Hello! Chapter twenty!

So, I have a couple of chapters already typed out but they won't come out until their respected weeks. The reason why I do that and instead of posting them right away is to keep a consistent schedule for you readers. This is a tip from me, it helps regulate the whole picture of what you want in a story and it also helps if you plan out how you want your chapters to come out.

It helps you ask questions like 'is this situation developed too fast?' or 'am I dragging this out?'

It also help increase word count in my opinion so that you get more than 1k-2k of words out of your chapters. I just thought to share this with you readers just in case you want to become authors or develop better habits. I hope this helps!

Thanks and review please!

July 3, 2018- Finished.
August 17, 2018- Edited.

-Line Break-

"Six months to a year, give them six months to a year before promoting them." I said easily. "They coordinated seamlessly but they need time for experiencing with other teams and leading them. Depending on how fast the incident in Yu speeds up the war of course. Jiraiya-chan is good, but he's too easily flustered, the experience will be good for him."

"I'm still trying to figure out how you managed to up root an entire human trafficking operation in over a week."

"Nii-san says that my lack of concern for the consequences is the reason why the risks I take doesn't play into the decisions I make. Tsunade-chan thinks I need to go to a therapist." My smile stayed hearing a tired sigh. "If it's any consolation, I always make sure the intended goals are intact, and I would never replace you, Mesui-san."

"I'm not a therapist."

I giggled. "Tsunade-chan probably has the most experienced when it comes to working with other people because of her position as a medic-nin. She's also really good at challenging decisions that would end up really bad for the team." I counted off. "Nii-san's good with strategic planning but he'll probably end up doing more solo missions with how big his ninjutsu arsenal is growing and how he works in general. He doesn't really know how to play nice but it'll do him some good to at least learn what the general shinobi population is capable of."

"Why are you reporting this to me? The Hokage wants that written down in a mission report, not to me."

"So? As much as I like staring at you, you make a horrible conversationalist. Watching a pair of foxes getting married is much more entertaining than having a staring contest with you."

Rain dripped out the window but the clear shine of the sun gave way to a false hope that it would chase off the showers. I've enjoyed the sounds of the soothing rain and watch Orochimaru follow the puddle of the warm sunlight on these days. A day of contradictions to mesh nicely, the tiniest moment of world peace before it was horribly broken again.

"Jackals also marry in this weather."

The peace that was caused by the momentary of shock and awe.

"Where would foxes get married?"

I shrugged. "The same place jackals would I would guess. Wolves and bears liked to get hitched today too and even the odd couples like the tiger and the fox look to the sky and think 'today's the day.'" I stared out the window. "It's such a pretty day after all."

"It's a lazy day, even your brother is asleep."

Orochimaru's layabout ways would be shone today, not even the call of his labs would out tempt the call of the lullaby trickles that coupled with warm rays of the sun. He would be curled up on his favourite chair by mid-noon because of the restlessness of not being able to enjoy the day.

"You should enjoy the day off."

What did I do? What did I enjoyed from before? With all these songs in my head, I must've did something with music.

Did I sing? Or did I dance?

Or did I played an instrument? A piano, maybe?

The switching songs clicked through my head like switching the channels on the radio. Static buzzed and cracked in my head, the notes rang like a faraway bell but it was still something I could listen to. The almost silenced toll was slow but it echoed persistently to not be forgotten.

If it wasn't transmitted through an imaginary radio, maybe it wouldn't be so-

"Haruka!"

I sucked in a sharp breath, heart beating a little too fast and sweat was just barely forming. A chill went through me but my body was warm from the odd rush in my blood.

My laughter came out a little more broken than I liked. "I'm sorry, I usually like to dream on these days, my thoughts tend to run a muck if I don't let them." I forced the shaking out of my hands.

I leaned back into my chair as Mesui leaned closer. "What exactly were you thinking?"

"About the songs in my head." I answered trying to hide how tired I was. "I can't remember them, but I was wondering what was I doing to learn them in the first place. I think I danced to them but I remember being told to play them."

The sleepy haze that came with this odd exhaustion drained the little energy I had when I first came back this morning. The Hokage telling me that I had to head straight to here just as I was about to rush to the showers. The bed was calling and I was stuck here with half my dreams.

"We need another Mind Walk session from you."

"Go ahead, tell nii-san that I won't be cooking dinner tonight." I felt my hand twitched in false alertness. "Tell me anything interesting you find, it'll make up for pulling me away from home."

"Let them suffer, it was supposed to be a quiet day."

"Supposed to be my quiet day." I murmured. "I'll definitely make them suffer."

-Line Break-

"Haruka-chan's not getting any better." Daichi sighed. "She seemed to have gotten worse if anything. On the plus side, we can say for a positive that she's not a sleeper. Just really, really bad to keep her around people she doesn't think too highly of."

"You're telling me." The Nara sighed along with his friend. "The rest of the IT guys love it when she comes around."

He remembered when one of his fellow interrogators jokingly, seriously, offered her a position. That was when he seriously thought that there was something wrong with her when she smiled with a fleeting answer saying it would be too boring to work here. Unflinching at the echoing screams and the shark smiles that was thrown at her that grown men would be wary off left her giggling.

Mesui has met only a handful of people like her. It took a while to connect the sharp-eyed smile and the nothing-to-lose mindset, to realize that it's not exactly the revenge that festered that he saw from the Warring Eras. The dark flecks in people's eyes from being survivors of a massacre from other clans, persons, monsters, weren't hard to spot. There was always an air to people like them, unnoticed by majority of people but in the end whether they're found out or not didn't matter.

What did matter is if they managed to accomplish to destroy whatever that made them. The trail of misery and misfortune they leave behind was evident if one follows their footsteps, it wasn't so hidden once you got to know the cracked surface that doesn't even hide their intentions.

All that unseen because everybody saw a child first, a little girl second, and a fractured mind completely last.

"I need everything about that village that she came from." Mesui declared. "I want to know the name and its people, any rumour and even folktale that it has."

"We don't have the man power for that."

"Disguise it as a training mission, scouting mission, or even a way for the new recruits to experience information gathering." The Nara looked back down to the files in front of him. "Haruka is going to be a high profile person, we know nothing about her and we can't afford to be blindsided by anything she does."

But having the leverage about her origins seemed the wrong thing to have over her. Haruka already proved that she was shameless in using underhanded methods even when caught. She turned to other things because she didn't like the pass of robbing the populace like she was before. The reports of her slow crawl in seals was disappointing but when the Hokage himself comes to you and asks why she's now claiming that the seals are talking to her, obviously they were missing something.

Or she was at a level of insanity they couldn't comprehend.

But the mission report from the shadows claims otherwise and it's frustrating because he should at least understand her thought process by now. He does. Not really. But he's been right so far, kind of.

Haruka was everything what he knew about a broken down, revenge ridden ghost. Every Yamanaka that reviewed her case agreed with his assessment, every pale-eyed mind reader with the skills and training gave their approval at his conclusion. And yet she was missing the one vital piece that made the leap from a drive to an obsession.

That drive and that obsession, she didn't have it.

No dream or reason to live by, not even her precious brother had enough gravity to hold her down. Mesui saw it after all, that break from reality when her body put itself in auto-pilot and waved him off like an annoying fly. The unblinking stare to the window along with the unnatural twitch and jerk in her hands was alarming enough to make him reach out.

She looked like she was having a seizure, she looked like she had an attack when she did snap out of it.

Haruka's movements were easy to predict, Mesui now finally concluded that it's her mindset that was hard to follow. Straying thoughts that floated in her head were kept close to her, not only for herself but to act as a distraction to those that try to pry a little too closely. Almost as if she self trained herself as a defense mechanism but even that was wrong.

That willful immersion was evident, she didn't fight a nightmare like most would and was too far gone to be a nostalgic fall back. The best he can say is that she was trying to recreate the people in her life, live as they lived because she wasn't exactly building herself on a stable foundation of what she wants.

Or maybe she was, just that he hasn't figured it out yet.

"She's only twelve, why is it so difficult to have her files straight?"

Daichi snorted. "I heard she's an early bloomer."

"I'll tell your wife if you make that joke."

Mesui's eye twitch hearing his friend laugh at him. Being in charge of the IT unit sometimes didn't really pay off when majority of his team had a morbid sense of humour. Especially when they didn't even know who exactly was in charge of them.

He didn't see the need to let his unit know that they actually did have a leader to report to, it helped minimized the paperwork and make up his own reports on what's going on.

Nice and easy, now not really.

-Line Break-

Everything was chiming with whispers, the low rumbles to the quiet seductive calls, they all kept my senses on an odd alerted status. They came from the polished, wooden walls, the dark, stained floors, and even the paper sliding doors repeated protective silence from prying ears and eyes.

"This house is alive, nii-san." I whispered warily. "One of the rooms even whisper for people's fingers if there's no blood."

I clutched Orochimaru's sleeve a little more tightly as the whispers all were powered by the same chakra. The tidal force of the raging waters, the swirling waters that trapped sailors to their deaths, and the tinge of something red and old and whatever it was tickled at my attention.

Pulled at my curious strings because it was also so very angry.

"Mito-sama is an Uzumaki, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the seals here did any of that."

Orochiamru took the news of the voices of the seals that I hear with more stride than I thought he would. It was a conversation that went a whole lot better than I thought it would, he just sighed like I came home with another shiny bag of bargained goods. He even asked Tsunade if we could visit her grandmother and now we're here!

"There's so many whispers just in this hallway."

"You'll be fine, Haruka. I've walked down these halls enough to know that they won't hurt you if you don't wander off."

"You sound like you're talking from experience."

"Don't mock me."

"I would never." I hugged his arm tight. "You're my protection after all."

He rolled his eyes and I giggled at him for it. "It's nice to know I'm of some sort of use to you. Now come on, you're being rude by being late."

"But you're late too."

"You're both late." The familiar sound of an annoyed blonde made us both still in nervousness. "Obaa-san has been waiting on both of you, hurry up and get in here!"

It hit me hard the moment I was pushed into the room.

'Contain.'

'Evil.'

'Chain.'

'Chakra.'

It said those four words in constant repetition, not just those four words but any synonym, shape, and maybe in a different language to fortify itself in a looping path. But it wasn't enough though, or maybe it was. The flashing red was pretty, it was also angry and old and certainly not human.

Kind of, because the human was also pretty, regal, with the same swirling whirlpool that you have to respect. The long tails of hair that tried to be held in buns wasn't the same crimson rage but still held elegance of age but not ancient. Definitely not ancient because those calm black depths didn't reflect the other burning red eyes that flashed with hers.

Red eyes that that wasn't human, that beastly gaze far surpassed Orochimaru's serpentine ones.

Not a snake's either, but a howling blaze that just wanted out-

Reality shifted again when a hand snapped me into it and I gave a frightened laugh before trying to disappear behind Orochimaru. I ignored everyone's voices to stop the shaking in my body, ignored the whispers as they suddenly got excited. I just wanted to crawl away right now, crawl away into the silence.

I never knew it could be so loud.

"Haruka, what's wrong?"

"That seal says it contains evil, but wouldn't you be angry too?" I looked up at the twisting tempest that tried to drown the blaze below it. "I would be, so very angry if I could never see the sky again."

I concentrated on the coolness, reached out to feel the sharp breath of the autumn breeze that curled over my skin protectively. The blaze was still prominent on my senses but the feeling of some kind of security was better than nothing. Just knowing that I was holding onto my most important person right now was far more comforting than not knowing where he could be with that fire.

"It's just like sleeping..."

My ears finally registered the soft murmurs of concern, and sighed contently at the hand that ran through my hair. My eyes peered open to the soft fabric of a kimono along with the familiar tresses of black hair.

I nuzzled into the rare close contact that Orochimaru initiated. I held even tighter, half out of principle and half out of a fear that I wouldn't admit.

"What's wrong?"

"There's fire in her." I whispered to him. "It's a very old fire and it's angry. So, so angry at everything."

There was a pause and Orochimaru shifted his body to stare questioningly at the person that caused my distress. I peeked over his shoulder and almost squinted at the ghosting images that overlaid the aging woman. Her chakra was so potent, it rang heavily to where it was dizzying and I ducked back to my barrier as Orochimaru's wind blew warningly against the embers and rain.

It wasn't enough but it did mitigate how much noise and rage that reached me, that was better than facing the scalding heat directly.

But it was still so loud. The pulsing headache was building the longer I listened, like slowly becoming nauseous in a room full of burning incenses. I'll never say it aloud but I wish Orochimaru didn't light those things, few and far between but nauseating all the same.

"You failed in keeping that to yourself, Haruka." Orochimaru's annoyed voice filtered in. "And I don't light it for the smell."

"I know, but that that's what it feels like." My mind was getting fuzzier. "It's like listening to someone scream underwater." I blinked at that. "Now she's drowning them."

Everything became clearer, not really, I looked over to the pretty old lady who had a grim frown directed towards me. The way her storm was condensing into herself was like looking at a snow globe, only, what's inside isn't very happy. I patted Orochimaru to loosen his hold but his grip just tightened and I huffed at his narrowing eyes.

"You're unwell."

"I'm dizzy, not bedridden."

"No."

"Of all the times you want to hug." I wriggled before settling down. "Fine, I like hugs anyways."

It wasn't too hard to get cozy, he was like a giant, freshly turned pillow. I didn't care for the audience watching, he's the one that cares about that kind of stuff.

And plus, Tsunade needed some kind of assurance that I'm not falling over soon.

-Line Break-

"Nii-san, nii-san! There's something on this door is whispering for blood, but this time it's asking for blood of a maelstrom!"

"'Uzumaki.'" Mito clarified. "Names are hard to implement because of how hard it can be to lock in the characters of the name and blood. Like writing poetry, you have to be clever in manipulating the words to flow and rhyme."

Haruka hummed. "I get that, I'm just surprised in how creative you can get in trying to grasp the same thing. There was a vase that keep whispering for blood and restless waters."

"Hey, can you stop making the place I eat and sleep in sound like a haunted shipped?" Tsunade snapped at me. "I like it here!"

"But it's so interesting." The blue-haired girl peeked over Orochimaru's shoulders. "And that's what it exactly sounds like too! The slow creaking of the old but strong wood, the rattling chains of a darker history, and the ominous rock of a smashing tide, your home is a symphony."

Blue eyes glazed over as she hummed whatever song that she was listening to and Mito didn't give away at how disturbed she felt at the moment. The moment she realized just how strong the girl's sensor abilities really were, she did her best to reel in her chakra as tightly as she could. The Uzumaki queen realized, even Kyuubi caught on, that Haruka honed in on the demon's chakra too closely.

And the effects was like watching someone take some mild narcotics, Mito didn't react quickly enough and she could only hope that there wasn't any serious damage. Haruka's eyes were unfocused and she kept on giggling and commenting about the various seals in place in the house. It bothered the Uzumaki that half her work was easily deciphered by a little girl with questionable sanity.

It bothered her that Kyuubi was silent, as if watching the girl from its cage. Like as if Haruka's words struck it just as much it struck her.

There was a sort of anticipation in contrast of her fear.

"Nii-san's hair is so pretty. Nii-san is pretty."

This was the sort of moment that should've made her sent a small and happy prayer to her late friends but-

"Go to sleep, Haruka."

"No. I'm not sick."

Gone with her catnipped playfulness and her arms weakly flailed to fight off Orochimaru's hold. The grim, uncertain line that made his expression made Mito a little regretful that she was the reason to put upon his face but held fast to watch the echo of Ryuuto's rare gentleness come through.

"I said you're unwell, being sick implies that I have to actually worry."

That made her lips twitch upwards, it always struck her at how Ryuuto seemed like the Fuyuchi descended instead of his wife. The cold poise that they had was shared amongst the dead clan but it wasn't too uncommon for them to wander off for self development. Snakes were solitary creatures after all.

Solitary and independent, but the human side likes the reliance of a good foundation. Even if the foundation was shaky, snakes know how to keep eerily still to balance accordingly after all.

"I had a once upon a time too, only I'm not that old." Haruka tugged at the hand over her. "I lived in a different place and maybe it was real here. I don't know."

"I'm assuming you mean before Konoha again?"

"I know you're real though, but sometimes I won't remember waking up. Or making the tea, or even getting the groceries." She kept going. "Sometimes I would look at myself and I would see a stranger. That's why I like doing the things I do, well, I don't like running on fumes or staying away on missions for a long time but it's different."

Orochimaru sighed tiredly. "And you wonder why Tsunade worries."

"Hey, I'm not the only one who worries!"

"Sometimes I remember these moments." Haruka whispered. "They're so faraway and I always wonder why they come and go. Why I just can't remember. Even the really handsome Nara-san says they can't figure some things out."

Mito's eyebrows perked at the sudden ominous aura Orochimaru gave off. She easily hid a smile into her sleeve seeing the darkening eyes narrow down at the still form in his arms. She remembered when her own brothers gave the same look to her late husband.

She misses her clan and missing family is something she could relate with the youngest girl in the room.

"Orochimaru-kun, Tsunade, tell me about her." The graying red head asked lightly. "Haruka-chan seems nice."

The Uzumaki queen knew to be careful with her words around these particular children, she's been watching them since they both been born after all. So it wasn't stretch to say that she took the slightest offense when they both snorted in amusement as if she was wrong.

"Haru-chan is the most evil person I know." Tsunade easily stated as fact. "Being nice is simply a tool she uses to trick people into desolation."

"She's not evil." Orochimaru threw a glare at Tsunade. "And we're ninja."

"It's evil when she's going out of her way to do it for fun." The medic stood firmly at that. "The only reason why you don't see it is because you get goodies out of her shopping sprees."

"May I remind you that you're indulging in those 'goodies' as well." He sneered.

"She's happy to oblige because I heal you!" Tsunade sniffed and tilted her head up almost snobbishly. "It's called being grateful, and why the hell wouldn't I take advantage of it? It's like you said, we're ninja."

Orochimaru scoffed. "You're a hypocrite."

"The point was is that she's evil!"

"Lower your voice, it's rude to yell around people that are sleeping."

"Oh for the love of god, Orochi, you're the one that hates being woken up!"

"Exactly, now would you kindly be quiet?"

Mito easily ignored Tsunade's enraged squawking in favour of processing the information provided. She was also distracted at the fact that Tobirama left out some vital information about the girl he wanted her second opinion on. He told her that Haruka most likely needed her help but he never mentioned anything like this.

Oh, he said that the girl wasn't all right but not to this extent. Told her that Haruka's problems may seem concerning at first but he also mentioned that she was still able to function normally. As if the little girl simply had an extra finger to gawk at, not partially traumatized. Mito was a woman from the Uzumaki clan, she could deal with a person choosing to act crazy, but what she can't slide was the fact that a child was so reminiscent in sharing her trauma like her dead grandmother. Words that fell out of her mouth in bouts of senile sensibility, no filter to hide the obvious wrongness of the girl.

It made her want to punch her brother-in-law in the face.

"So, Haruka-chan is interested in seals, right?" Mito smiled at the suddenly wary children. "How far do you think she's advanced into my art?"

It was all arrogance that the Kyuubi container declared the art being hers, and with good reason too. Mito put in more than half her life in dedication and poured more blood from her and her enemies to perfect and master techniques her ancestors could only scratch the surface of. As the first Fuuinjutsu Master to fully weaponize it and not having to fall back to some other techniques, she was fully warranted to claim the art hers.

And so it was the same arrogant part of her that wanted to snarl at the snorts and disbelief when their facial expressions and eyes that were communicated to her. As if the little brats know even an ounce of what she knew.

"You have more success of teaching the moron than Haruka, Mito-sama." Orochimaru said smoothly. "She has the theory work jumbled and the only things she as mastered with a fine comb is her explosive tags and storage seals. Though then again, she also has been too busy to focus on fuuinjutsu at all with the regular shinobi work."

"Jiraiya-kun is often on and off with mission as well, you can't tell me Haruka-chan can't invest the same time as he does."

Orochimaru's eyes narrowed and his pupils contracted tightly into thin slits, they way his body shifted reminded her of his snakes' defensive pose and it Tsunade had to smack him in the arm is some kind of reminder. But even her granddaughter held the same offended air to a lesser degree.

"You should talk to jii-san if you want to know why Haru-chan is on missions for weeks on end." Tsunade's face then turned eager. "Maybe you can convince jii-san so Orochi would stop sulking so much!"

"Woman, I was not!"

"Please, you can't even deny it properly at this point."

Oh, Mito and her dear brother-in-law are definitely going to have words. Tobirama can't simply push a problem onto her and not give her all the details like he did with her husband. It looks like she needs to remind him why his brother bowed to her first than make such poor choices.

And again, she was from the Uzumaki clan. Haruka can't compare to the Uzumaki diligence that they lacked as children, and she had Jiraiya as well. Yes, Tobirama did tell her of Haruka's usual attitude but, again, nothing can compare to the sharp, poisonous tongues to the late Fuyuchi clan. Mito has experience over the girl in spades!

But the gut feeling that she always trusts was telling her to reevaluate those thoughts. That the little girl was able to decipher her seals with her ears and the fact that even if Orochimaru was still very much a child, there was a reason why he was all wrapped around her fingers. A reason why Tsunade was ready to jump to Haruka's defense and still seriously tell Mito that she was evil. An evil not comparable to the kyuubi but an evil nonetheless.

"Tell me you two. How did you meet her in the first place?"

-Line Break-

"This is... surprisingly well organized. If you ignore the fact that everything is dusty and rummaged through by wild animals."

I laughed happily. "And the best part is that nobody probably knows about this place!" I shifted through my old stuff. "Maybe we can turn this into a secret base, when home can't hide everything anymore. Oh! Maybe I can finally test myself against other shinobi!"

Orochimaru whirled around in panicked anger. "You will not!"

"Not from Konoha, though I can't promise that." I hummed happily. "And don't you want to know what kind of secrets shinobi keep? What kind of collections others have?" I giggled at his carefully blank face. "And don't you want to know just to know?"

"You're already pilfering all sorts of secrets without restraint, it's only your self-preservation that keeps you from acting on them."

"Nii-san, those secrets aren't really secrets, you know?" I gave him a sly smile. "After our mission in Yugakure, I realize that the things I've done like exploiting petty rumours and black handed deals can't compare to the desolation and total change of perception of society and its relationship with another. It's a total different feeling when I discovered that human trafficking operation compared to some pitiful man with an affair." Another bout of giggles came out of me. "Nii-san, I practically destroyed the people of Yu's faith in their government and the whole Elemental Nations know about how nefarious Kumo really is by now.

"And they don't know the face who did it."

In my hands was an old toy, a small, stress ball thing that would keep my hands occupied when I used to come to this underground cave with a tree hollow as the entrance. It was somewhat exposed to the elements seeing there was still that opening in the ceiling that I couldn't find or else my winters would've been more comfortable. I was actually surprised that despite the water damage and other various nature elements, nothing was really rotting and offending to the nose.

It made me happier that this place didn't need a major clean up to reuse again, not that it was furnished with all the bare necessities anyways. It was just a place to sleep and the furs that I slept on were ruined now.

"I think I finally see what Tsunade was talking about." I heard Orochimaru muttered. "And if those petty rumours aren't secrets, then what exactly does qualify as a secret?"

That made me giggle again. "Don't you know? For two can keep a secret when one of them is dead."

"Truly?" Orochimaru kept a wary gaze. "You're not suggesting that one of us would have to kill each other, I would prefer if we don't."

"No. No, of course not." I agreed with him. "And besides, we don't keep secrets from others, do we? We've never agreed to such things, silly."

There was that tired, resigned look that added to my good mood. "No we haven't, though some things are implied."

"I don't know what you're talking about, nii-san." I happily chirped. "And besides, somethings are better left unsaid, Jiraiya-chan makes a fine example of that after all."

A sort of mixture of a sigh and an amused snort came out of his throat. "No, it doesn't."

"But it made you laugh."

"You're absolutely insufferable."

"I love you too, nii-san!"

It was almost night time, maybe it would be warm enough to look at the stars too. A campfire would be lovely too, but I can't help feeling a bit empty inside.

I'm all for taking on the world by surprise and be surprised back, but big brother and I don't have much of anything left together anymore, do we? If the the last promises we made are completed now, what else can we do to fill in that time?

"Let's go hunting!"

Orochimaru doesn't like to do menial things like that, sure he likes cutting animals open and sometimes eventually end up as dinner but he liked human blood splattered on him more. I know for a fact that hunting humans was probably far more stimulating to his mind than mindless animals.

"See how these lines flow?"

And instead of petals and shapely leaves built up from bright colours, sharp and precise, cold carvings are what Orochimaru excels at.

"Play that song, the one that makes the birds sing."

"Hey, if the world comes to fold and you wake up in a different world, will you remember me?" I strained my ears to hear the last of the setting sun. "I didn't, I forgot everybody including myself. I barely remember standing in front of a mirror wondering if I would feel better without hair sometimes. That if I cut it all off, I would feel more like myself."

"Absolutely not!" I was startled at how loud Orochimaru's voice was raised. "I've let your delusions run your thoughts because they kept you entertained well enough but I will personally cut you open if you start doing senseless things like you said!" I blinked seeing his eyes narrowed and a sudden scalpel pointed in my direction. "I will put your brain on display in my labs if you decide that disfigurement will make you feel better."

Disbelief rolled off me and it wasn't from the fact that Orochimaru had that scalpel in a dangerous range or the fact he was pointing it at me in the first place. We've damaged each other in far more worse ways to be bothered at having a medical instrument be turned on me.

What bothered me was what he was implying.

"I am not suicidal!"

"Did I say that?" He sneered. "Are you sure you haven't been seeing Tsunade enough?"

I lunged and he dodged. "I am not! I want to see the world!I want to see the ocean again, walk across seas of sand, and maybe watch a play live."

"It's not a play, it's an opera. They just scream on the stage."

"No they don't, you fucking uncultured swine!"

"See?"

"I didn't get to, I wanted to but I couldn't. I can now but-"

"We'll do it together."

Everybody's gone. Promises left to an unknown world and just fragments and figments of imagination for me to try to grasp something that most likely wasn't real. They were so close, but they always fell from my reach like blinking awake from a dream nobody could remember.

I wanted to do a lot of things, and see things too. And when I accomplish a lot of those things, that part of me that wanted to tear off my hair always dripped a hollow tone. A part of me I always ignored because I was trying-!

"You're wants are so menial." A smooth rasp of Orochimaru's voice cut my thoughts and I yelped when he tugged harshly at my hair. "Small prices to pay compare to the steep interest you charge others, but I have now I have a request of my own." His grip disappeared as his voice took on a strange, innocent tone that we both knew was false.

I rubbed the sore spot in my hair. "What's that?"

"Grow out your hair, Haruka." Orochimaru drawled. "I don't know why you think you don't deserve to grow it out but you will. Tsunade also demands it too."

"W-what?" I flushed in slight horror at the request. "B-but why?"

"Because I say so."

"T-that's not a reason at all!"

"You will grow it out, you obviously like long hair so grow your own." Orochimaru sniped. "You look at my own with such a longing look that I might think you're actually you're jealous."

I pouted. "Nii-san is so mean! Why?"

"It's for your own good, if anything if it makes you feel better, this can be a form of payback for the grief my team gives me every time you called me some form a pretty in front of them."

"But you are." My mouth automatically voiced out. "You're prettier than any man or woman I've seen so far."

He rolled his eyes. "And I'm sure once you grow out your own, all those compliments will turn into vanity. Grow it out, Haruka, but if you end up trailing any prospects home, they'll find themselves in my labs."

Laughter instantly started bubbling up from me, the hollowness even subsided with how ridiculous that sounded from Orochimaru's mouth. The awkward threat broke whatever ice that needed to be broken. I easily shot out my hand and sunk into his chest happily.

The fluttering warmth was like the sound of a falling feather.

"Like scales on silk sheets."

"Do I even want to know?"

"You're not just the prettiest, your songs are always the loveliest."

"Again, you're insufferable."

-Line Break-

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