The dust had not finished settling, however. As the last of it cleared away, it became clear that there was another person standing in the cloud. Zatsune smiled at the pile of broken music ninjas in the corner.

"Impressive, I must say." The devilish young woman crooned. "But it'll take a lot more than that to take me out!" Orochimaru, for the first time in his life, lost his composure.

"What in the world IS SHE!" Orochimaru gawked at the bruised but not beaten Chunin. "That shouldn't be possible!" the other sound ninja nodded in agreement, completely forgetting their friend Kimimaru had survived similar treatment once from a particularly drunk, bushy eyebrow-ed Genin.

"Orochimaru, is it?" Zatsune purred, walking over to the five sound ninja. "You look surprised. Surely you did your research on me before you came, right? At least tell me you thought to have a backup plan in case I didn't want to join you?" at this Orochimaru's eyes darkened.

"Yes I have a backup plan! Only an idiot wouldn't!" Orochimaru hissed, "But I would think you would understand the value of a group of allies. After all, they are so hard to find when you are known for enjoying destruction." Orochimaru had regained some of his composure now, but he was still taking a halfstep back for every step Zatsune made towards him.

"Of course. But that doesn't mean one should just join the first group one meets. After all, a girl has to have standards!" Zatsune was almost to them now, and showed no sign of stopping, the three 'Genin' Orochimaru had braught with him nervously stepping between her and their leader. "And my standards for my allies are rather high. So if you want me to join, give me a reason why." Zatsune stopped, now standing a whole half-centimeter in front of the lead guard. Kabuto growled to himself about the offhand way she treated Lord Orochimaru, but didn't step in the way himself. This girl was out of his league.

"Well, my dear. It goes like this: you have incredible strength. I have a huge wealth of funds. I also have an army of slaves to deal with my every whim. On top of this, I have various experimental subjects upon which I try out new jutsu. Because of this last point, I also have a jutsu that releases the dark strength of the corrupted soul, and have verified its safe use, as long as you don't mind the temporary paralysis when you first begin using it and the violent tendencies it induces during use. And it looks to me, you're already violent enough as it is, so the only down side would be the first time you used it you would probably have to wait a little bit while your body adjusted to the new power source. I also have several other experimental jutsus that increase the power of the user I would be willing to share. And all I would ask of you is to follow my lead, and I'd be telling you to do what you love to, already, so there is no real downside that I'm aware of." Orochimaru wasn't so sure about giving her the curse mark, she seemed pretty powerful as it was, but she probably knew about it anyway. Besides, one of those other strengthening jutsus he mentioned had an interesting side effect where the one who was subject to the jutsu became absolutely loyal to the one who performed the jutsu. All he needed was for her to agree to join him, even temporarily, and he would have her forever.

"about those slaves…" Zatsune's smile had become very mischevious, "they would do anything I told them to?" Kabuto had a feeling that she would command them to do some unpleasant things, and was glad Lord Orochimaru had seen his potential and removed him from those ranks so early on.

"Yes. They've been threatened with a fate worse than death should they refuse. And, I must admit, many of them are addicts to drugs that can only be found amongst my people. Highly, highly, addictive drugs." Orochimaru explained, thinking of the looks on the deprived soul's faces when they got even a small taste of the powerful hallucinogen. "so what will it be? Understand that if you decide to refuse, we will have to ensure you can't follow us so you don't know where my little home is. Nothing personal, just the way these things work." Orochimaru smiled, seeing that the addicted and coerced slaves had done what he had expected the offer of power to do.

"This sounds really tempting, Orochimaru" Zatsune leaned foreward, laying an arm on the genin as if he were a bar to lean on. "But I'm afraid I'm not quit convinced. I'm going to need proof that your words are true. Nothing personal, just the way these things work." Zatsune lured, using the same phrase he had to threaten her.

"How about a demonstration? Of the performance improving jutsus? Or perhaps if I provide one of our expendable friends here some of the drugs I told you about?" at this the genin all turned to look at Orochimaru with horror, with the exception of the one Zatsune was leaning on, and he still had a look of horror on his face anyway. Zatsune laughed.

"Oh, look at their cute little faces. I don't think they realized they work for the devil yet." Zatsune laughed again. "Let's see both. First, drug one of them and let me determine just how loyal the addiction makes them, and then use one of the 'strength jutsus' on him, and we'll see just how strong he really is." Orochimaru smiled. These three had already been through the strength booster that made you completely loyal, so they would do whatever he told them anyway, the drug would just make it more obvious.

"Happily." Orochimaru quickly calculated which of the three was the weakest overall, and decided on the one on the left. "Minori, please hold Kaba still while Kabuto and I prepare the dosage." Kaba emediately moved to flee, but the relieved Minori knew that if she didn't catch him, she would be the replacement. On top of that, though she didn't know this part, the jutsu running through her veins told her to obey Orochimaru, and she just came up with an excuse. It wasn't particularly hard, Kaba was more frantic than actually running, and she hald him down on the ground, waiting while Zatsune tried to look over Kabuto's shoulder at the materials they were using while still leaning on the third genin. It wasn't working. The sound ninja had on purpose turned so that she would be unable to see what they were doing.

"There, it's ready Lord Orochimaru." Kabuto handed the syringe to his master, and put his pack of 'medicines' up.

"Please! Lord Orochimaru! I'll do anything! I've always been a loyal servent, please don't make me take that stuff!" Kaba screamed and wriggled as Orochimaru came ever closer, taking his sweet time, enjoying the control. When he finally got there, he crouched down next to the helpless ninja and prepared to administer the drug.

"Now hold still, Kaba. This will only take a minute. Trust me, you'll enjoy yourself." Orochimaru grabbed one of Kaba's arms, and aimed the needle at one of the veins in Kaba's arm. Ever so slowly, Orochimaru brought the needle closer and closer to the exposed vein, smiling viciously as the poor genin struggled helplessly under their grip. Inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter, Orochimaru enjoyed himself at Kaba's expense.

"Chidori!" as the yell echoed throughout the cavern, all the ninjas froze, excluding Zatsune and Orochimaru. The sound of athousand birds began echoing around them, confusing the direction it was coming from, steadily getting louder. Orochimaru sighed and put the syringe aside for the moment.

"Ah, Sasuke. It's good to see you're still training. But did you really have to interrupt me while I did business with Zatsune, here?" Orochimaru turned away from the helpless Kaba and looked in the opposite direction, a little to the right of the still downed music ninjas. "Must this really come to blows?"

Sasuke burst from one of the tunnel walls, creating a whole new hole, and hit the ground running, his Chidori still strong.

"Zatsune!" Sasuke roared, flying across the distance in the blink of an eye, and jabbed at Zatsune from point blank-

-and she caught it. Sasuke stood there for a second, staring at his hand, held in Zatsune's powerful grip. "What. The. Hell." Sasuke breathed. Zatsune, having put the axe in an over-the-shoulder sheath and kept the katana in her hand, was now using her left hand to hold Sasuke's in a vice like grip that was all but breaking the bones in his hand. She smiled at him, and raised her left hand so the katana was level with Sasuke's neck as if she were about to swing it sideways at him. Orochimaru jumped foreword.

"Easy, you witch!" Orochimaru spat, "I need him alive and unharmed!" Zatsune turned and gave Orochimaru a look that said 'care to rephrase that statement?' Truth be told, he did, but he wasn't about to admit it. "There are fates worse than death, as I'm sure you know, and if you harm him I will have to send you to each and every one of those fates!" Zatsune just looked at him like he was some kind of simpleton.

"Fine. I'll kill you first." Zatsune tossed Sasuke across the room, where he landed on Kaito's unconscious body. She then drew her axe, and held herself at the ready. "Nobody tells me what to do. I will never take orders from anyone!" and with that, she jumped foreword, and the fight was on again. Orochimaru quickly threw the syringe off to the side, and began making hand signs, Kabuto and the sound genin jumping to his side, except for Kaba who was lying on the ground weeping for joy of not being drugged.

With a jolt, Kaito sat up, his eyes wide. Sasuke was thrown off of him, and quickly rolled to his feet and looked at the revived Jounin.

"What happened?" Kaito asked as awareness slowly filled his eyes. "Oh, yeah. Zatsune got out and Naruto was killed." Kaito quickly looked over at the Kagamine twins, and sighed when he saw that aside from being exhausted they were fine. Sasuke turned to Kaito with a question in his eyes, but before he could ask it a stray blast of fire from the combatants slammed into the wall above them.

"Come on, we need to back off and get to a safe distance." Sasuke whispered, and silently picked up the unconscious Len. He didn't trust Ryn to stay unconscious if he tried to carry her. Kaito picked her up, however, and the two slowly made their way into the entrance to one of the tunnel entrances where they could watch the fight from safety. Sasuke then turned to Kaito accusingly.

"What is she, and more importantly what happened to Miku Hatsune?" Sasuke drilled the sheepish jounin. Kaito sighed, and leaned back against the wall of the tunnel where he was sitting.

"You might as well sit down. It's a long story, and you'll present less of a target to those five anyway." Sasuke did so, and listened as Kaito ordered his thoughts and slowly worked his way into the memories. "In the land of voices, music is a way of life. It's more than that really, though. It's the way of life. And for the ninjas of the hidden music village, it is life. It is your sword and your shield, your pen and your paper, judge, jury, and executioner. So one day a scientist of the Hidden Music Village asked a question: 'what would happen if there were a ninja for whom music was literally life?' and made it his mission to find out. He researched what kind of people made the best music ninjas, from hair color to gender to personality all the down to tidiness. He decided that the kind of person with the greatest musical potential would be a kind hearted, 5 ft 7 inch tall, thin, teal haired girl with a magnetic personality. So then came the search. Where could he find such a person? And search he did. He searched the entirety of the Land of Voices for such a girl, and he found none." Kaito's eyes looked far away, as if he were living the story instead of telling it. "Not a single person matched this discription. Without proof, the scientist's theory was worthless. He'd already spent huge sums of resourses on this, so if he couldn't prove it, he would be the laughing stock of the scientific world. But what could he do? But he wouldn't give up, and began to try and create a hypothetical situation that would prove his point. But that wasn't working either. Finally, a glimmer of hope came to him. A man came, offering him a jutsu that could be used to alter a dying person into whatever form the scientist chose. Not only would he be able to finally have his perfect singer, but he would be able to save someone's life. The scientist was astounded. When he asked why the man was giving it too him, he explained that he did not have the resourses to be able to use it on people without others nearby, which meant that there would be people who saw what he did and considered him a monster. All he wanted was for the scientist to create for the man a son, and give him to the man after he had finished with his own work. The scientist was too enamored in the idea to think twice. He agreed, and took the scroll with the powerful jutsu written on it, and began applying his now limited resources to acquiring a person who was on the brink of death. And he received several people. At first he experimented with the jutsu's power, and created to nearly identical beings, and called them 'mirrored sound'. Things went exactly as planned, and he was able to create new life from the dying. He was ecstatic." Kaito's eyes gleamed with happy memories. Sasuke could almost see tears in his eyes as Kaito's face changed, and became somber. "But then he decided to create the perfect song ninja, and made his preparations. Then he received a girl who had just been mortally wounded in an attack on the Hidden Music Village, and was not ready to die. She fought against the restraints and as her lifeblood flowed out would not let anyone near her. But because of the restraints the scientist was able to get close enough to perform the jutsu. But even as the girl's life was at an end, she wouldn't except it and fought against death with such ferocity that by force of will she stopped the jutsu. But the jutsu was already being performed, and was impossible to stop. The force, unable to act normally because the girl was not yet dead, was thrown outwards upon the scientist. Even as the force exploded outward, the girl's pulse finally stopped, and the jutsu was able to get in." Kaito's eyes glistened with held back tears as he told the dark story. "The jutsu created the perfect music ninja out of the strong willed girl, but it also altered the scientist. When he awoke, his body had become younger, and his hair had turned blue. More importantly, however, his heart had been changed. He was no longer cold and calculating, but kind and caring. He couldn't believe that anyone could do such a thing to a person, let alone that he had once done it. So I took up a new name to go with his new appearance and devoted myself to protecting the young music ninjas whose lives I had irrevocably altered. But it seems that the jutsu was incomplete on the young girl whose name was once Zatsune, because whenever the new personality Hatsune thinks of something familiar to Zatsune, the dark personality rides the memory to the forefront of her mind, and is released." Kaito tried to rise up onto his feet, but Sasuke put a hand on his shoulder, holding him down. He looked the Jounin in the eyes, looked as far into his soul as his Sharingon was capable. What he found was a repentant old man who ws trying to fix the wrongs of a lifetime.

"Don't worry. We still have one ace up our sleave." Sasuke smiled.

This chapter takes on a more noir feel than the previous ones, and it took some work to push through the miasma Zatsune through at me, but I think I've got through it now. What's Sasuke's ace? You'll just have to wait to find out. Btw: 2789 words, a new record! This one drags on a little, but I couldn't find anywhere that they were willing to separate into parts. The pieces of this chapter are just to close together, to similar. Back from hiatus (I think that's the word…), I wanted to give my readers a big chapter to make up for it. My only regret is that it had to be the dark part of the story which doesn't match the rest. Please review and tell me if this is too dark, so I can learn and do better in the future. Or review and say it was the perfect amount of darkness, so I can do more in the future.