Steps echoed down the brightly lit hallways of the Hokage Residence. Birds chirped outside, lending the building a peaceful atmosphere. A door clicked open, then creaked shut.
"You wanted to see me, Lord Hokage?" a woman with light blonde hair confirmed.
"Yes, Tsunade. I have a mission for you and the rest of Team Hiruzen," a brunette man began, stroking his small goatee.
"Is that so, Sarutobi Sensei?" a deep, lilting voice hissed from the right. Tsunade's eyes flicked over to the stark contrast of black hair and white skin leaning on the windowsill. To equal amounts of her relief and disappointment, his inhumanly amber eyes were watching something outside.
"Sorry I'm late! What did I miss?" the door burst open to reveal a white-haired man rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.
"Jiraiya, so nice of you to join us," the same, hissing voice cut through the light-hearted atmosphere.
"Orochimaru? I thought you were on a mission that was supposed to take all month?" Jiraiya crossed his arms and glared at his teammate.
"I was," came the short reply.
"That's enough catching up," the Hokage interrupted. He began to explain the details of the fairly simple but possibly dangerous assignment.
Orochimaru was only half paying attention. He was so incredibly bored by his missions lately. The last one was supposed to be a large-scale multi-shinobi infiltration of a massive bandit camp, but he had wiped it out in a week, and half of that was spent traveling there and back. A deep sigh escaped him as he watched the villagers bustling about their own dull lives below. The same people, doing the same thing, every day, every week, every month, all year.
He hated it.
Movement drew his eyes to a patch of grass and trees next to a set of stairs. A woman in a pink kimono kneeled down in the grass, reading a book. A blackbird fluttered to the ground in front of her, convulsing. The woman looked at the bird, dropping her book. She watched it as the spasm grew weaker; the bird flapped weakly in its death throes. Orochimaru smiled. Death was one of the few things that broke Konoha's monotonous cycle. The woman in pink put down the book and cradled the lifeless avian in her hands. How weak, mourning the loss of an animal, the snake-eyed shinobi glared at the woman who had once been interesting. He was about to turn his attention elsewhere when the woman's hands started glowing the tell-tale green of a medical jutsu. His pupils dilated in curiosity. The bird was dead, what good would-
The bird flapped its wings and flew out of the woman's open palms, then landed in a tree and began to sing.
Did I just see... Orochimaru's eyes widened. No, that was impossible. What that woman just did was impossible.
"Here are the files with more information. You leave tomorrow," the Hokage concluded the debriefing.
'The beast turned its eyes upon the maiden, blood lust clear in the glassy red glare. She shrunk away, she had no hero to save her this time. Surely, she was damned.'
"What are you reading?"
The woman snapped her head up from her book. She must have been so engrossed in the story that she didn't hear someone walking up to her!
In reality, he had stood there watching her for the past fifteen minutes.
"Oh, j-just," Her voice caught in her throat when she realized who she was talking to. His deathly white skin, inky black hair, purple markings and terrifying eyes were impossible to misidentify. The black flak jacket, long-sleeved shirt and pants of the same color made his pallor and features all the more exaggerated. It was Orochimaru.
"I'm sorry if I startled you," his voice was soft, feathery even.
"Oh, no, it's fine really, I was just reading 'The Miko and the Dragon', " she looked down at the worn old cover, uneven bangs falling in her face to cover her blush.
"You spent all day reading that old fable?" his voice was amused now.
"I've been here all day?" the girl was genuinely astonished at herself. She had a tendency to get lost in her reading, but to really sit there from noon 'til sunset?
"What's your name?"
"Nanami."
Orochimaru smirked. He recognized that body language, that tone of voice. It was so similar to fear, yet oh so different. A plan began to form. It was a delicate plan that depended almost entirely on her reactions, but it was the most likely to succeed.
"Well, Miss Nanami, it's getting dark. Allow me to walk you home, please," Nanami looked up; he was offering his hand. He was looking down at her, smiling warmly. It made her knees feel weak, and her heart flutter. The whole world dissipated around him. The only thing she could see when she took his hand were those inhuman, amber eyes.
The girl was so foolish.
She hadn't realized that she was under a genjutsu as soon as she looked up from her book. He smirked. He was walking her home in broad daylight, around dozens of people, but to her the streets were dark and empty. She huddled closer to him, placing her other hand on his arm for comfort. Orochimaru took note of all the stares of either wonder, suspicion, or jealousy. The latter came from both men and women. The men couldn't understand how a creep like the Snake Sannin could hook a cute little doll like Nanami, and the women couldn't understand how a talentless nobody like Nanami caught the eye of one of the most powerful and handsome ninja in the village.
"I live here," Nanami spoke up, voice faltering. They were in front of a large, simple apartment complex, one of many in the Hidden Leaf.
"I'll see you around, then," Orochimaru slipped his hand back into his pocket after she let go of his elbow. He waited for her to walk inside before jumping onto the roof of the building. With a simple hand sign, he summoned a white snake. It slithered off of his arm and down the side of the building, before slipping into Nanami's open window.
The snake would hold the genjutsu until she fell asleep.
This was too easy.
(Three days later)
Team Hiruzen walked through the gates of Konoha, Orochimaru on the left side of his teammates. They headed towards the Hokage residence to give the report of the surprisingly long mission. It wasn't that their opponents were any sort of match for the sannin's skills, there were just a lot of them.
"So. I saw you walking arm in arm with that brown-haired girl the other day," Jiraiya prodded, hoping to finally embarrass his longtime friend and rival.
Orochimaru glanced sideways at the annoying shinobi.
"Yes, what of it?" his voice was a growl rather than a hiss.
"Ooh, looks like someone's stolen the stone cold snake's heart," Tsunade teased, happy that her reclusive teammate finally had someone to care about.
"Oh, please, I just met her yesterday," he retorted, closing his eyes in irritation.
"So what's her name, huh? She looked like she had HUGE-"
Orochimaru glared coldly at his 'friends', freezing them in their tracks. He continued walking towards the Hokage residence as they recovered from the after effects of angering the snake shinobi.
"Oh man, I swear, the guy could freeze fire with that look if he wanted," Jiraiya sighed, he had to remember not to, as Sarutobi had once put it, 'tickle a sleeping dragon.'
"At least he's got a girlfriend now. Maybe he'll stop being all mopey and introverted now," Tsunade pointed out.
"Yeah, either that or he'll get so brow-beaten that he'll never interact with anyone again, like some of your past flings,"
"Excuse me?"
Jiraiya looked over to see a very angry and very strong Tsunade winding up a punch.
The forest was quiet, save the sounds of the animals. Nanami sat with her back to a large tree a ways off the beaten path. She was reading her book again, though she couldn't quite get into it. All she could think about was that night a few days ago.
Orochimaru had really walked her home that night, out of the kindness of his own heart. She remembered the day she had first seen him vividly. It was at the academy, he was in his last year of classes, while she had just started. She was already training to become a medical ninja, like her mother and her mother before her. Classes had just ended, and she was walking through the halls when someone bumped into her.
"Oh, excuse me." He had said. She had looked into his eyes, surprised by their amber-golden color. She watched him walk away, disappearing behind into the crowd.
Nanami sighed. She would never finish the book like this.