One Week Later, Three Weeks Until the Exams
"Alvarcus, get up." I'm instantly fully awake. That is one voice I never want to wake up to again. Orochimaru himself came to get me this morning. "Today we are doing something different."
I climb out of my bed and look at him expectantly. "Care to elaborate? Different could be anything from learning something new to a training session where you don't maim me or even that one time where you let me play pranks on the Sound Four all day to test my stealth." I walk over to my dresser and pull out my clothes for the day. I don't care if he's technically a doctor or not, there is no way I'm changing in front of Orochimaru.
"I'm going to have you test out a theory of mine. If I'm correct, your taijutsu will become much more deadly. It is one of your lacking talents, you haven't developed your own style yet. This will give you the extra push to move from dangerous to deadly." He has a wicked look about him, whatever this is I'm not going to like it. I am all for learning what he's talking about but I have a feeling I'm going to hate how he teaches me this.
"Okay, I'm game for learning a new trick. Now can you wait outside? I have to change." Orochimaru graciously exits my room. I quickly change and meet him outside, even I don't dare to keep him waiting when he's this excited.
"Follow." He briskly walks down the hallway and I do as told, follow.
We walk in silence the entire time. He's taking me to somewhere I've never been before, but it is a place I know about. I hear horror stories about this place from almost everyone I've met here. This is where Orochimaru tests out new things, this is his lab.
Orochimaru generously holds open the door for me. "Come inside, there is no need to worry. I'm not experimenting on you. This time." That is both relieving and horrifying, I don't want to be his lab rat. Ever.
I cautiously enter his lab. The moment I enter this room, I know this day will haunt me for the rest of my life. It isn't the jars of organs lining the walls, it isn't the grotesque half cut open carcasses, it isn't even the cages holding feral half human half animal hybrids. What haunts me is one thing, and one thing only. There is a person strapped down on an operating table, completely nude. Nothing has been done to him yet. At first I dismiss him as just another scumbag that Orochimaru collected. Then he spoke.
"Alvarcus?"
No. Kami no. I don't want this to happen. I know him. I know him.
"Alvarcus it is you!" There is hope in his voice, he thinks I'm going to save him. "You remember me right? We met when you left on that Land of Tea mission. I'm one of the gennin who took your paperwork! It was you and Sasuke Uchiha! You do remember, right?" His last words are said in a desperate whisper.
"So you two know each other?" Orochimaru gleefully says as he enters the lab. I can see the gennin's hope waver.
"We've met once before, yes." I force myself to respond calmly. I can't afford to display any kind of sympathy.
"I wonder what the chances are. Oh well, what's happened has happened. It won't affect my theory at all."Orochimaru wanders over to one of his desks and picks up a clipboard with paper and a pen. He's going to take notes. This man is sick.
The gennin's hope shatters. You can see his body physically accept defeat. "I didn't want to believe it. You really did go to Orochimaru willingly. I thought you were better than that." He's crying, tears are streaming down his face. He's lost all hope of getting out of this. "I thought you were a good person."
Orochimaru is looking at me expectantly as he idly scribbles down something. He wants me to reply. I mentally prepare myself for what I am about to say.
"You thought I was a good person?" I say in a disgusted tone. "There is no good or evil in this world. There is only strength and power. The strong tell the weak what is good and evil, the strong say what is right and wrong, the strong make the rules, the strong rule over all."
I pause for effect, and to give myself a moment to steel my mind and body for what comes next. The poor gennin is tearing up. To him, I used to be a hero. I was someone he looked up to in awe and wonder. Now I'm standing above him and I'm spitting on everything he thought I was. No longer am I a symbol of what to strive for. No longer am I a good person. No longer am I a hero.
Now I am a monster in both name and title. I'm something to hate. I'm something that needs to be purged from this world. I'm something that is disgusting, a blight on humanity.
"Konoha wouldn't make me strong, I've learned that since coming here. Look at Orochimaru, that is the man who killed the Hokage. That is the man who killed the Kazekage. That is the man who is personally training me, my strength will be unrivaled. Now look at you, strapped to a cold hard table. Where's your strength? Where's Konoha? What did it do for you? Nothing, it only got you trapped here. There is nothing left in Konoha for me. I refuse to be a mild mannered weakling."
I broke him. I broke him with only my words. There is no tension at all in his body, his eyes have a vacant expression like there is no one home. He's given up.
I suppress my utter fury and I turn to Orochimaru. He disgusts me. He is the most vile creature to walk on this world. That bastard is proud of me. I can see it in his eyes, just a glimmer of emotion. He's proud that I crushed this gennin's hope for survival. He's proud that I broke him. He can sink no lower in my eyes.
"As... interesting as that was to watch, I didn't bring you down here for a reunion. We're here to test a theory." Orochimaru walks around the strapped down gennin so that we are on either side of him. "The Jiongu can exit your body and is extremely durable. You can form it into any shape you want. What I want you to do is to mock punch the test subject and when your fist connects I want you to spear the Jiongu into his body and leave a piece behind."
"No." I will not put someone else through that pain, that horror. The pure agony is indescribable, there are only two people who deserve that level of torture. One of them is standing before me and I have the other's heart beating in my back.
Orochimaru falls deathly still. A very impressive killing intent floods the room and all of it is directed at me.
"You will." All of Orochimaru's friendliness has vanished. He is pure killing machine right now, and I just told him no. It is a miracle my head is attached still. I'm not sure anyone has told him no and survived in the last few decades.
"I refuse." I will not back down. I stare straight at him without a hint of fear or self preservation. The gennin on the table has passed out from the pressure of Orochimaru's killing intent. The only reason I'm not in the same situation is because I've felt this pressure before, during in training and the Forest of Death.
In the next moment three things happen. One: Orochimaru vanishes in a burst of unrivaled speed. Two: His hand clamps down on my throat, hard. Three: I'm slammed through a wall into a large adjacent storage room and then pinned by my throat against the far wall.
Orochimaru leans in close to my face and quietly says, "This is not something you can refuse. You will do this, or I will cut you open and take a piece of the Jiongu and put it in him myself. Do not think that you are irreplaceable. Do not think that you are special. Do not think that I won't kill you."
~Can we kill him now?~
"Fuck you!" I roar.
Pure unadulterated white hot rage courses throughout my body. I lash out at Orochimaru, the Jiongu tears out of my neck and wraps around his hand. Even the great Sannin couldn't dodge that, not when he's this close. I crush it without a hint of mercy or hesitation. Orochimaru rips his hand out of the Jiongu leaving behind a fair amount of skin, muscle and blood. He jumps across the room putting a small amount of distance between us.
A sadistic grin makes its way onto both of our faces, all thought and logic is gone for both of us. The promise of bloodshed has clouded both of our minds.
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