that surpasses anything I have ever known. Except for, perhaps, the gift of pain I am left to deal with on my own. What else could I have expected when taken under the Devil's wings? I had been a fool to expect anything other than misery.

No... not a fool... merely a child. I, Mitarashi Anko, had been raped of my soul, my mind and my innocence before I could even understand the meaning of the word betrayal.

Many lonely years had been spent before the beast known as Orochimaru took me into his grasp. Many lonely years have been spent since he threw me away, as if I was no more than some broken toy. Oh, and break me he did... he made sure of that. He made sure that in my lifetime, and for many to come, I would never find peace or completeness of mind. I was ripped apart, from my soul on out.

They say the opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference. I wonder if he knows that the source of my pain, the pain that kept me awake, crying at night, came not from the seal placed on my neck, but the burden he placed on my heart. Most likely so, for he was never one to overlook an opportunity to inflict as much pain as possible... Never have I met a man so deliciously endearing, and so devistatingly cruel.

Never have I loved another with such passion. Never have I hated another with such conviction.

It was a warm, spring day when the young ninja came back to Konoha. The sun glittered brilliantly off the buildings and along the trees, but the sky might as well have been roaring with lightning, such was my rage. I listened to them talking, the new group of three under Kakashi's eye. The Dieties would damn me for evesdropping, had I not been trapped in Hell already, only falling deeper into the inferno at their news. Orochimaru, who had once claimed me as his own, had chosen another to be his devotee.

Kabuto. His name made me sneer, and even now I don't fight the bitter taste in my mouth. So, this was how it was going to be, eh? I wasn't good enough to be the grovelling slave of the mighty Orochimaru? Oh, if only I had him in my arms...

I would slit his fucking throat, that Kabuto.

I couldn't kill Orochimaru, no, not this soon. I needed something to fuel my hatred, and no one did a better job than he. I needed something to hate, for if I didn't hate, I would feel nothing. Poor Kakashi never understood that, kind as he was to me, it could never mean anything more than a gesture of good will. How could he? He never knew how high Orochimaru had brought me... He couldn't have known how far I fell.

One day, when I can die, the last thing he will ever see of this world will be the empty gaze of the shell he created. The last thing I will ever see of this world will be the light leaving his dead eyes, and my triumphant, dying smile reflected in their core.

Let the serpent live. He will, one day, know the depths of my fury... He will know the price of a shattered dream.