Kakashi, Orochimaru, and the as-yet-unnamed young snake boy sat (or lay) in the break room. Purple sat across from them, preparing himself. Orange sat off to the side, eating snacks. Kakashi felt that his behavior had some meaning to it, though he wasn't consciously aware of there being any particular meaning behind snacking while watching something. Orange popped a small cake into his mouth and chewed it slowly while looking at them. Why does that make it seem like he's amused?

The captain was not present. He was a captain, after all, and had diplomacy to organize and oversee. It was a damn shame that the angels only had contact with completely isolated backwards bay towns. Although, given the warlike nature of shinobi, that might be for the best.

Kakashi then pored over the information he'd received from his seafaring clone's exploration. There was a lot to assimilate. But more importantly, there was a conflict to be avoiding.

Purple took a deep breath. He looked at Kakashi, then at Orochimaru. "What is the problem?" he asked.

Orochimaru scowled. "You didn't hear what we said before? Puppy keeps acting recklessly without telling me, and I don't like not being told about things."

Kakashi shook his head. "I take what I consider to be the necessary actions, although I admit they could be performed in safer ways. Instead of helping me devise safer ways, he yells at me. I would rather not talk about things I will be yelled at for."

Orange sipped his tea. Purple thought about their words for several seconds before speaking. "I see other problems," he told them.

Orochimaru crossed his arms and glowered, but Kakashi nodded. "Yes," he agreed. "I've been somewhat careless with my safety for a while now. I preserve myself mostly because I need to in order to complete missions. I'm not sure what I need in order to be properly afraid again."

"Small missions?" Orange asked. "Where is the life mission?"

"Hmm. A life purpose, beyond completing missions?" Kakashi rubbed his chin. "The purpose of a shinobi's life is to complete missions, to serve the village or country. I've heard from talking to the people here that there are other ways of finding purpose in life. But it will take time to unlearn a lifetime of habit and training."

Orochimaru's whole body tightened. His hands and arms clenched, and he lowered his head. But he closed his eyes, too. "The stars. I saw in the stars something much greater than merely existing as a tool. That's why I abandoned the village."

Kakashi shivered. "I don't want to do something like that." To think myself beyond obligations to other people… That must be what other demons felt at first. How would I maintain control of myself without obligations? "It's too dangerous."

Orochimaru opened his eyes again. "More dangerous than being killed?" he scoffed.

"My powers make me naturally freer," Kakashi said. "I can do so much more. Everything you've ever done, and worse. I'm sure other demons saw themselves as being much greater, too."

Purple nodded sympathetically. "Toolness appears safer?"

Kakashi looked down at the ground. "Yes. Damn. I don't really want to unlearn a lifetime of habit and training."

Orochimaru hissed. Purple turned to him. "What is bad?"

Orochimaru glanced sideways at Kakashi. "How considerate of you, Puppy." He did not say anything more.

Purple looked at Orange. Orange nodded. Purple prepared himself again and said, "No. Not what is wrong in him. What is wrong in you?"

Orochimaru glared at him and said nothing. "What does that even mean?" he asked rhetorically.

Purple either didn't understand the rhetorical nature of the question or ignored it. "Wrong things are always two. In him, in you. If he is not considerate, then you are…" He waited for Orochimaru to fill in the rest of the sentence. Orochimaru did not fill in the rest of the sentence. The room filled with heavy silence.

Kakashi narrowed his eyes and gestured at invisible writing as he puzzled out the meaning of the sentence. "If I am inconsiderate, then you are…" Wrong things are always two. Well, there are two of us, and we are both in conflict, so that's correct. But how is it correct? What does he mean?

Purple looked at Orange again. Orange shook his head. Neither of them knew how to fill the silence either. They were confused. Kakashi did not understand the question. And Orochimaru was refusing to say a word.

Kakashi dropped his mental calculations. "Well, I know an easy way to find out what you are, if that is the question." He motioned to his eyes. Will he agree to let me look at him? I hope he does. If not, we're at an impasse.

Orochimaru's face twitched. "Fine. I'll talk." He sounded exactly like a prisoner who has been tortured into reluctantly confessing. "You're inconsiderate because I don't exactly feel considered. You already have the power to do anything you want without considering me, which is bad enough. You exercise it, too? You didn't use to. I wouldn't have been so eager about leaving the village with you if I'd known you were going to use that power."

What? I've only been doing what he asked me to. He asked me not to burden him with my troubles. "I don't understand."

Orochimaru glared back in response. "You're worried about being like other demons, Puppy? I have bad news, then: you already are. You can do whatever you want with your superior knowledge, and you are doing whatever you want with your superior knowledge. You haven't broken any moral codes yet, but that's only a matter of time."

What?! Kakashi's eyes widened. "What?! I am not -"

"Yes you are." Orochimaru's eyes narrowed. "You clearly are not telling me things, Puppy. I can't trust you."

That hit hard. All of Kakashi's breath whooshed out as if he'd been punched in the gut. Trust was earned. It was one thing to not be liked; that could happen for any number of reasons. It was a whole other thing to not be trusted. I have genuinely done something wrong. How? When? Was Orochimaru right? Was he a lot closer to being monstrous than he thought? Kakashi shivered in fear. No. No, I didn't want to. What could he do now? The closest person to him, a person whom he had almost every kind of relationship with, had said they did not trust him. That was worse than anything Kakashi had considered up until now. Never being able to see his companion in Heaven was nothing compared to not being trusted by his companion. No…

"Time," Purple said. He did not look at Orange before saying this. "Time. Much time." He stood up. "I heal the little one. You choose time."

"Good idea." Orochimaru's voice was flat, not victorious. Kakashi detected no thrill, only a dull stillness. Orochimaru left the room silently and quickly. Kakashi squeezed his eyes shut.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. Who am I apologizing to? Perhaps it was to Orochimaru, for doing something to earn a loss of trust. Perhaps it was to the angels, for making them have to deal with this. Perhaps it was to himself, for failing to keep himself from becoming monstrous. Perhaps it was to some other target, like the world in general. Perhaps it was to a combination of these. Either way, he no longer had the ability to speak because his throat was too tight. He left the room too and headed for his quarters in silence.

.

He slipped into an uneasy sleep there. Dreamlike images passed by, from nothingness into nothingness. There was a feeling like being out in a storm. Where was the safe den?

When he awoke suddenly and without knowledge that he was going to, Orochimaru was there. Kakashi blinked at him slowly. He did not recognize the full meaning of this scene yet, did not remember where they were or what they were doing. He recognized only one thing: a truth that did not need to be remembered. That is my favorite person right there.

Orochimaru blinked slowly back at him. He stood next to the closed door and studied Kakashi lightly, in a perfectly relaxed manner. Was he thinking the same?

They looked at each other like that for a time.

Then Kakashi finished waking up, and remembered. We were just fighting. He said he doesn't trust me. How could that be true? What have I done? Kakashi sat up. "Ah. Hello."

"Hello." Orochimaru continued to study him, with greater concentration and focus. His face gave away nothing, but Kakashi's constant sense of his soul colored everything he did, giving the impression that he looked sad.

Kakashi sat forward so his tail had room to form. I don't know what to do about anything else, but at least I can handle sadness. He approached Orochimaru slowly, telegraphing his every intention. The snake stood still and followed his movements. Slowly, Kakashi leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Orochimaru's waist. He placed his head on the snake's shoulder too, and leaned there.

Orochimaru did not return the hug. He tensed, and Kakashi felt him gathering his courage for another purpose. Kakashi waited, not saying a word. I'm sorry, he said through his silence and his lowered tail and his gentle embrace.

Orochimaru relaxed quite suddenly. "I was mistaken," he admitted in a whisper.

"What about?"

"When I asked you not to tell me about things I couldn't fix." Orochimaru tightened his fists. "It was cowardice. I wasn't strong enough to handle you, so I pretended I didn't want to. That was a lie." He spat out the words as if they were disgusting. To a scientist who prided himself on seeking the truth, they must have been.

Kakashi tightened his hug. "Are you strong enough now?"

"I have to be." Orochimaru returned the hug. "I suppose it is unfair to you, Puppy. You don't consider me, but I never told you I had anything to be considered. It was kind of you not to use your powers to find out."

"What should I be considering?"

Orochimaru took a deep breath. "I've been yelling at you for seemingly not caring about what happens to you. Perhaps someone else who was not being yelled at could read between those lines. I expected you to. What I really meant by all that was… I care about what happens to you."

Kakashi tightened his embrace quite a lot, briefly squeezing the air out of his serpent. "I know. I know why you asked me not to tell you about my troubles. I've always known."

"Then why do you endanger yourself?" Orochimaru hissed.

Kakashi buried his face in Orochimaru's hair. "I'm hurting you, aren't I?"

"No, Puppy." Orochimaru pushed him away, then grabbed him by the shoulders and stared him straight in the eyes. His eyes glared, but his words said, "You're not hurting me. You're scaring me."

Kakashi blinked stupidly, and flushed because he was aware of how stupid it was. It sounds like things I understand, but it is not really a thing I understand. It's like the sentence the angel said earlier. How is he using these words? "I think you are saying something I'm not hearing. What are you saying?"

Orochimaru hissed. Admitting fear was already at the limits of what he could stand to do. I might be asking too much. But his hands tightened, fingers digging into Kakashi's shoulders. He was at least going to try. Kakashi felt a brief burst of love at that.

"You are a goddamned demon," Orochimaru began. "You have more power than I can dream of. And all of it is going to fucking waste, because you don't use a bit of it. I expected leaving the shinobi life behind to free you. I expected that you would step out of the shackles of fitting in and hiding what you are, and I would get to see you as never before. I wanted to see that power.

"But you didn't step out. You didn't free yourself." Orochimaru ground his teeth together. "You have the power to not use your powers, and you use it, endlessly and against my objections. Other demons think they are so much greater than ordinary people that they get to do whatever they want. You think you are so much greater than me that you get to refuse whatever you want. You won't free yourself, and you'll tell yourself you're really doing the right thing. But you are not listening to a damn thing I have to say. You're only listening to your own fears."

He let go of Kakashi's shoulders, breathing heavily. He looked like he had several things he wanted to say next, and could not decide among them, so instead of saying any of them he said nothing at all.

Kakashi's eyes misted over. Oh. This language, he could understand. These words, he could hear. Control over myself is a form of power too. He thought he controlled himself just the right amount. But was he really going overboard? Was he really overstepping his jurisdiction and trying to keep control over a part of him that Orochimaru had a rightful claim to? How much of him did the snake have a right to? How much did Kakashi himself have a right to?

"It feels like if I let go any further, I will fall apart," he whispered.

Orochimaru smirked. "You really are your father's son."

Kakashi recoiled. "No. I would never be just a partial person!"

Orochimaru's eyes began to glow. "But you are, Puppy. You are a very, very, partial demon."

Kakashi stepped backward, shaking his head. No! He remembered how angry he had been. How frustrated. How disconnected. How betrayed. He wanted his father, and his father was only ever half there. And then Sakumo was completely gone. It was like a slow, drawn-out abandonment. He had loved his father, but…

Am I doing that to him now?

"I don't abandon people," Kakashi whispered. But even as he said it, the back of his knees met the bed, and he fell backward onto it. "I…" The idea was intolerable. Kakashi continued to shake his head. Simply intolerable. He couldn't have been working against his own values this whole time. Not possible. He couldn't think of that.

Orochimaru walked up to him and leaned forward, like a mother scolding a young child. He put a finger beneath Kakashi's chin and pushed up, forcing their eyes to meet. With a sweet smile, he whispered, "Prove it."

Kakashi stared back at him. It was good of the snake to provide him with something completely different to think about. Kakashi would happily think about anything but this. "You never did tell me what the truth was," he said.

Orochimaru sat down next to him. "What truth?" Something in the tilt of his head and the way he sat as he waited for Kakashi to answer was very feminine. Kakashi could not believe he'd never noticed before.

"I'm sorry for believing those rumors." Kakashi flushed. "I don't think you are perverted. You are very feminine, even now, when you are not disguised as a woman at all."

Orochimaru smiled. "It comes naturally. I thought it would be difficult to pass as a young girl when I first invented Tsukina. Nobody seemed to have any difficulty believing it, though, and it felt very easy to walk and behave in all the right ways."

Kakashi thought of all the women he had ever known. "There is a certain something about women that is different. I was never trained to specialize in infiltration, so I'm not sure what that is."

"It's a whole way of holding yourself," Orochimaru said. "A completely different way of interacting with society. Like an actor changing faces before the crowd. But for me, I never had to act."

Kakashi imagined himself transforming into a woman and trying to be gracious, expressive, and other things he usually was not. "I can't imagine it for myself. I am just not suited to be a woman. At least, not in this life."

Orochimaru scowled. "Dammit! That would be so interesting. Studying what effect different bodies have on the demon who inhabits them would be the research project to die for. I would have to prolong my lifespan for centuries to see it, though. Damn!"

Kakashi began to wave his legs back and forth. "You have the ability to do that."

Orochimaru's lips twitched. "True. Hmm… How long does it take a demon to find their way back into a new body?"

"I would want some time to adjust myself and prepare for having a different life," Kakashi answered. "I can't get even a feeling of what time might be required once I was ready. Sorry."

"I would live as long as I could to perform an in-depth case study of a demon," Orochimaru declared. "And now that we've met these angels, I have people to give that research to who would preserve it and find it useful. Staying to meet them was a good idea, after all."

Kakashi smiled and wagged his tail as best he could. "Even if they can easily paralyze my soul and drive me out of this body?"

"If I'm going to study you, I might as well study angels, too. In both cases, I would be performing the same task: describing a person's personality as it develops. You've said the main difference between angels and humans is that they are inherently less susceptible to human weaknesses. That must be a very strong influence."

His eyes were alight again! Kakashi grinned. "Could you look more masculine?"

Orochimaru adjusted his entire body language. "If you insist. I must ask why, of course." He stared directly into Kakashi's face again. The glow in his eyes that had looked like joy just before took on a hard, directed focus, seeming more purposeful, more intentional. Kakashi was well aware of his being the one this intention would be inflicted on. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

"You know how I prefer your usual form," he said. "I can now kiss you." He grabbed Orochimaru's hands and did just that. As usual, the action was foreign. Kissing came as naturally to him as feminine behavior, he realized. But the close embrace that accompanied kissing was not foreign at all, and neither was taking quick breaths to fill his nose with the comforting smell of snake. Kakashi closed his eyes and basked in the scent and the warmth and the pressure of Orochimaru's arms on his back and sides. Warmth and pressure. His body probably was programmed to like that kind of sensation innately.

This time was even better because Orochimaru did not go too far. In fact, he interrupted it himself. He drew back and looked at Kakashi sternly. "Do I matter, Puppy?"

Kakashi knew a setup when he heard it. He liked this particular setup. "Yes."

"Then act like it."

That was going to be a hard demand to fulfill. Kakashi still developed goosebumps at the thought of breaking out of the constraints of human society. If he was not a tool, what was he? The angels had their own answers, and he knew those answers. But he could not feel those answers in himself. What Orochimaru called freedom felt like nothing of the sort. Leaving behind obligations, leaving behind one's village, was an awful lot like running into the wild and being alone, being abandoned, with nobody to help you and Hunter-nins chasing you down. It was not freedom.

At least, it was not thought of as freedom. This was the way becoming a missing-nin was viewed by shinobi who lived in villages. Kakashi had to remind himself that he was no longer a Konoha ninja. I still think and feel like one. I still think and feel like I have a village to answer to, duties that must be filled. How can I change the way I have always thought?

"I will try."

Orochimaru traced down Kakashi's forehead, over the bridge of his nose, and onto the very point of his nose. "You will. I will make you." That sounded an awful lot like restored trust to Kakashi's ears. He let out a joyful yip. Orochimaru cut him off with a soft kiss.

.

They returned to the break room to find Purple and Orange discussing the younger serpent with the medic. "Same," she reported from a scan of the boy's bodily functions.

Purple visibly brightened at the sight of Kakashi. "Dark one! Come. I cannot see. Is the light healing?" The medic departed.

Kakashi took a look at the boy's soul. It looked much more coherent. "It's better," he reported. "This area is still scattered." He pointed to the area of the boy's body that portion of soul was located in, and Purple applied light. Kakashi laughed at what he saw. "His own soul becomes lighter, too, when you do this. It becomes more similar to yours. At least, I think it does; I can't see your soul directly. But I can see his soul looking happier, more organized, stronger. It looks like the traits I see in your people."

Orochimaru knelt over Kakashi's shoulder, lamenting his own lack of observational capacity. Kakashi consoled him by pointing out that, if he was going to do research on angels, then Kakashi would have no advantage over him in observational ability. "You're not missing very much."

"How, exactly, does your demon vision work?" Orochimaru asked. "Do human souls have the ability to sense things directly, if only they could be made to move?"

"I don't think it's wise to try to move your soul if you have a kind of soul that's meant to be firmly anchored," Kakashi warned. "But I think so, yes. Chakra signals often contain feelings, and someone who comes in contact with the chakra can feel what the sender felt to some degree. Human souls are neutral, so it makes sense that they would have a small ability to sense things directly."

"I've literally practiced moving my soul from body to body for decades." Orochimaru smirked. "I can invent a way to manipulate my soul in order to safely use its sensory abilities."

"If it doesn't work, I won't be able to help you," Kakashi warned.

"You weren't able to help me develop the original Body Transference Jutsu either," Orochimaru pointed out. "That is normal, Puppy."

"No, it isn't. You are literally proposing something that I know to be against the typical structure of the human soul," Kakashi retorted. "Moving the entire soul as a unit is one thing. All that requires is loosing its bonds with the body, moving it all into another body, then restoring those bonds. That doesn't require a change to the structure of the soul itself. But this would involve giving your soul abilities it does not already have. You are essentially breaking the bones of your arm in order to make your arm more flexible. That is what you are proposing doing to your soul."

"Would it be worse than having a part of my soul chopped off?"

"Yes. A lot worse. Most of your soul was unchanged after that! It affected nothing except your ability to use jutsu."

"How is my soul now?" Orochimaru held up one arm. "Is it any worse for having been in the Grim Reaper's stomach for three years?'

"No, it's completely intact," Kakashi said.

There was a faint tapping sound. Kakashi returned his eyes to normal and saw Orange poking at his plate, which was sadly empty of snacks. "If you stay north, you will be interesting," Orange offered.

"I knew your relentless eating indicated amusement," Kakashi muttered.

"How would you know any such thing, Puppy?"

"I don't know. I have inexplicable knowledge appear in my head sometimes." Kakashi shook his head. "I'm not sure where it comes from."

Purple looked up at the both of them. He glanced first at Kakashi, then at Orochimaru. "Are you happy?" he asked.

Kakashi grinned. "Yes!"

"Your questions provided high-quality material for us to talk about," Orochimaru explained. "Thank you for your help." Purple beamed.

Kakashi looked down just in time to see the boy's eyes move under their lids. His facial muscles contracted. "Wait! Everyone stop and move away from him! Look."

Purple scooted backward. Orange put his plate aside and crouched next to Purple. Orochimaru leaned on Kakashi as he looked over the demon's shoulder. And Kakashi took one last look at the boy's soul. Everything is in order now.

The boy moved his head slightly from side to side. He sighed. Several minutes of great effort passed, during which everyone else held their breath. Finally, his eyelids fluttered. Orochimaru hissed and disobeyed Kakashi's instruction, getting up and leaning down directly over the young snake.

When the boy opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was his big brother.