1. new world

Since coming to Sound, he has spent a combined total of 2000 hours training with shuriken and sword, with chakra and Sharingan eye. He eats, sleeps, bathes, and lives—for what that's worth—with the other trainees. He has been here some three months, and thought he would get special treatment straight off. But when he'd been shown his bunk in a room full of undesirable-looking shinobi, all wearing the usual purple bow and eyeing his special belt with more than a bit of hatred, he'd balked.

"I didn't come here to be a cadet in Orochimaru's army," he protests. "I came here to become strong enough to kill my brother."

But he gets no straight answer out of Kabuto. "This is all part of your training, Sasuke-sama," he says, the honorific just a little sarcastic. "Settle in."

And he is gone, and Sasuke has never, ever felt more alone than he does at that moment in the room full of people who hate him for being special.

In drills, he was always shoved and kicked around, put in the back of the lot where he could hardly see the instructor at the front. Sometimes Orochimaru would come and watch, polluted-sunrise eyes watching him with more than a bit of amusement.

In missions, he was always given the grunt work. The others called him "pretty boy" or "city boy," laughing at his pale skin and dark hair, his lithe build. They figured he'd be worse than useless in a mission.

So when he proved them all wrong by using up his Chidori shots to save their sorry asses when they got too cocky and botched the mission, they thanked him for hauling them out of the pile of shit they'd gotten themselves into. And from that day on, they gave him a little more respect. Sasuke wasn't an idiot, either—he nurtured that respect, their trust, their loyalty. The squad (now under his command) became the most successful.

That was why Sasuke killed them all, as per the mission request. It was written on the special scrolls only Orochimaru used, with the purple border. The mission was written in his flowing, unpredictable script, and stamped with his seal.

He knew in this new world, you could not trust, or respect, or be loyal to anyone but yourself and Orochimaru. He was the one who fed this world of whispers and snakeskin.

"You learned something, didn't you, Sasuke-kun?"

They were moving the few belongings he had to the new, large single room close to the inner sanctum. These were the few people that moved with Orochimaru, humoring his paranoia by shifting locations every few days. Sasuke found it disruptive in his training, but he figured that after awhile he'd adapt, just like he'd adapt to the reward for anything here being a snake's kiss.

2. sunset

Being underground had an adverse affect on your personality. So, in a fit of rage, he went up.

Training directly under Orochimaru was frustrating; the sannin demanded perfection, and would not pay attention to a move he saw as flawed until Sasuke had made it perfect. It had been a particularly bad day for that today; the damned Snake hadn't given a second look to a move he'd been working on for the better part of two weeks. And he didn't even think to ask for help, because Orochimaru didn't believe in it, and it'd get Sasuke nowhere fast. And not having the approval of his great teacher upset Sasuke beyond reason. So here he was, squinting in the last rays of the sun with the sky painted the colors of fire, sulking.

"I thought I might find you up here, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke turned, and found his teacher stepping delicately across the grass. Orochimaru's walk was never, ever normal; it was more of a glide, or a slither.

"What do you want?"

"You seem upset. This is not conducive to your training."

"Why would you care?"

"You came to me to learn, and I invited you so I could teach you. Don't you want to help that process?"

"When you don't tell me what I'm doing wrong—"

"Why don't you ask?"

Sasuke stared, exasperated. "You wouldn't listen."

"Wouldn't I?"

"You're infuriating."

"So I've been told. Is the sunset not beautiful? Let us sit a while and enjoy it." There was something so wistful about his usually-stoic teacher's face that made Sasuke pause in getting up and resettle himself. "It's not often I'm able to get out and see the sunset, nor is it often that I want to."

They sat and watched until the stars came out into the sky.

9. harvest

Life in Sound was harder than he thought it would be. It had been over a year, and Sasuke's training was exhaustive—dealing with his eccentric teacher was even more frustrating. Orochimaru sought to strip him of all his former allegiances, and Sasuke had discovered that it was more difficult to rid himself of his bonds than he'd thought.

It was nearing Midwinter, and instead of the show of spirit that all Orochimaru's pawns in the underground city of Otogakure seemed to exude, Sasuke found himself in foul humor. It snowed in Sound, something he found surprising and annoying. Fire Country, with its warm climate and relatively mild winters, wasn't that far away. Maybe the country just reflected the chilliness of its dictator. The snow in the courtyard crunched under his shoes as he walked outside, breathing in the fresh air that was a reprieve from the stuffiness of the tunnels. He'd taken a break from his training, and apparently so had the younger academy students and the children of the household servants. They ran through the snow, trying to get their young leader to play. He shook them off, citing his training had tired him, and almost felt regret when their young faces fell.

"Don't be such a stickler, Sasuke-kun."

He would know that voice anywhere, and yet, he still wasn't used to the sannin sneaking around and appearing as though he'd been there all along. Today Orochimaru actually wore his usual black clothing, covered with a tan robe. The ridiculous bow he made all his active followers wear was settled on his hips. And this morning, Orochimaru looked exceedingly smug, which meant he was in high spirits about some bit of intrigue he'd been instigating lately.

"Orochimaru-sama!" the children cried, running over to their lord and making clumsy bows before him, each competing to get closer. Laughing, the Snake knelt to their level and asked them to rise.

"Sasuke-kun doesn't want to play today?" he asked with a glance to his protégé. The children all shook their heads. "My, that's a pity," he said as he reached into his pockets and pulled out sweets for them. Delighted, the children took off. Sasuke felt a little sick watching them; they were the next generation of his followers, his harvest of souls, and by being loyal to him as such an early age they were signing their own warrant and death certificate.

"Great, get them sugar-high and let them wreak havoc," Sasuke huffed with a sour look.

"It amuses me to watch," Orochimaru said with a diffident shrug, and watched Sasuke watch the children for a moment. A lewd smirk curled across his face.

"Come inside with me, Sasuke-kun," he said. Sasuke knew the tone and followed almost eagerly, already loosening the tie at his waist a bit. Dinner would come too soon after this training.

3. oranges

"To be strong you must train, but to train you must first grow stronger."

Sasuke glared at the assortment of breakfast foods and fruits that was arrayed prettily over the trays on the rumpled coverlet. Beside him, Orochimaru was eating with great fervor. Bad enough to be woken up out of a warm sleep curled next to the only man here he bothered with, but to be woken for food he could get from the kitchens anytime? After having already been awake?

"Eat, Sasuke-kun."

Not willing to disobey his master, the boy took an orange and started peeling it angrily, flinging the peel back down to the tray in distressed, curled bits. Just because he wanted to obey didn't mean he had to do it without a show.

The orange was plucked from his hands. Startled, the Uchiha watched as Orochimaru deftly peeled the rest of the orange and arranged it in his hand. It looked like the petals of a lotus.

6. angel fallen from above

If Itachi had been a dark, brooding demon, then his brother was a fallen angel. All Uchihas looked alike, the sannin mused. All of them fair-skinned, even in the height of summer when all the others browned in the sun, and all of them with dark hair. Their eyes were where the changers were apparent.

Orochimaru had known Uchiha Fugaku when the deceased clan-head was a snotnosed genin running around in shirts with the Uchiha clan symbol ridiculously ostentatious on the back (thank whatever was holy that he'd weaned Sasuke off of that particular fashion statement). Fugaku had had eyes like a sheer cliff face; dangerous until you realized that it was all the same.

Itachi had been much more interesting than his father. When he'd strolled into the Akatsuki headquarters as though he belonged there, Orochimaru had looked into his eyes and seen a void, an endless void not unlike the one created in his world. Itachi's eyes were dull, glassy, uninteresting; but Orochimaru had convinced himself that it was not the expression in the eyes but rather the ability they held that he was drawn to.

Sasuke's eyes, when he was not using the Sharingan, were the color of the depths of the deepest lake in the world, or like the vaulted peaks of heaven where none of them would ever set foot again. So full of hopes and dreams, so naïve even despite what he'd experienced, so innocent.

Sasuke's eyes were the eyes of an angel who had not yet realized it had lost its wings.

5. nail polish

Sasuke couldn't help himself sometimes; when he was bored, he liked to go through his master's things, examine bits and pieces of Orochimaru's life and then replace them carefully. None of the objects he found were dusty or moth-eaten at all, proof that the sannin considered them often enough to care about their appearance—although when he did this, Sasuke didn't know.

One such day, he came across a small screw-top bottle. It was the only thing he'd seen so far that was dusty, and so cautiously and curiously he pulled it out of the back of the drawer and unscrewed it. A horrendous smell overcame him and he went into a coughing fit. Resealing the bottle hurriedly, he shoved the drawer shut and left the study.

When he was looking at his hands that night and thinking, he saw streaks of dark purple paint and remembered his brother.

4. trust in your heart

It was tense enough usually, but the factor increased by at least a multiple of ten after his old friends had crashed the underground lair. Orochimaru had sent Sasuke from his bed, and left him to shiver alone and confused in his own rooms. Whenever he met the sannin, coming or going, there was always a look of pinched determination on his teacher's face. Every appeal was met with a raised hand and a harsh admonishment to go study.

It took Sasuke some weeks to figure out that Orochimaru didn't blame Sasuke for much of anything, although he could have and indeed, had made it seem that way. Once this part was unearthed, it took him another few weeks to work out what the question—the problem, perhaps—actually was. The sannin infuriated Sasuke in that he always gave Sasuke the answers but never the questions, and expected him to therefore be able to divine his meanings through whatever process the boy could.

It dawned on the young Uchiha, sometime later, that Orochimaru was testing his loyalty. The doors were locked, true, but Sasuke knew he could break the rusted metal chains and escape back to Konoha to beg for his life, or that he could escape and go kill Itachi himself and not uphold his promise to be the sannin's container. After this, he trained long and hard, spending all day in the training rooms with his sword and his chakra for company. Did he want to leave? Did he still accept Orochimaru's vision as his own?

Did he have to?

As he usually did, somehow Orochimaru knew that Sasuke had found the true meaning. That night, as Sasuke was trudging down the hall to his room, he felt familiar hands grab his shoulders. And with a smile, he let himself be turned and led down the halls to where he belonged.

10. never was, never will be

When he'd come to Sound, he'd known that some part of him would grow attached to Orochimaru. The man was simply too good at worming his way into people; he had a way of insinuating a bit of his essence into all those who held dealings regularly with him, and it was much more pronounced in people like Kabuto and Sasuke—Sasuke especially. He had lived, ate, drank, breathed, and grew alongside Orochimaru for three years, so it was only natural that he would become used to the slithering bastard's presence.

But now that the days were growing shorter and colder, it told more and more of the impending consummation of their deal. Sasuke sternly disallowed himself from curling close to the failing warmth of his teacher. He schooled himself to not lean so much into the caresses that had become the only praise he needed—that and the glint in Orochimaru's eyes. He prepared for the end, with all the stoicism of an innocent man walking to the gallows to save another's life.

7. falling leaves

It was late in the tenth month, and the leaves had turned crisp golden-brown. They fell, sometimes in rains like water made of parenchyma and chlorophyll, sometimes like droplets scattered from Sasuke's hair after a shower. They fell lightly over Sasuke's feet as he walked with Orochimaru out in the forest. He kicked them out of the way.

Orochimaru's hand felt like a leaf; strong, veined, rough, but fragile. Sasuke's hand in his was strong, virile, like a sapling sturdy enough to withstand storms but flexible enough to be trained to grow a different way.

8. happily ever after

In stories like these, the hero always wins. He gets the girl and rides off on a white horse into the sunset, they marry and have perfect little children and everyone goes away with a happy feeling.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), Sasuke was not the hero of the story.

His story ended one day not long after his silent walk through the forest of falling leaves. He'd woken up with knots in his stomach and a strange feeling of finality.

This is it. Today's the day.

Orochimaru, beside him, watched him wake with a hungry strange look. As soon as he was halfway lucid the sannin caressed him one last time, running his hands from hips to chest and winding into Sasuke's hair so he could feel the silky perfection of it (never laying down, no matter what they did to it), and slowly lowering pale, cold lips to Sasuke's warm ones. It wasn't love, but it was something that satisfied them.

Sasuke found that when the time came, he couldn't look at his teacher. And he felt a little sad, because he'd always imagined himself eye to eye with Orochimaru as the jutsu was performed. He found he was still too short to do so with the sannin, and so he turned his back. Behind him, there was a rustling as Orochimaru resettled his clothing around the body he occupied for the last time.

A short, sharp jerk. And then nothing but color.