Tayuya was barely awake when she realized that she was eating breakfast. 'How did I get down here?' she asked herself as she finished her cereal. She stared bewilderedly at the orange juice and fruit loops sitting on the tabletop for a minute before coming out of her reverie and putting each respective item where it was supposed to go. "Well, I might as well go see Orochimaru now about Kimimaro," Tayuya muttered to herself after a moment of debate over what to do next. "Wow, you didn't even swear when you said that," Ukon commented as he entered the kitchen. "Oh, fuck off," Tayuya retaliated as while stomping out of the kitchen.

Tayuya was going to let her mind wander on the way to Orochimaru's mansion, but she decided not to after she realized where and on whom it was wandering.

The creaking of the door into her master's lair soothed Tayuya as she opened it without hesitation upon her arrival. It was comforting to her to know that no matter how much changed, --or who, she thought with a pang if sadness when Sakon's face flashed through her mind,-- Orochimaru would always be a constant. Even on the day she died, Orochimaru would always be sitting in his properly unnerving mansion handing out missions and doing his tests. He would still be seeking a way to further himself and his country when Tayuya had faded into an unnamed face in an old photograph that was tossed in the garbage some fifty years down the road, and he would still be giving out Curse Seals when that Uchiha brat had come and gone in his favour. The walls would wear down and the bodies would wear out, but Orochimaru was forever, and Tayuya couldn't help but smile as she walked off towards the very man she thought of. Well, other than Kimimaro.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Tayuya. What are you doing here?" Kabuto remarked when she met up with him just outside the door to Orochimaru's throne room. "I've come to talk to Orochimaru, but if you're, uh, 'busy' with him, then I can wait," she replied cattily. "Tayuya, I am above letting that kind of humour affect me," he said as he folded his arms. "Just like you were 'above' Orochimaru?" she questioned, laughing, as she pushed past him to enter Orochimaru's throne room.

Tayuya let the door sway shut behind her as she immediately dropped to the floor in a bow. "I am sorry for disturbing you, Orochimaru-sama," she murmured. "Very well. What do you want, Tayuya?" he queried. "I-I just want to know if you know where Kimimaro is," Tayuya said, stumbling over her question, suddenly feeling ashamed of asking the Otokage such an irrelevant question. "Kimimaro...?" Orochimaru pondered, his eyes raised towards the ceiling. Tayuya waited suspensefully for him to answer. Finally, her master lowered his eyes to look at her and said clearly, "No, I don't know where he is." The kunoichi's heart dropped. "Oh... I am sorry for wasting your time, Orochimaru-sama," she said as she got up and left the room just as Kabuto entered.

The door had barely closed, and Tayuya had just begun to walk away, when she heard Kabuto say, "Was she asking about Kimimaro, master?" Tayuya stopped, waiting for the response. "Yes," Orochimaru said, and then, as an afterthought, "I didn't think anyone would care that I had him eradicated." Eradicate? Tayuya didn't know what that meant, but it didn't sound good. Had Orochimaru lied to her? "With all due respect, sir, if you've heard her talk for very long, then you must know that Tayuya isn't anyone," Kabuto stated. Tayuya didn't hear anymore. She ran out of the building and all of the way back home with her mind focused on what she had just heard.

Eradicate /i-rad-i-kayt/ -v. (eradicates, eradicating, eradicated) remove or destroy completely

- DERIATIVES eradication n. eradicator n.

- ORIGIN Latin eradicare 'tear up by the roots'

Tayuya stared down at the meaning in Jiroubou's old dictionary, and it stared back up at her. Orochimaru had Kimimaro eradicated? Then that meant...

She thought a lot about Orochimaru and Kimimaro after that, and decided that if he would do it to Kimimaro, then she was next. She would warn Ukon, but she knew that what she did next would divert attention from him. And as Tayuya trained that afternoon, it was for a different purpose and with a different vigour than usual. She would find out where Kimimaro was -- she owed it to him, she kept telling herself, but she knew that that wasn't the reason -- and she would determine what to do about him from there. And after that... Would Orochimaru really kill her, or was it a brutality reserved for Kimimaro? She would find out. And when she did, she prayed that she would make the right decision.

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Thank you all for the kind reviews, and Marthroyboy, you inspired me to put up this chappie right after I read it. And I must ask: should I mix this with Polonaise and the other stories of the Sound that I have planned, or should this story be independent? I know that you might really believe in some pairings, and might have problems with the pairings they feature. If you can email me about that, that'd be divine. Thanks again!