Their playful smile does falter at his words, falling away in to something more attentive and curious, a little more serious when sensing the tone of his words. When hearing just how weighted they are when they crawl from his throat, already aware that such words and thoughts must have been choking him for a long time, with the heaviness that they are now spluttered out with. And while anyone else would likely be viewed as a mere lesson in human behaviour, for the serpent struggled to sympathize with anyone, and could only really view the sadness and anxiety of others as mere research assignments in to human emotions, it is very different with Kabuto. They do not want him to be distressed. Nor anxious, pained, worried or sad.  None of the emotions that usually intrigue them in others are quite so fascinating with Kabuto. Merely, they serve to reproduce those same emotions in the serpent. When their precious doctor is sad, they feel a pang of sadness inside them. When he is anxious, they are anxious to solve the problem grieving him. When he is angry, they are angry for him. When he is hurt, they feel every injury, emotional or physical, like a phantom pain. Was that what love was? Perhaps. Perhaps he was teaching them all about what love was.  But for now, they have the more pressing concern of trying to shift his mood from this oppressed worry to something more reassured. A large task for someone who is not well practiced in making people feel better. Their sharp tongue and wit is better at wounding than healing. “So what if I don’t need you anymore?” they say, golden eyes meeting his midnight pair, “so what if I become utterly and completely independent, and need nobody at all. That doesn’t mean I would not want you,” they say, a hand reaching up to correct his glasses for him by habit, “I took a chance on you all those years ago, and I have not regretted my decision. It may be the only time taking a risk has paid off, in fact. For all the many mistakes I have made, all the bridges I burnt, when I see you I am reminded I at least did one thing right.” When he looks up, they take the opportunity to lightly take his jaw in their hands, elegant nails careful not to scratch him as they bring his gaze up to properly meet their eyes again. “So if that is what you fear... then you really have nothing to fear at all. You think highly of me yes? You think me clever, and brilliant and worth being loyal to. So rest assured knowing that only someone more foolish and fickle than Konoha’s elders would abandon you hm? And we both know I am leagues above those monosyllabic bastards,” they say, a playful smile catching on their lips once more.

They flash him a coy smile, ever playful, when he asks them if they know more than they let on. Only for soft laughter to fall from painted red lips, as they meet his eyes in challenge born from flirtatious fascination, “you’ve caught me out detective. I couldn’t take any more of his whining, his arrogance and my charms were the weapon, this bar the crime scene,” they say, for a moment letting their expression show no hint of jest. Before they finish their silken laugh and draw a cigarette out from a box beside them, offering the detective one as they bring their own to their lips to light. How arrogant they are to dance around like this. The real killer announcing their own very real murder, because hiding in plain sight was sometimes the best method, and because no one has ever been good enough to catch them anyway. Their confession will earn an eyeroll from most, seen as a poor taste in joke, but seen as a joke nonetheless. Who would believe someone like them could be capable of murder after all? They blow out the smoke they inhale to the side politely, “sorry to disappoint dear, but that is all I know. I gathered his poor life based on his incessant need to pour his feelings out whenever someone poured him a drink,” they answer, crossing a leg over the other and tilting their head in coquette observation of him, eyes trailing up and down his body, “though I wouldn’t protest if you wanted me to try on those handcuffs of yours for... further questioning,” they tease in flirtation.  The detective’s partner’s cough also steals their attention for a minute, as they eye Urushi disapprovingly for trying to take away their new toy. Intellectual minds so rarely came about. Their silver haired detective was finally a man worth talking to, and his less amusing partner was trying to move him along. No matter, they would not wait for fate to intervene, they would ensure they saw the man again of their own accord. “If I play a role in one of your many tales, I can guarantee I will feature in all the rest to come as well,” they say as they accept the next drink offered to them, placing their cigarette down in the ash tray in favor of the cocktail of poison, “I’m not a one-hit wonder,” they say with a devilish smirk, before nodding at his next question, “I did hear something. He went on and on about meeting a some associate at an upcoming gala held in the building just across from this bar. He sounded pushy, and whoever he spoke to sounded reluctant to give him the invite. Perhaps someone there will know more than I hm?” they say, though that lead was an entire fabrication. Merely, they were attending the gala, and this was their manipulative way of ensuring their new entertaining detective would be there as well. A second date in their eyes, as they refuse to let someone who caught their eye get away because duty calls.

Even for an experienced doctor like Kabuto, who had treated numerous shinobi with numerous responses to pain and fear, treating the Sannin was a risky affair. They were powerful in ways that made them a monster when described in legends and folklore, and a slip up on their part could cost even a mastered shinobi his or her life. They could not afford to lose control, but that is precisely what happened when they were placed in a fit of illness induced suffering. The kind of suffering they could not adapt to, for no human had ever endured it quite in the sense they now were. The soul and body formed an intricate part of human existence - and the Shinigami Hiruzen had summoned had done a thorough job of ripping a part the serpents spirit. Leaving them in tatters in turn, but in a way no shinobi doctor would ever have seen before.  Not a wound of the flesh or body, but a wound of something that existed where the spirit meets the bones.  The sounds of the other residents are currently causing the serpent to relapse in to another fit of agony, where they feel it may be less painful to simply sever their arms right off than have to deal with the pain of whatever is happening inside of them. Death would be kinder. But amid their deranged thoughts spurred by torment, they realize that with each thought comes a little more clarity, a little more rationality - a little more fatigue. How there was no greater relief than the sensation of being tired, of being just comfortable enough to fall asleep. Because their senses can only acknowledge so much in this state, and right now, their world is made up of only Kabuto. Of his scent wrapped around them as he holds them, of his voice as he sings to drown out the less consistent and more oppressive noises of the inn, of his touch as he pulls them gently nearer, of the darkness his body shields them in as he acts as a barrier between them and the crack of the door letting in a sliver of unbearable hallway light. Kabuto must know he succeeded in ways other doctors would not have been able to, when the serpent writhes less, then not at all, when their breathing is not mixed with whimpers and is steadier and more even, when golden eyes are not locked in a colour of gold that revealed pain and a desperate desire to maim, and have fallen closed. When misery is replaced by sleep. It will be early morning when they wake up, the longest sleep they have had in weeks, despite only being a handful of hours. Still, it is refreshing, and has restored much needed strength. They awaken in the darkness, still faintly hearing his song in their head, and they awaken in his arms, an undeniable comfort from both the warmth his body encircles around them, and the security of having a first line of defense when they feel in over their head.  “Did you try to sleep at all?” they ask him quietly, their voice barely a presence in the silent dark room. They can sense he is awake, even if they do not move from their comfortable position tucked in to his arms, even as they only move to get closer. Perhaps they woke him when they woke up themself, perhaps he simply could not sleep, or perhaps, their more likely guess, he had stayed loyally awake on purpose to keep them properly guarded. Wracked by worry that when they woke up, their episode my happen all over again. 

No matter how composed Dan stays, ever masterful in showing only what he wants to be seen, Orochimaru can map out the subtle signs of his panic. Urgency more so. This is not the same urgency as they have seen him display when on duty, nor the same urgency they see surrounding medics and nurses aiding shinobi in life or death situations. For it is not linked to duty, responsibility, or a fear of practice failure. No, there is something more personal to Dan’s desire to keep them alive. Ah, more than that still, to keep them comfortable, to ensure no further pain is caused and that the relief of pain is instant. Almost as if he owes them this level of more detailed and considerate care. It is not entirely foreign to the serpent. Tsunade and Jiraiya have behaved this way with them before, and for a few short years, their mother and father had behaved like this too. Still, those handful of experiences do not amount to enough to make Orochimaru completely familiar with the situation, and so, there is still a degree of curious amusement to find Dan acting this way. Certainly he is more worried than they are. Perhaps because they are arrogant. Or perhaps because they have now lost so much blood, the topic of mortality is beyond their scope of recognition, as they are left in a plain of drunkenness not conjured by sweet sake, but from pushing their body well beyond its limits when they are at a critical level of blood loss. Again, while the scientist and well-versed medic within them tries to regain some sense of control, and urge themself to be wiser with their decisions and movements, the stronger sense of being numb to danger and of letting themself slip from reality just enough to ease discomforts, seems to be winning overall. They do not concentrate on bigger picture affairs, less focused on where he is taking them when he picks them up, and more attentive to the very present occurrence of being in his arms. Absentmindedly picking a part the sensation of his hair brushing against the skin of their hands, or the scent of his home still carried on his clothes, a comfort when it is as familiar a scent as when he wrapped his arms around them to shelter them from cold in a tent. Once in the bedroom, they watch with a dazed sense of curiosity as he unravels their clothing to get to the heart of their injury. First their cloak, then their flak jacket, then their polo neck shirt, finally the fishnet underneath, until only the sarashi remains. Covered in blood on every layer, and they certainly wore quite a few layers, never a fan of the cold.   “Ironic that I may be ambushed by men I planned to ambush in the same fashion hm?” they state, forever making light of the situation in favor of not feeling more pathetic than they must look, shaken and paler than usual in the face of critical injury, wincing when each layer peels itself from their body, “and given my life long search for irony, you can imagine how pleased I am with the situation.” They are soon seated, Dan making good on his word when he said he did not want them standing for longer than they had to. They can barely register time lapses at all, the moment Dan left to get the towels and returned to lay them out a certain blur of events. However they are much more comfortable sitting, although the actual movement of being lowered in to a seated position is less favorable. When presented with the water, and they spot the look of brief contemplation on Dan’s face, they have to laugh, even if their laughter is hitched and full of pauses when they find the effort unpleasant on their injuries. “You’re a dear thing aren’t you?” they tease, their hand missing the water bottle at first, but finding their way down to it by grazing their fingers down his wrist until slender digits can wrap around the plastic instead. There is no mockery to their words however, even if their smile always looks a little less friendly with such sharp fangs flashed. Merely, they could not help finding his thought process, which they gathered from his gaze and pauses, a little endearing to say the least. Knowing they were not fond of foods or drinks other than their specific tolerables, offering them incentive off the get go to ensure they did what was necessary. A worry not just that they are injured, but dwindling in to the even less pressing concerns of their dietary preferences. It shows a deeper understanding, a deeper care, a deeper sense of knowing every subtle detail about them – how can they, even with someone as steeled as them – not find the notion a little touching? They take a sip of the water as he fusses with their arm, securing it enough so that he can place more time on the more pressing injury. They focus somewhat on nursing the drink he has brought them. It may seem as if they are doing it for the sake of practicality, since they are ever the practical minded sort. But truth be told, Orochimaru was on their best day, a horrid patient. They became ratty when they felt cornered by their own vulnerability. They become hostile, dangerous even, and more than anything, their stubbornness put even someone like Tsunade to shame. They can only regulate their behaviours when in company that did not provoke their defensive side, when they felt safe to be vulnerable. Dan ticked all those boxes, and so the drink is accepted, where they might fight off a medic that dared push something unpalatable on to them when they were already so under the weather.   “I could use the distraction,” they say, as swallowing becomes yet another movement their abdomen now protests, but his promise has already captured their interest more than their predicament, though they do sometimes feel themself dizzying, quickly balancing themself when they feel unsteady by placing a hand on to Dan’s shoulder to regather their stability, “all right,” they say, already capitalizing on his offer, and although in their sane mind they may have banked their one free answer without restraint until they had the perfect question, never taking the honest words of a shinobi as aloof and closed as Dan lightly, they are just out of it enough to leap at their first curiosity, “first question, what really kept you awake tonight? For while I am having a marvelous time ruining your evening, those pretty eyes of yours foretold of worry long before my arrival.”

Orochimaru’s eyes are still on the door, glancing down to the shattered glass now laying at their feet, already considering making a dive for a shard of larger glass when they predict the demonic creatures may force their way inside with little regard for how the shards of glass may shred their bodies. But the horrific creatures turn away and leave, as if called off like hounds chasing a rabbit. Orochimaru’s heart is certainly racing as fast as one. They jump when they hear the polite ‘excuse me’ behind them, spinning around and already feeling as if they need to fill their palm with some kind of weapon. His midnight eyes instantly capture them, like blackholes that want to drag them in, enchanting and terrifying at once. His words do not offer any reassurances, they only further confuse the scientist, as the priest acts so very casual in the face of such unnatural phenomena’s. Being a scientist, they had never been the religious sort, favoring evidence over faith, favoring what could be proven rather than what could not. So when he tells them this is a sacred place, as if some spiritual nonsense would be a good defense against creatures of immense proportions, they laugh a humorless and sarcastically disbelieving sound, “faith? I’m sorry dear, but religious nonsense is a thin line of defense between you and those things outside,” they snap. They have no anger at the man politely offering them a seat and glass of water, but with their nerves so rattled, they can not help being a little on edge, a little more snippy and hostile.  They do pick up on the use of his words, ‘someone’ not ‘something’. But they do not yet have the insight to know the city itself was the haunted entity. They think he refers to the beasts themselves, as if the flock of them were a single person in his mind, “someone? What were they? And where am I?” they ask, having to stop themself from asking a hundred different questions in favor of the two more important ones. They had been driving a mapped road, but this city ate them when they entered its mists. If he was really a resident, then he would have the answers they seek. They do not sit down, not comfortable enough despite being tired from their running, “I hope you know your little act of nonchalance is more concerning than it is welcoming,” they say next, narrowing their eyes at the priest, not yet offering their name in return, “I don’t want a glass of water. I want to know what the hell I just saw.”

Orochimaru, forever the perceptive sort, notices the blush rise to the doctor’s face, painting it a wonderful scarlet. Amusing them further. Proof that their words were getting under his skin in the most pleasant fashion possible, they can not help the smirk that rises to their lips. Maybe it is amusement at his expense, but only in the more lighthearted way. What was wrong with a little promiscuous banter to put their doctor on edge? They may be bed ridden, but they still deserved to have their fun during their stay here. His next statement however, catches them more off guard, and they tilt their head somewhat curiously when he addresses their upbringing. They do not think it a shame to be reared from their formative years to be a soldier. They do not realize that from the eyes of a civilian, it is horrific to imagine a child, no, a toddler even, being handed a weapon and an order to fight. It is too normalized in the serpent’s world.  If they had not been a good and talented shinobi from the early age of four, graduating at six, then they would have been discarded when they were orphaned. But they had not been sent to rot in some orphanage, they had been given a home in Konoha under the conditions they were Konoha’s next saviour and soldier. A shoddy home it had been, dreary and nightmarish for a child to adjust to. But it was a home nonetheless, and that was not to be taken without some degree of gratitude.  Fighting is all they know, it is the only way they know how to prove their worth, how to earn a place to call home even now. So to hear it fall from the doctor’s lips as if it is poison makes them curiously questioning. They laugh even, a light sound as if they genuinely can not understand why he finds it barbaric, far too brainwashed still by their own upbringing to see the errors, “what’s wrong with starting young? The more time spent training the better one becomes at the art. It would be a disadvantage to be trained when one is above eight years old. That’s far too old to start,” they say, barely able to see what constituted as ‘too young’ anymore, “besides. I’d rather fight for my own lands, than leave it to others to fight on my behalf. No one else will have your best interests at heart. I’m safer than those who leave their fate to random shinobi.” They adjust to let him work on the bandages, not too fussed about pain, considerably resilient to agony by now. Their sounds of discomfort are rare and stifled, a shame it would be as a skilled shinobi to be too open about their vulnerability. They do notice how Kabuto keeps glancing up to check on them however, so hiding the subtle pains is harder with him being so observant. Which in turns earns another smirk. “Relax, I’m fine. I’ve had worse, and been treated by doctors nowhere near your competence. I’ll count myself lucky on this occasion.”

They should just let him go, they should allow themself the time to seek shelter from the storm his words put them in the heart of, to lick their wounds in the quiet of their own thoughts. But maybe they know themself too well. His words will haunt them for the next century if they dare let silence find them. They will relive what he has said again and again, and they are far more wicked and cruel to themself than he could ever be. They would twist what he said until the injury he inflicted upon them became a mortal wound. And with the amount of grief rattling them from his ‘confession’, what more could he possibly say to hurt them further? When one reaches such a low, a confidence is gained, for there is nothing left he can take from them, nothing more they can lose in this shattered love. And his gaze, tossed over his shoulder and offering them too many emotions to dissect and unravel, is the final push they need to get up and pursue him. Their tail of hair following their graceful motion as they grab his arm to pull him back to face them. Golden eyes demanding more from him, demanding a proper fight if this was how it had to end. “Answer me.” Their words bite at the air, their lips locked in a snarl as venomous fangs are bared in a readiness to defend themself. “What was I to you?” they hiss, ignoring the parole officer outright, not even remotely bothered that he may play witness to this.  What did the opinions of Konoha’s little sheep mean to someone like them? They were not scared in to good behaviour, they were bribed in to it. If someone pulled on their leash too hard, well trained jaws would rip them to shreds. The legendary Sannin was not the sort of shinobi one could tame and keep as a domestic pet.  “Because if you were lying all along, if all of that was just some played out trick or game- if every vow you breathed to life was just some hoax... then that either makes you the best liar to who have ever lived, or makes me the most unlovable human.” Their eyes do not break away from his gaze, daring him to accept their challenge, to open the door of the past, hoping some confession is hidden, or merely hoping to get a more complete truth. Be it they learn that he really did hate everything about them, and strung them along, or be it that he had loved them once, and that such a love was not enough to keep him at their side. They had to know. “You’re right. I’m not innocent. Is that what you have been waiting for me to say? She died, and she didn’t deserve to. But I do. Yet I get to live for an eternity. Is that what you hate the most about me? Is her death all you see when you meet my eyes? What you are doing here is just as bad as what I did to you. I damned you to misery in that moment because you meant nothing to me. Because I did not know you from all the other hundreds of orphans I met. But you... you damn me when I meant something to you. You sentence me to this misery when we were long past the line of being strangers. You lost her, and I lost you. Is that supposed to make us even?”