MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. If you're not up-to-date with part two, just leave now.

Disclaimer: Still not mine. Wishing on birthday cakes doesn't work, kids.

Loss

Kabuto never expected to be without Orochimaru.

He'd had faith in his Master's immortality. Even when his body was literally falling apart, Orochimaru pulled through. A curse from one of the most celebrated shinobi to have ever lived wasn't enough to stop him.

But Sasuke was.

It wouldn't have been as bad if someone else had done it. Tsunade or Jiraiya, maybe. The Head of the Akatsuki, even. Not the inferior Uchiha. Not the young man Orochimaru had dedicated years to.

Kabuto wanted nothing more than to kill the insanely powerful boy he hated, as laughable an impossible idea as that was. He always scolded the Uchiha for his insolence; maybe he should've realised that the attitude was a warning sign.

I should have killed him when I had the chance, thinks Kabuto, remembering Sasuke in his hospital bed. A bitter irony: what would have stopped Orochimaru's plans then would have kept him alive now.

He's not dead, though. He's like a memory, stuck in the back of Sasuke's mind somewhere, that's one day going to resurface and bring him to his knees.

Similar to the effect Orochimaru's 'disappearance' has on Kabuto. This wasn't supposed to happen, so Kabuto had no contingency plan. He always assumed that he'd be able to cope. That he wouldn't still be stunned long after Sasuke smirked his parting words. That he wouldn't notice just how dark and quiet everything is.

He's used to such an environment, however, so he dutifully returns to his experiments. Orochimaru-sama would have wanted it that way, which is silly, Kabuto tells himself, because he makes it sound as if his Master's died. Nevertheless, he stays up all night working and doesn't realise until morning that he was afraid of going to bed. Kabuto never stops thinking and there'd be too much to think about.

I've finally got my independence, though and it feels like some kind of morbid joke. It's what Kabuto wanted most for so long, but this is not what he had in mind. He was supposed to be liberated and happy, but he doesn't feel that way at all.

I'm just in shock, he diagnoses, hoping to convince himself.

He wants the happy ending that he doesn't deserve.

He still hasn't risked sleeping in his own bed.