Fuck you, Oro-Lord Orochimaru. You're already forcing me to share this, and now I can't even say it how I want to?
...alright, alright! Fine. I'll tone it down a little. Just don't glare at me like that.
When I came to, the first thing I did was open my eyes. The second thing was to punch the guy above me right in the fucking face.
The guy in question reeled back, an ugly bruise already starting to form on his stupid face. Consumed with the anger still simmering from my fight earlier, I charged forward with the full intent of beating the living crap out of him. Instead, my arms yanked back when I was barely a foot away from the piece of trash. I continued to pull against this unyielding force for a couple more seconds before finally looking to see what the hell was going on. I was chained to the fucking wall. The guy laughed, seemingly amused at my situation. "Can't do much now, can you, brat?"
"Why don't you come and say that to my face!" I snarled, pulling once again at the chains, though they refused to give.
Sneering, he walked right up to me, though he remained far enough away to stay out of punching range. "You're just a weak little brat who-!" His words were interrupted by a groan of pain, courtesy of the foot I had just jammed between his legs. I smirked, knowing that was gonna hurt him for a while. "You bitch! You are so lucky Lord Orochimaru wants you kept alive because I'd kill you right now for that!"
"Oh, wow, I'm so lucky," I responded with as much sarcasm as I possibly could. "If you think being stuck in a prison cell for no damn reason is lucky, I'd hate to see what unlucky is. Lucky my ass," I added.
"Says the one who massacred villages. Seems like enough of a reason for you to be locked up."
I glared at him, annoyed that he had a point. "That was one time."
"Would has been two if Taguchi, Katsuro, and Hikaru hadn't shown up to stop you."
"Are you nuts? Those trash ninja got their asses handed to them."
"So it would have been two!" he replied, jumping on the fact that I hadn't instantly denied the accusation.
"Would not!" I wasn't sure who I was trying to convince anymore, this stranger or myself. I wasn't liking where the conversation was going, so I said, "You know what, I don't give a damn if there's a fucking reason or not. All I care about is finding Setsuko, and if it weren't for you jerks and that bastard Orochimaru I'd have found her by now."
"Sure about that? I know Taguchi told you where she was, and he was one of the ones Orochimaru sent to bring you in."
"Setsuko wasn't there, last time I fucking checked. I went through that pathetic excuse of a village, and the only people I ran into was you freaks and Orochimaru."
"Fine." He shrugged, apparently believing what he was saying was true. "Believe whatever you want. Why are you looking for her anyway? Seems like a lot of trouble trying to find one girl."
"None of your damn business," I snarled, resorting to the only thing I could hit him with now since he was out of both arm and leg reach. I spit in his face.
"Jeez, you have a temper," he groaned, wiping the saliva off his face, though I noticed he winced when he wiped at the area turning black and blue. I grinned at the pain I caused him. "No wonder you had to be knocked out by Kabuto's genjutsu. I preferred you asleep."
Kabuto? I hadn't seen anyone else other than Orochimaru during that fight. I didn't feel like asking, though. I couldn't have cared less. "And I'd prefer you dead, but we don't always get what we want, do we, asshole?"
"No, we don't." He turned to leave, but before he did, he added with a sneer, "But at least I'm not the one in chains." I screamed at him, straining against the stupid chains. Eventually, I sat down by the wall with a huff. I glared at the cuffs on my wrists, the metal links snaking from my wrists to just above me on the wall. If only, just by me simply wishing it, they would have just shed right off. Thousands of escape attempts ran through my mind, though who was I kidding? I couldn't even escape these bloody chains, let alone a building that I didn't even know the layout of. If only that Kabuto's stupid genjutsu hadn't knocked me out stone cold. Maybe then I'd have some chance...if I could get out of this goddamned cell, that is!
I don't know how much time passed between that encounter and the next one. It could have been minutes, or hours, though to me it felt like fucking years. I spent most of that time futilely pulling away at the chains because being left alone with my thoughts was likely to drive me even more insane. Furious, outraged, and just pissed off at the entire world in general? Yeah, that just made it so much worse.
I was facing away when they entered, face against the wall and hands running through my hair in frustration. I could feel myself sinking to insanity, and no matter what I did it held its grip on me. I thought, I'm probably gonna die from insanity in this stupid prison! But I can't. Not until I find-
"Tayuya?"
That voice. It was all too familiar to me, but at the same time different. Impossible. It can't be. There was no way. I turned, refusing to believe what I was hearing could be true.
But apparently, it was, unless my mind was once again playing tricks on me. The speaker, while older than my nine-year-old-self remembered, still had that same red hair and the same bright blue eyes she had inherited from our father.
"Setsuko."
I could tell she wanted nothing more than to run to me, but for some reason, she held back. I was starting to think maybe it was because I was here, in a prison cell, chained up to keep me from killing someone else. I probably had a reputation too, with that guy earlier having known about me massacring that village. Some sick part of me relished in my own sister's fear, a part that I refused to indulge. There were hundreds of questions I wanted to ask, thousands of things I wanted to say, but I settled for one, "How?" I choked out.
"Huh?" she asked as she approached, slowly but with no hesitation, like she was trying not to startle me or something.
"How...how are you here?" Suddenly the things I wanted to say came pouring out like a rhythm rushed much too fast for the piece. "What happened to you? I've looked everywhere for you! For the past two years, I've searched nonstop! What did those men do to you? Where did you go? How did you get here? Who told you I was here? Why did-"
"Shh," my sister hushed while laying her hand on my shoulder in what was meant to be a reassuring gesture. "One thing at a time." She sat down, inviting me to sit beside her with a gentle pat on the ground. I joined her, somewhat reluctant to sit but I couldn't refuse her. "Now then...as you might know, those men that came that day wanted me for the hiden technique. To fight their battles for them. I fought for them, but...only because I was afraid. Afraid...of them. Several months ago, though, I was saved. And I'm here now. I've had to move around a lot, but when I was told that a young girl was looking for me, claiming to be my sister...well, I just knew it had to be you. And I was right," she added, tears brimming in her eyes as she wrapped me in a sisterly hug. We sat there in silence, the world outside of her arms ceasing to exist for me. I had found Setsuko at long last. I didn't want this moment to ever end.
But, as I had said just earlier, we don't always get want we want. A question began to nag at my mind, and try as I did to ignore it, it refused to be pushed aside. "Hey, Setsuko?" I asked, breaking the comfortable silence between us.
"Yeah?" she mumbled.
"Who was it that saved you from those men? You never said who it was."
"I didn't?"
"No...so who was it?"
"Lord Orochimaru, of course."
My heart sank to my stomach. I must have heard her wrong. She didn't say that, she said...she said… But I couldn't find anything that I had managed to mishear as that dreaded name. I didn't respond at first, betrayal stealing my voice. "Tayuya, are you-?" Setsuko began to say, the new silence unsettling to her. I quickly cut her off though.
"How could you?! That bastard's the reason I'm in here! All I wanted was to find you! But what happens instead? I get thrown into a damn prison, and I finally find you only to realize my own sister betrayed me for the bastard who threw me in here!"
Setsuko scrambled away from me, the fear now all too clear. I allowed myself to indulge myself in the high it gave me. I didn't care that this was my own sister. The terror I could cause was irresistible. "You don't understand. He has a reason for-"
"You're wrong!" I screamed, once again fighting my chains. "I don't get it! The Setsuko I knew wouldn't side with the enemy like this!"
"Please, listen-"
"No, you listen! That Orochimaru is a fucking monster! Yet you defend him, rather than your own fucking sister!" I turned away from her, my voice as cold as ice as I added, "Leave me alone. I want nothing to do with you."
I ignored the sobs coming from her direction, ignored her as she left...ignored my own heartache throbbing in my chest. Alone once again, I curled up into a ball next to the wall, the only sign of my own emotional weakness that I allowed showing. I refused to cry here, even if I had just lost my sister, my only family left, all over again.
Now for one to actually come out on the proposed weekly updates on Tuesday schedule.
Also another stealth Zelda reference, this one from another villainous lord whose arrogance knows no bounds.
This one admittedly didn't go through much proofreading and editing because midterms (and therefore papers) came up, and I've also at the same time been working on Halloween costume/cosplay, so I've not had as much time as I would have liked to really do anything with this one. I may go back and redo this one later if I find something that really needs fixing, but I honestly doubt it as the one next week actually will have a brand new section in it.
I do have one thing to say, and this actually more applies to the last chapter than this one, but still counts for later on. Orochimaru's dialogue is not usually my own. In fact, it's Lord Orochimaru2703's (or at least ends up being heavily inspired by them...and yes they know and are perfectly okay with this). I roleplay with quite a few people on the Internet, including a Kabuto too that ends up falling into this situation too (I'll touch on that when I get to that point, so no I won't forget about that). But this Orochimaru is an extremely important individual in my life. Like, you have no idea how much they mean to me. Sure, I've only known them for a little over a couple years, but I can't imagine my life without them. They're an amazing artist (the reason I even saw them on the Internet in the first place), and a brilliant writer as well. I've always been inspired to be able to be as good as they are, or at the very least fangirl over their stuff when I cannot reach those heights. The way they portray Orochimaru is by far the best I've seen, and it's honestly what inspires me to write this in the first place. If it wasn't for them, I probably never would have even gotten into Naruto, and especially not the characters I did. So, from the bottom of my heart and soul (which apparently does exist, as I found out recently), thank you so so SO much for being a part of my life. I don't deserve you at all, but somehow fate has been kind enough to let me have you in my life. I will forever continue to cherish our friendship.
(insert heart that failed apparently) Ylva "Fiyuya" Olsen
