"I recognise that chakra in the distance. Heading toward Orochimaru now?"

"Yeah, he was a real dick back in the day, but after the war he turned out alright. I just need to convince him to hurry up and be like that already."

"It took a few deaths and a body made of Hashirama's cells to get there though."

"Yeah, I might see if I can convince him to just get a body from Akatsuki now."

"Which means getting the bastard to leave Akatsuki right?"

"I'm not even sure he's in Akatsuki yet. I thought he joined to try get Itachi's eyes, and Itachi is still in Konoha."

Naruto paused at the top of a hill for a moment, looking toward where Orochimaru's current hidden base must lie. "Besides, I think of all the people in this time, we might actually understand each other the most."

"You're really comparing yourself to... that?"

"Hey, he wants to live forever and learn all the jutsu, I kinda have done that."

Naruto thought for a moment.

"And at least I know Orochimaru should still be a he at this point."

"Hey Orochimaru, how's it hanging?"

Orochimaru looked up in surprise. Not only had someone managed to find his current secret lab, but they'd managed to sneak right in without alerting him. This was a problem.

"How did you get in here?"

"Why do people keep asking that? There's a door. You can walk through doors when they're open."

Hmmm, so this stranger must make a habit of surprising people in places he shouldn't be. Time to add another check to the problem column.

"Ok, you snuck in here and got past my guards, all without alerting me. But why are you here?"

"I just wanna chat ya'know? You want to live forever and learn all the jutsu in the world right?"

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow at the simple description of his goals. "And what's that to you?"

"I kinda know a thing or two about that. Plus I can help you find some bodies to inhabit that won't react badly to your chakra."

Ok, this was really disconcerting. The process of inhabiting another body as a means of extending his life was still only theoretical, and he hadn't even discussed it with any of his underlings. Best to treat this with caution, and play along for the time being.

"Well, then, lead the way."

The checks in Orochimaru's problem column were rapidly growing. This old man had just used the fourth Hokage's signature space-time jutsu to take them both into a column where there was a massive... statue? Tree with a face? Whatever it was, it was emanating some powerful chakra.

"So yeah, this is the remains of the Juubi or something. Madara summoned it after getting the rinnegan, and plans to cram all the bijuu chakras into it and use it to put the whole world in an eternal genjutsu."

"Wait, Madara survived? The Juubi? THE RINNEGAN? I need to know more!"

"Ahh, that's about all I remember. We just gotta make sure that... Oh, hi Obito."

Orochimaru looked behind the old man to see a man in an orange mask hesitating mid attack on hearing the name. Wasn't Obito the name of that brat Kakashi's old teammate that died?

The old man continued "There's no need to act on that control seal Madara put on you, I know you can be a good guy. Besides, if you do what he wants you'll both end up being betrayed by Zetsu anyway."

The masked ninja identified as Obito didn't take kindly to this. A strange sharingan came to life in his one shown eye.

Then everything hit the fan.

The old man pulled out the fourth's other signature technique, but wait, was that with wind chakra? Obito somehow phased through the first one, and used some form of space-time jutsu to appear next to Orochimaru. Unfortunately, neither of them had noticed the concealed clone coming down from the roof with a similarly enhanced rasengan in each hand.

The results were not pretty.

No amount of Hashirama cells would save Obito from this. And besides, the potency of the chakra in the attack caused his replacement limbs to just turn into branches anyway.

As for Orochimaru, well, he'd yet to truly develop any of his immortality jutsu - and now it was too late.

"Well, you successfully eliminated Konoha's two biggest enemies, even if they only knew about one of them."

"Awww, but both of them were redeemable in our timeline. I wanted to get them both on our side."

"Psshh. Stop thinking sentimentally. You've saved Konoha a lot of headaches and possibly stopped the upcoming war."

"Nah, Zetsu's still around somewhere. I suppose I should make clones of these two so they can sort him out at some point."

Naruto paused for a moment to reminisce. "At least the chuunin exams won't be so bad for young Naruto now."