A/N: I know the chapters are short, but this is the length Princess (princess vegeta: last female uchiha: go!go!go!) likes to make her chapters, and it's easier for me to shorten than for her to lengthen. Anyways, she was 1 or two in the last chapter and she's going to be about four in this one. This is the chapter in which Orochimaru is introduced, but nothing like that happens, I can hear you perverts snickering already. ;P
A Winter's Encounter
Orochimaru didn't expect to be summoned to the Hebi village, even less than that did he expect the leader of the village, Hebi (as he was called) to drop a pouting four year old into his lap. She looked sourly up at him, her eyebrows knitted together and her lips curved downwards. An aura of defiance seemed to come off of her in waves. She glared, and then tuned her head sharply away from him.
Unlike when the serpent first found her, she actually showed more signs of her dark skinned heritage. Her lips were fuller, and her hair which was bound into two ponytails was curly. The curls bounced as she shook her head. "Why can't I just hibernate this year too?" Orochimaru noted that her speech was exceptionally clear for her age.
The serpent simply ignored her; a skill that must have come from millions of years of practice because Orochimaru had a feeling the look she was shooting at Hebi could kill a large dog for all the venom it held. She turned and glared at Orochimaru as if this in any way was his fault. This was when he noticed one of the bands holding her hair its ponytail was thicker, and striped. On second though, it wasn't a haio5rband at all, rather it was a snake. A coral snake with red and cream colored stripes. She jumped off his lap and ran off. Hebi turned to him and after a moment of letting him sit there with a confused expression on his face, decided to explain the situation.
The girl reappeared beside him, making Orochimaru jump. But Hebi seemed to be used to it. "How did you-"he said, cutting his sentence off in favor of just staring. Orochimaru raised his eyebrows 'no chakra spike, and there's no way she could be that stealthy.' She smiled sweetly at him, and Orochimaru got chills. 'What a strange child' he thought.
The thing was that serpents as part of their nature hibernated during winter. Unless, of course, they were summoned, they would sleep the winter away. When she was younger, she had been a rather lazy child. Also, she had been chubby. Thereby it hadn't really been very important to have someone awake to watch her the whole winter.
But somehow, between ages two and four she had gained a whole new level of energy and was impossible to keep in once place for more than a few minutes. Also, she had become a troublemaker. If you took your eyes off her, for one second, she would find something unbreakable... and proceed to break it. It was a skill she had.
Orochimaru's reading glasses had somehow ended up in the girls hands, he didn't minds. They had been advertised as unbreakable, and he himself had bent them in every possible direction after paying for them. He looked up to the serpents "So I'm assuming you want me to watch her over the winter and take-" "SNAP!"
"Oopsie?" Her eyes were wide and apologetic, but Orochimaru could see underneath she had enjoyed the challenge of destroying his "indestructible glasses." Orochimaru then began to worry that watching this child could prove to be rather... unpleasant. But from the words of Hebi, he didn't have much of a choice. They could have his head on a stake within seconds if they wanted to.
"Her name is Orihime, take good care of her." The girl raised her eyebrow at her serpent guardian (he had just changed her name after-all) but said nothing. It was beginning to snow. She knew she would have to leave, as little as she liked the idea.
She was heavy, but to hell if it anything one of the legendary San-nin could handle. He didn't blame her falling asleep in the crook of his neck the way she did. She had walked with him through many villages and cities... before sitting down in one spot and refusing to move any further. Well no one said she was the perfect traveling companion. Orochimaru shrugged; at least she wasn't a whiner. She had held out longer than most children her age would. He sat down on bench, and she woke up.
Looking around blearily her she rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. Her eyes focused on him. He knew what she saw. He had traded his pale complexion for a darker only a few shades darker than that of the girl on his lap. He traded his silky, chin length, black hair for a wild afro. His eyes however, remained the same.
Orochimaru realized he didn't really have anything against having to take her on a grand tour of the continent as a learning experience in the middle of winter. Traveling allowed him to add new jutsus to his ever-growing arsenal. That, paired with the fact that she was pretty simple to care for and pretty independent allowed Orochimaru to view her as somewhat as a companion rather than as a burden.
What made him hate her a good deal less than other children? For one thing she was very cute and they got across borders easier when the people were focusing more on her dimples than on the forged papers. She rarely cried over trivial things as many children were prone to doing. When he couldn't come up with a bedtime story for her on the first night together, she had only pouted for a moment, and then asked him to explain a jutsu to her instead (which Orochimaru of all people could do, countless times, without repeating once). She watched him with fascination and had once even been able to do the jutsu herself after delaying bedtime half an hour to try it, and then try it again, and again. Orochimaru even had fleeting thoughts about making him her apprentice when she was older.
Molten gold with slit pupils regarded the small child with something akin to fondness. During his life in the leaf, the time he had spent with children was a time he really didn't like to go back to. They had been annoying, blathering on endlessly about nothing in its entirety. Over the past few days he had learned the limits of her eloquence, but had never heard her chatter endlessly when there was really nothing to say. She was straight to the point. He liked that.
She was strange child. She was smart, but her body was lagging behind her brain. Her mouth simply couldn't pronounce some of the words she wanted to use. The first time Orochimaru had seen her do this he had laughed. And yet it had made him look at her with a wondering look in his eyes, she really was still a child after-all. There were other actions of hers that went well with this point. For example when she needed to get to the restroom, she would dance and hop around until they had reached it. She left vegetables on her plate, and if he tried to force her to eat them, she would throw a tantrum that ended with Orochimaru having to pay large sums of money in collateral damage and hospital fees. Then, she would pout. And after watching that pout for a few seconds, you started to believe it was your fault not hers.
Somehow during his musings, she had navigated her way into his lap and dozed off again. He looked out to the playground many children played there. Happy in their own worlds. Orochimaru smirked as he wondered how many of them would be able to understand and survive the ninja world. He could see a few who would die as gen-nin already. As for the girl in his lap, he suspected she would survive more due to brains than brawn. He already saw cunning sparking up in her eyes, soon the flames would curl, and then a bonfire would rage.
Slowly the playground emptied out. One by one the children waved goodbye and followed their parents home with thoughts of dinner and a cozy bed to sleep in. Eventually all the children had been picked up or had walked home with friends' families but one. "Poor jinchurikki child," thought the snake San-nin. He jostled her gently to try and wake her. She was awake after only a few moments of grogginess, eyes already alert and taking in the entire situation at a quick speed. "See that child?" asked the snake man, pointing at the small blonde sitting on the swings. "He's a jinchurikki. He has no family. Will you not you go play with him a little?" empathy shone in now warm brown eyes. "Kay." she replied, still too tired to bother forming sentences.
Orochimaru dusted some of the winter snow off of Orihime's coat. He didn't want to risk her getting sick, but she seemed to have a pretty strong immune system. "Wait," she said, her eyes now dark and full of mischief. "Won't you miss me while I'm gone?" she asked, her smirk oozing self-confidence a four year old shouldn't have while twining a curl around her finger in a way a four year old wasn't supposed to know how. Orochimaru rolled his eyes at her "I'll survive," he deadpanned, pushing her gently in the playgrounds direction.
Her curls bounced as she skipped down the slope that led towards the playground. Orochimaru checked his wallet, eventually she would come back demanding ramen, and if he couldn't give it to her, there would be hell to pay.
To say the blonde was surprised when the petit dark skinned girl sat down next to him on the swing "hey," she greeted, grinning widely. He didn't dare smile, for if he did, she would surely catch sight of his fangs (courtesy of the nine tails) and hate him the way the other people living in the hidden leaf village did. "You're the Kyubi kid, am I right?" she asked without silly preamble. The blue eyed boy flinched "who told you that?" he panicked; maybe she was one of those Anbu Black-Ops sent to kill him. The Root agents seemed to be getting younger and younger to him. "Kai!" she exclaimed, then flashed similar fangs at him.
"Animal chakra does that to you," she confided. "But see, same here." The boy was glad to learn that she had fangs, they would probably view her as a monster too if they knew. Selfish as that sounded, that made him trust her. She wouldn't rat him out to the other kids and she wouldn't attack him for being different. They played all the games they could think of, till neither could bear to walk another step. They talked about stuff they liked, which were actually really similar (for example love of ramen). And things they didn't (like the three minutes you have to wait till you can eat it). After hearing about what an idiot Sasuke was, she agreed to help her new friend pull a prank on that loser.
Orochimaru called her over and before dashing off into his warm arms and falling asleep she remembers to ask what the jinchurikki's name is.
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto."
"My name changes once in a while, but right now, you can call me Hebi Oriko."
"You'll tell me if you ever change it again?"
"Maybe, if we are friends then."
"Friends?"
"Well, yeah silly, ain't you ever had a friend?"
"I think I have one now."
"And that's how it should be. See you tomorrow!"
The snake San-nin lifted the girl into his arms and walked away.
To Naruto the snow didn't seem half so cold anymore.
"A new friend," he murmured to himself, before tuning and heading home towards the red lights district.
