Well hello! It's been two or three weeks since I last put out a chapter, which means I'm putting out a chapter. Funny how that works!
Anyways, without further ado and whatnot.
Chapter 7: Crumbling
Anko found herself swallowing nervously as she hesitantly stood before the ivory building in front of her. It was the first time she'd ever found herself here, even if she'd long since known where it was, and what one might use it for.
She'd always simply assumed she would never need to come here.
She imagined most thought like her.
Her thoughts wandered to where they had been stuck for the past day or so. Agonizing her with a truth she refused to confront.
Even if she knew she had to confront it.
And so… that was why she was here. Because the information she had…
She swallowed a second time.
She tried to reassure herself once more that she was doing the right thing. Doing what she had to do. What anyone would do in her situation. It didn't make it feel any better.
Any less like a betrayal.
Even still, she did not stop. Instead, she stepped forward, and, in a ginger manner that was entirely unlike her, she pushed open the door before her.
/-/
Orochimaru felt no better the day following his dinner with the Uzuki's. In fact, dare he say it, his emotions had somehow spiraled even further out of his control. His guilt-laden mind could hardly formulate a plan of action, either, and so instead of trying to do something about his predicament, perhaps break himself out of this cocoon of self-pity, he instead merely wallowed in it, festering in the Hokage's office like he was some horrid, infected boil.
He was like that for the majority of the morning, signing his name upon page after page of paperwork like a zombie. None disturbed him, for he had ordered them not to, and if his secretary, or Tondo, his head of security, thought that odd… well, none of them commented on it.
They did wish him well, though, adding yet another stake to the already impaled mass of remorse within him.
It was near noon by the time his door opened, and it was entirely against his will. Still, given the temperament of the woman who walked inside, he had a general feeling he shouldn't exactly voice that opinion.
"Tsunade." He muttered quietly, getting back to work as quickly as possible, and already thinking up ways to shoo the woman away that wouldn't require… well, actively shooing her away. "What brings you here?"
"Sheesh, you really do look like shit."
That statement had him looking up, eyeing Tsunade out of the corner of his eye. He raised a singular eyebrow at her, trying to ignore the way such a motion stretched his face, exacerbating the exhaustion hanging about him.
"I mean, sure, your head guard told me you would, but… it's just… I don't know." Tsunade murmured as she stepped inside and shut the door behind her. "I don't think I would've ever pictured you with that look on your face, and yet here we are."
He said nothing in response to that, merely continuing to mechanically stamp his signature down on the papers in front of him, occasionally reapplying more ink to the stencil.
"How long have you been working?"
He'd done the calculation earlier, and had found that across the last forty-eight hours, he'd been cramped within this office for around thirty-five or so.
"Not long." He lied instead.
Tsunade snorted. "Yeah, okay. Sure."
He found himself almost growling as he glared up at the woman, the noise emerging from out of him almost against his will.
"What do you want?"
Tsunade shrugged. "To help, I suppose. You're just… I don't know. Like I said, I've never seen you like this. I'd prefer to not have to, if you'd let me."
He groaned at the woman's poor attempt to guilt him into speaking his mind. "I'm fine."
"You keep saying that, and yet I have the sneaking suspicion you're lying out of your teeth."
He looked away from her, for some reason unable to meet her gaze at that.
Betraying his expectations, Tsunade said nothing for a good while after that, merely watching him as he mindlessly stamped down his signature upon a local treatise, then turned the page and manually writ in a margin left for him.
And then, just when he'd mentally accepted that Tsunade was giving up, the woman placed a hand on his shoulder, and squeezed lightly, getting his attention once more.
"Hey, I've got an idea." His fellow Sannin smiled down at him, and he internally questioned the woman's change in tactics. "Shizune and I were going out today on a rather important errand, and the last time we brought you along, you helped quite a bit. What do you say, wanna' come?"
He shook his head immediately, barely gracing the woman's asinine words with a response. "No. I'm afraid I'm rather swamped with work."
Tsunade evidently did not buy that. "Orochimaru, that pile of papers is as small as I've seen it since you became Hokage."
He said nothing, given he couldn't much contend with the woman's logic. Hell, at the pace he was working at, and as deep into his own head as he was, he might finally clear his table completely for the very first time by the end of the day.
Though Tsunade didn't seem to see that as a positive.
He didn't really either, honestly.
"C'mon," Tsunade gave him a pat on the back. "Shizune and I have a rather busy day, and you look like you really need to get out."
He tried to push her away, really, he did. "Tsunade, I would much rather–"
"Nope, sorry, Not taking 'no' for an answer on this one." Tsunade smirked his way as she took him by the wrist and raised him out of his chair. She did so in a gentle enough way that it was rather clear that if he truly did not want to go, if he put up any real resistance, she would halt.
A part of him was unsure why he offered no such resistance.
And a moment later he was standing, still wallowing in his pain as he audibly sighed.
"Alright! Two members of the 'Legendary Sannin', and her apprentice, on an incredibly important mission…" Tsunade pointed overdramatically towards the door with a wide smile upon her face.
"To go apartment hunting!"
"…What?"
/-/
Tsunade hadn't been lying.
"So, your thoughts?"
…What was he supposed to think?
The empty apartment that the three of them were stood within was, he supposed, a rather decently spacious place. It had a main room, complete with a space for a kitchen (even if, from what Shizune and Tsunade kept saying back to one another, most of the appliances within it were rather outdated), and an offshoot that led out to an office and a bedroom, complete with a bathroom.
It was far larger than the space Orochimaru himself had procured for himself when he was much younger. A small apartment with a living space and a bed. That had been the entirety of it, and it had served him just fine when he was younger, until he'd started living out of his laboratories, continuing to pay for the small abode as a cover for his less than savory behaviors.
…It was as he was going over that memory in his head that he realized he was perhaps not the person for this.
Poison-procuring, sure, he could do. In fact, as much as at the time he'd resented Tsunade for dragging him out, he could see the woman's genius now. He'd been able to get Shizune both exactly what she'd wanted, and a supplier from whom to acquire more from in the future.
But… He did not have an opinion here.
"It's… nice."
Tsunade snorted, even as Shizune, who was by far the kinder of the two (and in general seemed to have warmed up to him ever since the poison-procuring incident), smiled and nodded at his words. "I agree. I find the space to be very 'nice'."
"Indeed. It's a bit… small for how much they're trying to charge us for it, though."
Ah yes, costs. Once he'd become a Jonin, the tiny 1 room apartment that he'd rented out had begun to be so far overshadowed in terms of cost compared to what he was earning that he barely even remembered it existed. Especially so when, a good half the time, his missions took him outside the village for weeks or even months at a time…
And the rest of the time, he was down below in his laboratories, running experiments on whatever, or whomever, he could get his hands upon.
His stomach squirmed again for the first time in an hour or so, and he made a conscious effort to focus back in on the conversation of Shizune and Tsunade around him.
"I think the office is a good addition, though. I can use it as both storage and a bedroom for myself, Sensei."
"Hmm… you do have a point." Tsunade stroked her chin for a moment, before shrugging. "Meh, we're seeing a few more places anyways, why don't we just add it to the list of potentials, and we'll head off to the next one?"
"Sure, that works with me!"
"Wait," He found himself interjecting. "We're… going to more?"
Tsunade guffawed at him like he was some sort of idiot. "Well, yeah. You don't just pick out the first place you see when you go hunting for a place to live!"
…He had.
/-/
"So, what about this one?"
This second apartment was also a rather spacious place. It had a main room, complete with a space for a kitchen, and an offshoot that led out to an office and a bedroom, complete with an attached bathroom.
In short, it was nearly identical in every way to the last apartment.
Was he… supposed to have a different opinion about this one?
"It's…" he nodded his head in faux understanding. "Interesting. The design is very…"
Tsunade and Shizune both smiled his way, causing him to let out a meagre sigh. "I am not entirely sure what you want out of me here."
"You're fine," Tsunade spoke as she held the laugh pouring out of her mouth back with the back of her hand. "Honestly, I really just wanted to get you out and about. I'm not asking you to be the deciding vote."
That was good. In his eyes, this place was basically an entirely mirrored version of the last place. He supposed this one (apparently, according to Shizune) had better kitchen appliances, though according to the girl herself, they would be paying for that with a higher rent.
Even so… as the two talked on and on about the places many features, and how it matched up to the last location they'd visited, a question hung about the back of Orochimaru's mind that he couldn't quite shake himself out of asking. When he found a moment where Shizune was separated from her master, he pulled the older woman aside, unsure how to quite broach the topic.
"So…" He began, "You're apartment hunting… does that mean…"
Luckily, as Tsunade let out a quiet "Oh!" noise, it seemed she understood what he was trying to ask. "That I intend to stay in the Village long-term?" Tsunade smiled a bit bashfully his way, before nodding her head. "Yeah. I think… I've decided. I want to come back."
Some parts of him leapt at the news, others knew not why.
"It's just…" Tsunade rubbed a hand anxiously along the back of her neck as she took in the space around them, sighing quietly. "It's been an awful long time since I've been able to feel any sort of peace in this place, and… finally, finally again… I do."
He nodded his head to show he was following along, even as the woman shot him an appreciative look out of the corner of her eye. "And hey, that's thanks, in part, to little old you."
His eyes widened, even as he felt his eyebrows draw together in confusion.
"Me?"
"Yeah, you," His fellow Sannin laughed at his candor. "Ever since you went and became Hokage, you've become practically a different person. Or… well, I should stop saying that."
Tsunade lightly shook her head, sighing as Shizune returned from her inspection of the bedroom, calling out questioningly to both of them if they were ready to leave.
"Every time I say it's like you're a different person, or someone else, I'm making a mockery of the effort you've been putting in to improve. I just… I just want you to know that I appreciate the effort you've put in. More than anything, having you and Jiraiya, along with Shizune and Hiruzen… It's made a world of difference for me."
Orochimaru could barely open his mouth as Tsunade turned to him, having addressed him with such pride that his stomach writhed.
"You uh… don't have to say anything. I know you've never really been one for sap." Tsunade laughed a bit at his expense. "Just… thanks, alright? For everything these past few months."
"I…"
Before he could manage to say anything else, Shizune had stepped forward towards the two of them, a small smile on her face.
"Uhm… sorry to interrupt you two, but it's nearly evening now. If we want to see the rest of the apartments, we should probably head out."
The girls words had Tsunade nodding, dusting off her thighs with her hands as she stood up and gestured for him to follow.
"C'mon Mr. Hokage. Just a few more left!"
Even if he would admit (only to himself, and only in the privacy of his own mind) that he rather enjoyed hanging out with both Tsunade and Shizune himself, he couldn't quite manage to suppress the groan that poured out of him at that.
/-/
Evening came and went, as did a few more apartments that the three of them investigated. Some were winners, others losers, and by the end of the day, his two compatriots seemed as if they'd found a winner.
"So, we're going with that second one, then, Sensei?" Shizune asked her master as she walked alongside the two of them. "I liked it, and it had a lot of good amenities, but it was a lot more expensive than any of the others."
Tsunade shrugged. "Well, since I'm sticking around in the Village, I'm planning on getting a job at the hospital anyways within a month or so. Money shouldn't be too much concern."
"If you say so."
"Hey, don't think I'm going to let you freeload on me," Tsunade smirked at her apprentice. "You're working your butt off too if you expect to stay with me."
Shizune pouted, but ultimately ended up rolling her eyes as Tsunade laughed boisterously, causing Orochimaru to smile calmly.
The evening sun shone across the bustling Leaf Village, coating the people around them, returning to their homes after long days of work, or heading out to eat with their families, in brilliant rays of scarlet and gold. He found himself able to appreciate such sights more these days, the simple hustle and bustle of the average day of the Leaf.
From the looks of things, said appreciation had not been lost upon either Shizune or Tsunade, for the two regarded him in a delighted manner, and he found himself leaning away from their warm gazes somewhat as he questioned them on their looks.
"I don't know." Tsunade answered, seemingly honestly. "I guess… I just never thought I'd see that sort of… serene calm on your face."
Before he could make an even greater fool of himself, Shizune turned towards the two of them, and, bowing slightly, spoke "Actually, Sensei, Mr. Orochimaru, I'm going to go and get something to eat if you don't mind. I'm rather famished."
"That's fine, Shizune." Tsunade smiled at her apprentice. "If you have leftovers, leave them for me, I'll heat them up later."
"Gotcha'!" Shizune said, waving his way. "I'll see the both of you later!"
Idly, he found there was the tiniest urge in the back of his mind to wave back to the girl. Luckily for his image, he did not act on it, but even still, the fact that it was there in the first place…
Really, who was he, these days?
"I'll have to thank that girl later. She's awful good at reading the room."
He hummed questioningly as he shot his compatriot a look out of the corner of his eye, even as Tsunade gestured with her head for him to follow behind her once more.
"I'm sorry." She said as the two of them took to a more natural area of the Leaf Village, where very few people frequented. "I brought you out here today to try and cheer you up, and yet all day, I've just been talking about me."
He hadn't much minded if he were being honest. It had been…
Nice.
He found himself shrugging somewhat as Tsunade led the two of them over to nearby bench that had been installed at the edge of a small crick that ran through the Leaf Village. It was a rather picturesque sight, especially during the evening, where the sun's rays cast a golden spell upon the water's surface.
"I was fine."
"Hah, leave it to you to downplay your own feelings." Tsunade snickered, even as she seemed to adopt a more serious expression just a few moments later. "So… If you don't mind, can I ask you about what you've been dealing with?"
He did mind, actually. Especially given that the thing really bothering him was that he was rapidly beginning to realize that his so-called 'perfect plan' to cleanse himself of his past sins had been largely anything but perfect.
If the woman beside him were to dig too deeply into that…
"I would rather not say." He answered honestly.
"Yeah, I kinda' figured." Tsunade sighed out as she placed both of her hands beneath her thighs, what he could only assume was a nervous tick. "But, uh… no offense, but I think I'm going to ask anyways. Sorry."
He huffed lightly, even as he found some small semblance of morbid amusement falling over him.
"I had a feeling you might."
Tsunade nodded her head, even as she awkwardly cleared her throat, and then begun to speak.
"I'm guessing that… finding out what Danzo was really up to is what has you down, right? Especially after the two of you worked so close together for so many years. Having to kill him after everything you two went through… can't have been easy."
The woman's guess was a decent one, but unfortunately it was built upon a foundation that simply did not apply to Orochimaru.
He did not care for people simply because he'd worked alongside them. He had never thought of Danzo as anything other than a particularly useful asset. A mean's to an end, and in the end, he'd used the man to his fullest.
Even still, He should've simply nodded along with Tsunade, allowed her to console him for his 'loss', and been able to more easily relax for the rest of the night.
Instead, the pieces and parts of him that had building themselves up over the past few months instead uttered truth.
"No, that's not… It's not Danzo. That man made his bed." He realized he shouldn't have opened his idiotic mouth a few seconds too late, unable to effectively backpedal out of what he'd said. "I just…"
He found couldn't say anything, for he was far too busy mentally rebuking himself for his idiocy.
He'd grown far, far too comfortable in the presence of his Fellow Sannin in the previous months. He'd allowed his mind to relax around them, to not constantly be on the lookout for anything that could come between him and his aims.
Because they were his 'allies'. His 'comrades'.
Thusly they couldn't be his enemies.
It made emotional sense, even if, in a clinical, detached way, he had to remember that everyone in the Leaf was his enemy, really.
Because if they knew…
…And here he was, so comfortable around his fellow Sannin that he'd inadvertently thrown away a perfectly good excuse. And now… now he'd have to come up with something else on the fly.
He felt like he could see the house of cards he'd built up beneath him over nearly a decade and a half wobble ever so slightly more.
And it had already been shaking.
Tsunade, seemingly taking his anxiety over his precarious standing as reluctance to share the full truth with her (which in all fairness was correct), leaned forward, eyeing him in an almost desperate way.
"Tell me. Talk to me. Please." She stressed. "You've done so much for me, for Shizune too. I want to help you."
She couldn't. He knew that. She'd know that too if she knew what he truly was.
If she realized the depths that the monster beside her had sunk to.
He contemplated in his head for what felt like an eternity, but was realistically only ten to fifteen seconds, about what he could say. To say nothing wouldn't exactly be damning, nor would it be to simply admit he could not say anything.
But…
Some part of him, that same part of him that had uttered truth before now wished to prattle on and on again. Wished to confess the emotions he was struggling against, to come forward and just…
He bit down on those stray thoughts, strangling the life out of them before they could grow any stronger. Honesty would get him nowhere other than the inside of a cell, and that was being optimistic.
…but that didn't mean he couldn't say something.
Because despite that he couldn't be, he still wanted to be honest.
"What if… what if you screwed up?" Orochimaru found himself asking the woman beside him as he stared straight ahead, making sure not to look over at Tsunade, purposefully avoiding her gaze. "What if… What if you went and did something so bad… so horribly, heinously awful that you knew no one would ever forgive you for it?"
Tsunade was silent for a good ten or so seconds, and for a moment, Orochimaru simply assumed the woman wouldn't say anything at all. In the grasses around them, he heard the evening calls of some insect species, even as the sun set further into the earth, painting the sky in darker and darker shades.
Funny… he could remember telling Hiruzen at the start of his tenure that the sunset was merely a time of day. That it came and went day in and day out. That it meant nothing.
But… for some reason, the sun in the sky today seemed to shine just a bit brighter than it ever had before. It made the entire Village, even as far sunken into the horizon as it was then, glow with an iridescent warmth.
Finally, Tsunade did speak.
"I'm guessing… this is your way of saying that you think you've done something that bad?"
This would be the moment of truth, he supposed. "…I know I have."
"…Oh."
Silence reigned again, and he swallowed as he forced himself to break it.
"I… I want to be better. But regardless of what I want… I fear that there is no looking past what I've done."
And then, despite himself, he risked a glance Tsunade's way.
Luckily for him, the woman seemed to have had a similar plan to his own, pointedly avoiding meeting his eyes as she stared off into the middle distance in front of them. Her gaze was hazy, though, and it was clear she wasn't really paying too much attention.
He looked away just as she parted her lips.
"Y'know… when I left the Village, I blamed it on the war."
His eyes widened as he realized what the woman was doing. He and Jiraiya, along with everyone in the Leaf, had always had their own theories as to why Tsunade had left. Of course, he was fairly sure most of them were fairly accurate, but even still, to actually hear it out of the woman's mouth would be…
"And yeah, that was part of it, obviously. The entire world felt like it was on fire, and it just… just kept burning. The first war, and then the second… and there we were at the center of it all. The Three Sannin. And when we finally did get back… I don't know if it was just me who felt this way, but… the Village… the Leaf had changed. And all of that was why I left, but… when I find myself looking back… I realize it wasn't really the Village, or the War, or anything else I was reacting to… I left because I couldn't forgive myself."
He said nothing. He allowed Tsunade to speak out of some semblance of… was it respect? No, it felt… warmer than that.
It was the friendship he'd built up in the past few months. It made him want to just…
Listen.
"First, Nawaki died… and I couldn't stop it. And… out of some horrid grief… I tried to implement Medical Ninja into the common Three-man unit. And… it worked. People began instituting my ideas. People, from all walks of life, respected my ideas. Hell, other Villages took them and implemented them. And I found myself thinking that was good enough. I met Dan, and I was happy, but… even still, I couldn't save him. "
Tsunade's voice was harrowing as he almost instinctively moved just an inch or so closer to the woman. At the moment where their hips rubbed against one another's, Tsunade looked down, and then found herself laughing. Not a warm laugh, but a somber, quiet thing, born not of mirth but of anxiety and stress.
"Y'know, it's funny. Hearing that you were becoming Hokage… that was the reason I came back. Because I was afraid for you."
Now that he almost couldn't believe. Not because he didn't think Tsunade the type to do that for someone, to almost instinctually want to protect someone who she felt was in danger, only…
For him? After everything he'd done?
"I guess some part of me blamed the position of Hokage for Dan's and Nawaki's deaths. Hell, it killed my grandfather too, even if I never really knew him long. So, hearing that you were next in line to inherit that… that 'curse'… I don't know…"
"Why?" He couldn't help asking. "When you left the Village, I wasn't exactly… kind to you. Why worry about me at all?"
Tsunade's smile seemed to gain just the smallest twinge of amusement. "Hah… well, being a bit of an asshole to me doesn't entirely erase being teammates for nearly all our lives. Hell, friends."
That…
"But… I was stupid." Tsunade continued, not giving him any time to get lost in his thoughts. "It wasn't the Hokage that killed Nawaki, or Dan… no… it was… just the way the world is. The way this… cruel and horrid Ninja World operates."
On that… they could agree.
Still, saying what she had seemed to have made Tsunade think of something else, for she had a look of recollection upon her features. Given that Orochimaru himself still didn't have anything to say, well…
He stayed quiet.
"Heh… y'know… you might not know this about me, but… I planned to… well… it was almost an idle dream I came up with after Dan's death. And it's uh, sort of dumb, but…" It was clear that whatever this was, it was something Tsunade had kept close to her heart for years and years. Something she'd not told another soul. For him to be the one to hear it… "I'd always hoped that medical ninja could one day no longer have to be trained in combat at all. Just… trained to help and to heal people alone. I'd like for them to be a recognized, global force. One that would transcend borders and Villages. To transcend the cycle of violence."
"That's…" Naïve. Foolish. Entirely unrealistic.
"Stupid." Tsunade smiled sadly, gazing down at her legs as the two of them sat side by side. "Trust me, I know. But… if this world were better than it is now, I'd want medical ninja to take on a sort of… vow. A promise."
She turned to him, utterly confident in her words, despite the way she must've thought others felt about them.
"To do no harm. Not to anyone. No matter if they're from a different nation, or from a different Village, or some heinous, horrible criminal… I'd want them to heal them all the same."
There was a part of him that fundamentally disagreed with what Tsunade was proposing. If, as she'd wished, a global healing force were to be established, then there was a good chance it would be weak to all of the same things that a Hidden Village was. Corruption, greed, bribery, and deception, just to name a few.
But…
The core of what Tsunade was saying… the essence of what she wanted…
It was so… naïve in its faith. So separate from the human condition, from how the world really was that…
That he found himself wanting to believe in it as well.
He made to speak, but Tsunade cut him off. "So… I guess you might think that because of… whatever you did, or whatever you've done, that you're some… horrid… wretched creature but…"
She reached over, and laced her fingers within his own, squeezing his hand affirmingly as she smiled his way.
"Just know, that even if the world were against you, no matter what… if you came to me in need of help… I'd heal you even still."
And at that, he had nothing. Once more, for what felt like the thousandth time these past few months, he was left entirely speechless. Instead, all he could do was look down at the point where their hands connected, and marvel at the warmth that Tsunade's gave off.
His own felt cold and clammy, but she seemed to radiate strength in her grip.
"…Thank you."
It was Tsunade's turn to be shocked, and the woman laughed after a moment, a serene, peaceful sound that had him smiling too. "That's… hah… I don't think I've ever heard you say, 'thank you' before."
He… now that he thought about it… he couldn't remember the last time he'd said it, either.
"But… y'know…"
And as the two of them stared out into the now dark night sky, as the streetlights lining the path kicked on and illuminated them in almost blinding white… Orochimaru found himself wishing that he could simply exist in moments like this, instead of having to face the reality of his situation. To simply lock himself into this very moment, and not have to face the future.
"I think I could get used to it." Tsunade spoke with a quiet laugh.
Time, ever unfeeling, moved forward all the same.
/-/
For the first time in… hell, he couldn't even remember how long, Orochimaru found himself unlocking the door to his apartment.
Immediately, he was hit with the scent of decay. Not from a dead body, like one might've expected from one of his laboratories, but simply from the state that many things in the room were in after having not been touched in more than half a decade.
Dust filled the room, a layer easily a centimeter or two thick covering nearly everything within. But other than that…
It was just as he'd last left it.
His bed was tucked into the corner furthest from the window, a simple… he believed it was called a 'twin-sized' mattress atop a wooden frame. Aligned against the perpendicular wall was the small dresser that Tsunade had bought him when she'd visited and saw how empty his place was.
Scattered throughout were little pieces of long-forgotten history. A few kunai here and there, a shuriken embedded into one of the walls that he couldn't remember throwing, and a few scrolls that must've held rather simplistic summoning jutsu.
And as he stared at them all, from the doorway, he found the will to even step into the space, to disturb what had long-since become abandoned, fading.
Hell, why had he even come here, truly? What had honestly spurred him on to revisit this place. It wasn't like it'd held any real meaning for him. He'd stopped resting here long ago, when he'd decided it was easier to get work done if he simply lived out of his laboratories, and recently he'd been sleeping in the Hokage's office more often than not.
So why was he…
He wondered what the point of pretending like he didn't already know the answer was. Why he continued to do so on so many occasions.
He'd come here because he could tell that it was ending.
His house of cards was quaking, ready to collapse at the smallest of movements. The walls were closing in around him, and he couldn't exactly run away. Hiruzen knew the truth, and now, his teacher didn't even trust that he was truly trying to do better. The fact that the man hadn't reported him to the authorities or the Anbu before…
Well, he had an awful lot more reason to do so now.
And then there was Anko. The girl's memories, her knowledge of what Orochimaru had done, had been covered in a Genjutsu so thin it might as well have been a strip of tape. Any day now she could snap it in twain without even meaning to, and then…
Not to mention the way he himself felt. The way the guilt of what he'd done kept threatening to overwhelm him. Because there was still a part of him, after all of this, that just wanted to kill the two of them. To directly remove the problems he was facing and be rid of them.
He refused, however, and that refusal damned him.
Sooner or later, the dam would break. Sooner or later, his secret would come out, and this beautiful illusion of a decent man would crumble away.
And he'd be revealed as the hideous monster he'd always been.
He thought back to Tsunade's words as he reached out and took the door knob, shutting it and turning the key once more in it to lock it behind him.
"Just know, that even if the world were against you, no matter what… if you came to me in need of help… I'd heal you even still."
He didn't doubt the woman's resolve. Truly, he didn't. The look in her eyes had been too intense for him to ever think she was lying to him. And yet he still couldn't shake the feeling that the woman wouldn't. Not if she knew who he really was.
Maybe that made him worser still.
What would he even do if the world were crumbling around him? How would he act?
The question stuck with him as he exited out from the apartment complex and walked through the Leaf's residential district. As he went, he found himself gazing at the people who passed by. Most were simply on their way home, focused on staying awake as they made their final journey's back. A few, however, nodded his way respectfully, and a couple even bowed towards him.
He found himself returning the gestures with nods of his own, something that had become almost normal for him.
And he realized… he wouldn't really do anything.
He didn't want it to end, this beautiful illusion. He wanted to continue spending days with Jiraiya and Tsunade, growing closer to both. He wanted to be able to talk more with Hiruzen, to compare philosophies, to continue to grow as a person as he'd been these last few months. Hell, he even wanted to continue signing his name upon thousands and thousands of documents, which was how he knew he was truly desperate.
He wanted to keep being this better version of himself, to continue being Orochimaru, the Fourth Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, forevermore.
And yet… as he stepped through the streets of the Village he'd grown up in, of… of his Village, he found a sort of melancholic acceptance washing over him.
Because some part of him already knew it was over.
Even if he didn't know how much time he had… it was already over. And so… if this was what he wanted… if he wanted to do this forever, but knew he couldn't, then…
He might as well make the most of the time he had left, he supposed.
And with a small, resigned smile, Orochimaru found himself heading towards the Hokage building, and up towards the Hokage's office.
His office, for however much longer it could be.
/-/
It was actually quite nice out that day, Orochimaru had noted. There weren't too many clouds in the sky, and it wasn't terribly hot, either. Thusly, the people of the Village were out and about, enjoying the nice weather as much as they could. Children laughed and played, adults made way for them as much as they could, sighing and shaking their heads as they tried to hide their tiny smiles.
He supposed it was rather ironic that just as he was beginning to see the value of such things, just as he was starting to understand his master's words, that would be it.
He felt what was coming long before anything truly alerted him. A fair few chakra signatures in the Leaf had begun to spring up in patterns that he didn't expect. It could've been nothing. Honestly, he might've suspected it was nothing, just…
He had a feeling it wasn't.
And yet he did nothing. Instead, he simply sat with his back to the door, facing the massive window behind him, and looking out along the Leaf. He just… took it all in, really.
It was around twenty minutes later that the door opened, and he finally turned back around. In stepped no less than ten fully armed men. He did not recognize many of them, equipped with standard Leaf Police garb, but two stood out.
One was Tondo Uzuki, his head of security, who wore his standard Anbu attire, but forgoing the mask. The man looked… well, devastated seemed to be putting it mildly. His hand was shaky upon the grip of the short sword in his left hand, which, even if it was still sheathed, painted an immediate picture of what was going on here.
And the other was Fugaku Uchiha, the leader of the Leaf Police Force…
His Sharingan already blazing within his eyes.
"Ah." He spoke, finding himself sighing as he fully accepted just what was happening. "Gentleman. Welcome. What brings you here today?"
Fugaku stepped forward, his gaze hard.
"Orochimaru, Fourth Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves…" The man seemed to almost spit the words out. "For suspicions of kidnapping, illegal experimentation, murder, and high treason…"
"You're under arrest."
End Chapter 7
And it all comes crumbling down...
See you all in a few weeks!
