The first time those sickly yellow eyes had met his own, he had been gut-sure that those eyes had a soul of their own.

It felt like snakes were oozing from the dirt, pressing cold against his thin boy's legs, slithering up and up, dead-alive weight pulling him down, cementing him to the earth, wrapping around him, pinning his arms, sliding cold like promised death, going to strangle him, going to make him non-existent, and he took a half-step back under the pressure of those eyes.

In the next instant, they had swept away, unpinning the boy, and Kabuto had impulsively moved forward, upwards, as if that cold weight had been a physical thing that had actually lifted off of him.

He'd had cold-sweat nightmares for a week after. Then, he decided that he would make it his life's goal to follow that man into hell.