Mika groaned as she woke up from a very bad night, she had a splitting headache and a foul taste in her mouth… as though she had been crying the night before. Maybe she had cried during that horrible dream she had had… she had been leaving Sasuke for some reason. Maybe she had over done it during the dance. She groaned contentedly as she stretched her arms upwards, trying to wake up her reluctant muscles with her eyes still tight shut against the headache. She stopped, frowning to herself. Had she moved the bed? Why hadn't her hands hit the wall behind her bed? Was she at Sasuke's? Suddenly she had a terrible thought: had she and Sasuke…
Mika sat bolt upright, snapping her deep hazel eyes open to find herself in a strange four poster bed in the middle of a marble room, the dark drapes obscuring her from most of the room but she could see through the gap that she was definitely not in her tiny little flat with Surplus anymore. (It's a bit like the Wizard of Oz, isn't it? I don't think we're in Konoha anymore Surplus! Lol!!!) She swallowed hard, trying partially to get rid of the taste in her mouth and partially to calm her now chattering teeth. Suddenly she was aware that her dream hadn't been a dream: she had left Sasuke… to go to Orochimaru.
She slowly clambered to the side of the bed and peered through the gap in the drapes, taking in the room in which the bed she now found herself was in. It was a very large room with a marble floor, marble walls, marble pylons, a marble staircase leading upwards… basically, everything was in marble. She realised that the bed was positioned right in the very middle of the room, just beside a large fountain which was making happy little watery noises as her eyes passed over it. She tentatively swung her legs over the side and got out of the bed, relieved to find she was still wearing her Tikaake dancer outfit and hadn't been undressed or something as unspeakable as that. She tiptoed around the four poster bed uncertainly, apprehensive of going too far away from her area of relative safety, taking in the rest of the room while keeping one hand on the beds drapes just in case it suddenly disappeared.
'Ah! My sleeping beauty awakes!' came Orochimaru's familiar silky voice but this time it wasn't in Mika's mind, it was coming down the marble staircase. She snapped around and watched him make his way leisurely down the stone steps, his eyes glued to her and his left hand sliding along the smooth banister as he made his slow descent. 'I hope your night was pleasant.' he continued as he reached the bottom step and started making his way towards her, his snake-like eyes boring into the young girl who looked back at him defiantly.
He was smiling amicably at her as he made his way closer to the brown eyed girl, and yet she couldn't help noticing the foreboding frown which was bound to his forehead. His skin was a ghostly white and he had long black hair down to about his shoulder bladed, pale purple marking stretched over his eyes and down the sides of his thin nose, outlining his golden eyes. Mika bit her lower lip uncertainly but continued to gaze at him defiantly, unsure of whether she could trust him or not, unsure of whether he was a threat to her.
'Have you lost the will to speak, my dear?' he asked smoothly and with a little chuckle when he was about a yard away from her, coming to a stop directly in front of the nervous girl. Mika shook her head but stayed silent. 'I suppose you came here because you believe I can be of assistance to you.' She nodded silently. 'And to a certain extent,' he continued, tilting his head slightly to his right as he continued to gaze at her steadily. 'you trust me.'
'Don't be so sure of that.' she answered frostily, certain that she couldn't let him think that she was too trusting. The man in front of her chuckled to himself before taking a few more steps forward so that the two were about a couple of inches apart, close enough that she could feel his soft breathing.
'But you are willing to learn, am I right?' he asked as he leant gently forwards, bending over slightly and pushing his face towards hers lustfully so that both could feel each others breath on their faces. She knew that she should play along: from what Sasuke had told her, this guy was dangerous.
'I am a willing pupil.' she answered in little more than a whisper as she lifted her face up, bidding him to go further, her eyelids heavy over her stunning brown eyes. She saw him give a satisfied smile and felt a hand press against the small of her back, pulling her closer to him so that their bodies were pressing against each other and their noses were brushing against each others.
'May I give you a little gift?' he asked in his soft smooth voice, hypnotising Mika as she waited for the pressure on her lips, waiting for him to kiss her… but something stirred in her mind as she felt the man's face slowly make it's way down her cheek towards her neck.
'No!' she exclaimed firmly, pulling herself out of his grip and standing about a yard from him, panting a little after their little moment, but otherwise resolute. 'I refuse to let you give me a curse mark.' For a moment the pale man looked angry, but Mika held her ground and continued to glare fiercely back at him and finally he smiled again, chuckling a little at her impertinence.
'You are quite something, Mika Tikaake.' he told her after a moment, still chuckling to himself quietly. 'If I promise not to put a curse mark on you, will you accept a different gift from me?' he asked, lifting his right hand up to shoulder height in question. 'A welcoming present, if you will.' Mika thought for a moment trying to see what he was trying to do, but she could find no way that it could be a curse mark if he had blatantly said that it wasn't.
'If it's not a curse mark then what is it?' she asked steadily, still unsure of what he was up to. Orochimaru waggled his right index finger at her and made a small "tutting" noise.
'It's a surprise.' he whispered as he took a few steps forwards, bringing them to within inches of each other again. 'I promised it's not a curse mark.' he repeated with a mock hurt expression. Mika gave in, nodding her agreement defiantly as though she was a moody teenager who wanted something but had to apologize for something to get what they wanted. 'Come! We shall get your present!' he exclaimed loudly, putting his arm around Mika's shoulders and leading her away through a large wooden side door.
He lead her through a wide, very bright corridor before turning off to the left into a smaller side door which led into a very tight and dark corridor, the walls looked like they had been carved from the side of a mountain and the lights hung too far up to really light it up very well. Before long it opened out into a huge hall with an immensely high ceiling, the floor itself was covered in what looked like earth with had been flattened by centuries of feet stamping it down, the walls were draped with various tapestries of previous great shinobi and they're great works. The room itself was big enough to have housed the entire Tikaake hamlet three times over, but in Mika's opinion was nowhere near as attractive. There was a large wooden table propped up against the opposite wall covering part of a tapestry which showed the first Hokage doing his famous wood jutsu so that it looked like he had summoned the table instead of an entire forest, on the wall directly to Mika's right stood a pair of huge wooden doors with strange carvings in them and to her left the wall had what looked like various weapons on them.
'Is she ready then?' came a vaguely familiar voice from across the room. The girl looked in that direction and saw a silver haired young man leaning on the wall beside the table, his arms folded and his glasses obscuring his face a little. Mika recognised him from when she had passed her chuunin exam; he had dropped out at the last minute for reasons best known to himself and her team had thought it really selfish to his team mates.
'Indeed Kabuto.' answered Orochimaru quietly, his voice sounding strangely strained. The girl looked up at him distrustfully and saw an excited expression on his pale features, his eyes were wide and his smile was even more pronounced as he looked down at her expectantly. 'May I give you my gift now?'
'Why now?' asked Mika immediately, glancing from the young man named Kabuto back to Orochimaru with narrowed eyes. 'Why not in the first room?' Orochimaru didn't look like he was about to answer so, against her better judgement, nodded her head slowly, here eyes still narrowed suspiciously.
The pale man smiled even more widely and slowly knelt down in front of Mika, his eyes still glued to hers as she watched him in apprehensive suspicion mixed with excitement. She watched as Orochimaru put his hands gently on her hips, wondering what on earth he was going to do next and hoping it was something she wouldn't regret doing… especially in front of someone. But Kabuto didn't seem to worried about it, in fact he was inspecting his fingernails. Without her meaning to, the left side of Mika's upper lip slowly rose so that she was sneering down at the man who was so close to an area which she didn't want approached.