.Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters and I don't want any profit from this.

A/N : This will be a series of one-shots featuring different characters of Naruto.

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Summary: Orochimaru was not evil, just misunderstood, as geniuses often were.

2

Genius

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Orochimaru was a genius. He was bloody brilliant and he knew it. Sarutobi-sensei knew it. Even Tsunade-hime and that great big goof Jiraiya knew it. But brilliance had its own price.

The fact that he was falsely accused of and chased off from his own village for atrocities he did not commit was proof enough. People liked smart people, yes. But more importantly, they liked smart people who followed their ideologies. Anyone who was different, anyone with ideas that did not fit the social norm—they were labeled as outcasts. And those outcasts who acted on these un-agreeable ideas were hunted down and usually put behind bars, or done away for good. It was the very reason that chased Orochimaru out of his home at a mere young age of thirty-five. It was the same reason he was declared a missing nin and a threat; a serial killer.

They would tell you he was a murderer, an evil, evil man who tortured and then murdered and mutilated children for laughs. But it could not be further from the truth. Orochimaru was a scientist, and like all scientists, he was simply curious.

Orochimaru had always been curious, and he satiated his curiosity with science. He busied himself with finding new and innovative ways to use the human body; new cures for old diseases, new diseases to be used as germ warfare, new innovations and adaptations that would make the human body faster, stronger, more invincible.

Naturally, for his ideas to become a reality, he needed to test them out; needed to experiment. He needed hosts and germs and bodies and all sorts of things one needs to go about being sciency and inventive and yes, he did need a supply of human and animal bodies. Now, the animal bodies were simple and nobody questioned that. He was even encouraged at one point.

The human bodies, however, were tricky. For a town that routinely sent children to war and on suicide missions, it was hypocrisy in its truest form when there was public outrage after finding his lab of human studies, out of which only some had been dead. And he had only been experimenting with abandoned children anyway, to begin with. Most would not have reached adulthood in the deplorable conditions they lived in at the orphanage, which was the main reason he had made these children his samples instead of kidnapping well-fed children with proper homes – who would have made much better specimen, to be honest. And if these children had survived, they would be so much better for it for he had only worked to enhance their power and chakra—for the good of both these children and the village itself.

But did Konoha see that? No.

All everyone saw was a man doing unspeakable things. He had had to abandon most of his research, including the only sign of his success—Anko, the only child to survive the enzymes and hormones he had injected into her in hopes of creating something more powerful within her.

Exiled and alone, Orochimaru refused to give up. He took refuge in the Akatsuki for a time, completing missions for them in exchange for money and other necessities he needed to set up a proper base. Konoha labeled him a traitor, for Akatsuki was most vile an organization. But Orochimaru didn't see much difference between his village and his new organization. It was all politics, really, and they were all hired hands. Both Akatsuki and Konoha did the dirty work of the highest bidder, and Orochimaru had done enough assassination missions with both to know that the only difference was that Akatsuki had yet to turn on its own; Konoha already had, as they proved with the massacre of the Uchiha clan some years after he left the village.

Orochimaru was no fool to believe the stories they spread. Uchiha Itachi joined the organization yes, but he did not once believe that a mere child could kill no less than a hundred people in one night and then escape a village full of fully-armed, fully capable ninja. No, this was political, and Konoha had, once again, proved just how much of a hypocrite it was.

He did not mourn the loss of another family of ninja who was as bad as the next, but he did mourn the almost-loss of a bloodline as precious and as full of promise as the Sharingan. He still had Itachi though, and that little brother who was still alive. He could yet think of something.

He left Akatsuki a couple of years after and set up his own base of operations in the middle of village he named the hidden village of sound; his very own little ninja village where he could practice his precious science as much and as widely as he wished.

In the sound, he could finally flourish.

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