A.N: Omigawd, just one chapter and I am already being inundated at all hours of how good it is? Well, if that isn't any sort of encouragement, then nothing is. Thank you very much, for those who reviewed. Your love fuels my muse.

This chapter may be more than a little unintentionally entertaining, though there will also be time-skips until Oro-chibi graduates the Academy and gets assigned his genin team.

Jade Celandine, out!


Chapter 2: Growing Up

The Hayabusa family was weird, full stop.

Usually, that was a statement that could be noted and pushed aside by anyone who heard it, something that could be applied to any of the relocated shinobi clans in Konoha, and indeed it was at one time or another.

When that conclusion was reached by the Hokage and the ANBU? Things get interesting.


This is how it started: Eiri found herself and her son settled down in a mid-sized, traditional home on a spacious lot with enough room for a greenhouse and an herb garden on the lawn after a year and a half of scrimping and saving. Luckily, her profession expedited the process rather quickly; despite the fact that the Nara and Yamanaka clans held great interest in herbalism, it only extended to poisons and antidotes. Being an apothecary gave the young mother a more detailed and esoteric knowledge of plant life, and being a Potions Mistress on top of that made her skillset almost unfair to her competitors.

She was very quickly drafted into an increasing roster of consultants for the hospital and, through them, the aforementioned clans. The most the Nara wanted help with were determining the proper uses for the byproducts of their deer herds, so the witch worked more often with the Yamanaka, whose abilities she found comparable to branches of Legilimency.

Though Eiri was hearing requests from the… Aburame clan? On what sorts of gardens were good to foster particular insect colonies.

The young woman was apparently the only one willing to enter a developing compound filled with all varieties of killer insects. Go figure.

And like a proper working mother with a yearling, she would wrap Orochimaru up in a sling securely to her back, covering his head and face in case of pollen, and take him to work with her. It became a common sight to see her walking to or from the clan district with an honor guard and her baby swaddled on her back. The only thing the witch couldn't allow herself to do was go into the labs and experiment directly until her boy was able to be somewhat self-sufficient.

Naturally, Eiri was deeply fascinated with the constantly-developing strains and crossbreeds between all the poisonous plants in the Yamanaka greenhouses, often asking for cuttings of this or that specimen to take home and study. She had managed to work out several excellent substitutes to common magical ingredients for the future production and experimentation of her potions a long time ago, but it was always nice to have something new to fiddle with.

Most of the Yamanaka she worked with tended, however, to be both parts bemused and disturbed. After all, it wasn't like every civilian woman took her baby with her when she went to work in a greenhouse full of poisons.


Like many a civilian who could point towards records establishing their presence at the founding of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Masaharu Takeda was perhaps possessing of a slightly overinflated sense of self-worth when it came to comparing his family to that of other, more recent immigrants. He grew up around, and married into, families who disdained the unkempt, mostly lower-class residents and newly-invested citizens for 'intruding', for all that they acknowledged that every single one was worthy of investiture due to detailed knowledge of the stringent immigration procedure. He was, nevertheless, part of that seemingly perpetually-extant group of people who would very much prefer to hoard all the benefits and begrudge giving even the most disgusting, menial jobs to uneducated hicks; especially if they came from outside the village.

Unlike most of his social circle, however, Masaharu was not the type to extend respect, if not amicability towards those who had done well, and thus proved themselves. He seemed to have only comprehended the thin surface of the middle-class sociopolitical strictures he was raised under.

Which probably contributed greatly to what happened to him when he decided to 'get to know' his most recent neighbor.

The middle-aged Takeda patriarch was rather infamously derided for his bull-headed idiocy within the neighborhood as well as a particularly indiscreet predilection for cheating on his wife with women who simply couldn't say no. The local police patrolmen who regularly checked on the area were always alerted when a newcomer caught Takeda's eye, especially when said newcomer was a young wife or single mother.

Eiri Hayabusa seemed to be the perfect victim for his harassment: a barely twenty-something civilian woman who was newly-come to the shinobi village with a very young son and no male relation in sight. First impressions by nosy mothers and grannies who welcomed her into the neighborhood as she shopped and took her son to the playground described her as a sweet, if somewhat distant woman who quite visibly loved her son Orochimaru. There was gossip about the obviously missing father and the fact that she had to save up to be able to settle into their particular area.

So, true to form, Masaharu Takeda brought a homemade meal with him and knocked on the door to her house during the son's afternoon nap. The housewives and other disapproving witnesses saw him charm the poor young woman and enter her home.

And he didn't leave. For hours.

By evening, Eiri's neighbors had called on the local patrolmen, who knocked on the door to the Hayabusa residence. They were tense as they waited almost too long for an answer. However, before they could resolve to break in through a second-floor window, the door opened to the homeowner herself, not looking the worse for wear.

"Uchiha-san? Is there something I can help you with?" she inquired softly.

Takeru, as the senior-most police officer at the moment, cleared his throat. "Hayabusa-san, your neighbors reported that Takeda-san, a member of the community, has yet to come out of your house despite an inordinate amount of time spent in the residence. Is everything alright?"

The civilian perked up. The policemen's Sharingan unnoticeably sharpened; was she that relieved at getting the man out of her house for some reason?

"Oh, I told that man it was quite late out, but he didn't seem to notice time passing at all. Do come in, we've been having tea and it's almost time for me to get dinner ready," Eiri said, opening the door wider to allow both men inside. Behind her as she led them to the sitting room, the officers made a plan of action in microgestures, alarmed by the implications the woman made.

They might finally be able to nail him with something.

When the young mother opened the door and showed them her erstwhile guest sitting at the table with a cooling cup of tea – Lady Earl Grey, actually English tea in general seemed new and unusual – they were far too relieved that nothing nefarious had happened under their watch that it wasn't until the three men had exited the residence that they noticed the details of their charge's state.

Takeda's skin was unusually pale, but not clammy, and though his facial expression was somewhat genial, veiling irritation as was his usual wont, his eyes were dilated into pinpricks. The man didn't exhibit any signs of poisoning or otherwise anything resembling foul play, so the patrolmen concluded that Hayabusa-san was simply more subtly intimidating than they had given her credit for, and remanded him to his wife once they reached his house. A basic explanation later, and they were off with the rest of their lives.

Neither man would think twice about the fact that Masaharu rather noticeably changed after the incident: he seemed afraid of being outside his home after sundown for about three months, and had abruptly stopped his philandering. The neighborhood gossiped about it for a bit, then let the issue die quickly and moved on to other subjects, like how intelligent little Orochimaru was growing. Only three and he was able to articulate himself exceedingly well and asking questions about just everything!

How his poor mother managed to keep up with him, they'd never know.


Orochimaru grew up to be an intelligent, relentlessly curious boy.

It was never a strange trait in him; Mother* never gave the impression that the fact he stood and talked months ahead of schedule was unusual. She had simply let him develop at his own pace and provided the tools he needed to go further.

Whenever his mother brought something that he'd never seen before from her work in the Yamanaka greenhouses or from the basement where he was never allowed to go on pain of dessert deprivation (he was old enough to know when his mother meant it, and he wasn't about to risk his cheesecake), she could scarcely unwrap the cloths before he was babbling out questions and theories about every minute detail about it. Mother, being proud of both her job and her son's intelligence and willingness to ask questions, would then spend the entire time prepping for dinner answering them to the furthest extent of her knowledge and asking back how he would test his theories. The boy loved those discussions; he and Mother could debate for hours about how he could prove that this or that existed or that things worked this way and not that way.

"The only certainties in life," she once said, "are death, taxes, and the fact that no one knows anything about everything. That is why you start learning as early and as fast as you can, and you keep going as long as you can."

Far from being mentally stifled by encouraging this intensity to know, Orochimaru's developing genius absolutely thrived under the attention and stimulation. Mother never held back on anything he asked her to teach him; if the boy asked, she would answer as though he were a miniature adult instead of a child. To encourage him to learn independently, she purposefully used the big technical words and left the dictionary within his reach so that he could look them up himself. Never once had the dark little boy asked her whether other families were like theirs. This was normal for him, and it must be so for everyone else.

Oh, he was sure that other families usually had fathers, Mother told him so, but he personally didn't see much use for them. Mother was good at cooking and cleaning and teaching him how to ask questions properly and how to play and knew all about plants and what they were good for. What could a father teach him?

When he went out to the playground, he found the children his age to be slow and stupid. No one seemed to care about differences in flax, hemp, and yucca linens; most actually didn't even know what any of those plants were.

"All the other kids are stupid," he complained as soon as they got home. "I don't wanna go there anymore."

"That's because most of them are civilians, darling," Mother replied. "Civilians do not bother to teach or train their children very much until they go to school, which teaches them everything from writing and counting to how the world works." And then she tapped him softly on the nose, making him stand very straight and still. Tapping his nose meant Mother wanted him to listen and remember. "School will teach you everything I have no or incomplete knowledge of, like politics and the minutiae of social interaction. Remember, society is important because they spread knowledge. If humans didn't need to cooperate, we wouldn't form villages or countries."

"Yes, Mother," Orochimaru said, looking at his toes. Then he looked back up. "Can I go to school now?"

Mother laughed. Orochimaru loved hearing his mother laugh; it sounded like the bells ringing whenever she sang to him. It was a different language than what everyone else spoke, but it was a family secret language, spoken only between him and Mother. He was still learning the longer poems, but he was getting there.

"I don't think most schools will allow you in until you turn four," she told him, making the little boy pout. "But I shall see what I can find." He perked up again.

And that was how, at the tender age of three-and-three-months – that was very important – Orochimaru Hayabusa entered as a student into the Konohagakure Ninja Academy.


Eiri was waiting when her son got home from his studies at the Academy that day.

He was growing up very well these days; it turned out that the Changeling worked better than she'd thought with a dead woman involved. When done properly, the exchange ceremony became the Fey equivalent to a Blood Adoption: Orochimaru was developing the faintest traces of an inner glow omnipresent in Fey-children, and his mental development went at their pace as well. The witch had no doubts that once he grew out of his baby fat, he would feature her inhuman angularity, and perhaps even some reptilian bits if his alternative form was as coldblooded as hers.

Being UnSeelie, she had thought nothing of sending him to a school specifically geared to produce hired killers. Depending on how strongly he took after his adopted blood, he would've headed for a more violent profession in the future anyhow. Heading it off this early would only be all to the good when it came to curbing his instincts later on.

However, the apothecary had to be careful about instilling a firm sense of ethics into her son early as well. She always made sure to tackle topics the Academy introduced about killing in the same way she taught her son and continued to do: debate. Her boy learned to keep 'Kill' on the table so long as it served both short-term and long-term benefits centered around protecting his mother's interests, which meant protecting the village's interests. As long as he could trace the reasoning that doing this or that would make the village happy, thus cascading down to something that made his mother happy, Orochimaru was willing to do it. Eiri rued the day when he would discover self-centeredness.

Being selfish simply meant that the boy wanted to keep his mother happy so that he could be happy. It was more than reasonable, all things considered.

And the Academy student was very happy indeed when he came home to find the apothecary whipping up a sumptuous feast, with a birthday cake he spied sitting on a rack to cool. Beside it were exactly five candles; Mother took his hints about his proper age with an air of amused decorum as he had marched off to school.

The boy raced off to the bathroom to shower off the grime and sweat and change his clothes, making sure to put on something nice because, as his mother said, "Special occasions are meant to be treated as such, and the first sign that something is special is when you take the time to look special." Eiri most certainly looked special on this day as well, wearing a beautiful midnight blue kimono strewn about with white iris petals on a blurry grey hill that he had only seen a few times when she was attending a formal function. Orochimaru felt pride and warmth swell in his chest; but of course he was that important, he was her son!

They took their time cutting a swathe through the dinner dishes, carrying an argument about how many ways one could describe 'suffocation' that had been going on for the past three dinners. The mother had bright, proud eyes; the son was flush with enthusiasm and enjoyment.

He waited very patiently for the three minutes it took to get the cake positioned in front of him and the candles lit. Closing his eyes, Orochimaru made a wish and blew out the candles. Hearing his mother clapping, he opened them to see none still lit. That meant his wish would come true!

"So, can I possibly hear what wish you've made?" she asked as she cut the cake into pieces for him.

The boy thought about it, then nodded. It was going to come true anyway, so there wasn't going to be any harm telling her, he figured. "I wished that when I graduate, I don't get stuck in a team with this stupid kid named Jiraiya."

Quirking a smile, Eiri chided him gently, "I thought I taught you a long time ago not to make wishes dependent on someone else's opinion? Maybe one of the instructors think you will work well together in the future."

Orochimaru twisted his face into a rictus of horror; oh, would that the fangirls saw this. "They wouldn't," he almost begged.


*In this case, Orochimaru is using the formal 'okaa-san' to the more informal and distinctly more immature 'kaa-san'.

A.N: Thanks sooo so much for everyone who liked, alerted, or favorited this fic! More than any of the others, this story seemed to skyrocket from the moment I put it up on the site. Hopefully, you can check out my other Spread fics and give them some love as well.

Do let me know how you felt about my characterizations. Yes, some OCs are likely one-dimensional, but they were there as plot vehicles; you won't be seeing them again.

Reviews are love!