Outlander: Found on the Path of Life. Part 1

Chapter 6. I Won't Eat You

He is staring at her with his strange eyes, contrasting vividly against the background of a pale, almost white, face framed with dark hair. His gaze seems to be looking right through her, and his voice is insinuating, fascinating, yet she feels the hair on the back of her head rise of truly primal horror. She knows that everyone who was in the temple is dead. He offers her to come with him.

"You killed them!" tears are blurring her vision.

"You don't need to thank me — I did you a favour. They deprived you of a proper life. Come on, be a good girl... You know you can't resist me..."

He wants her to approach him by herself. He does not believe that it can be otherwise.

But she screams "Go to hell!" and snatches a steel blade from her high-up hairstyle. He raises his hand in a casual gesture, but instead of attacking him she plunges the blade into her own chest and falls to the ground without making another sound.

Her consciousness is rapidly fading, but until the very end she sees the snake eyes staring at her mockingly... and somewhat disappointed."

☙ ❦ ❧

Having heard Arina's story Kakashi shuddered in his mind.

"He didn't say his name, did he?" he asked nonetheless, although he already knew the answer.

Arina furrowed her eyebrows.

"Yes... Oro... Orochima..."

Kakashi stat up, shut his eye and rubbed his nose bridge wearily... How long was the fact that his man — no, this monster — hadn't been eliminated at the time when it was still possible, going to backfire? And he was also partially to blame for that, having failed to withstand the confrontation when he met him face to face...

"I see... Orochimaru... Orochimaru again."

"Yes, that's right, Orochimaru. Do you know him?"

"Better than I'd wished to," somewhat miserably responded he. "He is much older than me — don't be mistaken by his appearance — and also from Konoha. He was, at least. I am truly sorry for you. To attract Orochimaru's attention is a curse in itself. Then again, it looks like now he thinks you died, which is good..."

The only thing is that this should not have been a problem for him. So why did he just leave you there? — Kakashi thought to himself.

The girl was staring dejectedly before her, her chin tucked in her forearms.

Wanting to distract her a little, Kakashi asked:

"Say, what did you look like before... in your world?"

"Well, from what I managed to see, seems like absolutely the same — except for the strange colour of the hair and the eyes," she responded idly.

Kakashi reflexively buried his hand in his hair — their hair colour, in fact, was quite similar, only hers was closer to white with a slight shade of lavender.

"Oh, sorry," she glanced apologetically at him noticing his gesture. "But really, in my world it's not the most common hair colour for people of our age, unless one would colour it deliberately. Or live up to a certain age, of course.

"It's fine," Kakashi assured her. "But I'm definitely not an old man — I'm twenty six and I inherited this hair colour from my father. As far as I know, it's a distinctive feature of our family, at least in the male line."

While Arina was mulling over this new information, he added cautiously:

"I suppose that a lot in our world would be... strange for you."