Naruto: I Became Orochimaru's Apprentice

A month had passed, Orochimaru had done little more than take a few blood samples. Kabuto had been sent to a distant village to scout for Orochimaru, meanwhile Teriyaki had been given one simple task, to learn the clone jutsu.

Type: Ninjutsu.

Element: NONE

Hand Seals: Ram → Tiger → Snake.

Rank: E.

"I will give you a few weeks, this is what acedemy students learn, or at least when I was at the acedemy this was the bare minimum." Orochimaru scoffed at his own words. "If you can't do such a simple jutsu, I would have to ask if you are even ready to be a ninja."

Description: Bunshin no Jutsu is a Ninjutsu technique which every ninja learns at the Ninja Academy. The "doppelganger" technique creates a copy of the ninja without substance. The copy resembles the ninja in every way. This clone can function as a distraction or as means to confuse one's opponent. As soon the clone gets attacked or comes into contact with an opponent, it will disperse.

The scientific light being cast from above flickered, its brightness highlighting the cracked stone floor. Teriyaki sat cross-legged, bare knees stinging against the cold. His fingers moved in awkward shapes — the Clone Seal — or at least something close to it. Left hand bent too sharply, right thumb slipping out of position every time sweat slicked his palms.

He inhaled.

"Bunshin no Jutsu."

The air puffed out, smoke curling into nothing. Nothing appeared. Again.

He clutched his hands so hard his knuckles clicked. Behind him, the door creaked open.

"Still not even a decent clone?" Orochimaru's voice slid down his spine like a wet knife. "Keep failing like this and I won't have any choice but to disown you. I'm still wondering just how useful you can prove to be. At least you have been better than the others."

Not even wanting to question who the others were or whether they had been in his soup, Teriyaki ignored what had been said.

Teriyaki wiped his hands on his baggy shirt. The sleeves dragged on the floor, stained with ink from yesterday's failed sealing lesson. "I'll get it this time." His voice sounded weak in the stone room. Sweat ran down his skin, because he was aware Orochimaru would not hesitate to kill him if he failed once more.

"Will you?" Orochimaru stepped closer. The hem of his robe brushed the floor, and Teriyaki hated the sound of his voice. Whisper-soft, like a long breath.

He formed the seal again — slower, trying to remember the way Kabuto's hands moved when demonstrating it weeks ago. Fingers slid together, almost right.

Ram → Tiger → Snake.. Something felt different.

"Bunshin no Jutsu."

This time, something happened. Smoke. Then a shape — warped, thin, like a paper cutout of him left in the rain. The clone's face melted before it fully formed, eyes too wide, mouth slipping off the side of its jaw, it looked like he had badly molded.

Orochimaru smiled, but not like a teacher smiles. His smile was a nasty one, a mocking one even. Like a collector examining poor goods, debating whether to fix or destroy them.

"Pathetic." His hand snapped out, fingers pressing to Teriyaki's forehead — too cold, too dry. "But… curious. Your chakra is different today."

Teriyaki bit his tongue, he didn't know that much about the inner workings of chakra. However he already knew something about him was changing. Every day, his chakra felt like a different person's — perhaps it was to do with the food Orchimaru was feeding him, or the environment he was placed in. Sometimes, it didn't feel like his at all.

That night Kabuto returned and Orichimaru made Teriyaki sit in a shallow pool of water while Kabuto measured the way his chakra rippled the surface. The water refused to stay still, forming tiny snake-shapes that wriggled and died.

The days ran into each other. Every morning, basic jutsu practice. Every afternoon he would either rest or be researched. Evenings, Rarely, Orochimaru's lectures or going back to training — long, winding talks about the futility of mortality, the beauty of shedding skin, the way not a single person can be trusted, not even him.

Sometimes Teriyaki fell asleep during the lectures, face pressed to the table, only to wake up and find Orochimaru still talking, as if he hadn't noticed — or didn't care if his student was awake. Orochimaru was definately crazy, but the extent was a mystery.

Weeks into this, something changed. One morning, Teriyaki woke up a little taller. His fingers could form seals faster. His voice didn't squeak as much.

He was 8 years old now. To celebrate, well nobody seemed to care when he woke up.

Orochimaru didn't notice his birthday, but Kabuto did — leaving a small slice of rice cake on the table beside the medical files. It was stale. But there was a beauty in being recognized, even if it was just for his birthday, Teriyaki ate the rice cake and became overjoyed. Perhaps he would stop Kabuto from running down the same path now that he was here.

After all, he had read up to the last chapters, even if that was a while ago and he didn't have a photographic memory, he knew secrets people like Orochimaru would die for.

That day, they tested transformation jutsu. Teriyaki stood in front of a mirror, hands shaking as he made the seal.

"Henge no Jutsu."

Smoke. In the reflection stood Anko Mitarashi — but wrong. Her curse mark pulsed across her neck, curling up to her cheek like black ink spilled on paper. Her hair was half-short, half-snake scales.

Orochimaru's head tilted. "You remember her face well. All I did was show you a picture."

Teriyaki didn't say anything. He didn't remember seeing Anko much, but the mark—the mark was burned into him. Every day, Orochimaru touched it on his neck, comparing it to the incomplete one spreading across Teriyaki's own skin.

"Fix the flaws," Orochimaru said, waving a lazy hand. "Or don't. Learning this jutsu shouldn't matter too much as of now. You just need to understand how Jutsus are formed, so that you can learn them independently. Most jutsu are worthless anyway."

That night, Teriyaki lay on his thin mat, staring at the ceiling. He formed the clone seal under the blanket, fingers tracing the shape again and again until they felt like muscle instinct.

White puffs of smoke always amounted to nothing.Teriyaki slammed the floor in distress. His chakra was already drained.

"Why can't I do this acedemy level technique? Is there something wrong with me? Is it because I'm not from here?"

The next day, they gave him a kunai. However Orochimaru snatched it back quickly, saying that he'd only be allowed to touch weapons after he was let outside.

"When do I get to leave, Master?" Teriyaki had asked innocently, it had almost been a month and he was getting bored. It was like a one-man school where the teacher was often absent and the results were therefor nothing to write home about.

Orochimaru's silence spoke for itself. Eventually he muttered out in a tired tone. "You must become trusted and strong enough to survive out there first. Before then you are snake-food."

They made him cut open a snake corpse, learning to find the chakra nodes that still clung to its dead flesh. When his hands shook too much, Kabuto grabbed them, steadying him without a word.

"Do you know why I make you practice on dead things?" Orochimaru asked, his voice drifting from the doorway. "Why I spend so much time studying the skin, the cells and the inner components of corpses that other ninjas leave to rot?"

Teriyaki shook his head.

"Because one day, you'll do this to yourself. As I have to myself."

Teriyaki didn't sleep that night. Not because he was scared. But because somewhere, deep in the pit of his stomach, he knew Orochimaru was right. If he wanted to gain power in these circumstances, it would have to be through Orochimaru's horrifying methods.

By the time another month crawled past, Teriyaki could finally make a passable shadow clone — not the perfect Kage Bunshin like Naruto would someday use, but a thin, fragile thing that collapsed after a few seconds. But it bled when cut, and that was enough for Orochimaru to nod his head. 

"That brings a smile to my face, but this is only the start of the madness." He had whispered, in a voice so low Teriyaki had only heard half of it.

"Most genin wouldn't be able to do this at your age," Kabuto admitted once, when Orochimaru wasn't around. "But you're not most genin, are you? Orochimaru was right to see something in you, don't feel to down about his words. He was a genius even I cannot fathom in his youth."

Teriyaki didn't answer. He was 8 years old. His chakra felt like someone else's. He could barely sleep without snakes whispering in the walls. Staying so long in Orochimaru's lair, it was truly driving him insane. Why was he stuck here? Orichimaru himself rarely visited these days, it was just him Kabuto and Onigiri when she was released.

And somewhere, far above the stone ceiling, the Chunin Exams were happening. Kids not much older than him were fighting in bright arenas under a clear sky. Teriyaki only fully realized because once, Orochimaru muttered something about the Uchiha boy—the one he wanted more than any experiment. If only he had been born as a regular genin student, he would've been able to use his knowledge to do incredible things surely. Instead he was stuck in a lab, doing low-level jutsus and studying foreign concepts like skin cells and Kinjutsu far out of his league.

"It will all be worth it." Orochimaru had cackled away after that. For long periods of time he went silent and that was when his true genius seemed to show.

Teriyaki wasn't jealous. Not exactly. But he did wonder what it would feel like to breathe under the sun instead of underground.

He practiced his clone jutsu again, fingers forming the seal.

Hand Seals: Ram → Tiger → Snake.

This time, the clone held its shape for a whole minute before it died.