Tap, tap.
Tap, tap.
Tap, tap.
Footsteps echoed one after another through the hollow underground passage. Sasuke walked calmly alongside the six ninja around him, the dim tunnel seemingly drawing him down into the depths of an abyss.
The six Sound ninja maintained their hexagonal formation, keeping him at the center. This close to the end, Kimimaro and the others could not afford any unexpected complications.
"Sasuke is here."
In the room ahead, Orochimaru sat still in his chair, seemingly sensing Sasuke's approach. He licked his lips in anticipation, and his pulse began to quicken.
Thud, thud, thud.
Reaching the end of the passage, Kimimaro knocked on the door and spoke with respectful formality. "Lord Orochimaru. It is Kimimaro."
"Bring him in, Kimimaro."
Orochimaru's low, raspy voice, like a serpent's tongue testing the air, came from within.
"Yes, sir."
Kimimaro respectfully pushed the door open. The room was a vast, open hall, the surrounding walls carved with mysterious seal markings. He stepped forward, dropped to one knee, and said in a steady voice.
"Lord Orochimaru. Uchiha Sasuke has been brought before you."
"Things went smoothly, Kimimaro." Orochimaru studied him with a thoughtful gaze, and something close to wistfulness passed through his eyes.
"You may all leave. I would like a moment alone with Sasuke."
Orochimaru swept a brief glance across his subordinates, then settled his gaze on the calm-faced Sasuke with a faint curve of the lips.
"Yes, sir."
All six Sound ninja answered as one and turned to leave. Only Guren paused at the doorway, unable to stop herself from fixing Sasuke with one last look of reluctant dissatisfaction. Sakon quickly took her by the arm and pulled her out.
"Sasuke. You've finally accepted my invitation and come to me. Heh heh."
Orochimaru looked at the boy before him with quiet amusement, his gaze like something with physical weight, a snake studying its prey, calculating exactly how to consume the meal that had delivered itself to his door.
"I told you before. Sasuke, you and I are the same. You are someone who pursues power. For the sake of that pursuit, you would come to me. And I can give you the power you seek."
Sasuke arriving this easily seemed almost suspiciously smooth, but Orochimaru detected nothing he would call wrong.
Or rather, he had sensed that something was off, but he was too confident in himself, too certain that everything was already in his hands, to believe Sasuke could cause him any real trouble.
Under Orochimaru's dark, hungry gaze, Sasuke took a brief, sweeping look around the room before returning his gaze to Orochimaru and meeting his eyes without expression.
"Orochimaru. You said you could give me the power I seek. So I came."
Sasuke looked at Orochimaru without any shift in his composure, and then the curve at the corner of his mouth began to slowly grow. His voice was detached and even as he asked, "What is the price, Orochimaru?"
"The price? Heh heh heh heh."
Orochimaru's low laugh was cold and sinister. The pressure radiating from him grew sharper, more cutting, suffused with a kind of manic bloodlust, and then it erupted all at once.
"Everything you are, Sasuke."
Whoosh.
The moment the words left his mouth, Orochimaru's neck stretched outward, twisting and curving through the air with the movement of a striking serpent, his jaws opening wide as he lunged at Sasuke's neck.
"Become my vessel, Sasuke!"
Orochimaru's manic, bloodthirsty voice filled the hall. Sasuke's brow lifted faintly.
Crack.
A blade of blue-white lightning erupted from Sasuke's hand and drove into Orochimaru's neck in an instant, pinning him to the floor.
"If that's how you intend to give me power, I'll pass. You're not that impressive."
Sasuke looked down at Orochimaru's neck with complete indifference as it slowly pulled free of the Chidori Sharp Spear's blade like water flowing around an obstacle, returning seamlessly to his body.
He had decided from the start that Orochimaru would not be allowed to leave any contingency behind.
There was no way he would let Orochimaru plant a cursed seal on him.
"So Sasuke has been hiding his strength. Heh heh heh."
Having his cursed seal interrupted, Orochimaru's expression didn't change at all.
He smiled faintly and continued in an unhurried tone. "I had intended to nurture you for a while first, let your talent reach its fullest expression before making you my vessel. But it seems I can't wait that long anymore, Sasuke."
As he spoke, pale white snakes began emerging from his body one after another. Within moments, the entire hall was blanketed in writhing white serpents.
They flicked their tongues at the air, encircling Sasuke at the center, their golden, vertically-slitted eyes fixed on him without blinking.
"Heh."
Sasuke gave a quiet laugh and said, "So you've been treating me as prey. This was a trap set for me."
"You could see it that way, Sasuke."
Orochimaru licked his lips, his tone carrying a quiet danger.
"Then let's find out who is the hunter, and who is the prey."
The Sharingan in Sasuke's eyes blazed into deep red, the three tomoe beginning to turn. The next instant, several blades of lightning erupted in rapid succession.
Crack, crack, crack.
The sharp, wet sounds of blades cutting through flesh rang out one after another. The dense mass of white snakes was severed into countless pieces in an instant, the bodies still thrashing violently as foul-smelling blood sprayed through the air.
Then a straight arc of lightning sword light, its tip blazing with deep blue chakra, extended and drove directly into Orochimaru's weakened chest.
"Orochimaru. You're considerably weaker than I expected."
Sasuke held the Futsu no Mitama Sword and looked down at Orochimaru sitting in his chair with open contempt.
He needed everything Orochimaru had, and to obtain it, he had to force the true body, the White Snake Sage, out and fight a battle of souls.
But this snake was being so cautious, even with the meal walking willingly into his territory, that he hadn't immediately used the Reanimation technique.
First he had tried to plant a cursed seal to leave himself a safety net. Then he had intended to defeat Sasuke first, and perform the reanimation only once Sasuke was unable to resist.
"Those eyes with such tremendous dojutsu power. That weapon with such devastating lightning chakra. I want them both so much."
Even with a blade through his chest and blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, sweat beading across his face, Orochimaru's eyes remained terrifyingly dark.
The aura surrounding him still carried that predatory hunger, something that looked ready to consume everything around it.
"Give me your body, Sasuke!"
The moment the words left his lips, Orochimaru's jaw snapped open, and from within it emerged a white serpent dozens of meters long, its body enormous, with a human face atop a serpentine form.
The White Snake Sage.
Orochimaru's true body.
The form he had become through experiment after experiment, transformation after transformation, all in pursuit of the Reanimation Technique.
Though the White Snake bore the name white-scaled, its body bore no individual scales. Or rather, what served as its scales were composed entirely of white snakes layered across its form.
Each one of those white snakes could absorb the opponent and their abilities.
The moment the White Snake Sage emerged, the true body and every serpent covering it opened their jaws, baring razor-sharp fangs, and surged at Sasuke with a gust of rank, bloody air.
So you finally couldn't hold back, Orochimaru.
"A snake lying in the dirt that dreams of flying through the sky. That will never happen."
"A snake is a snake. It can only crawl on the ground forever, prey for the eagle soaring above."
The corner of Sasuke's mouth curved slightly. The Futsu no Mitama Sword in his hand blazed with lightning and transformed into a brilliant suit of crackling thunder armor encasing his body.
At the same moment, a black, glass-like katana appeared in his palm.
Crack!
Like a dog biting a live wire, sparks and lightning erupted everywhere.
Every attack from the White Snake Sage was stopped cold by the thunder armor.
And then, in the next instant.
Three enormous crescent blades of flame erupted from the Kagutsuchi in succession, slashing at the White Snake Sage.
Crack, crack, crack.
The sword light burned like a blazing sun and split the White Snake Sage into three pieces in an instant. A dense, searing smell of scorched flesh and blood flooded the entire hall.
"Is that all? How disappointing, Orochimaru."
Sasuke swept a cold look over the White Snake Sage, split into three unmoving sections, apparently dead. The disappointment in his voice was genuine.
Then, without warning, everything changed.
Strange vapor began rising from every part of the supposedly dead Orochimaru's body. Sasuke's expression stiffened. Pain shot through him and he sank to one knee.
"Heh heh heh heh."
The White Snake Sage stirred back to life and laughed with frenzied delight. "When the White Snake's blood makes contact with air, it becomes the most potent anesthetic in the world."
"Your strength is impressive, Sasuke. But at your current level, you still cannot kill me."
"Be a good vessel. Become mine, Sasuke!"
Madness blazed in the White Snake Sage's eyes. It opened its massive jaws and swallowed the paralyzed Sasuke whole.
But what Orochimaru did not see was that in the very instant before he was swallowed, the corner of Sasuke's mouth had curved into a quiet smile of a plan coming together perfectly.
The three-tomoe pattern in his eyes had shifted into the design of a six-pointed star encasing a curved triangular shuriken.
---
At that same moment, in Konoha.
Inside the Hokage's office.
Tsunade, having officially assumed the title of Fifth Hokage, sat in her chair looking at the young boy and girl before her.
After a brief silence, she spoke. "We've located Uchiha Sasuke."
Naruto and Sakura blinked, then their eyes lit up with relief and urgency in equal measure. They both began at once.
"Lady Hokage! Grandma Tsunade! Where is Sasuke?"
Tsunade's eyes dropped slightly. "According to our intelligence operatives, Uchiha Sasuke has recently been sighted near the Land of Rice Fields. If nothing has gone wrong..."
The Land of Rice Fields!?
Naruto and Sakura's expressions shifted with alarm. "Are you saying Sasuke went to join up with Orochimaru?"
They looked at each other, then both shook their heads at the same moment. Naruto spoke first.
"No way. I don't believe Sasuke would betray the village and go to Orochimaru. Not him."
"Right." Sakura continued where Naruto left off. "Sasuke is careful and deliberate. He plans everything. If he's gotten close to Orochimaru, he has a reason for it."
Tsunade was quiet for a moment before speaking. "I'm glad you believe in your teammate that much. Perhaps Uchiha Sasuke does have his own plan. But that isn't the main concern right now. He's still in danger. Based on what I know alongside Jiraiya's intelligence, Orochimaru possesses a forbidden reincarnation technique that allows him to transfer his soul, it's called..."
Tsunade laid out everything she knew about Orochimaru piece by piece.
Naruto and Sakura's expressions grew heavier with every word. By the time they left the Hokage building, neither of them could quite recall how they had gotten there.
The two of them walked through Konoha's streets in silence, weighed down with worry, and without noticing it, found themselves at Training Ground Three, the place Team Seven had always gathered.
After a long silence, Naruto spoke. "Sakura, do you really think Sasuke just wanted power and went to Orochimaru for it?"
Sakura shook her head. "I believe Sasuke isn't genuinely defecting to Orochimaru. He has his own plan."
Naruto gave a slow nod of understanding, then said, "Whatever plan that bastard has, he still had the nerve to vanish without a word. Next time I see him, I'm going to punch him so hard."
"Yeah."
Sakura, who always defended Sasuke, didn't object this time. She nodded with complete seriousness.
After saying that, both of them fell silent again, the worry sitting heavy and unresolved.
Screee!
While they sat in that silence, a sharp, piercing eagle's cry tore through the sky above Training Ground Three.
They both looked up at the sound. A hawk with powerful, spreading wings and sharp extended talons dove in a blur toward the ground, seized a venomous snake coiled below, tore it apart, and swallowed it whole.
Then it spread its wings and launched back into the sky, cutting through the heavy clouds and soaring away until it vanished into the vast open air.
The two of them looked at each other. The tension that had been wound tight in both their chests eased, somehow, without either of them knowing quite why.
___
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