Chapter VIII
"I'm gravely disappointed in your actions. I don't recall giving you leave to act in such an unbecoming manner."
"I do as I see fit!"
"Ahh, there it is, there's that unthinking, unwavering pride that so suffuses your being; you've been so subdued recently that I'd begun to wonder if it was really you I was speaking to." Coldness. "But you do as I order you! I allow you a great amount of leeway, more than I should, but my patience is not endless. Know your place, whelp."
"Don't you threaten me, old man; I am the possessor of-"
"You possess an aberration, an accident of birth, you posses shit."
"You certainly desired it badly enough!"
"That it has allowed you the illusion of mild competence to date in spite of all your other failings is a greater portion of why I haven't simply pulled your brain out of your skull through your nostrils. You're strong, boy, but you dance at the pull of my strings, or you risk not dancing at all."
"You should be dead at your age – this is MY war, MY way, MY ambition!"
"An ambition that would have had you laying face-down in a muddy ditch if I hadn't decided to take an interest in you! You'd be feeding flies and maggots now if it weren't for me. You came to me to help you with your petty little vendetta, not the other way around!" Sigh. "Your enthusiasm is commendable, but your brain is soft; you are still quite stupid."
Rage. "Why you useless old fuck!"
Cruel, mocking laughter. "If you are weak in body, gain strength; this tenet you have mastered, and you are well-deserving of praise for it. If you are weak in mind, gain wisdom. You haven't devoted any effort towards the mastery of your own mind, child! You are barely half a human being!"
"I am much more than mere human – I have the power of a god, given to me at birth!"
"Power of a God? Gods are beings to be feared and venerated for their power and wisdom! I look at you and I do not fear you, I pity you! Even beasts can gain strength, and they too roar and rage towards those who bind them, but with utter futility. Oxen are far stronger than an ordinary man, yet they labour under his orders, according to his designs, because this simple farmer has proven that his mind is greater than the whole of the oxen's great power! Are you, too, a dumb plow-beast of the fields, taking pride in that which allows you to be so easily controlled by the yoke of one less than worthy of you?"
"Are you saying that you are less than I, old man?"
Again, laughter. "Hardly. Even as I am now, my power alone would suffocate you were even a fraction of it brought to bear upon you. But I could defeat you in an instant with my mind! I despise your weakness – there! You're dead! I've killed you! And again! I kill you with my eyes, I kill you a thousand times over, and I've yet to move a muscle!"
"What are you talking about?! Have you finally gone mad, old man?"
"You see so much and yet you are blind, in spite of those eyes you take such pride in; how infuriating! You've just died countless times by your own arrogance, drowned in your ineptitude, and yet you haven't the good grace to lie down and accept it. Are you truly so proud to be an imbecile? Learn something of what I teach you, you incomparable fool, or one day your head will be smashed against a rock and reveal to all that there was nothing but air inside of it!"
"How dare you!"
"Spare me – I dare because I have already conquered you a hundred times. If you truly wish to throw off my yoke, beast, then walk like a human, talk like a human, think like a human, reason like a human! There are countless people in the world, and yet so few true humans. Don't aspire to god-hood; you can only fail to grasp it. Even I know this to be so, I who have conquered death! Aspire for humanity, and you may actually gain a little wisdom."
"Humans are weak, stupid, frail little beings."
"And yet you think to rule over them while you are still so much less than they? How can you?" Again, the harsh laughter. "You are so conceited, boy. Just because you have become strong, you think you are through learning!"
"You said yourself that there was nothing more you could teach me!"
"And did I claim that I would be your only teacher? Did I?! No, of course not! Even with all my power and knowledge, I can't teach you everything I know; some things you must learn from others, and some things you must come upon by yourself."
"Who?"
"Rather you should ask, 'What' as opposed to 'Whom'! I didn't learn everything I know from the beings you call weak and stupid; I took as my teachers the very earth itself; the streams and rivers, the mountains and trees."
"You're insane. How can a tree teach me?"
"And so you show the depth of your ignorance yet again."
"You old bastard, stop toying with me!"
"You have ears; use them! You have eyes; observe! You think with the mind of man, and so are caught within the impenetrable fence of his shallow reason. You, who aspire to the supernatural must first learn the ways of the natural before you can transcend it! Let water be your first teacher. It is a humble element, but water that has carved into the rough, red earth through time; learn from this patience and perseverance. It smoothes even the hardest of stones, grain by grain, so that the stone itself is not aware; learn from this subtlety. When enraged, the earth itself trembles and is torn away like cloth; learn from this power. When it flows, it is formless yet retains form; learn from this grace. When stilled, it becomes pure and transparent; learn from this stillness."
"Stop babbling! I've already learned them from people – what a stupid thing to say!"
"Very well, if you won't listen, then you clearly have no desire to improve. Did you think I gained the power that overwhelms you from my own master? Idiot! If you think you're so invulnerable, then go prove it!"
"I will!"
Orochimaru's hands twisted, white-knuckled with irritation as Sasuke stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him in a childish fit of pique. He'd once planned to use the boy as his next and ultimate body, but he'd abandoned the idea within the first year of teaching the insufferable little brat. The Sharingan was something he still desired mightily, but he'd given it up as a hopeless ambition; he'd observed the kind of idiotic pride the users took in the doujutsu, and he'd been stricken with a sordid realization:
If he too obtained the Sharingan, then he would come to rely on it, and like the rest of the now-deceased clan, he'd grow weaker for it. At first, he'd been willing to suffer a little weakness in exchange for such a potent ability, but after careful observation and subtle conversations with the Uchiha boy, he'd learned, much to his chagrin, that the Sharingan was imperfect. He'd even go so far as to call it 'irreparably and fundamentally flawed'.
Orochimaru prided himself on his skill with jutsu, not merely the quantity, but on knowing the ins and outs of his techniques better than most ninja knew themselves. In that respect, he and Itachi were unknowingly of like minds. He'd regarded the Uchiha bloodline as a tool to realize his ambitions, but to his immense anger and horror, had discovered it to be a hindrance.
The first time he had become uncomfortably aware of the possibility had been seven months after Sasuke had come to him. It had been during a spar where Sasuke had used several of the ninjutsu he had copied. But he'd used them poorly, and without any consideration of anything but their strengths.
Orochimaru had been surprised at the ineptitude his then-future body had shown, and had interrogated the boy afterwards as to the reason. What he'd learned had shattered all expectations beyond repair. Uchiha Sasuke, number one genius of his class, the Rookie of the Year, the brilliant last scion of the late, great clan…was an idiot.
Not an idiot in the traditional sense, of course; he was hardly a gibbering fool scratching his head at the insurmountable difficulties presented by a doorknob, but an idiot nonetheless. He didn't understand the jutsu he copied, and didn't care about understanding them. He was so fixated upon 'power' that he'd completely ignored everything else. He wasn't concerned about, didn't even think about anything but sheer, animalistic brute force. Lacking grace and elegance, he didn't have the desire to excel, only to conquer.
Worst of all, Orochimaru discovered the true abilities of the boy's doujutsu. The Sharingan didn't allow him to break down the jutsu he stole; it was, at its very best, a tool for mimicking the actions of others. The Sharingan copied jutsu. And that was ALL it did. Uchiha didn't have to understand the technique stolen; they didn't even have to know how to use it – and most of them didn't. It was a sobering realization for Orochimaru when he had determined that, rather than expand the limits of a ninja, the Sharingan instead became nothing more than a refined 'monkey-see, monkey-do' parlour trick.
Sasuke was physically very powerful, but completely lacked the ability to think in the abstract; everything was black and white, everything was linear. And this moron was supposed to be his 'perfect body'?! The vaunted Uchiha bloodline that he had desired, lusted after, hungered for…was base mimicry? Nothing but a clan of well-trained monkeys!
Even after this depressing revelation, Orochimaru had still considered using him as a vessel for his soul. The problems of the doujutsu might not even have been insurmountable, if it weren't for one key fly in the ointment:
When Orochimaru took over a body, his thought processes would be dominant, but still constrained by the limitations of the body he'd inhabited. In layman's terms, if he possessed an idiot, he'd become an idiot. If Orochimaru possessed Sasuke Uchiha, he'd likely lose his ability to dissect and engineer jutsu! In a very personal sense, he would cease to be Orochimaru.
Unacceptable!
His teeth ground together in hopeless frustration. If only he'd been able to possess Uchiha Itachi! Now, there was a fine mind! Orochimaru detested his failure with the older Uchiha, but had laid his hopes on the younger, more malleable brother. Unfortunately, he had not counted on the reason for said malleability being softness in the head.
As it was, he was endeavouring, though without much success, to replace Kabuto with Sasuke. Kabuto, despite his sudden treachery and disappearance, had been a brilliant subordinate, and had been trained to perfection – a master of all graces, social or not, and a truly worthy successor to the Snake Sennin's twisted legacy in all respects. Sasuke, though, was proving difficult. Orochimaru truly, honestly regretted having wasted five excellent ninja in his successful bid to spirit the boy away from Konoha. With time and much effort, Sasuke might become a well-trained, though headstrong weapon.
But he'd never be a tenth of the shinobi that Itachi was. The best Orochimaru could hope to do was to use him as much as possible before the arrogant little shit went to confront his brother and got himself killed.
He was shaken out of his dark thoughts by a deep chuckle behind him. "Still having trouble with that useless brat?"
Orochimaru spun around, a scowl upon his face. "The child is an imbecile, and you know it," he snapped. "Frankly, if he is a typical example of the Uchiha, I can completely understand why they never amounted to anything more impressive than a civilian police force. 'Elite clan', pah – they're a joke!"
The owner of the other voice shrugged. "Meh, I've never thought much of 'em myself, 'cept for Itachi."
"On that point, we can both agree," Orochimaru grunted. "Of all the Uchiha, Itachi alone has deserved the title of 'genius'. But I doubt you came here just to vilify a dead clan." Yellow eyes narrowed at the other man, who stepped out of the shadows.
"Can't I come see an old friend?" The other man chided him.
A sneer split the face of the Snake Sennin, and he crossed his arms imperiously. "I'm currently not in the mood for your games, and I doubt that we could be considered 'friends' by any stretch of the imagination anymore, so I'll ask you this only once: What do you want, Jiraiya?"