"Looks like the world's ending," Orochimaru muttered, watching the chaos unfold like he was just catching a movie. People were sprinting for their lives, zombies chomping down like it was an all-you-can-eat buffet, cars burning, and bodies stacking up faster than the news could keep track of.
Of course, none of it really bothered him. His whole life had been spent on battlefields. This? This was nothing. And cannibalism? Please. He'd seen summoning beasts rip through shinobi like snacks, even his own men.
But not everyone was built like him. Take Saeko, for example.
She stood behind him, clearly rattled. Watching all this destruction hit her harder than she expected. It wasn't like one of those anime scenes where someone stays cold and disconnected from the world falling apart around them. Real people felt things. They cracked, even if just a little. Sure, some were exceptions, but she wasn't one of them. Not right now.
She could slice up the undead all day, no problem. But seeing society crumble like this? Yeah… that hit different.
"Why… why is this even happening?" she whispered. Her voice cracked, barely audible, just enough for him to catch. Her eyes were fixed on a half-smashed TV in a shop window that, against all odds, was still working. News anchors were losing their minds. Cities were falling. The whole world was going to hell.
This wasn't just some local screw-up. It was everywhere.
And the weirdest part? The guy next to her, the one acting like he'd seen it all before, kept asking about the zombies like he had no clue what they were.
She looked at him again. "Are you seriously from another world?" she asked, for the third time. She still couldn't fully believe it. Alternate dimensions? That sounded like something straight out of a late-night anime binge session.
Orochimaru had already laid it all out. Chakra, jutsu, ninja villages, all that. She thought he was making it up.
Until he did it again.
Poof. Shadow clones.
Just like that, a squad of him appeared and spread out to collect supplies or whatever else he needed.
She just stared. Like… what?
Nobody should be able to do that. That wasn't science. That wasn't survival. That was full-blown anime nonsense. And he just pulled it off like it was nothing.
Was she lucky to have met him?
Or cursed?
"Do you have someone to check on?" Orochimaru asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.
"Check…?" Saeko echoed, trailing off before shaking her head. "No."
He simply nodded and turned his gaze back to the ruined city outside the window.
She stood there, unsure what to do. But then he asked something that made her eyes widen, completely blindsided.
"Did you enjoy killing them?"
She froze.
Seeing her reaction, he asked again, calmly. "Did you?"
He wanted to see if the situation was similar to what he remembered from the anime.
Saeko opened her mouth to say something. Then closed it. Nothing came out.
She didn't answer.
But she didn't have to.
The truth was already written all over her face.
She did.
She just couldn't bring herself to admit it.
"You feel ashamed?" Orochimaru asked calmly. His tone had no judgement, no approval.
Saeko didn't say anything at first. She just stood there, eyes locked on nothing in particular.
Finally, she muttered, barely above a whisper,
"…Yes."
Then she looked at him. His face. His eyes. Cold, sharp, unreadable. But there was no judgement. No disgust. Not even a flicker of it.
"Don't you hate it?" she asked before she could stop herself. A part of her knew she wouldn't get another chance to ask.
"Hate what?" Orochimaru tilted his head slightly.
"This… me. Liking the killing."
"No," he said simply, almost amused. "Why would I? I'm probably more twisted than you."
He smiled then. A slow, calm, absolutely unnerving smile.
"Let me tell you something," he added. "I like doing experiments. And I don't exactly have a 'type'. Young or old, man or woman, it doesn't matter to me. Everyone's a specimen."
Saeko's eyes widened. Human experiments. That's what he meant. He didn't care if it was a child or someone helpless. Cute girl or elderly man. It was all the same to him. She couldn't help but shiver.
And then he asked, still wearing that smile:
"So, tell me. Who do you think is more normal? You, who wants to kill… or me, who doesn't care who he kills?"
She didn't answer.
How could she?
But even her silence was an answer in itself.
Not that Orochimaru cared. He didn't push for more. Instead, he just spoke, calm, almost like he was explaining something obvious.
"Remember this, Saeko," he said, eyes still watching the city burn. "Whether something or someone is good or evil, it all depends on perspective."
He glanced at her, his tone quiet but sharp. "But that side of you, the one you're scared of? It's part of you. And you'll never be whole without it."
"You'll feel ashamed. Guilty. Like you're broken. You'll beat yourself up, think you're less than others, maybe even hate yourself for it." He gave a slow shrug. "But that's just how it is."
"You'll keep asking yourself if you're a monster, if you even deserve to be around people. But maybe…" He paused, lips curling into that same eerie smile.
"Maybe it's the world that doesn't deserve you. Maybe it's not you, but the world that's wrong."
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People he should take back ?