"Mother! Father!" cried the little snake-like boy, eyes wide wild with fear.
No one seemed to hear him. He pressed himself against the wall, next to one of his parent's experimental subjects. He was only four.
He watched in horror as his mother went down, a slash across her throat and gashes along her arms that the skilled ANBU agents had given her. Only the most skilled of ninja could hurt his parents.
"Oro…chi…maru…" she choked, falling face-first before him. He let out a blood-curdling scream as her forehead connected with his foot, but he couldn't move any farther away, stuck between the boards that held dead bodies. Never before had he been afraid of this room until now.
He looked up, hoping to see his father triumphantly standing over the five-or-so ANBU agents come to attack him, but instead, found him kneeling over, coughing blood. Out of respect for the incredibly intelligent ninja of the time, the ANBU slashed his throat deep to put him out of his misery.
Orochimaru's throat was dry; he was so stunned and heartbroken he couldn't force himself to scream. Instead, he realized the burning in his eyes was maddening, and they finally spilled over with the force of a waterfall, cascading down his face in a flash.
His sight was fuzzy, but he could make out the figures making their way toward him, holding their hands out in a way of showing they weren't going to hurt him.
But he was scared anyway. They were the ones who slaughtered his parents before his eyes, and now they wanted to comfort him? He sobbed and fought for freedom, trying to twist around his mother without touching her body and without touching her murderers.
"Step away from him!" a man called, one Orochimaru didn't recognize. But it made him stop short. It was familiar.
"Give him space. He needs air. Don't hurt him!" It was the Third. Orochimaru was relieved. He would punish the ANBU! He would save him from their clutches!
As the blurry shape of the man came closer, Orochimaru collapsed in his arms, unable to struggle. He was exhausted and grief-stricken, and all he wanted to do was forget this ever happened, wish it never happened.
He picked him up, turned to carry him out, and the ANBU followed obediently. Orochimaru screamed at them to go away, to go die. But they continued to follow silently through the halls of his underground home. "Go!" he screamed, making even the Third flinch. "Get away from me!" he struggled to be free. They're coming to get me! screamed his mind. They're gonna get me!
***
Orochimaru woke with a shudder. He looked around him. He was alone once again, breathing hard in his lonely room.
Kabuto entered swiftly. "What is it? Your body acting up again?" whenever Lord Orochimaru ever woke up in such a way, lately Kabuto always assumed he'd been jerked from his sleep because of the severe pain of his deteriorating body.
Orochimaru just nodded. He couldn't admit to his henchmen that he was having nightmares of his childhood once again, after so many years—they usually haunted him about once a month, in the least.
He'd never once believed that the Third had been unaware of the happening. Though he'd said the ANBU had taken matters into their own hands, he knew the Third had sent them. His parents had done unspeakable things, things Orochimaru now did. He knew the anger the ANBU must have felt, the disgust and fear. But he could never forgive them.
As Kabuto began to wrap his arms with more gauze—he was in his new body, his second, the one that looked like a girl—a plot began to form in his head.
"The Third," he choked with disgust. Kabuto looked up, mildly surprised by his rambling.
"The Third? Hokage, you mean? What about him?"
"He must die."
