The bird was most unusual for this part of Rice Country, and the fact that it had a scroll attached to its leg had only increased how suspicious it was. Combined with the patient, oddly intelligent gaze it had fixed upon him, Orochimaru had been more intrigued than concerned. While there was always the possibility that it was, in fact, some sort of assassination attempt, exploding tags had been used in this fashion before, and Orochimaru was an S-class missing nin liked by no one outside his village, but just how blatantly suspicious this whole thing was suggested either that it was the work of an amateur assassin or that it was a non-hostile gesture of some sort. The former was unlikely, though not inconcievable, but the latter... there was no one on the face of this world that had any interest in giving Orochimaru a gift, just talking to him, or anything similar, excepting his own extremely loyal Sound ninja. Given that he had hand-picked all the ones that would ever dare to risk his wrath in this manner, and he couldn't recall any of them using owls in any way, shape, or form, this was unusual indeed. Thus, instead of putting a kunai through one of its eyes and putting the matter out of his head, Orochimaru had sent Kabuto to retrieve someone to test how safe the scroll and bird were. Kabuto had returned, not five minutes later, with Karin, which though not what Orochimaru had actually meant (He had, in fact, meant for Kabuto to retrieve one of his cannon fodder grunts that no one would miss if they died), was perfectly acceptable and possibly even better in its own way.
After a verbal nudge from Orochimaru, Kabuto had explained what was required of Karin, whom was quick to comply. After several minutes of intense study (Wherein Orochimaru occupied himself through a staring contest with the bird. He lost, to his amusement), she declared the scroll completely clean, but the bird weird. Orochimaru had gone through his 'I am pleased with you' routine, dismissed the girl without any explanation whatsoever, and once she was gone, politely asked the bird to put down the scroll and leave. He'd already deduced it was, if not a summon per se, certainly intelligent enough to rival them in cognitive ability, and thus was completely unsurprised when it did indeed remove the scroll and fly out the window it had first arrived through. The odd little bow it had sketched was sufficiently ridiculous to amuse him, but once it was gone, his attention moved back to the scroll, which he retrieved himself. Kabuto was trustworthy, in his own way, but Orochimaru suspected that the bird was only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, in terms of just how unusual this would be, and he felt it might be worth his personal attention.
Initially, the scroll was a little odd, but other than an oddly specific reference to Orochimaru's exact current location, it was just a series of nonsense titles and a name he didn't recognize. How dull . He read through the next part with increasingly thin patience; it was the sort of 'talking without speaking' nonsense that so vexed him to listen to. The grammar was also sufficiently poor that the little information contained in the kanji took far longer to coax out than it really should've, further irritating the the Snake Sannin. The scroll continued in this long, meandering, badly-written manner for quite some time before finally getting to the point. Orochimaru smirked when he read what was being asked of him. His smirk grew when the scale became clear, and he almost laughed aloud when he saw what was being offered in exhange. It was ridiculous. A paltry. They wanted the services of his entire village... and offered so little in exchange? Oh, certainly, the medical services sounded nice in theory, but Kabuto probably the best medic-nin in existence short of Tsunade, and the library access would be nice (Knowledge is, after all, power), and some of the other things offered were intriguing, but it simply wasn't enough. It was quite amusing that this... person... had the gall to attempt to hire the infamous S-class missing-nin, Snake Sannin Orochimaru, as well all those at his command, for so very little, but it was also rather insulting. It was odd, though. He couldn't imagine someone being genius enough to penetrate Sound's extensive security, right under his very nose, and yet also stupid enough to think he would ever go for such an absurd offer.
It was all very strange. Amusing, annoying, intriguing, and ridiculous all at the same time. In a way, it would almost justify accepting the offer in its own right, just to meet the fool who concocted this idiocy, but... only almost. Orochimaru was, in fact, going to pass it over to Kabuto for his own inspection, just to hear the medic-nin's bland response to this absurdity (Kabuto was always amusing to watch), when a smaller scroll dropped out of the first. This was exceedingly odd, not because something had been hidden away like that, but rather because none of the three ninja to see this scroll had noticed the smaller one inside. Even stranger, when Orochimaru picked it up (Ready with a dozen different jutsu for surviving any booby-trap inside), he realized that there were not words here, but instead several pictures. Moving pictures, more specifically. What sort of jutsu could create moving images like this? But the most interesting thing was not the pictures themselves, but rather what they were showing.
In one picture a boy, no older than twelve, held out a toy stick, his lips moved, and a burst of flame erupted from the toy. This motion repeated over and over. A second picture, looping too, instead show a child lifting a large, heavy box. Without touching it. Again, a stick was involved. The third repeating image was of a man mounting what appeared to be a broom, and proceeding to fly on it. There were a half-dozen more images in this vein, showing oddly dressed people doing odd things, which were increasingly implausible by ninja standards. Orochimaru was seriously reconsidering his refusal when he reached the final image, a colorful picture depicting an incredibly old man. If the Legendary Three were past their sell-by date, than this man was the stuff in the fridge that tried to eat you. His age alone was a startling thing to see, but then an even more incredible thing occured.
"Hello."
It spoke.