Author's Notes: Konnichiwa! Don't let the first chapter fool you into thinking each and every chapter is this short. Actually any of the eight chapters could range from five to twenty pages. The Japanese words were added in order to set a more "foreign" mood. Because obviously these characters aren't natively English, and so I've put as many Japanese "phrases" as I can to show how the characters aren't English. Also reviews are nice to help me improve! Thanks!

Disclaimer: I do not own Kishimoto's characters, but I do own my original character Akiko and this specific plot.

Japanese Phrases:
Hai: Yes! (usually said after a command has been given)
-Sama: A title given to a person with much higher rank than oneself
Gomen nasai: I am sorry.
Arigato: Thank you.

Warning: This fan-fiction contains spoilers from the Naruto Manga up to Manga Chapter 352.

The Candle Light

Obedience

Sick and twisted, blood and blood! I, still eight years old, had a sense of right and wrong as all children had, yet I still stood by his side for all of those years—never longing for escape, never hiding from him deep within the dark, and never disobeying his commands.

Disobeying was dangerous.

"Hand me the scalpel," he said, hardly even glancing to make sure I was listening. He didn't need to make sure. I was always listening.

I handed him the scalpel from where he had placed it on the table, just as I was told.

"Give her a sedative, too," Kabuto-sama added. "The mental trauma will be too great for her age if she witnesses this pain."

Once again, I did what he had commanded. I pricked her arm with the needle, the needle carrying the sedative—I did so gently. My hands were too gentle, Kabuto-sama had always said. He told me that I was not fit to be a part of his work full of cutting, dissecting, and all possible things you could experiment on one simple body. But he included me in his experiments anyway without another word.

At once, the sedative succeeded, and the young girl stopped struggling against the binding which was holding her against the table. Her body was nude and open to move more freely when performing the operations. I sympathized with her silently, with only an expression on my face.

After he cleaned the skin, Kabuto-sama began cutting the girl's arm with his acquired instrument. The process was long and time-consuming. I was conditioned to the nausea, which accompanied his experiments. Blood no longer sickened me, yet the thought of harming another person for no reason was still disgusting.

"So amazing," Kabuto-sama commented, "the human body is." He had finished cutting and now was awaiting me to hold the skin open while he manually repaired the destroyed Chakra lines.

"Hai, Kabuto-sama," I answered, a habit I had grown over my eight years of serving him.

He had finished untangling the lines, and moved to the other side of the table, which was closer to her other arm. "Sew that up while I cut the other arm."

"Hai, Kabuto-sama."

I reached for the needle to stitch the cut as silence soon followed.

Silence. I enjoyed silence. It was the only constant part of this world, I had lived in my entire life. None whom I knew spoke frequently, and in turn I was left to ponder my life—with my own thoughts. Not Kabuto-sama's or Orochimaru-sama's thoughts. My own thoughts.

After I was done with my work, I moved to hold open the other wound Kabuto-sama had just finished creating. And soon I stitched it up, just like the other one.

"Is that all, Kabuto-sama?"

"Yes. When she wakes up, put her back in her cell. I need to fix the DNA strand, I implanted in her body, so it will work on her Chakra pathways as well." He strolled away, deeper into his laboratory, off to find better chemicals or better techniques. Over and over again, every day. My assistance was frequently required, for he had little time to dwell on simple injuries or mistakes. Healing techniques were the only Jutsu I knew, and he put them to good use for his malicious ways.

"Hai, Kabuto-sama," I said, even though he had already left.

The sedative I injected would wear off in about an hour. I knew the girl would be in extreme pain when she awoke because the stitches and the rearranged Chakra pathways.

Unlike everyone I knew in Otogakure, I could not be so negligent of others' pain. Pulling a chair up, I sat down and began the simple healing Jutsu on the stitches. The skin would heal faster, at least.

After half an hour, I switched to the other arm while struggling not to exhaust myself. A full hour of healing could take my energy away from me. Hopefully Kabuto-sama would let me return to my room after I was done locking the girl back up. But I was rarely lucky enough for a break.

Besides, healing the girl from intolerable pain was my decision, and I would face its consequences.

Another half-hour passed, and the girl began to stir. I knew she would wake up in only seconds. I also knew how difficult locking her in a cell would be. Most likely, she was just my age. Perhaps, weak as well through all her experiences. But I was weak from healing her wounds, too.

Her eyes popped open, and I watched as her face transformed into a grimace from the pain. She screamed.

"I'm sorry," I told her softly. "The pain will subside in a few hours, I promise. I'm not allowed to give you any medicine for it." She did not change her behavior, yet I knew she had heard me. Just as I reached to untie her, she somehow slapped my hand away, even though her own hand was secured.

"Don't touch me anymore!"

I stifled a slight whimper at her pain and repeated, "I'm sorry." Holding down her hand, I used my free fingers to undo the binding on her wrist. Then I moved to her legs and her other hand.

The minute she was released, she jumped off the medical table with motivation to escape. Desperately trying to stop her, I was pushed down to the ground, and the girl was soon trying to open the locked door, soon discovering that I had the only nearby key out.

"Kabuto-sama will be very angry," I whispered when she came back with new intentions of attaining my key.

Wincing from the pain, she shook her head angrily. "I don't care! Give me that key!"

"He won't hurt you. I meant he will be angry at me," I explained, "because I failed to lock you back in your cell."

She paused, glancing frantically from me to the door.

"I would understand your choice to escape. I just thought you should know he has a replacement, sitting right here, when you do manage to get out."

The girl bit her lip. "Then sorry. But I need to get out of here now."

I heard Kabuto-sama's footsteps entering the room before anything could happen. "Akiko," he began sternly, "what is going on? I told you to bring her back to her cell, not to let her go on some wild rampage!"

Keeping my head bowed, I turned toward him from my place on the ground. "Gomen nasai, Kabuto-sama! Gomen nasai."

He frowned at me, and walked forward to restrain the girl. "You are not forgiven, Akiko."

I watched him take the young girl out of the room, no doubt to bring her back to her cell.

"Gomen nasai, gomen nasai . . ." I mumbled endlessly, neither standing nor moving from my position on the ground. Kabuto-sama was never in a good mood when interrupted from his work. I should have brought her to the cell before she had woken up, and I should especially not have wasted my energy healing her. "Gomen nasai, Kabuto-sama."

He had returned in almost no time at all, and grabbed me by my arm to take me deeper into his lab—into the sickness.

"Akiko, I was planning on letting you sleep early today, but I guess you can't handle the extra time to yourself," Kabuto-sama scolded. "Instead start healing the more urgent wounds of some of my other experiments."

I nodded. "Hai, Kabuto-sama." More healing . . . I didn't think my body could take much more than another hour. Chakra control was not something I was extremely skilled at.

After stitching up the most urgent wound I found, my hand illuminated to a green so that I could begin healing. The seventeen-year-old boy in front of me was unconscious—probably from the loss of blood. I would have left him in stitches, but it felt wrong to allow him to wake up to such pain.

The long hours stretched on; I knew, at least, four had passed. Somehow I was still standing, despite my exhaustion. After a while, I didn't heal them with Jutsu, and simply repaired wounds manually.

One older man I came across was still awake as I stitched him up. He grunted occasionally but did not resist.

"I'm sorry," I told him when he groaned a bit louder.

He struggled to shake his head. "Don't be. You're only trying to help, and I know you're exhausted."

I sighed in relief. "Arigato."

A pause.

"You look just like my daughter, you know." His words startled me, for, when his eyes closed, I had assumed he had finally found slumber.

"Your daughter?"

"Yeah. Most likely, dead now though. Couldn't save her from the Sound ninja. That's how I ended up here." His eyes were still shut tight.

I bit my lip as I finished my work on him. "Gomen nasai . . ."

"Don't be."

I nodded, even though he was not looking, and ran off. Sometimes Kabuto-sama left earlier to serve Orochimaru-sama. Maybe I could return to my room and be scolded in the morning for leaving the lab alone. Besides, I couldn't heal anymore—not when my hands shook, just as they did when I used Chakra too long.

My hopes were crushed when I saw Kabuto-sama, sitting where he had been before.

"Where are you off to?" he asked without looking up. I could still hear the wicked smile in his voice though.

"I can't . . . anymore," I answered, my voice coming out in wheezes, rather than words. I surprised even myself with my lack of energy.

Concerned, Kabuto-sama glanced at me, yet his smile never left his face. "Go to your room and rest," he said. "I'll be there in a moment."

"Hai, Kabuto-sama."

I always obeyed. I never disobeyed. So I left his laboratory and strolled down the halls to my room.

Disobeying was dangerous. I was only a child, but even a child could mature early in the stage of growing. I knew danger when I sensed it.

Eight years old . . . Somewhat early, one might say, to have a sense of rules and how disobeying those rules could lead to problems I would rather not mention. But I was eight, and my life required maturity . . . Or maybe not maturity but simply obedience.

Disobeying was dangerous. I knew that all too well.

I found the halls disturbing. Whether during night or day, there was hardly any light. Just the candlelight, the dark candlelight that feasted upon light itself. This place knew no light—and neither did I.

I was born here. Maybe I had seen the sun when I was an infant, but I could not remember any real ray of light that illuminated the world. When I was four, I imagined what the sun looked like, how it worked, how it shined. But pretending could never become reality for me, I had learned sooner, rather than later.

I finally reached my door, and opened it slowly as if I were afraid of what lingered inside. The room was pitch-black; my earlier-lit candle must have blown out while I was gone.

First my right foot tested the darkness before my left foot followed. Stumbling around, I finally found my sole candle and lit it with one of the candles in the hall. Then closing the door behind me, I entered my room and laid myself out on the bed.

"Resting," Kabuto-sama had always called it. He was right on the name. Eyes never closing, breathing never growing even, sleep fading away from my desires. I hated the dark. I could rarely sleep in the dark. I could only rest in the dark.

Soon Kabuto-sama would come to lock the door before I could escape—though I would never try an escape. I would only get hurt when I was caught. What use was escape when I didn't even know where the front door was? The way out? I knew the way around inside the walls, but Orochimaru-sama had set it up so that I would never know the way out.

And even if I did try to leave, I would stumble into one of the many traps, finally found after I had already injured myself. I could never try to escape without a guarantee of safety or someone to lead me.

Disobeying was dangerous.

-Splasher-