Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this.
Good news ya'll!
I didn't die!
I'm just staring down almost certain death!
Wonderful.
Orochimaru left me at his lab. He had to abandon the lab after some team of nin stumbled upon it. No doubt, they'd report back to their home village, and then they'd send a veritable army after Orochimaru's pale ass.
Yeah, Orochimaru sort of tried to kill them before they ran, but he was more concerned with some delicate experiment than actually maintaining secrecy.
So yeah! I got abandoned! I was a failed experiment anyways, it's not like he cared much for me.
After Orochimaru packed up the important stuff and booked it, I was left in my cell, alone. Orochimaru had left the key to my cell tantalisingly close. It was hardly a metre away from my cell's bars.
Asshat. Probably wanted to break my spirit after seeing the key so close.
I strained to reach the key. I focused my entire will on getting it, but the key was just out of reach. So I just glared at it. I felt hatred swell up, hatred of Orochimaru. The man who experimented on me, the many who took me away before my life could even start, the man who dangled my freedom just out of reach. I focused my entire being on the key, icy hatred welling up in my heart. My vision ran red. Fucking Orochi-!
The key bonked me in the head.
Dafuq?
I blinked.
And rubbed my eyes.
And blinked again.
Again, dafuq?
Shrugging I picked up the key and unlocked my cell. Ninja magic, I guess.
As I walked through the empty halls of Orochimaru's lab, I felt a stinging in my right hand. Looking down, I saw a small cut, along with a miniscule amount of blood.
When had that happened?
It wasn't really a huge cut, so I just shrugged it off.
I rifled through the stuff Orochimaru left behind. He had a few extra robes, so I took one. Hey, it was better than nothing. I found a frankly ridiculous amount of purple rope. I took that too. I also found a pouch with a few kunai in it. I strapped the pouch to my hip. Orochimaru had hardly left anything behind.
I walked around more in search of a bathroom, I figured I could get washed up.
Walking into a relatively small bathroom, I glanced at the mirror, and did a double take.
Holy shit.
Orochimaru's robe looked ridiculous on me. It was way too big, with the sleeves covering my hands entirely, and the hem almost touching the ground.
But that wasn't what freaked me out.
My eyes. What the fuck happened to my eyes?
Or, more specifically, my right eye.
It was a mechanical monstrosity, with tiny gears turning, and little discs spinning, all with miniscule seals written on them. It was mainly a bronze colour, with a single glowing blue dot in the middle, presumably an iris or pupil of some kind.
That's what I cut myself on. The small cut on my right hand. I had gotten it when I rubbed my eyes. I cut myself on my own eyeball!
I'm not ashamed to say that I panicked. I screamed, and I ran around like a maniac. But once I calmed down enough to actually think about it, it all made sense.
Orochimaru experimented on numerous people to fine-tune his Living Corpse Reincarnation. This must've been one of the solutions to immortality that he considered. Building an entire body out of mechanical parts. He probably believed the method to be impractical for whatever reason. Maybe it took too much time, or it was impossible to fully integrate a soul into a machine.
I was struck by another terrifying thought.
What if he replaced other organs?
What if he replaced stuff like my heart? What if he ran wires through my arms? What if I was like, a cyborg ninja, with half my body replaced by machinery?
Actually that'd be pretty cool.
You know, other than the excruciating pain of having mechanical parts integrated into your body.
I explored the lab more, trying to find an exit. It wasn't hard to navigate the lab. It was probably one of Orochimaru's small labs, little outposts. That's probably why he wasn't too concerned with losing the lab.
Eventually I found my way outside.
Where porcelain masks glared down on me.
ANBU.
"ANBU, report," the tired voice of the Third Hokage called out. Sarutobi Hiruzen had heard a report of one of Orochimaru's laboratories from a chunin border patrol team. He had sent a team of ANBU to scout the location. The cat-masked ANBU stepped forward.
"We almost nothing of value at Orochimaru's laboratory, Hokage-sama. He had already cleaned up the laboratory before we arrived. All but one of Orochimaru's experiments were dead. We encountered that survivor and brought him back."
The Hokage sighed, reminded of his greatest mistake, "Drop off the… experiment… at the Torture and Interrogation department."
The ANBU saluted.
"Dismissed."
In an instant, the ANBU vanished, off to carry Orochimaru's toy to be interrogated.
The Hokage felt older than ever in that moment. He had lived a long life, filled with mistakes. Orochimaru was the greatest, and the most tragic of them all.
I woke up strapped to a chair. Staring at me was a heavily scarred man wearing a beanie with the Konoha leaf emblazoned on it. He scowled at me, and got right down to business.
"Name?"
Right, easy question.
…
…
Holy shit, I don't even know my own name.
That's kinda depressing.
Maybe it'll earn me a few pity points?
"... I don't know."
Ibiki studied me for a moment.
"Affiliation?"
"None."
"Place of birth?"
"Konohagakure."
And so the interrogation went. Eventually, after countless questions, including many that I didn't have answers to, Ibiki left. I sat in the dark room for a while, until the door opened again. A blonde man walked in. I immediately recognised him as Yamanaka Inoichi.
See, here's the thing that pisses me off, why the fuck would you bother interrogating me if you're just gonna bring in a mindwalker to rip those memories from my head? Like seriously-
The world faded away. I would equate the next minute or so to an acid trip. I saw my entire life play out in the span of seconds. I felt Inoichi rifle through my memories, he experienced every second my short life, from the small amount of time in the orphanage, to the experimentation of Orochimaru.
The world faded back into sight, and I saw Inoichi's face. It was indifferent, cold. No doubt he had seen even greater horrors than Orochimaru's experiments.
They let me go. Konoha's reputation as the softest of the hidden villages was totally legit. They gave me an orphan's stipend, as well as a recommendation of an apartment.
A rather strong recommendation.
The apartment they suggested was a complex full of shinobi. Konoha still wanted to keep an eye on me.
They sort of had a file on me. They saw my parents from my memories, and they had a baby on their file. They knew I was born in Konoha.
The thing is, my parents were killed in the Kyuubi attack not even two weeks after I was born.
They didn't even get to name me.
It was the cat ANBU named me. When he lead me to the apartment complex, I asked him to name me. Mainly because it felt wrong to name myself.
He seemed shocked for a minute. Then sad.
He called me Seidome.
A/N: Feedback is much appreciated.