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Title: Made In His Image
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: R
Pairing: Eventual Sai/Orochimaru, mild hints of Naruto/Sakura
Genre: Friendship/Action/Romance
Warnings: Bizarre pseudo-science, yaoi
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: A mission to one of Orochimaru's abandoned laboratories reveals something that might give the Sannin a way to redeem themselves.
He was almost pale enough to blend into the starched white sheets of the hospital bed. His black hair had been cut to a far more manageable length – though it was still long – and lay spread out behind his head like a black halo. It looked fitting for a copy of Orochimaru. She’d trimmed his nails down as well: had cut them so that they only hung over the nail bed by about three millimetres: still long, but not long enough to be inconvenient or dangerous.
Through it all; through the sponge bath and the grooming and the medical examinations, he had not woken up. He hadn’t even moved beyond violent shivers whenever his chalky skin was exposed to the air for any amount of time.
Tsunade, once she had got over her shock at seeing a perfect copy of her one-time team mate, had demanded a blood sample from him. The results, attached to the clipboard that Sakura held loosely in her hand, weren’t good. He’d been kept unconscious and paralysed, and there were enough drugs in his system to keep him that way for weeks.
Possible brain damage the notes said. May never be fully functional.
Whatever Orochimaru had been trying to create, with this clone of his, Sakura knew in her heart that it probably hadn’t worked. She doubted that Orochimaru would have wanted a vegetable for a clone, no matter how mad he had been before he’d died.
And the tapes…
Unconsciously, Sakura’s hand clutched at tighter at the clipboard. They had brought the tapes and the notes they had been able to find with them when they’d left the lab, and they’d listened to them in Tsunade’s office. She shuddered as she remembered the sound of Orochimaru’s wicked voice hissing at them out of the speakers.
“I am Orochimaru, the most powerful of the Sannin. You are my clone: a perfect copy of myself, and to you I will teach my jutsu. In this way, should that rebellious fool Sasuke or my former team mates manage to kill me, I will still live on. You will be my weapon, my dear, and you will avenge me.”
Sakura didn’t know – didn’t want to think – what he’d be like when – if – he woke up. Would he be an exact copy of Orochimaru out for revenge? Would he be brain damaged or retarded in some way? Would he even be able to move after being paralysed for so long, let alone fulfil his purpose?
Would he prove himself worth the effort it had taken to get him out of Rice Country and into Konoha?
She shook those thoughts from her head. He was still a person, and even if he did turn out to be a brain damaged, vengeful second Orochimaru he would still be worth it. At least, they could say that they’d tried.
She studied his sleeping face, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. They would find out soon enough. The drugs would be wearing off soon, and if he was capable of waking then he would do so. Then she would be able to see what he was like.
He looked so sweet and innocent in his sleep. She wondered, as she watched him, whether Orochimaru had ever been able to look as innocent as his clone now did. He looked beautiful too, in a way. His androgynous features lent themselves well to the word. She wondered if Orochimaru had been just as beautiful when he had been young; if, before he had begun to mess around with swapping bodies, his face had looked so lovely rather than ghoulish and mask-like.
She sighed and pulled his blood test results, along with the rest of his medical information, into her lap. “Please don’t be like him,” she whispered. She felt foolish, talking to someone unable to reply, even though she knew from her medical text books that he was able to hear her. “Please, don’t be like Orochimaru.”
“Sakura-chan?”
She whipped round to find Naruto and Sai standing in the doorway. Naruto looked worried, while Sai had his usual, fake-looking smile on his face. It no longer bothered her, now that she’d started to see flashes of something real behind the mask-like expression.
“Hey,” she said.
“Is he any closer to waking up?” Naruto asked.
She shrugged. “He’s supposed to any day now,” she said. “But I don’t know exactly when. And I don’t want him to be alone when he does.”
And it wasn’t just because of the security risks. Waking up for the first time would be a scary experience for anyone, and she wanted him to know – even if he couldn’t understand her – that he wasn’t alone.
“Yeah,” Naruto said. From the look of concentration on his face, he seemed to get it.
While they had been talking, Sai had moved closer to the bed to study its occupant’s sleeping face. His blank, dark eyes were studying every plane and angle of the clone boy’s face, and his smile had faded slightly. He was concentrating.
“You were talking to him,” he said.
Sakura blushed slightly. Not only did it feel stupid, it sounded stupid too. “People who have recovered from comas have reported that they could hear people talking to them while they slept,” she said. “Orochimaru must have known: that’s why he would have had those tapes” – to turn his clone into a living library of powerful, forbidden jutsu – “but I was only talking to try and help him wake up.”
Sai nodded, not pausing in his study of the clone’s purple eyelids and sweeping black eyelashes. Naruto leaned in too, though he didn’t leave Sakura’s side.
“Hey Orochi-clone,” he said loudly, ignoring Sakura’s wince at both the name and the volume. “Try not to turn out like the original snakey bastard, would you? It’d be a pain after we went through all that trouble to save you and all.”
The clone didn’t even twitch. Sakura sighed.
“Ignore him,” she said. “He’s an idiot. I’m glad that we saved you, regardless.” She wasn’t sure that was the truth, but she didn’t want the clone to feel unwanted – as ridiculous as that sounded. “Though it would be nice if you weren’t anything like the person who created you. He wasn’t a good person and he hurt a lot of people while he was alive. It would be nice if you tried to live your own life now that you have the chance.”
No response.
“What shall we call him?” Sai asked suddenly.
“What do you mean?” Sakura asked him.
“You said that when giving people names, you weren’t to use ones with negative connotations,” Sai said, “which the name Orochimaru does. So what do we call him?”
“Orochi-something,” Naruto said decisively. “He may not be the original, but he still looks a bit like a snake.”
He had a point. Even this innocent, beautiful copy of Orochimaru had something decidedly serpentine about his features. It was something about the combination of a wide mouth with such high cheekbones, she thought, and elongated, slanted eyes.
“Not Orochi-clone,” she said, shooting Naruto a little glare.
He grinned and rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “Orochisuke?” he suggested, before wrinkling his nose. “Nah, that makes him sound like Orochimaru and Sasuke’s lovechild.”
Sakura choked at the thought, and Sai gave a strange little twitch as though he was trying to suppress a laugh.
“Orochisame? That’s even more disturbing. Orochimaru and Kisame. Yuck. Orochito? Orochimaru and Kabuto – more likely but just as gross. Orochitachi…let’s not even go there.”
Sakura grinned and swatted at him with the clipboard. Naruto, regardless of his many faults, had always had the ability to make her relax.
“How about we keep the name Orochimaru,” she said slowly, “but shorten it. Call him Orochi-kun or something like that.”
She watched as Sai reached out and ran the tip of a thin finger along the clone’s – Orochi-kun’s – sharp cheekbone. She’d never seen Sai pay this much attention to anyone, ever. Although she supposed that it wasn’t like he would ever get the chance to study the original Orochimaru so closely.
Beside her, Naruto nodded at her suggestion. “Okay,” he said. “We can do that.”
Sai stepped back, finally. His expression was, as ever, completely unreadable. Sakura felt a spike of irritation pierce her breast: she wanted to know what he was thinking. At least, she did when it came to Orochi-kun. He seemed so fascinated…
There was a twitch. Her gaze was instantly fixed on the clone’s face as she searched, desperately, for some other kind of movement. Sai too, looked back at the boy he’d so recently been leaning over, though Naruto gave no sign of noticing the twitch at all. Sakura inwardly rolled her eyes. Naruto was so oblivious sometimes.
Dark eyelashes fluttered briefly against pale cheeks, before opening to reveal pale gold irises. Sakura leaned forward and opened her mouth, only to see him close his eyes again.
“Hey!” Naruto burst out.
‘Apparently,’ Sakura thought, ‘he did notice.’
“Hey, he can’t just go back to sleep like that!” Naruto said. “He’s only just come round!”
Sakura smacked him with her clipboard. “Leave him alone, Naruto,” she said. “He won’t have very much energy at first.” This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. If they were going to be dealing with a psychotic, homicidal Orochimaru-clone then it would definitely be a good thing for him to not have very much energy.
But he wasn’t going back to sleep. His golden eyes cracked open again, and turned towards their voices. Sakura’s breath caught in her chest, and she gave the clone a wide smile. He stared back at her, at them, his wide eyes completely free of guile and malice. He looked so innocent, something she couldn’t imagine on the face of the real Orochimaru.
“Hello Orochi-kun,” she said. “My name is Sakura. I’m going to be taking care of you.”
He didn’t reply. Sakura had no idea if he’d even understood anything she’d said, but she felt oddly happy as his eyes closed once more. She grabbed a pencil off the bedside table and marked down the time on his medical notes before resuming her vigil.
Something was telling her that things would be okay, after all.
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: R
Pairing: Eventual Sai/Orochimaru, mild hints of Naruto/Sakura
Genre: Friendship/Action/Romance
Warnings: Bizarre pseudo-science, yaoi
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: A mission to one of Orochimaru's abandoned laboratories reveals something that might give the Sannin a way to redeem themselves.
He was almost pale enough to blend into the starched white sheets of the hospital bed. His black hair had been cut to a far more manageable length – though it was still long – and lay spread out behind his head like a black halo. It looked fitting for a copy of Orochimaru. She’d trimmed his nails down as well: had cut them so that they only hung over the nail bed by about three millimetres: still long, but not long enough to be inconvenient or dangerous.
Through it all; through the sponge bath and the grooming and the medical examinations, he had not woken up. He hadn’t even moved beyond violent shivers whenever his chalky skin was exposed to the air for any amount of time.
Tsunade, once she had got over her shock at seeing a perfect copy of her one-time team mate, had demanded a blood sample from him. The results, attached to the clipboard that Sakura held loosely in her hand, weren’t good. He’d been kept unconscious and paralysed, and there were enough drugs in his system to keep him that way for weeks.
Possible brain damage the notes said. May never be fully functional.
Whatever Orochimaru had been trying to create, with this clone of his, Sakura knew in her heart that it probably hadn’t worked. She doubted that Orochimaru would have wanted a vegetable for a clone, no matter how mad he had been before he’d died.
And the tapes…
Unconsciously, Sakura’s hand clutched at tighter at the clipboard. They had brought the tapes and the notes they had been able to find with them when they’d left the lab, and they’d listened to them in Tsunade’s office. She shuddered as she remembered the sound of Orochimaru’s wicked voice hissing at them out of the speakers.
“I am Orochimaru, the most powerful of the Sannin. You are my clone: a perfect copy of myself, and to you I will teach my jutsu. In this way, should that rebellious fool Sasuke or my former team mates manage to kill me, I will still live on. You will be my weapon, my dear, and you will avenge me.”
Sakura didn’t know – didn’t want to think – what he’d be like when – if – he woke up. Would he be an exact copy of Orochimaru out for revenge? Would he be brain damaged or retarded in some way? Would he even be able to move after being paralysed for so long, let alone fulfil his purpose?
Would he prove himself worth the effort it had taken to get him out of Rice Country and into Konoha?
She shook those thoughts from her head. He was still a person, and even if he did turn out to be a brain damaged, vengeful second Orochimaru he would still be worth it. At least, they could say that they’d tried.
She studied his sleeping face, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. They would find out soon enough. The drugs would be wearing off soon, and if he was capable of waking then he would do so. Then she would be able to see what he was like.
He looked so sweet and innocent in his sleep. She wondered, as she watched him, whether Orochimaru had ever been able to look as innocent as his clone now did. He looked beautiful too, in a way. His androgynous features lent themselves well to the word. She wondered if Orochimaru had been just as beautiful when he had been young; if, before he had begun to mess around with swapping bodies, his face had looked so lovely rather than ghoulish and mask-like.
She sighed and pulled his blood test results, along with the rest of his medical information, into her lap. “Please don’t be like him,” she whispered. She felt foolish, talking to someone unable to reply, even though she knew from her medical text books that he was able to hear her. “Please, don’t be like Orochimaru.”
“Sakura-chan?”
She whipped round to find Naruto and Sai standing in the doorway. Naruto looked worried, while Sai had his usual, fake-looking smile on his face. It no longer bothered her, now that she’d started to see flashes of something real behind the mask-like expression.
“Hey,” she said.
“Is he any closer to waking up?” Naruto asked.
She shrugged. “He’s supposed to any day now,” she said. “But I don’t know exactly when. And I don’t want him to be alone when he does.”
And it wasn’t just because of the security risks. Waking up for the first time would be a scary experience for anyone, and she wanted him to know – even if he couldn’t understand her – that he wasn’t alone.
“Yeah,” Naruto said. From the look of concentration on his face, he seemed to get it.
While they had been talking, Sai had moved closer to the bed to study its occupant’s sleeping face. His blank, dark eyes were studying every plane and angle of the clone boy’s face, and his smile had faded slightly. He was concentrating.
“You were talking to him,” he said.
Sakura blushed slightly. Not only did it feel stupid, it sounded stupid too. “People who have recovered from comas have reported that they could hear people talking to them while they slept,” she said. “Orochimaru must have known: that’s why he would have had those tapes” – to turn his clone into a living library of powerful, forbidden jutsu – “but I was only talking to try and help him wake up.”
Sai nodded, not pausing in his study of the clone’s purple eyelids and sweeping black eyelashes. Naruto leaned in too, though he didn’t leave Sakura’s side.
“Hey Orochi-clone,” he said loudly, ignoring Sakura’s wince at both the name and the volume. “Try not to turn out like the original snakey bastard, would you? It’d be a pain after we went through all that trouble to save you and all.”
The clone didn’t even twitch. Sakura sighed.
“Ignore him,” she said. “He’s an idiot. I’m glad that we saved you, regardless.” She wasn’t sure that was the truth, but she didn’t want the clone to feel unwanted – as ridiculous as that sounded. “Though it would be nice if you weren’t anything like the person who created you. He wasn’t a good person and he hurt a lot of people while he was alive. It would be nice if you tried to live your own life now that you have the chance.”
No response.
“What shall we call him?” Sai asked suddenly.
“What do you mean?” Sakura asked him.
“You said that when giving people names, you weren’t to use ones with negative connotations,” Sai said, “which the name Orochimaru does. So what do we call him?”
“Orochi-something,” Naruto said decisively. “He may not be the original, but he still looks a bit like a snake.”
He had a point. Even this innocent, beautiful copy of Orochimaru had something decidedly serpentine about his features. It was something about the combination of a wide mouth with such high cheekbones, she thought, and elongated, slanted eyes.
“Not Orochi-clone,” she said, shooting Naruto a little glare.
He grinned and rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “Orochisuke?” he suggested, before wrinkling his nose. “Nah, that makes him sound like Orochimaru and Sasuke’s lovechild.”
Sakura choked at the thought, and Sai gave a strange little twitch as though he was trying to suppress a laugh.
“Orochisame? That’s even more disturbing. Orochimaru and Kisame. Yuck. Orochito? Orochimaru and Kabuto – more likely but just as gross. Orochitachi…let’s not even go there.”
Sakura grinned and swatted at him with the clipboard. Naruto, regardless of his many faults, had always had the ability to make her relax.
“How about we keep the name Orochimaru,” she said slowly, “but shorten it. Call him Orochi-kun or something like that.”
She watched as Sai reached out and ran the tip of a thin finger along the clone’s – Orochi-kun’s – sharp cheekbone. She’d never seen Sai pay this much attention to anyone, ever. Although she supposed that it wasn’t like he would ever get the chance to study the original Orochimaru so closely.
Beside her, Naruto nodded at her suggestion. “Okay,” he said. “We can do that.”
Sai stepped back, finally. His expression was, as ever, completely unreadable. Sakura felt a spike of irritation pierce her breast: she wanted to know what he was thinking. At least, she did when it came to Orochi-kun. He seemed so fascinated…
There was a twitch. Her gaze was instantly fixed on the clone’s face as she searched, desperately, for some other kind of movement. Sai too, looked back at the boy he’d so recently been leaning over, though Naruto gave no sign of noticing the twitch at all. Sakura inwardly rolled her eyes. Naruto was so oblivious sometimes.
Dark eyelashes fluttered briefly against pale cheeks, before opening to reveal pale gold irises. Sakura leaned forward and opened her mouth, only to see him close his eyes again.
“Hey!” Naruto burst out.
‘Apparently,’ Sakura thought, ‘he did notice.’
“Hey, he can’t just go back to sleep like that!” Naruto said. “He’s only just come round!”
Sakura smacked him with her clipboard. “Leave him alone, Naruto,” she said. “He won’t have very much energy at first.” This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. If they were going to be dealing with a psychotic, homicidal Orochimaru-clone then it would definitely be a good thing for him to not have very much energy.
But he wasn’t going back to sleep. His golden eyes cracked open again, and turned towards their voices. Sakura’s breath caught in her chest, and she gave the clone a wide smile. He stared back at her, at them, his wide eyes completely free of guile and malice. He looked so innocent, something she couldn’t imagine on the face of the real Orochimaru.
“Hello Orochi-kun,” she said. “My name is Sakura. I’m going to be taking care of you.”
He didn’t reply. Sakura had no idea if he’d even understood anything she’d said, but she felt oddly happy as his eyes closed once more. She grabbed a pencil off the bedside table and marked down the time on his medical notes before resuming her vigil.
Something was telling her that things would be okay, after all.
