Thank you all for your reviews, I enjoyed reading your thoughts and am glad you seemed to find the previous chapter enjoyable as well. Like you guys can notice, I decided to indeed turn this into a drabble series. As such, there's a change in the name of the story as well, hope you don't mind but I believe this suits them better.
After all, this is what this story is about. So it'll go back and forth between the present and the past as I see fit.
This drabble here will focus on the canon events surrounding Karin's meeting with Orochimaru; or at least, what's known about them from her databook entry. I decided to explore them a bit, so here is more or less how I envision it went.
Let's hope Kishimoto will show it in a flashback sometime soon. I'd love to see SasuKarin's first encounter.
That said, enjoy! And also, please don't forget to review; each and every single one of those is highly appreciated. As for flamers, please go back to the first chapter and read the bolded letters. The same applies to the rest of the story.
Red.
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Sasuke x Karin
He wondered why Orochimaru had insisted on taking a detour; why all of a sudden the sannin had started to lick his lips, grin in a way that even then still managed to disturb him.
The motive made itself obvious as soon as they entered the demolished village, and the boy hadn't been able to resist rolling his eyes out of annoyance; of course Orochimaru would want to drop by a place like this, the mere thought of it probably made his blood burn with excitement and delight.
That was the first time Sasuke laid his eyes on her.
They had found her once they turned a right and walked straight into a particularly bloody alley; there were corpses everywhere, dismembered bodies laying even in places the eye couldn't reach, dark reds staining the streets and the walls. Around such an horrid sight, it wasn't hard at all to spot her.
A girl, around his age. Standing alone at the furthest corner of the alley. Her clothes were perfectly clean, not even a drop of blood in them. It was as if it all had been absorbed by the red hair that fell cleanly across her back.
"My, my… look what we have here. What happened, girl?"
Sasuke sent a nasty glare at his current sensei from the corner of his eyes; there was not even the barest attempt at hiding his enjoyment at the sight he was seeing.
It made him sick.
"Isn't it obvious? They were all murdered! Every single one of them was!"
When Sasuke looks towards her again, she is facing them. Her eyes are covered by black-rimmed glasses, the pale colors of her skin brought up by the fiery red of her unruly hair.
Sasuke thinks she is quite the sight. No that he particularly cared about such matters, but neither was he blind.
Orochimaru laughs openly, probably amused at the girl's bold answer, Sasuke guesses. The guy was a weirdo, no point trying to deduce what was going through that sick head of his.
"That's not what I wanted to know. How did you survive? You are from this village, aren't you?"
The red-head clenches her fists, and spitefully glares at the nearest wall.
"…I left"
"Hmmm…?"
"I left, alright?!" The fiery girl is suddenly spitting out, pretty features contorted in pure anger. It was obvious that she did not know just whom she was screaming at in such way. "I felt there was a tremendous amount of people coming, and left! I ran for my life! Left them all behind!"
He observes her intently, taken in by the changes in her expression; he could not see her eyes from where he was standing, but the way her lips and eyebrows contorted was more than enough to give him a guess at the look they had. By his side, Orochimaru's tone of voice suddenly changes.
He is interested. In what? Sasuke doesn't know. But for her own good, he hopes it wasn't in her.
"My, how did you manage to get out of their reach in time? Any skilled shinobi surely must have--"
"—I had a day to run"
Orochimaru's eyes widen, and inwardly, Sasuke shakes his head at her answer.
She just screwed herself.
"So, you felt them… even though they were a day away?"
Her eyes narrow dangerously once again; probably sensing the way the air around the sannin had changed. "Yeah, what about it?"
"Come with me"
Orochimaru says so breathlessly, excitedly liking his lips.
"What? No! Absolutely no!"
She looks freaked out; Sasuke can't blame her.
"There's nothing else for you here, child. If they come back for you, you're dead. If you come with me though, I can teach you… I can help you become stronger… I'll give you food and a roof, will warrant you power… You'll have none of those in this ruined village"
The girl seemed to hesitate for a breath, but then the ugly scowl was back on her face and the angriness on her voice.
"I don't care. There's no way I'm leaving! It doesn't matter if I die here, I'll manage!"
Orochimaru is talking once again, but his voice is drown out by Sasuke's thoughts. By Sasuke's memories.
As he watches her now, he remembers himself. Remembers the little, lost child standing amidst a riot of bodies; remembers the helplessness, the terror, the agony, the grief….
He remembers how he wouldn't accept being taken away from the Uchiha compound. Remembers how he yelled and screamed at everyone to leave him alone; to stop trying to help him, when he didn't need anyone's help.
He remembered, so he understood. He knew.
He knew what was waiting for the girl if she stayed here; he knew how she sometimes would imagine their voices, calling out and cursing her for letting them die—for not dying along with them—how she'd end up hating herself because of it. How she would be able to see them, walking by; how it'd slowly drive her to the edge.
She wouldn't be able to stand that. Nobody would. Regardless of how masochist one can be, there's only so much one could take, and this was definitely over any person's limits.
Sasuke at least knew that much.
Their eyes meet for the first time as he gets a hold of her sleeve—there is surprise in her eyes, how did I not sense him coming?! was probably what she was frantically asking herself. There was no such thing as surprise in his though. But he is taken aback, behind the unwavering calmness of those eyes of his.
He never expected her to have red eyes, as well. As he watches them, he wonders if he was wrong, back then.
The blood was probably absorbed by her eyes instead of her hair.
"W—wha… What are you doing?! Let go of me!" With a brusque movement, she frees herself of his grasp—but he would have nothing of that, and with a quick flip of his hand he has her caught by the wrist, and this time, he adds enough force to let her know that she was not going anywhere.
He gives her a second or two to stop struggling against his hold before speaking.
"Come"
He hears a chuckle behind him; unmistakably Orochimaru's—but he disregards it, instead focusing on meeting those red eyes head-on.
She frowns, gives a slight tug to her arm to try and free herself but to no avail. "Why would I? This is my home, my—!"
"Don't be stubborn. That man is right, there's nothing else left for you in here" The red-head opens her mouth, without a doubt to protest but Sasuke is faster than her.
"No matter what you do, you won't be able to change what happened. No matter how long you stay, the blood stains on the floors will be there all the same—no matter how much you wash your hands, no matter how badly you try to make up for it—the blood and the guilt will remain there. You staying here will amount to nothing. But you leaving, might"
Her lips are parted as she stares at him with slightly widened eyes and mouth agape—Sasuke takes this as a good sign, and prepares to give the final strike.
"If you leave, and keep living… you'll be able to avenge them. You'll be able to take revenge for the lives that were wasted in here. If you become powerful enough, you'll be able to atone for your sins—for your mistakes"
He waits a long moment, letting the words sink in her brain; letting her think them over, go through her options, before pushing her. If things came to worse, he'd probably end up knocking her out and allowing Orochimaru to take her with him. From the man's expression, he was interested in her enough to keep her alive. That was enough.
"…You…" She says suddenly, breaking him out of his thoughts. Slowly, she raises her eyes and meets his again; this time, her expression is calmer, thoughtful. Suspicious. "You seem to know a lot about how I'm feeling…. How?"
Sasuke's grip on her wrist tightens without his notice.
"That's not important right now. What matters is what you chose. So, which one is it—"
"—Karin"
Sasuke stares, taken aback. The girl gives him something between a scowl and a smile.
From what he could see, she probably had a pretty smile.
"The name is Karin"
He nods. "I'm Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke"
There's a flicker of something in her eyes as he finishes introducing himself, but it is gone as quickly as it comes and he has to wonder whether he imagined it altogether. He decides to pretend he saw nothing.
"What are you going to do, Karin?"
The name leaves a funny taste on his mouth as it rolls out his tongue. Karin, though, remains unfazed; eyes focused intently on the ground before raising and meeting his with fiery determination.
"Alright" She says, "I'll come with you"
He nods, pleased, and finally lets go of her wrist. Without telling her another word he turns around and starts to walk back towards Orochimaru, who lets out a bone-chilling laugh as he approaches him, Karin on Sasuke's tail.
"We are not going to take any other detours, Orochimaru. I've already lost enough of my time today"
Orochimaru disregards his words, a crooked smirk on his long lips. "My, my, Sasuke-kun; I never thought you'd have such a way with words"
Sasuke gives him the best death-glare he could muster.
"Save it"
- -
Tried to keep them as IC as posible as well as to show the starts of what I believe to be what ignited their bond: Mutual understanding since they have a common ground.
Did I succeed at portraying that? You all are the judge.
How about you all? How do you think Sasuke and Karin's first encounter went? I'm looking forward to hear your theories, so please do not hesitate to leave a review with them!