Sairai 再来

Chapter 20 - The snake's schemes

Air burned my throat as I ran as fast as I could. The right side of my abdomen was throbbing in pain from a merciless punch that I have received from Orochimaru. I have been running for half an hour at this point, my mind not being able to pay attention to my surroundings, the sannin's words still echoing in my ears.

Nothing even mattered anymore, this stupid exam, my hopes, my plans, nothing. I wanted to wither away in a corner and die, be forgotten like I was in my previous life. For the first time in 13 years, I regretted everything. I should've stayed dead. The rational part of me was telling me that I was only having a panic attack and that I should calm down and think. Think, ironically that's the only thing I have been doing this past few years, and where did that get me? On a pile of bodies that kept rising. I buried more people than I have saved. I was selfish, I only thought about my own self-preservation.

Tears threatened to fall from my eyes as I came to a halt next to a river. As if my tears would suddenly make everything better. I started to calm down, meticulously cleaning my wounds with water. The coldness of it helped a bit too as laid down closing my eyes, remembering my conversation with Orochimaru. At the end of the day, thinking was the only thing I could do.

Sasuke has left with the unconscious Naruto, despite his protests. I was left alone, with the murderous sannin. The silence between us made the situation even tenser. He just kept smiling as I thought of ways I could get rid of him. I knew for a fact that I had zero chances of going one on one with him, I could already see the coffin I would be buried in if he decided to not hold back. My mind swirled with strategies and ideas.

"I can almost hear what you are thinking about," he snickered breaking the silence and making me back away from him. "But that's not going to happen." I was royally fucked and I prayed to whatever gods were listening that the Anbu were coming, that if they weren't already dead somewhere in the forest.

"What do you want?" I asked taking another step away from him. That didn't seem to help at all as he suddenly appeared in front of me. Orochimaru snatched my right arm, holding it in a deadly grip. I dropped my weapon cursing in my mind. Out of reflex, my left hand went to punch him again as my feet took a combat position. Of course, he dodged that. My resistance against him seemed to annoy him as his smile completely disappeared from his face.

"How disappointing," he said, his fist coming in contact with my side knocking the air out of me. He threw me into a tree trunk as I tried to regulate my breathing. "I expected more from you, considering how much effort I put into you," he continued and I raised my eyebrows.

"What are you talking about?" I asked clearly intrigued and confused by his words.

"Why don't you show me your eyes?"

Again, with this request. There was no way he knew about my eyes. My identity as a Hyuga-Uchiha was known, but to everyone's knowledge, I didn't have any Dojutsu. The only ones alive who knew about them were Shisui, Kakashi-sensei, Tobi/Madara, and Itachi. I know Itachi wouldn't go around screaming about my eyes, but I didn't really trust the orange masked dude.

"My eyes?" I asked trying to play it cool. "You're looking into my eyes right now." Wrong move.

"Don't play dumb with me child," he said suddenly even more annoyed. "You're already as disappointing as it is, seeing that even after all these years you still weren't able to break off the seal."

"Seal?" I asked. What seal? He laughed at my question making me even more confused.

"The seal Danzo asked me to place on your chakra points to restrict your ninjutsu after the Uchiha massacre," he simply stated and I froze. So there wasn't anything wrong with me? All those pills, heart pains, and blood-spitting were all because of a shitty seal that I wasn't even able to feel? "I made it less complicated too, 'cause I didn't want to ruin my precious experiment that much."