Always
Kabuto sat in his room late at night. Orochimaru and the others were already fast asleep in their beds, but Kabuto couldn't sleep. Through all the manipulation, torment, and servitude he had to endure in his life, there was only one memory that stuck with him and kept him up late into the night. This memory pushed him forward and fueled his vengeance for the village that had slaughtered his people and hypocritically took him in. His eyes drifted closed and he dreamt of what felt like lifetimes ago...
He laid on the ground; bleeding and broken. He felt trapped and useless as he watched his kinsmen dropping around him; corpses upon corpses. For a 5 year old child, it was too much to bear. He vomited onto the already crimson stained ground. He blearily got up from the ground, flinching at the pain of his broken ribs. He glared at the ground angrily. He refused to give up. He had to find his parents.
"Mama! Papa!" He cried out onto the gun-smoked battlefield, but there was no answer.
He limped past moaning and half-dead ninjas, both from his village and the lea. Some cried out to him, desperate enough to ask a small child for help. He swallowed down another bile of vomit coming up his throat. The ninjas were missing arms, legs, and some even had missing eyes or ears. He blanched at the sight of them and looked away fearful of what else he might see. He reminded himself there was nothing he could do. They were already dying. He continued the search for his parents.
"Mama! Papa!" He cried out again. This time more desperate than before. There was still no answer.
His heartbeat quickened. They couldn't have died. They couldn't have. He refused to believe it and trekked on in his search of the bodies, but none of them he recognized. He finally came upon two of the last ninja who were fighting against the leaf. They seemed to be on their last legs.
He smiled. At last! "Mama! Papa!"
This happiness was short lived however. His mother fell first; a kunai to the forehead and a shurikan to the neck. His father reached for his mother causing his guard to drop and another kunai pierced his heart. It was too gruesome to watch, but the child could not look away.
He finally took his eyes off the scene when his mother and father were just a couple of lifeless shells upon the ground. He crunched his small form into a ball and cried until his shirt became soaked. He didn't know how long he stayed there.
It felt like hours maybe days before he was awakened by someone shaking him awake. He blinked his blurry eyes open to see a concerned man standing over him. His eyes went wide with shock and fear when he saw the symbol on the man's forehead protector. He was a ninja of Konoha. He flinched at the sight of him and his eyes darted around to try to find an escape route. He spotted another ninja nearby looking at him with another bored expression. They were going to kill him! He was going to die!
"Looks like there's one left." The one closest to him said. "What should we do with him? We've already fulfilled our quota of the mission."
"He's just a kid. We can't just leave him here and our orders didn't include slaughtering children." The other one asked.
"We've already gotten rid of the others. I suppose we could bring him with us. After all he's got no where else to go..."
Kabuto couldn't hear he rest of what they said. He blacked out and slowly drifted to unconsciousness. He would always remember that battlefield; littered with corpses. He would always remember the hypocrisy of the two ninjas' act of taking him in. He would always remember the scar of losing his parents. He would always remember...
"...Kabuto, wake up!" shouted a voice in his ear.
Kabuto woke with surprise and knocked his head against what felt like someone's head. He grunted and put a hand to his throbbing temple. He looked up to see it was none other that Orochimaru himself he had bumped against.
His eyes widened. "Orochimaru-sama, What are you doing in my room?!"
Orochimaru snarled. "Have you forgotten who is the servant and who is the master? Besides you woke up half the Sound with your screaming."
Kabuto adjusted his glasses. "I'm sorry, sir, it was only a bad dream. Nothing more."
Orochimaru frowned. "Good, Kabuto. Just don't let it happen again or I'll have to gag you to keep you quiet." He left Kabuto to his thoughts.
Kabuto laid back down on his bed. He grit his teeth and remembered. He would always remember. Always.