It had been a month since he had abandoned Konohagakure. Training under one of the Sannin was hard, since the expectations at him were quiet high, but under such circumstances he flourished. He had gotten noticeable stronger, now easily keeping up with the other two sound shinobi that had escorted him and survived.
Still he seemed to lack real motivations to make friends, as he kept mostly to himself. Though he had a soft spot for his unexpected companion, training her when he had time. Most of his time was spent training, either himself or the young Hyūga. She could become a fine asset in his hunt for Itachi.
"Man, it sucks that you only know one lightning technique Sasuke-sensei" complained the exhausted girl. He rolled his eyes, annoyed that what she spoke was the truth. He only knew the Chidori, a technique that was too Chakra taxing for her. That was why he had her training control over her Chakra, doing a lot of physical and mental labor.
"Well, that really shouldn't stop you though, as you can make your own" she continued on after she got the hint that he wouldn't verbally respond to her words. Though her words piqued his interest, especially since his whole arsenal was lacking in techniques. "well, how do you create techniques?" he asked her, since he had really no idea.
To everyone else besides a person he trusted he would have behaved as if he knew everything better than them, but with her he could lower his guard for a little bit. "well don't ask me, Sensei, why else would you have gone to a Sannin if not to get stronger and learn a lot?" He liked her snarky comments, especially since no one else would dare to disrespect him in this hellhole like her.
"Well, I will do it tomorrow, but now complete your exercise" he barked at her, smirking as she scrambled back to her exercise. They were at a river with quiet a bit of rapids that pulled her often dozens of meters with, before she could get to land again. It had been his first exercise under Orochimaru and he had mastered it quiet fast, as he was able to walk on steady water easily but had problems with fast flowing water.
She had been introduced to the river a week ago, only able to tree walk, he had let her try water walking on a peaceful part of the river until she was good enough to go to the rapids. It has been four days since then and she had gotten good enough at it to stand a minute on the water before her concentration broke and she was emerged under water.
He watched carefully with his Sharingan as she walked onto the river, how her Chakra rapidly changed to accommodate the water and this time she stood longer, a good two minutes before she lost concentration. He smirked at her shriek, before it was drowned out by water that buried her and pulled her along.
Three minutes later a wet Hyūga came back to the training place, her clothes had been discarded after two failed attempts on the first day and she was only in undergarments. He smirked at her and she shot him a glare, she was laughing a lot as he had done this exercise and now it was his time to be amused at her failures.