Hypnophobia

: fear of being hypnotised

He is tearing someone's face off.

He hasn't decided specifically why, but he feels that he is somehow justified in his decision to do so in the first place and he'll work out the details in another couple seconds or so, once the last of the flesh comes loose. Ripping wetly from the whole with these raw sucking noises that sound a lot like yanking a giant sticker off a table. Neji giggles because he's always been prone to giggling when he does something like this, a little habit he declines to tell Tenten because if she ever, ever finds out – fuckingbitchknowingwhatIdon'tGod – he'll rip her face off too. He giggles, hysterically this time and squishes the slippery pink rag-thing between his fingers, balling it up and tossing it in the trash nearby.

He tries to think what ANBU will do when they come, taking in the lidless opaque orbs that are currently staring at him from the gory wreckage of her skull, the bloody pencil-wide circles punched all across her body like pokadots. They won't look in the trash.' That'll be,' he thinks, 'the last place they look.' They'll think he took the face, like a trophy or a keepsake or some other equally retarded psychobabble motivation that has nothing to do with his reason for ripping this particular face off this particular skull. He's kneeling, carpet digging funny grooves into his knees because he's straddling her chest, sitting on her little breasts and staring, staring, staring at the meaty hunk that was supposed to be…

"Neji?"

He twitches.

"Neji?" Lidless eyes swivel wetly in their sockets, fixate on him. "Neji?"

"No," he says.

"Neji?" Her hand moved to his thigh, she's pushing herself up, pushing him off to give herself room to sit up. "Neji?

"No," he sobs.

"Neji?" Fingers patting blindly in his hair, tracing sticky reddish lines across his cheek, over his mouth, putting blood on his tongue. "Neji?"

"Nonono…"

"Neji-nii-san?"

- - -

"Do you understand this feeling? The decision from which there is no undoing?"

"Is your hatred sufficient?"

- - -

Neji woke up dry-eyed and not screaming at all. Dimly he realized he should have been. One of his hands, he noticed in that blank way so suddenly necessary for him, was bleeding sluggishly from broken nail-beds where he'd clawed the wall in his sleep and tried to dig himself out of his nightmares. He was whimpering. Amid it all, little bolts of pain kept zipping exquisitely behind his optic nerve, triggering a reflexive arc in his spine each one more searing, more hideously maddening than the last and all at once he realized his Byakugan was active. With a cold shudder heard his father saying to his three-year-old self, "Byakugan doesn't activate on its own."

Neji dispersed it quickly.

Dripping sweat, soaked through with it, like it had rained sea water while he slept, the rookie jounin sat up in the dark and tried to claw his bangs messily out of his face. It was only a dream and his eyes ached exactly – so much for the healing power of the eyes – like they had before, the doujutsu straining to activate in accordance with the chemicals the dream triggered in his brain. In the back of his mind he could hear the drawling explanation, burned unwillingly into his memory, recited like a mantra, said like a schoolroom lecture:

"The training for regular doujutsu requires a ninja to stimulate certain chemical balances in the occipital lobe with chakra to enhance the average human functions of the visual cortex. Emotions release different neurotransmitters to supplement what you're feeling, providing you with the sensations and reactions of those emotions. Different doujutsu require different chemicals, different emotions to activate the ability, some as simple as adrenaline and dopamine. But once triggered, chakra manipulation will allow the user to generate those chemicals levels at will and eventually the technique will no longer require those actual emotions to utilize it.

"The regrettable side affect is, from time to time, the technique may become unintentionally active if enough chemical stimulates are provided. In these cases, it might become possible to trigger a technique from merely being in the right mood for it."

Apparently he was in the mood for it.

That scared him.

That scared him so much it hurt.

The implications made him sick, made him so deeply afraid that he didn't even know how to react to it in any fashion outside of shaking and just sitting, not breathing and hoping if he held still long enough time would stand still—then trap him in inertia.

He wrapped trembling arms around himself and bit back the rising sob in his throat, the one trying to crawl up the back of his throat, out of his nightmare and into reality. He choked it down. Panicking would not help him. His goal remained the same as it ever had: to escape. And to achieve that goal he needed to outwit his captors and to do that he needed to be sane and to be sane he needed to not use that jutsu and to not let himself get worked up just because synapses in his brain were firing in a familiar memory pattern.

'Stop it! Stop! You do not go to pieces on the field! You do not! Don't think about. Don't think about it. Don't!'

He was breathing hard now, head aching furiously, the buzzing fever pitch rising up behind his eyes.

All carbonized and pressurized inside his ribs, deep inside, stealing his breathing space and poisoning his thoughts, coloring them with macabre red. He needed …shit. He needed to get rid of it somehow, to cauterize this sick, festering thing in him. It made him feel so cold. So hypnotically easy, malleable, like you could ask anything of him and it wasn't too much – The option. The ultimately selfish choice: a thing so absolute that even a born killer, an assassin, a shinobi, recoiled from the word. A filthy, forbidden word – murder – The hideous decision to which there was no undoing, no respite, no reversing. And he knew. That was the worst damn part, was the knowing. Knowing he couldn't take it back.

Hinata…a fucking room full of them. A room of dead rotting girls with their eyes ripped out of their heads, liquefied in their skulls, blood crystallized in their veins, mouths gaping and contorted and Neji imagined bloodcurdling shrieks appropriate to the situation because their blood was curdling in their skin. Raiding their crypt for data and DNA, raping a tomb for microtubes and a cooler full of vials, leading three children (one of them related to the dead children inside) like nothing was going on, sitting down while Kabuto interrogated him over the details. Not. Going. Fucking. Nuts. These were the signs of his quiet monstrosity. He should have gone insane but he hadn't because he couldn't and, dementedly, part of him wished he had. Then he'd be human. Human beings went insane when they saw this kind of thing; he just sucked it in and held it like a last breath.

"I would have killed them all much sooner."

There was a hissing noise and door to his room slid open.

"Good morning, Neji-kun." Kabuto's voice was a low and lulling hum, delicate as if he knew the young Hyuuga had just come out of a nightmare. "I believe you're in need of a second de-briefing. Get dressed. Orochimaru-sama would like to have a word."

Then the door closed.

"I am so extraordinarily fucked."

Yes, Neji. Yes, you are.

- - -

Paraphrasing previous statement: 'I am so extraordinarily, undeniably fucked…'

It was a dark room, naturally. The Sound seemed to primarily underground and poorly lit as a personal characteristic. The man by the shelves flipped a page idly and the movement seemed to make the whole room shiver. Then with a sigh his host closed the book and placed it on a desk beside an array of different parchments and scrolls. They all seemed to be letters, but written in Sound syntax code and Neji didn't bother trying to read them from afar. The title of the book, however, was 'A History of Five Countries'. There was an origami crane pressed between the pages as a bookmark.

"Hyuuga Neji? You were the one who killed Kidomaru two years ago, coming after Sasuke-kun, correct?"

The Hyuuga nodded. He still didn't sit down. "I did."

"Hmm…and after all that information Kabuto gave him. Out of all the Rookies, you should have been the one they killed without hesitation. Kidomaru was fool."

The young jounin bristled mentally. The slight on Kidomaru stirred unexpected ire. It was probably his logic (he'd reasoned most of it during his subsequent residency as the hospital):

If Kidomaru was an idiot than Neji, by comparison, was dithering moron. The man had deciphered the weakness of the Byakugan in a ten-minute battle, exploited it and turned the tables of their conflict. Ten minutes to figure out what had taken a select few – maybe eight total – geniuses scattered throughout Konoha to figure out in uncounted decades. If Kidomaru had been guilty of anything, it had been blatant sadism and a dash of overconfidence. It just so happened that had been enough to get him killed by a genin.

"He was stronger than me," Neji said warily, not certain how he was expected to answer.

"Maybe." Those strange, animalist eyes peered dauntlessly at him. His expression could have easily been the one he used to inspect a book; neither kind nor malevolent: just…interested. "But you're still alive aren't you?"

"I got lucky."

The man just laughed. "A modest liar," he said lightly, almost elegantly. "Tsunade's tact must be rubbing off on her shinobi."

Neji didn't answer one way or the other. "Why did you pick me over, Hinata-sama?" he asked monotonously, not daring to try his deceptive skills against the Sennin. "You know the nature of the Cage Seal. You were watching at the Chuunin Exams…"

"Naturally," he replied, unfazed. "I was watching very closely. In perfect honesty, I didn't care much for the fight. I've seen better examples of the Hyuuga style. You obviously taught yourself. However, you did do something to catch my interest, Hyuuga-san." He leaned forward, his expression chill and calculated. "I have no need for the weak, no matter what secrets I might glean from them, you see. That's why I chose you. You defied your very name. In front of everyone in blatant insubordination spat on the ideals of your own clan. You nearly killed their heir, I hear. You stole their secrets for yourself. You've spied, assassinated, and you did it because you were told to…but you questioned it all the time. I have use for that, that untapped potential. I have use for you."

"So you kidnapped me?" Neji demanded tightly. "With the full knowledge of everyone? Even the Hokage? My clan?"

The man blinked mildly, leaning back. "I don't recall that I ever hid my intentions with Sasuke."

Neji blinked back.

How did you argue with that?

"Kabuto sent you on your first mission for us," the man commented. "How did you like it?"

Neji fought back the instant-replay urge to vomit. "Not that much, really."

"Ah, then Kabuto made the correct estimations about you. Remarkable insight that boy has, no?" The smile curled like smoke across the snake's face, outlining the wicked glitter in his gaze. "You didn't like it…but you did it anyway. Good little anti-soldier."

"A curse seal is a persuasive motivator," Neji reminded him coldly.

"Very good, Neji. You bring me to the heart of the issue, but first I'd like to tell you something about yourself, a bit of a…personal profile if you will. Bear with me. You're not as innocent as your teammates. You've done things, things they haven't had the chance to touch yet." The man laughed, low and leery and lethal. "If I know Tsunade, like I know I do…she's used you, your lovely useful eyes. Your angry rebellious willingness to defy clan tradition because…branch Hyuuga aren't admitted to ANBU without the head family's say so, isn't that right? So you obey your Hokage with mindless dedication no matter what she tells you to do. So there you are – standing next to those charming friend of yours and thinking about the gaping pit in your gut, eating you like a cancer while they laugh and talk and train –"

"Fuck you," Neji bit out so hard the words burned up the back of his throat.

He tried to ignore the jolt of blind panic, the reactive 'How the fuck did he know –?'

The invective just made the man laugh a bit more.

Once again he revisited his first thought upon entering the room, the one where he was so thoroughly screwed, to the wall even. He'd been screwed to walls before, but this time he couldn't see himself getting out of it completely intact, if at all. He'd lose good limbs, a couple probably; he'd be particularly fond of at least one. But, surprise, surprise, the migraine was reaching skull-cracking, funny-lights-dancing-about-your-vision levels. Neji blinked twice, hard, clamping back the familiar urgent nausea that came with the sudden excruciating headache. He swallowed back the rising bile and closed his eyes.

The pain ebbed. "I'm not like Uchiha Sasuke," he said finally, coldly. "If I refuse?"

"Do what you like. But I'd like you to answer a couple simple questions before you make any rash decisions, such as that."

Neji made a show of pursing his lips briefly. "Fine."

"Are you loyal to your cousin?" It was asked simply, without presumption.

He answered in kind. "Yes."

"Hmm…And did you really want to save her?"

"Yes."

"Really?" He seemed perplexed. "Why?"

"She's my cousin." Said like it meant something.

A breathy chuckle.

…and suddenly a hand settled at the nape of his neck. "Liar."

For a moment Neji stared stupidly at the empty air he was directing his attentions to, lips parted slightly on his last words. 'Kage Bunshin.' The thought was automatic. 'That's why…I couldn't tell.' He could feel every teacher he ever had groaning in pain. Unconscious heat rose to his skin, heart rate quickening, blood rushing with repressed horror. He could smell the murderer's scent, like old paper and old blood mixed with cut grass. The sensation of the man's hand on his skin was almost too much to bear. But not because it felt strange or corpse-like, but rather because the man's delicate fingers were contrarily warm and human. A man this insane, this horrible, this hideously twisted should somehow convey his evil to the skin…but he didn't.

If Neji hadn't been as sensitive to chakra and biased as hell toward the madman, he might have not even known these girlish white hands had been used to torture and murder and mutilate lives. His own lack of odium to the touch made Neji's sicker than the contact itself. Somehow he felt contaminated, the same feeling he had looking at Hinata on the river as they made the exchange. That same indefinable, reasonless guilt. Hysteria was setting in again. He fought to settle down.

"She told me things," said Orochimaru softly, laughing, amused. "She doesn't remember, but your cousin was very forthcoming under the right pressure. She resisted force surprisingly well, but it did no good against Kabuto's questioning. He's very persuasive when he wants to be."

Every nerve in his body had shut off, channeling all their sensation helpfully to that cool dry contact at his back. The thumb shifted slightly…and suddenly it was completely eclipsed. Gone. He couldn't see it and Neji knew immediately what Hinata had told them. Heat slammed though his head, acrid and illogical and he fought back his instinct to recoil from the feeling of a thumb rubbing casually down the bump of a single particular vertebra. That cloying voice crept into his brain again, in his ear, cooing silently "I would have killed them all much sooner."

Byakugan came violently active. Chakra blazed down his arms so urgently the entire room came aglow with the influx of brilliantly aqua-green; the radiance that ignited his hands into deadly ethereal blurs. Neji twisted, torqued his body around in flexibility only Gentle Fist gave a human and tried to blow the man's heart out. This was the Jukken equivalent of firing a shotgun at pointblank range.

Orochimaru didn't miss a beat. With an effortless slap he deflected both his hands, pivoted to the side, a single neat slide – so hideously fast – and with an open-palmed shove he slammed Neji's unguarded forehead into the floor.

The world burst into a kaleidoscope of pain, a mirror falling to the ground in reverse, shattering and scattering and replaying again in brilliant flashes of cold crimson, blue and green that tasted like copper and red curry. With a backward snap, his head rebounded and swift fingers snatched up a knot of his dark hair, twisted it into a handhold. He was yanked back so hard it put his entire body into an unnatural arc.

All the while his entire world crashed in on itself, sucked down into two pinpoint pins of red-hot pain behind his eyes. He almost passed out. Like someone took a staple gun to his optical nerves, repeated shots of agony blitzed through his skull, rending his senses in a blinding, crazily spinning haze of colors and sensations. He nearly puked again, his body desperate to do something, anything to some how get the pain out. Blood dripped in his eyes, hot and corrosive, stinging them even while reflexive tears rinsed it out. They burned; like chemical acids so volatile Neji actually could not see straight. He felt his nose bleeding furiously through the numbness of the blow.

Neji hissed as his head was wrenched back to painful angle.

"That was very stupid," Orochimaru murmured.

For a moment nothing else was said. In agony Neji waited; shaking uncontrollably, entire body prickling with that unstable almost maddening sensation of unprovoked exhaustion the came after such a violent sensory overload. He coiled his hands against the floor, entire body tensing on instinct, anticipating the next brutality. And then a cool palm covered his forehead. Like a parent looking for fever, dry fingers settled against his skin, the precursor to something horrific. 'Oh shit…Oh no.'

"But stupidity isn't a justified excuse for attacking me, Neji-kun."

A breath, short, hitched, afraid.

"Remember this next time."

Then the genjutsu hit him. And, like any other time, the whole world fractured. The images and sensations hit him with nothing like eloquence or effort like Kurenai might have put into one of her illusions, but brutal and so hideously raw that nothing, no description could suffice. He'd never been burned alive, felt his own skin crackle and split in the heat, fluids boiling in his own body, hissing as he burst into flames, eating him from the outside in. He wasn't sure what it felt like. For all he knew Orochimaru had gotten it all wrong and that's not what it felt like at all. Either way, he didn't have to be artistic to make Neji believe.

Neji jerked out of the genjutsu screaming hysterically, his arms wrapped around his head, his spine curling up off the floor in a long agonized curve and he collapsed, rolling onto his side and twitching intermittently. His hands trembled, his nerves still twitching excess synapses through him, erratic jolts, echoes of the chakra induced nerve stimulation. Every bit of his skin felt cold and blistered, like hoarfrost through his blood and he didn't dare move. Irrationally he reasoned to move might crack the surface of his icy skin and like a diamond struck he'd shatter into a thousand pieces.

Orochimaru was crouched at his back. Training said 'move,' but his body was on strike. Paralyzed with unnamable rigor mortis, he just laid there; panting like a dying dog, eyes wide-open and gazing with terror into nothing. 'Shit! I can't…I can't do that again! If he does that again…' Neji shuddered, stomach churning tortuously, like he'd ingested battery acid. He fought back an instinctive twitch as that pale hand pushed hair off his forehead, settling cold – finally cold, not warm – fingertips against the bloodied bandages. 'No…shit. I can't…again.' Orochimaru slid his hand up into Neji's bangs, clenching tightly and pulling the Hyuuga up by his hair.

Dimly he recalled Guy-sensei explain how, if the enemy could put chakra directly into yours, a genjutsu was nearly impossible to break out of.

"Why do you still cling to that weak notion?" the Sennin asked cruelly, soft and intimate. "Family?"

"Because it's not weak," he coughed, words bursting from his battered lungs in broken pieces. "It's not weak."

Orochimaru smiled. "From what I can tell, it's not worth much to you here."

"I value it above all things," he rasped, eyes fluttering. 'I do. It's true. I'm not lying. Thank God…' "Do what…you like with me. They're safe."

He struggled not to pass out. 'Do not pass out! Stay awake, shinobi!'

– "blame your clan" – The words welled up from behind the walls he'd built, sliding into his head, treacherous and oily. Orochimaru was speaking again, that low, dulcet tone. "The Hyuuga have abandoned you," he said neutrally. Between his words, someone was speaking, softly, coldly. –"blame your cousins" – "Forsaken you for that mewling girl Kabuto returned to Konoha." – "your uncle" – "Even if you love them, boy," – "your family." – "they left you to die here."

"It was they who bred this obedience into you, not I."

Gently Orochimaru tugged his hair until he could lean into the jounin's ear and murmur. "You have no loyalties."

What Neji did next…he could never explain.

Years of experience taught Neji to read situations. Hatake Kakashi once said half the battle happens while the other guy watches you square up to him. He could tell when an enemy-nin was afraid, when a good verbal slam would have an affect, or when words meant nothing. Instinct and insight – favors of the Byakugan – gave him a psychological edge in any battle. Rock Lee had once confessed the worst thing about fighting Neji was anticipating what kind of horrible, debilitating thing he might say to completely crush your spirit. He knew when to say things. He knew when to be silent. He knew. He shouldn't have said anything, should have just kept his damn mouth shut.

And he didn't.

"What would a traitor know of loyalties?" he whispered.

Orochimaru's fingers slammed through his forehead. Like four metal rods they pierced the bandages and caved front of his skull in. The force drove shards of white bone deep into the ruined jelly of his eyes and horribly he was alive, still breathing while those cold fingers dug through his head. He tasted something liquid and salty on the back of tongue and realized with horror it was his own brain fluid dripping into the back of his mouth. All the while those hands were sorting through the clay-like mush, clawing out the chucks of little interest and letting them splatter on the floor. Fingernails scraped the inside of his skull, shredding delicate webs of blood vessels, ripping the membranous inner layers like wet rice paper against the rough cracks in an ivory bowl –

Neji came out of the genjutsu screaming again, one long loud, unbroken (muffled?) sound, cut off violently as he was cut free. At some point during his hypnosis he'd thrashed and writhed his way into a slump on the floor, curled like a child and shaking uncontrollably from head to foot. He had one hand tangled in his hair, clawed, fingernails digging into his scalp like he'd tried to claw the insanity out of his own skull. His other hand he'd shoved illogically in his mouth, wrapped it around the lower half of his face and sank his teeth into the flesh between the thumb and forefinger. Dimly he realized he must have done it to silence himself, one of the torture training techniques they'd taught him.

The salty saline flavor of cerebrospinal liquid still lingered on his tongue like a bad after-taste, smelling things he shouldn't be since his nose was filled with blood. The same blood tasted hot and salty, metallic on his tongue as he slid his hand from his mouth, glistening with red and saliva. His mouth felt strange, the skin around his lips and nose prickling, pins and needles. Pressure was building up, rising up behind his eyes. Flash photos, conditioned reactions, muscle memory, a hundred synaptic commands demanding, demanding, ordering something…some kind of action…

Orochimaru dropped into another crouch next to him. "I don't let subordinates speak out of turn, Neji-kun."

Fury shot through him. "I'm not your subordinate!"

Neji spun, lunging at the man like a stricken cat, hurt, instinctive. He attacked with barely controlled Jukken, completely without restraint, chakra burning all down his arms into his hands. He tackled the Sennin bodily. He didn't know why. His reasoning had ceased to function. But despite his momentum, the crazed speed borne of Hyuuga genetics, training, and excellence, the man caught him just like a child; seizing his arms easily and restraining him. He struggled; like that same child wrists trapped jerking and wrenching uselessly in an adult's indomitable grip. Desperation made him wild, pain made him erratic, both made him stupid and he just stood there, twisting and thrashing pathetically while Orochimaru watched him.

The genjutsu torture had leeched away Neji's energy to the dregs. He wasn't Naruto; he didn't have endless amounts of chakra to draw upon in a crisis, he only had what he had and he didn't have enough. He just…didn't. Those inhuman eyes had him pinned, contemptuous, completely in control, control over him and Neji couldn't find it inside him to defy it. Nothing but his own terror, aching lonely desperation and it just wasn't enough. He needed…he needed – "Love and hatred are the most powerful emotions."

Something sparked inside his chest, raced out from his centre like an electric jolt along his chakra pathways and suddenly the familiar, painful urgency returned. The over flow, the need, the climbing that strove for the peak: the climax and resolution, release. The pressure, the build up of it, the knowing, not knowing, something…like fever breaking and rationality was returning, beautiful, excruciating sanity. He couldn't even say. Descriptions were failing again. There was just the sudden, maddening tension inside every inch of his body and he couldn't unwind, couldn't get out, couldn't…

Twin embers ignited behind his eyes, every trace of chakra in every pathway reversing like water through a vacuum and rushing up, through his and pooling like arsenic, boiling, burning, inside the optic nerve, hardwiring power into his Byakugan. He stopped struggling and lifted his head to look his captor in the face, the double lens system constricting the sinew around his eyes, pressurizing, permeating every particle of thought. The world blitzed briefly, his vision careening wildly – "Lesson three: 'loyalty' is just a word." – and twin firecrackers exploded in his skull. Chakra ripped free from his eyes like a shockwave through water, whirling, rippling –

Orochimaru backhanded him to the floor.

Fire burst behind his head and the world was crazily spinning down and up and suddenly everything was blurring slurry of color and black. Slowly the merry-go-round settled, slowed and the world came back into focus. Breath suddenly failed to come. He was on the floor, clutching his head, shuddering like a man in a seizure, trying to cover eyes that were being torn out of his skull! and in too much agony to actually touch them. 'It…hurts. So much, it still hurts.' He curled up, fighting the dark corners closing in on him.

"Why?" Sweat dripped into his hair, down, splattering darkly on the floor. "I don't…understand. Why…why didn't it…" He cut himself off as the Sennin crouched beside him, kneeling down by his head.

"Well, well." Orochimaru murmured; voice soothing, like one speaks to a child. "That is a dangerous trick. Kabuto mentioned it. Strange. Where did you learn something so perilous, brat?"

Neji couldn't even twitch away when chalky fingers trailed to his cheek, turning his head to look him in the face. The intimate touch set his every survival instinct on its bleeding edge, but the pain dominated everything, even his instincts. A stray finger led a cool palm to his face, dousing some of the lingering heat still eating up the inside of his skull, stabilizing, calming the corrosive forces roiling inside his head until the sensation faded into dull throbbing, then a low background hum behind his retina. Slowly, slowly he managed to ease his eyes open, blinking in the sudden blinding light of the dying candles.

Those horrid serpent green eyes held his gaze in limbo. "Such wild hatred. I'll hazard you didn't learn that from a Hyuuga, did you?"

"Where I learn my techniques," Neji panted, "is none of your concern."

He laughed, delighted – apparently – with his captive's defiance. "I'll make this transition easy on you, Hyuuga, and explain it," said the man evenly. "You did that last mission because you chose to. The Serpent Seal had nothing to do with it, Neji-kun. Like your Cage Seal, it's a mere formality, a physical manifestation of what really keeps you bound and that's simple instinct. You want for a purpose, Hyuuga. First it was to be clan genius, then it was to be an excellent jounin. You turn this way and that seeking approval and you'll offer yourself up to any passing thing that provides you that purpose – the new flavor of the week is that Hinata girl. Protecting her is a transient phase you're experiencing, give it a year and you'll find something better to occupy yourself with."

"Hinata," Neji shouted half-brokenly, "is not a 'hobby' I picked up! You know nothing about me. Nothing about her. Nothing."

"I'm afraid I'm not wrong, Hyuuga. You'll come to see this soon enough," said the former Sennin dismissively, hearing nothing of Neji's promises. "Your talents belonged to Hidden Leaf; they now belong to the Sound. Your new purpose will be for the benefit of the Sound and by the end of all this, you'll realize you've always preferred things this way."

Orochimaru turned away, gliding back to his bookshelves and picking up a calligraphy brush from the table top. From behind, he looked human again, almost mundane as he wrote the characters with deft grace and confidence. "I'll hazard you didn't learn that from a Hyuuga, did you?"

Author's Note:

Well, it's been an abysmally long time and I have no excuses save academic overload and serious lack of sadistic writing moods. Let's face it, this fic is only fun when I'm tormenting the living hell out of Neji. Also, writing Orochimaru is hard as heck and frankly you've gotta really think creepy to get anything close to right. I don't know if I did. But this is my first extended Orochimaru dialogue scene so I hoped you enjoyed it…the few people still reading. You are bomb and deserve cookies.