Title: A Place Like This
Author: kajamiku
Theme:#7 Otogakure
Characters: Sasuke, Orochimaru
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Angst
Disclaimer: "Naruto" belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, not to me
Summary: Written for the Livejournal community; OroSasu.
Otogakure couldn't be more different from Konoha.

A Place Like This:

Being in Otogakure was, at first, practically unbearable.

The walls of the place were thick, constricting, and induced a fair amount of paranoia from the people they trapped. It was not unlikely, for example, to be attacked suddenly when turning a corner.

Many of the lesser subordinates were sent out at least once a week, lest they get madder than they already were; however those who were injured or temporarily out of their master's favour, found themselves trapped within the walls, and therefore became jumpy, more prone to lashing out unexpectedly and, more often than not, for reasons that were less than acceptable.

The ones who had been with Orochimaru longer, were well trusted or generally more powerful, were the ones who tended not to mind their long periods of 'imprisonment' within Otogakure's walls.

Though naturally many of these nins were so mad that they no longer knew the difference between the inside of Otogakure, and the outside world.

They were the ones you noticed. The ones who were forgiven their minor indiscretions out of the snake sennin's favouritism. Nins like Kabuto, who haunted every room, worshipping Orochimaru's shadow.

Sasuke attended the sittings and audiences with 'outsiders' because Orochimaru would give him a long, hard stare whenever he even opened his mouth to make a protest or argument. It always stopped him.

Some things were allowed; insulting the sennin, which only made the man smirk in amusement, or tearing up furniture, which Sasuke had done in abundance in the early days, during his frustrated months. As long as it wasn't a book or scroll, it didn't faze Orochimaru in the slightest. However, disobeying or arguing against a direct order was inevitably not something the sennin condoned.

The only rules that applied to Otogakure were unwritten ones. Being late to training with Orochimaru was something that simply was not done; no one wanted to find out what sort of punishment might be awarded for making the sennin wait.

The rules that applied to Sasuke and his relations with the other nins of the place were many, and they were very complex; Orochimaru wanted him to at least be civil, so he was. In front of him. Away from their master, the other nins were never less than insulting; resenting the amount of time Sasuke spent in the sennin's presence.

There was practically a secret language among the nins, one that Sasuke had never bothered to become privy to; he mostly ignored the other subordinates, trying not to notice the hisses that followed him through the halls and down the corridors.

Kabuto was the worst of them; he actually found subtle ways of showing his displeasure around Orochimaru, narrowing his eyes and purposely ignoring him when supposedly addressing them both.

Whether Orochimaru ever noticed the behaviour of his subordinates was not exactly known, but he certainly didn't do anything to stop it.

"Adversity lends strong will."

That's what he always told Sasuke, smirking in a knowing way. It wasn't possible that the sennin didn't know everything that went on in Otogakure; no matter what it was, Orochimaru could let people know he knew about it by simply dropping a small comment, dripping with innuendo, in front of them.

Then again, Sasuke knew that the jealousy of the other nins was not unfounded; he spent an inordinate amount of time training with Orochimaru, learning at his side and hidden away in the snake sennin's rooms.

Getting used to having his teacher appear behind him at any given moment was also something that took a while for him to get used to. Somehow he could never sense the sennin's presence until he felt a hand on his shoulder or the hot breath on his neck, and felt the smirk when Sasuke couldn't help but jump slightly.

Otogakure couldn't possibly be any more different than Konoha. Somehow he felt he deserved to live in Sound; everything about the place seemed fitting, as if it was exactly where he needed to be to achieve his goal. After all, he couldn't advance in a place where his revenge had been undervalued, argued against.

Very slowly, he started to feel at home in Otogakure. Every day seemed normal; everything began to seem familiar and anything else, namely his old life in Konoha, diminished and became alien. When it happened, Sasuke couldn't say; it wasn't exactly gradual, he just looked up one day and realised that he couldn't really remember what it had been like. Konoha seemed like some kind of strange dream, and the people in it were vague and hazy in his memory.

This place, however, was the norm. This was where he had grown so much stronger, where his disposition had been satisfactorily hardened.

And he had Orochimaru to thank for it.

After all, living in a place like this you couldn't help but get used to it.

End.