"How are the runes?" Itachi asked while they were all having breakfast together one morning.
"Great." Sasuke grinned with more enthusiasm than usual. "They're fucking awesome. I can recover chakra three times faster with the runes than I normally can. And my speed has increased massively; now I barely run—it feels like I'm flying."
They listened attentively to Sasuke, Naruto rolling his eyes every now and then while half asleep, as he talked about how he could activate and deactivate the runes in his ears to hear things from far away, how he could jump entire buildings with almost no effort, or how he could smell things from a great distance like a dog. Kakashi looked curious, and slightly interested.
"I want you to get them too," she said when they stepped into the training shed to watch Sasuke sparring with Naruto while using his activated runes.
"...I'm not going to say no to an advantage like that, but I thought Sasuke was going to put them on you tomorrow."
"No. I want you to get them first. In fact, I want to do it as soon as possible. Come on."
"Right now?" Kakashi asked incredulously.
"Why wait?"
She grabbed his arm and pulled him along. Kakashi was a great ninja, there was no doubt about that, but she had seen with her own eyes how much Sasuke had improved overnight. Using runes, he had matched Naruto's speed while using senjutsu. But while senjutsu only enhanced physical and spiritual capabilities, natural chakra activated every rune the bearer possessed, whether they were meant to improve the body or provide other useful abilities. It was a tremendous advantage, and one she wanted her husband to have.
Kakashi didn't have the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan like Sasuke or Itachi, which meant he could only use his eye in a limited fashion. They had no other eyes he could swap with Obito's, and they didn't even know whether a transplant would work to bypass the eye's curse, since Kakashi wasn't born an Uchiha. He also lacked the enormous chakra reserves that Naruto and she possessed thanks to being jinchūriki, and he couldn't use senjutsu because nobody had ever taught him. Honestly, out of all of them, Kakashi was the most limited when it came to raw abilities.
It was true that he knew more ninjutsu than anyone else, that he was clever and intelligent, skilled with certain types of fuinjutsu, and a master swordsman. But that wouldn't be enough against what was coming. Something told her she had to do something, and that something was runes. With runes, Kakashi could imitate the effects of senjutsu without ever learning senjutsu, and that was incredible.
As her husband stripped down and she began tattooing the runes onto him, just as she had done with Sasuke, she found herself thinking that she needed to come up with a way for him to use his Mangekyō Sharingan without limits. She didn't know how yet, but she'd think of something.
She focused entirely on her work. She didn't want to make even a single mistake, unlikely as that was, considering she was a rune master, but she wasn't taking chances. Kakashi let her work without saying a word. This time it took much less time, only ten hours. When she finished, she let Kakashi go to bed, knowing he was probably feeling physically miserable. She kissed the top of his head before heading downstairs to eat something.
As soon as she reached the bottom of the stairs, she spotted her messenger pigeon. The one she had sent to Jiraiya.
"Well, well... Let's see what the old pervert has to say."
She saw that it was written in code, so she revealed it with her magic. The letter knew Jiraiya's intentions, so with magical assistance it translated itself automatically. She began to read.
"Seina, I can't return to Konoha right now, but I hope this helps.
During the Second Shinobi War, a boy named Nagato was orphaned in Amegakure at the hands of Konoha ninja. The boy wandered through the country for months until he found two other orphans, Konan and Yahiko. They were pretty pathetic, barely more than civilians, wandering around looking for food. Tsunade wanted nothing to do with them, and Orochimaru would rather have killed them because they were a burden. I guess I felt sorry for them, so I stayed and taught them a few things so they could take care of themselves, though nothing particularly important. Then the following happened.
Several months after I started training those orphans, a ninja from Iwagakure found Nagato and Yahiko and tried to attack them. Nagato reawakened the Rinnegan, an eye he had apparently only activated once before, when he witnessed his parents' murder, and killed the Iwa ninja. Seeing abilities that were clearly ninja-related, I realized I had no choice but to teach him how to control them. It took me a little over three years to turn them into capable shinobi, but they succeeded.
After that I returned to Konoha, though I kept my ears open regarding those children. Nagato's dream was world peace. He believed he could somehow bring it about. I told him that before that, he would need to learn to control his eyes, because they might be the key to achieving it. For years those three orphans accomplished what many people in Amegakure could not: they began gathering followers who shared their pacifist ideals, hoping that the war would finally come to an end. I remember feeling very proud of them, but even that wasn't enough.
There was a man in Amegakure named Hanzo who clearly viewed them as a threat to his leadership. I don't know exactly what happened or who helped Hanzo, but he plotted to eliminate Nagato and his group of pacifists. Information from that period is sparse and unreliable. Some people claim that Nagato survived and continued leading his group of ninja in Amegakure; if that's true, it would mean Hanzo died. Others claim Hanzo is still in power. I don't know what happened to those three, nor what they did in Amegakure. Information from that village arrives only in drips due to its isolationist policies and strict security.
As for what I know about the dōjutsu itself... very little. During my travels I heard and read that the Rinnegan was known as the Eye of the Gods and that it was an extraordinarily rare ability. Rumours claimed that the father of ninjutsu possessed these eyes and that his purpose was to bring peace and knowledge to the world. That's one of the reasons I began training Nagato, because there is a prophecy that says someone will become the reincarnation of the Sage of Six Paths. The Rinnegan itself is incredibly powerful. I know almost nothing about it, but Nagato did tell me what happened during that attack by the Iwa ninja.
Apparently, the ninja attacked him with a jutsu that Nagato was able to absorb and send back, killing him instantly. I also saw him repel objects, so I don't know whether telekinesis is another one of its powers or something indirectly related to it."
She finished reading Jiraiya's brief account, but there was nothing else particularly useful. A chill ran down her spine as she read the letter. She didn't want to stew over it by herself, so she left the letter where it was and went to bed.
"...I don't know whether telekinesis is another power or something indirectly related to it. What I do know is that Nagato, despite being physically weak, was the strongest of the three. Even so, his abilities sometimes left him exhausted for days. Who knows whether it was because he was still learning to use his dōjutsu, or whether the Rinnegan itself demanded a heavy price..."
Neji finished reading Jiraiya's letter aloud while everyone else listened in silence. He handed the letter to Shikamaru, who reread it to himself. The others spent several minutes reflecting on what they had just learned.
"So, to sum it up: Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, a guy who may not even have been human, was the Sage of Six Paths and the creator of the bijū. On top of that, he possessed the Rinnegan, an incredibly powerful dōjutsu that later appeared in this other guy, Nagato, whose abilities are so strange and varied that Jiraiya-sama has no idea what all of them are," Kiba said, crossing his arms. The others nodded. "Am I missing anything?"
"Yes. Supposedly, this man was the father of ninjutsu, so he must have accomplished something extraordinary to earn that title. Also, according to Kurama, it seems he created the bijū from a single entity."
"Not to mention that he's the common ancestor of the Hyūga and Uchiha clans, and who knows how many others."
"This information isn't particularly useful to us," Sasuke said, taking the letter from Shikamaru.
"I'm afraid Sasuke is right. Nagato's origins don't matter nearly as much as what he can do with the Rinnegan in relation to the worldwide genjutsu Akatsuki wants to cast," Shikamaru sighed. "Fortunately, Akatsuki now has two fewer ninja."
"But they also have fewer bijū left to harvest chakra from. The only ones remaining are Seina and me, the Eight-Tails jinchūriki, and Gaara."
"And they've already taken a portion of Shukaku from Gaara, which is more than enough," she reminded them, causing Naruto and Sasuke to frown.
"Why do you say it's enough?" Ino asked, looking just as confused as Tenten, Lee, and several others.
"Because a small part of infinity is still infinity. We don't know whether they've realized that yet, but finding relics containing the remaining chakra should be enough. We told Shikaku, but he thinks starting a search for those relics could be dangerous."
"The last thing we want is to give them clues and help them figure it out themselves," Shikamaru said with a worried expression.
The pale faces of their friends made it clear they had understood the danger of the situation. Seina scratched her head, tired of all of this. Compared to a worldwide genjutsu, Danzo seemed like some neighbourhood idiot. They wrapped up their unofficial meeting without much else to say. There was nothing more they could do besides exchange information, just in case. Even so, the rinnegan sounded like an incredibly versatile and dangerous dōjutsu. She only hoped they would never have to cross paths with Nagato, or Pain, or whatever he called himself now.
A couple of days later, something unusual happened.
"Another one of Orochimaru's bases?" she asked her teacher. "Why do you want us to be the ones to destroy it?"
"You're the best team for infiltrating it, destroying it, and evading Orochimaru if he's present. Sasuke is his target, there is no doubt about that, but he'll be a jōnin very soon, and he has all of you covering his back," her teacher said, resting her chin on her clasped hands. "Besides... I also think you're one of the few teams capable of facing him without ending up in body bags."
Sasuke said nothing, neither for nor against the mission. Part of him had almost forgotten about Orochimaru. After all, they had far more serious things to worry about. Another part of him, however, was eager to put an end to his enemy once and for all. Sasuke was no coward, nor did he enjoy being hunted or manipulated; a terrible combination for Orochimaru.
"Team 7, Kakashi will lead this mission: retrieve the documents, destroy his base, and eliminate him if possible."
"Hai."
They left her office without another word. Naruto practically vibrated with excitement, suppressing a malicious grin as he realized there was a very real chance they would finally get rid of one of their many enemies. They were no longer twelve-year-old children fresh out of the Academy. Now the hunter could easily become the prey...
The Land of Rice Fields had not changed much since her last trip there with Jiraiya. She found it curious that Orochimaru had returned to where it all started instead of building his base somewhere far away, but then again, strategically speaking, Orochimaru had always liked being in the centre of everything, or, put another way, he loved being close to the Land of Fire. Maybe part of him missed his homeland, or maybe he didn't care about his birthplace at all and only cared about what he could gain from being nearby. With Orochimaru, who knew.
"Alright, team," her husband said, smiling like in the old days. "We'll rest here tonight and tomorrow, first thing in the morning, we'll investigate the area where the base was reportedly seen."
"Do you think Orochimaru will be there?"
"He could be... Konoha's shinobi have been on his trail for months. There are no signs that he's switched bodies recently," her husband murmured in response to Sasuke's question. "Maybe he was waiting for you to return from your exile."
"But... that means he must be very weak, right?"
"Based on what we know, if he hasn't switched bodies, yes."
Naruto and Seina exchanged a glance while Sasuke stared toward the north. She didn't need their bond to know what her brother was thinking, or to agree with him. If Orochimaru had truly been waiting for Sasuke, which seemed likely judging by how desperate and eager he had looked the last time they met, then he had long since exceeded the deadline for performing his body-switching jutsu. Which meant... he had to be extremely weak. It was the perfect time to kill him.
Sasuke glanced at her and nodded.
They ate dinner and slept in their tent behind several magical and fuinjutsu barriers. They did not even discuss strategy, preferring to leave it until the next morning, which arrived soon enough.
"As I said yesterday, today we're going to find his base and infiltrate it. Based on the movements our informants have observed, it appears to be more of a laboratory than a military base, but we must not lower our guard," Kakashi said. They nodded. "Good. Let's begin. Kuchiyose no Jutsu."
"Yo, Kakashi! Team 7!" Pakkun nodded at her brothers. Then he looked at her with a grin and jumped into her arms. "Seina. I tried the conditioner you made for me. Look how shiny my fur is."
"Pakkun, this really isn't the time."
"Yeah, yeah..." the dog sighed.
"You can show me later, Pakkun," she said, suppressing a laugh and kissing his furry, soft, silky little head.
"I need you to locate Orochimaru. We have reliable information indicating he's somewhere nearby."
"Understood."
They watched as Pakkun sniffed the air and then the ground. Apparently Orochimaru frequented the area, because it did not take him long to pick up the scent. They followed Pakkun through the trees for barely ten minutes.
"Damn, we were closer than I thought," Naruto muttered as they stopped several dozen meters away and looked at what appeared to be a well in the middle of the forest.
"It's there."
"Thanks, Pakkun. You can go," her husband said. The ninken vanished at the same time Kakashi turned to them. "Seina, you're up."
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu."
She summoned several of her small creatures, insects and arthropods, and sent them through the small entrance of the base, hidden among the undergrowth. She encountered no resistance whatsoever, so she spied to her heart's content. Naruto and Sasuke stood beside her, seeing through the eyes of her spiders and flies while Kakashi watched their backs.
The base resembled the others, made of packed earth reinforced with wood. It was rustic, crude, and windowless. The floors were dirt, and the beams supporting the ceiling were wood and stone. It felt just as claustrophobic as the previous bases. The corridors branched repeatedly, but she saw no one and found no rooms until she ventured deeper into the cave. Then she saw a pair of underlings in laboratory coats emerge from a hallway, discussing failed experiments they had apparently conducted inside the base, making it clear there was a laboratory hidden within.
Her animals split up, taking different routes without being detected. Then she heard someone coughing repeatedly, breathing raggedly, and then she heard the voice of that bastard.
"Orochimaru-sama! Please, let me help you up!"
The door to Orochimaru's room was closed, so she could not see inside, but she heard the sound of a body being lifted from the sheets. Kabuto was probably propping him up with pillows so he would not choke while coughing and could breathe more easily. Distractedly, she noticed one of her flies discovering what appeared to be the laboratory, which, contrary to her expectations, was enormous.
"Orochimaru is here," she informed Kakashi, the only one who wasn't seeing any of this. "He seems very weak."
"I want to kill him," Sasuke cut in with a serious face and determined expression before Kakashi could say a word.
The others remained silent. Kakashi looked at Naruto and then at her, realizing neither of them intended to talk Sasuke out of it. All of them wanted Orochimaru dead once and for all. Sasuke felt the need to do it for personal reasons, and they understood that, so they would not interfere. Orochimaru was not Itachi. Kakashi seemed to grasp that quickly enough and simply sighed.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Very well. We'll act as backup if necessary, but otherwise... you have permission to eliminate Orochimaru."
"What about Kabuto?" she asked, her nails lengthening into claws, bloodthirsty.
"You can keep that one," Sasuke snorted with amusement, not caring in the slightest about Orochimaru's lackey.
"Let's go. No point waiting here. It'd be best if you teleported us to one of your creatures to bypass any barriers or traps."
She let them grab her arms, all of them invisible, and they appeared in the middle of a corridor. While they had been discussing their options, Kabuto had left the room, leaving Orochimaru alone, so she knew they would never get a better opportunity than this. Sasuke walked slowly down the final stretch before reaching the door they all knew concealed one of their worst enemies. He raised a hand and, in less than a millisecond, formed a Chidori Spear that pierced toward Orochimaru from a distance.
Behind Sasuke, Kakashi, Naruto, and Seina saw Orochimaru lying in a bed in the middle of a dirt room devoid of luxury or furniture. The Sannin had been fast enough to protect his heart from the spear, stopping it with his wrists, which were covered in fuinjutsu markings. Orochimaru looked pale, even paler than usual, with sweat beading across his face and weakness evident in his eyes.
"I should have expected this," Orochimaru said, staring directly at her brother. Sasuke did not even flinch. "Did you come here solely to kill me?"
"It's time I got rid of you."
Sasuke increased the power of his spear, but Orochimaru used his arms to deflect it away from his face.
Sasuke approached the weakened Sannin at a leisurely pace. Orochimaru did not seem to have the strength for much more, yet Sasuke continued watching him carefully. Orochimaru was, after all, incredibly slippery.
"I'm stronger than you now. I don't see any reason to let you stay alive, constantly pissing me off and trying to steal my body."
"Very brave for an Uchiha baby," he hissed, never taking his yellow eyes off Sasuke, filled with desire and anger.
"Heh..." Sasuke smiled mockingly at his words. "What does that say about you, Orochimaru? That you have to chase after an Uchiha child because you're so weak it's unthinkable that you could take on Itachi? And to think people call you one of the Three Sannin, yet you don't measure up to the Uchiha. Look at yourself... constantly drugging yourself with medicines, hopping from body to body while you lust after the power of my clan. Pathetic. I used to see an enemy. Now all I see is a miserable wretch."
Without saying anything else, the rest of the team watched as Sasuke drew his katana with his right hand and lunged at Orochimaru, intent on burying the blade in his face. Orochimaru, however, unhinged his jaw in an inhuman manner. She couldn't see what happened because Sasuke's body blocked her view, but she quickly figured it out when a white snake grew and grew until it became gigantic, filling the entirety of the large bedroom.
She felt Kakashi's hand grab both her and Naruto by the shoulders and pull them back, but it was pointless. Orochimaru couldn't perceive them beneath the bracelet, her magic, and Kakashi's invisible genjutsu. Not to mention that he seemed one hundred percent focused on Sasuke, caring about nothing else.
"You and your experiments," Sasuke said, standing atop the bed.
They couldn't see much through Orochimaru's enormous body until the snake suddenly lunged at Sasuke with a scream.
"GIVE ME YOUR BODY!"
Tense and ready to act like the others, Seina watched her brother dodge the attack and cut off several white snake heads that were part of Orochimaru's body. He landed once again in the doorway, with the three of them less than a meter behind him like invisible shadows. She smiled as Sasuke activated his runes, every single one of them. She could practically feel the natural chakra swirling around him, being absorbed by the blood-activated runes.
"Die once and for all."
Orochimaru couldn't keep up with Sasuke. He didn't even see it coming. Sasuke sliced the giant snake into multiple pieces, and it collapsed lifelessly onto the floor. Kakashi tightened his grip on Naruto's arm when he saw him about to rush toward Sasuke, while Seina sensed Kabuto slowly approaching. Sasuke's sharp intake of breath drew her attention back to the fight. She saw him kneeling on the floor, his red eyes wide, almost surprised.
"The fluids of the great snake evaporate when exposed to air, and they have a numbing effect."
"But h-how is that possible!? He cut it into pieces!" Naruto shouted through their bond, which they had muted so as not to distract Sasuke.
"Orochimaru isn't a Sannin for nothing, Naru."
"I'M IMMORTAL! YOU CAN'T KILL ME!" Orochimaru hissed furiously, opening his mouth wide as he prepared to swallow Sasuke.
The problem? The numbing effect only affected her brother's body, not his eyes... Orochimaru accidentally looked directly into Sasuke's evolved eyes and immediately fell into a genjutsu. Seina looked away, knowing Orochimaru was finished, and turned instead toward the approaching Kabuto, practically salivating. The moment Kabuto rounded the corner and saw the trail of blood leading into the corridor, he dropped the medicine he was carrying and hurried toward the doorway.
Seina smiled before abruptly deactivating her bracelet. With one hand, she grabbed him by the hair, and with the other, she drove a punch into him with all of her brute strength, launching him screaming down the corridor. He slammed into a wall, taking it with him, and crashed into another room they hadn't yet discovered. Naruto deactivated his bracelet as well, but Kakashi didn't. Her husband was clearly more cautious than the rest of them. She walked toward Kabuto, smiling when she saw the terrified expression on his face as he tried to heal himself with one hand while crawling out of the crater of stone and wood he was embedded in.
"Well, well... We finally meet again, Kabuto."
Kabuto said nothing. Maybe because he didn't have enough air left to speak. Maybe because he knew it was pointless. She planted a foot on his stomach and pressed him harder into the ground, making him scream in pain.
"Stop!"
"You almost killed my brother and you expect me to stop!?" she shouted, leaning over him so he could see her red eyes up close. Kabuto tried to slash her throat with a chakra scalpel, but the chain was faster. She jumped back, impressed that he had altered his medical jutsu without her noticing while taking advantage of her lapse in attention. Even so, with a chain driven through his right hand and pinning it to the floor, Kabuto wasn't a threat.
"S-Sasuke!" their enemy exclaimed from the ground as her brother approached slowly, cleaning his katana. "It can't be... Y-you defeated Orochimaru-sama, or... Who are you?"
"Who do you think I am?"
Sasuke's dark eyes flared once more with the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, and Kabuto was trapped in a genjutsu that lasted barely half a minute.
"You killed him. No..." Kabuto whispered, futilely trying to rise with his remaining hand, pushing himself up from behind.
"I simply absorbed him."
"Ew."
Seina snorted with laughter at the disgusted look on Naruto's face. Then Kakashi tackled them all to the ground at the exact instant Kabuto, who hadn't actually been trying to stand up but had instead been manipulating something behind his back while they were distracted, triggered an explosion above their heads. She coughed through the dust, hearing rock crash down around them before Kakashi shielded them with a stone barrier. Seina dispersed the dust and pushed aside the rubble while everyone coughed and shielded their eyes. She saw that Kabuto had amputated his own hand in order to escape.
"SHIT! FILTHY FUCKING WORM!" she screamed, followed immediately by Kurama, when she realized he had gotten away.
"Let's finish him!"
"He can't have gone far," Sasuke hissed, his Sharingan active as though his murderous gaze could pierce the walls themselves.
"Wait a minute!" Kakashi shouted, raising his voice as he noticed they were feeding off each other through their open bond. "Our mission is to destroy the base and eliminate Orochimaru."
Seina took a deep breath, knowing he was right. She watched Naruto's red eyes fade and felt Kurama calm down, albeit reluctantly.
"Kabuto will show up again sooner or later," Kakashi said in a conciliatory tone, squeezing her shoulder, "but we can't afford to lose our heads."
"Fine. Let's finish this shit."
She turned around, ignoring the destruction behind her, and headed toward the laboratory. She would find that slippery snake and rip his head off another time.