one_long_mission | [Open] It was a rare day off...

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[Open] It was a rare day off...

...and Hanabi didn't see them often. She considered herself, at this point, little more than a drone of the Hyuuga estate, fated to take on the much respected, prestigious role of heiress, and subsequently fated to losing much of her childhood to training, studies, and other assorted etiquette lessons and fine arts like calligraphy, weaving, ikebana and tea ceremony. All to ensure she grew to be a splendid young lady.

She certainly didn't feel splendid. She felt exhausted.

But it was a lovely day in the midst of winter, and for once, Hanabi was in the midst of Konoha, breathing in cold hair and watching mist form in front of her mouth. Hoheto, her Branch companion of the day, stood some distance behind her and followed her slowly, as if to appear as though he weren't directly watching her.

She felt self-conscious, being fourteen and still needing a keeper to tag along everywhere, but Hanabi learned quickly that this was life, and a privilege to have so many people dedicated to keeping her in the best of physical health.

Still, thinking dark thoughts wasn't going to improve the day, so Hanabi wanted to make the best of it. She walked slowly up to a shop selling yams and bought one, savoring the taste (though it wasn't as good as the ones spiced by Hyuuga hands).

It was cold, but it was a beautiful day. A day of freedom.

If you ignored the bodyguard tailing you.

Hanabi had tried an inordinate amount of times to ditch them, and failed every time; they were jounin, and she was decidedly not. Still, with every new year of training, she dreamed of escape.

Escape, the thought spread a fuzz over her brain that felt like drinking warm hot chocolate.

With the sight of the Byakugan, she eyed Hoheto's location.

She could make it.
She could.
She would.

With a small signal, a bunshin and a kawarimi no jutsu later, she was running giddily toward the forest. At the longest limits of her vision, she could see Hoheto was not following, and shortly, he'd be out of range.

"Well, it seems like you're having fun," an eerily familiar voice said...just before something hit Hanabi couldn't see hit her squarely in the gut and made the world black.

* * * * * * *

The first thing she noticed was that she was cold. Then, slowly, as sensation returned to her body, she realized her mouth was dry, like she hadn't had a drink in days, and her head and stomach hurt terribly. Shifting alone gave her gut-wrenching cramps. When she opened her eyes, she was surrounded by white.

Snow.

Snow? In Konoha?

No. Not Konoha. Definitely not.

Instantly, Hanabi assumed the worst. She must've been abducted. Kidnapped to blackmail her father. The snow was probably genjutsu...it would be silly to leave precious cargo lying about to freeze to death.

She shakily lifted her hand to make the seal of the ram. "...kai..." Hanabi whispered, hoping the genjutsu could be released simply.

Too hopeful, she chided, staring up at the snow that didn't fade, and the chill that was starting to make her clothing wet.

Hanabi was sure that she was in over her head. For a day of freedom, this was the punishment.

No. Move. Get up. Find out what's going on.

Get up, Hanabi ordered her body. Get. Up.

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Hanabi's eyes trailed off. "You were chased out because you murdered several of your fellow shinobi."

"Is that what you were told Hanabi, or what you found out from your own sources as true?"

Hanabi met his eyes levelly, her face undisturbed. "I lived through your attack on Konoha. I was in the stadium when you, disguised as the Fourth Kazekage, attacked our Third Hokage, who you later killed, even though he was your teacher. I wasn't around when you left Konoha, but it was by your hand that people died, and I know that to be true."

He studied her contemplatively. "That's the first I've heard of someone actually witnessing me killing Sensei. I still say he wouldn't have died if he didn't wish to though, even given that." He hitched up a shoulder in a shrug. "At the moment, prisoners of war have to go somewhere, and often when T&I is finished with me, they come to me. I know that things are different in war than not, and Tsunade gets hoisted as a pinnacle of goodliness when we truly didn't deviate so far in what we've done. So I ask you this, Hanabi-chan. What do you think my -reason- was?"

"I didn't say I saw you kill him," Hanabi retorted sharply. She'd been curled up in an underground bunker with other children too young to be genin when that had happened, after the stadium had been emptied out. Why was she arguing with this genjutsu anyway?

"I understand that war involves many things, but there was no war. It was only you. And I don't think Tsunade-sama has ever been caught experimenting on fellow shinobi."

And it made Hanabi angry that even a genjutsu would insult Tsunade.

"How do you think Tsunade even came up with half her more inventive poison antidote techniques? It wasn't by practicing them on -Konoha- shinobi." He shook his head and sighed. "But, you're clearly unblooded and know nothing about war. I wasn't asking about the motivations of attacking Konoha, those are easy enough to figure out. I was refering to the ones that made me leave and do anything that would -make- me."

"No. I don't know anything about war. But sacrifices must always be made. It's the circumstances in which you make them that matter." She didn't have experience with anything at all, really, thanks to her father. "As far as I heard, you were caught in the middle of experiments by the Third Hokage and you ran. Why you would experiment on comrades...who knows. Maybe they ran out of prisoners from the war and it wasn't enough. Some people just have darkness inside of them."

The statement pinged dearly in Hanabi. Some people just had darkness inside of them. And she was one of the group.

He considered her words. "It's possible. It's possible I thought I was doing something right, or that I was onto some discovery that mattered. It's possible no one shared my view or that I was entirely wrong. It seems in the future I had many less than perfect choices."

He hummed and gave a careless shrugs. "It doesn't truly matter in any case. It has not happened and I can but learn from mistakes I have not made."

Hanabi eyed him carefully. "What sort of discovery could be worth losing your home? In your opinion."

He considered this for a moment, truly thinking about it. "A way to fix that which no one can fix. Making death a transient state. Nothing less would be worth the loss of all Konoha could do for me."

Hanabi felt her mouth go dry. Orochimaru...the one from her time...he'd succeeded in that. In some manner, anyway. "Power, then."

"No." He refuted it immediately, shaking his head. "Power for the sake of power is useless and wasteful."

"Not necessarily power for the sake of power. But what is power if not having the ability to avoid death? Or to have eternal youth?"

"Those are simply means to an end. I don't want to know how to make death fleeting because I don't want to die. True, death frightens me, but I want it for the -time-. To be able to learn, to -understand-."

Hanabi's look only got more firm. "What do you want to know?" she asked carefully.

He paused at that, smiling at her as though she'd asked something silly, but pleasing. "Everything. I wish to know and understand everything. People, jutsu, history, all of it."

Hanabi found herself resting her chin in her hand, staring up at this youthful version of Orochimaru with wonder. "Why? What would you do with that information?

"I would be." He looked over at her, meeting her eyes. "Don't you ever want to -be- Hanabi-chan?"

Hanabi frowned, her eyes lidding thoughtfully. "It's not an option, so I never thought about it."

"But you do, don't you? You want to be able to just breathe and know that you have what you wanted, what you needed, without feeling the weight of the world crushing down on you? When I study, when I -learn- it's a moment away from that feeling, but it never goes -away-. I want to know what it's like."

Hanabi lifted a hand over her mouth and sucked in a deep breath. "L-like I said. It's never been an option. I certainly wouldn't kill everyone I knew for it."

Maybe just Neji.

He gave her a soft, amused smile. "Did I kill either of my teammates? Did I crawl deep into Konoha and spring the attack among the civilians?" He leaned in, holding her gaze. "Or did I only go after Sensei, someone strong enough to fight me off if he wanted, and place my attack in an area that could be -defended-?"

Truthfully, Orochimaru hadn't killed either of his teammates, but they were Sannin...killing them would've been difficult, so it meant little. But did he attack civilians? Not directly...

"You coupled with Suna and between you they sprung attacks on the citizens. Civilians did die, even if you didn't attack them directly. And...by that time, the Third Hokage was a very old man. It was all he could do to keep you at bay."

"He is known as the God of Shinobi. He would not die unless he was ready to die." He shook his head slightly. "It sounds to me that I saw a weakness in Konoha and sought to remedy the situation. After all, if I did not plan the attack to start on the inside, then it was not truly meant to get anywhere. I have lived war."

Hanabi's look turned to a glare. "If you really are Orochimaru from before the attack on Konoha, how is it that you're so casual about hearing the terrible things you will go on to do? Don't you fear it will become true? Or...do you not because it's something you've already thought of?"

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