The White Snake with Red Eyes

Chapter 11

   An: Some awkward realizations about readers sexuality are reached. Oh, and the Orochimaru in the genjutsu is a manifestation of readers fears. Nothing he says reflects his real thoughts on reader.. Also, a bit of repressed mental trauma is forced to the front.

     You panted, disoriented and dizzy looking up from your place on the ground at the man who pinned you to it. Danzo tsked. "I guess it won't happen today either."

     You were frustrated. "Because you're holding back! You said there had to be a mental aspect to this...triggering of my ocular jutsu. So far all you've done is beat my ass."

     Danzo surveyed you a moment. "Fine. Remember that you asked for this now, when you are already weak and beaten for the day."

     He tipped your chin up with a surprisingly tender hand and looked into your eyes. You were aware it was happening, but as he had said had no energy to fight the genjutsu that was slipping into place. You blinked and it was fully on you.

     It was Orochimaru. He paced around you in circles, looking at you from so high up although your heights can't have been that different. "Tch." He scoffed, observing you through slit yellow  snake eyes. "I thought you were perfect but look at you." His face was impassive, unimpressed. "Can't even figure out your sexuality. So unsure of yourself. Just pick something and settle." Your gut clenched. You tried to speak, to tell him you were working on it. Your grip on the fact this was all an illusion was slipping was slipping until it was gone and you had no clue any longer.

     He kept speaking in a disappointed tone. "You'll never unlock the Mangekyou. Never catch up to me. I'll never come back. Not for you." He looked down in growing disdain as you tried to stutter answers. "Pft. What is this? This...bumbling for an answer? This show of emotion? Another defect. I outgrew the need for such things as approval a long time ago." He looked closer at you. "I don't think you ever will. Shame. You won't be getting it from me."

      He began to walk away. "I'll make a better one this time. Do yourself a favor and give those eyes to someone who can actually use them."

X

     For a long time after that, you wouldn't leave your room. You didn't talk to anyone. Not Kiba or your dad. Not even Kakashi sensei. Sakura tried with no luck. You were far too deep in yourself to actually hear anything someone else might have to say to you on the matter. You had studied the genjutsu Danzo used of course. The Uchiha had made it for war; a demoralizing tactic that drew out someone's worst fears and breathed life into them. It was designed to destroy spirits and any will to fight by attacking what each victim saw as their biggest insecurities.

     You guessed it said something about you then, that the genjutsu had drawn your sexuality into the light. You supposed that bit was true. You weren't sure what to call yourself. Straight...wasn't the answer. That was all you knew. But was Kiba right? Did you really look at boys so little?

     Your mind wandered again. Did...were you really a disappointment? Is this why he had left you in the village when he fled? Probably. Why put so much time into something highly illegal if you were just going to abandon the results?

     Unless..."I was a failed experiment." Something wheezed out of you even as your whirling thoughts calmed. You stood numbly and began to pack, slipping out after dark with the bare survival essentials. No one would follow you this time. Not when you were legally an adult. No. If someone tracked you down this time, it would be your dad and he could do little but plead for you to return.

     You felt like you maybe would've been crying, but you...numb. You had been working, this last week locked up in your room. You had made your own genjutsu. You called it Mutsū Yume or...Painless Dream. You headed into the forest and looked until you found a pond that was sufficiently hidden by undergrowth as to not be seen from the air or treetops. You set up a small camp, not anticipating that you'd ever use it and sat next to the lake taking a deep look in your emerald green eyes. Then you cast it upon yourself.

X

     He had been sleeping when the child made her way out of the village, and somehow lost the ROOT he'd assigned to keep an eye on her at all times. Said shinobi now stood nervously before him. He yelled at them to get out and when they were gone he shoved anything on his desk into the floor. This was entirely his fault for using the genjutsu that he had. He should've started a little softer, to be honest... But this was his child. He had made her and watched her grow up. He knew how she was and she was exactly the type to disapprove wholeheartedly of being coddled or shielded from challenges or truths. He thought she would appreciate not being talked down to.

     Where had she gone and what had she done? ROOT had found evidence she was creating a genjutsu herself, but not what it did or why she did so in the first place, though that part was easy enough to guess at.

     He informed the other council members he was leaving on business via messenger and set out himself to find this child of his.

X

     It had worked. You didn't know this of course, because part of the way your genjutsu worked was by erasing any knowledge it was there. Even if you remembered you only had a little time to break out. And...because it worked, you had no desire to. You were living the best, most painless version of your life, completely unaware of the two figures gathering up your unconscious body and loading it into a covered wagon. You were even more unaware of the passage of time. A couple weeks. All you knew was the perfect dream you had cast for yourself and nothing else.

X

     The blonde shinobi slapped at bug that landed on his neck. "Why don't we just use one of my owls, hmm?" His companion scowled at him from under his wide brimmed hat and the shinobi resisted flipping him the bird. Barely. "Tsch. Why don't you ever just come on these missions yourself instead of sending a creepy ass puppet?"

     He was again graced with no answer, so he checked on the sleeping kunoichi. She was pretty sure...but something about her gave him odd chills. It seemed familiar, the structure of her face. "Hey, she's getting pale again. Might be time to force down a food pill, hmm." No answer. So he stopped to do it himself relieved when she still swallowed on her own.

     "We'll stop here." His gruff companion grunted, stopping outside a nondescript inn. People looked at them and their cloaks a little fearfully, but no one said anything. "If they ask, she's your sister and she's sick." He paid for their rooms and disappeared into his own, leaving his companion to haul her up the stairs and into his.

     "What an idiot. Who just...leaves the safety of their village and puts themselves under genjutsu, hmm?" The mouth on his hand licked in agreement. This girl was probably going to be more trouble than she was worth.