Mannequins
By xannychan
Standard disclaimers apply. All characters belong not to me.
Notes: I've decided to explore the darkest recesses of the human mind. I've haven't seen many stories out there dwelling on the subject, so here it is. It'll probably be a one-shot.
Warning: Extreme angst. It's about a madman, after all.
Only Corpses Are Perfect
Orochimaru is beautiful.
But, in his family's world, beauty is not enough. Brilliance is not enough. They do not settle for one of the best. He must be the best.
Orochimaru must be perfect.
And perfection, to his family, must be absolute. There is no fading glory; nobody will ever forget his name. There must be unquestionable power when his name is spoken. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that he is perfect.
And perfect Orochimaru is. He is beautiful. He is brilliant. He is seductive. He is ruthless, heartless, fuck-a-thousand-times-worthy.
Orochimaru did not want to be perfect.
He did not want to be a billboard for his family—we are powerful, we are strong, we will burn anything we touch. We will end your life as easily as speak a word. We will rape your children without remorse.
But he was perfect, and perfection had certain responsibilities.
The people of the village used to whisper that he would become one of the unspoken ninjas, the shinobi that used passion as a weapon and used their bodies until they rotted from the inside out from disease, from apathy, from simply fading into the shadows of the ones they fuck to kill. But he did not. He would not become one of those ninjas. So he sought to be more perfect. He never realized that the chase for perfection was the same venom that the unspoken shinobi fell from.
Snakes shed their skins. Orochimaru was a snake and he shed his fading perfection and grew into another, more vibrant perfection. His body rotted indeed, but he was perfect and that was enough for him.
His father taught him to fall in love with himself. He would fuck him in front of the mirror every night and Orochimaru had to learn how to enjoy it until he liked it so much that he would fuck himself at the same time.
He was sick, but he was perfect.
He killed his father when he realized that he would rather fuck to his own image than to have that imperfect body even touching him. He left his village when he realized that it was filled with lies of perfection. He melted the faces of the ones he murdered into his own when he realized that there was something they had that he didn't have.
But soon, his perfection was not enough anymore. He needed a new body, a new image.
He lived through his subordinates. His students became the feared Sound-nin, who are beautiful in their arts of death, brilliant in skill, seductive in power, ruthless, heartless, fuck-up-your-mind-worthy.
But none of them were perfect enough. So he searched and searched and found. He found Uchiha Sasuke, a pathetic Avenger with wells of hatred and anger and so completely perfect that he found himself aroused when Sasuke moaned as he left his mark on his shoulder.
In the end, Sasuke was just not perfect enough to ward off death.
But in his last moments, as he faded away and death seemed a welcoming, he realized too late that perfection had murdered him.
Orochimaru was perfect.
He died with his beautiful face twisted by horror.