Chapter 14: Orochimaru
Feeling his adrenalin pumping through his system Naruto takes stock of the current situation, 'Incredibly dangerous traitor at 12 o clock, no back-up in the foreseeable future, giant snake once again trying to sneak up on us, this is not looking good.' He morosely thinks to himself, 'I could try Chakra Mode but the strength it gives me is pittance when compared to a ninja of his calibre, so, fighting is probably the last resort, let's try talking our way out of it.'
"How can we help you on this fine day?" Naruto asks in a dreadfully put-on welcoming voice.
"Kukukuku," Orochimaru laughs to himself at the blond in front of him, "Naruto, Sasuke and Hinata, what a wonderfully interesting team my old sensei has put together, Two users of the great three dojutsu and finally the container for the Kyuubi. While I'm sure each of you have your strong points, I'm afraid all I'm here for today is Sasuke."
"Why Sasuke?" Naruto responds bluntly.
"Ohh, that would be telling now wouldn't it."
"You're creepy and freaky." Insults Naruto while looking at the female body with a man's voice coming out of it.
"Does this help?" Orochimaru asks as he reaches up and rips his own face off, showing the pale skinned snake like visage beneath it.
"No." All three Genin reply at the same time, much to the amusement of the Sanin in front of them.
"So you've come to kill me?" Sasuke asks with a remarkably calm voice.
"Kill? No, I've come to give you a gift." He says while laughing his creepy laugh.
Before anymore of the conversation can come to pass the snake that was hiding behind all three of them launches itself off of a tree directly at Naruto, tensing his muscles Naruto jumps into the air, back flipping over the snake, wincing slightly when he feels one of the scales of said snake snag his calf and cut a long gash down its side. Landing back on the same branch with a wince he does notice that his teammates took the chance to throw their own attacks at the snake as it passed them by, if the multiple kunai and gashes are anything to go by on the snake that is now lifting Orochimaru off the tree branch.
"Quick reflexes." The traitor praises the blond Genin in front of him, "I thought I had you with that one."
Turning to look at this friends he makes a decision, "Do what you came to do, we can't fight you." Naruto speaks up, noticing the look of resignation on both of his friends faces at the obvious fact.
"But where would be the fun in tha-" Orochimaru starts before his eyes widen as multiple kunai appear a couple of meters in front of him with a lot of momentum behind them, dropping to his back on the snake beneath him they all pass quickly over his head.
Seeing the Sanin dodge his Kunai-Seal Naruto starts preparing the rest of the distraction, "Sasuke, Hinata, I need about thirty seconds." He commands his friends.
"Okay Naruto." Hinata responds while Sasuke just gives a resolute nod.
Springing into action Sasuke starts going through seals at the same time as Hinata but finishes a touch before her, "Great Fireball." He intones launching a fireball about the size of a small house at the now recovered enemy.
"Dust Cloud!" Hinata finishes, normally the Dust Cloud Jutsu is used to stir up a large pile of dirt on the ground in front of them by controlling an amount of dirt and rapidly spinning it to kick up the ground, but this time by pumping a large amount of Chakra into the jutsu Hinata uses it to grind away at the trees around Orochimaru, throwing up a large cloud of sawdust.
Seeing the collision that is about to happen Sasuke doesn't take his eyes off of his enemy and is shocked to see that Orochimaru doesn't seem to react as the fireball hits the sawdust cloud and explodes, happily noting that the body of the snake does explode into a cloud of smoke, forcing the three Genin to brace themselves with Chakra, Naruto who isn't paying attention to the fight takes a couple of scratches along his body from the flying debris of the explosion.
"Did we get him?" Hinata asks.
"No, he had plenty of time to dodge, he just didn't for some reason." Responds Sasuke as he keeps his head on a swivel looking around for the traitor.
Waiting a couple of seconds for the dust to clear they understand why he didn't move, when standing where Orochimaru used to be is just a mostly destroyed mud clone. Feeling something coming from above Sasuke jumps backwards to dodge as he sees the Sanin land where he just was with a kunai in his extended hand. "Shit." He swears, realising that Orochimaru is now standing directly next to an unfocused Naruto.
Luckily for Naruto, Hinata jumps over the top of him and starts attacking the Sanin with her Gentle Fist style.
Swerving easily out of the way of each of the hits Orochimaru laughs to himself at the determined look on all of their faces, 'Guess it's time to stop playing around.' He sighs to himself, really enjoying the futile actions that Team Seven is taking in front of him.
Hinata, who is growing more and more concerned as each of her hits miss the Sanin feels a strong pain in her stomach when she is kicked tens of meters back from where she was fighting the man, smashing her back into a tree and starts free falling towards the ground.
Jumping from his hiding place Sasuke just reaches her in time but has to give up his balance to do so, roughly landing on a series of branches as he re-orients himself while holding his team mate. Glancing up he sees the pale man land right next to Naruto but luckily he seems more interested in the seal that Naruto is working on than he is in killing him.
"Kukuku, that looks like a summoning seal Naruto, what are you working on?" He asks the silent Genin next to him.
"This. SEAL!" he yells, slamming his hand onto the now complete seal, pushing an almost visual amount of Chakra into it.
Orochimaru jumps back in caution at the untested seals activation, Fuuinjutsu is a very explosive discipline after all, no need to get caught up in an explosion. Landing on the branch behind him he can only widen his eyes at the now empty clearing in front of him. 'What?' he thinks incredulously at the lack of Genin around him.
Almost five kilometres away the three Genin reappear in a random patch of forest, "Situation report." Sasuke asks his male team mate.
"Transportation Seal of sorts." Naruto explains while grasping for breath at the sheer amount of Chakra he used to power the seal, panting and laying on his back he explains, "I got the idea from the Heaven Scroll." Holding up said scroll, "I was examining it while we were travelling, when you open it, it summons a random ninja from a list to come to our location."
Hinata takes the time to start applying some cream to the injured areas of her body, trusting that they were relatively safe for now, well as safe as you can be in a forest with giant animals and enemy ninja wanting to kill you.
Thinking over that information for a little bit Sasuke asks the obvious question, "Then why didn't we use it to call for backup." Almost instantly understanding the reason why, answering his own question before his teammates can, "Because the only reason we were even alive was because he was going easy on us and wanted us for some reason, calling in another ninja who is only a Chunin will have probably just been summoning them to their death."
"We would never do that to someone." Hinata affirms, standing up and wincing at the pain in her stomach and back.
"How much time do we have?" Asks Sasuke to the recovering seal user.
"I don't know, I used as much Chakra as I could but I think it would only push us a couple of kilometres away, thank god that I marked you all with identifiers months ago, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to bring you with me." Naruto sighs in relief, prompting his two team mates to show the small seal on each of them that looks like a "NU" with a spiral of Fuuinjutsu around it.
Hearing an inarticulate scream of rage in the distance Team Seven decides it is time to start running in the opposite direction, "Fuck the exam, shit doesn't matter when there is an S-Rank traitor running around in here, we need to get out of the forest to warn the others." Naruto speaks up with Hinata nodding in agreement and Sasuke nodding reluctantly after thinking about it for a second.
"Can you see anyone around us Hinata, or even the fence?" Sasuke asks.
Scanning the area with her already activated Byakugan she counts the ninjas around them, "Three teams scattered around us within my search range," Looking up at the sun above her, "We travelled north mainly in the forest, so unless we were moved north again I guess out best bet would to be heading south."
Nodding at the observation Naruto spawns three shadow clones next to him with their instructions, seeing the questioning look on Sasuke's face he explains, "To warn the other teams about who is in the forest, we wouldn't want a war to start because Orochimaru killed someone important from another village, they could use us not protecting the Genin as an excuse to invade or to at least attack out borders."
Conceding that the idea is sound, although not wanting to help the competition Sasuke starts heading southwards, luckily south heads away from the scream of rage that they all heard before.
Tree hopping through the forest Hinata makes sure that they were avoiding each of the new teams that she spies with her Byakugan, alerting Naruto so he could send another Shadow Clone in to inform the team to run the fuck away if they knew what was good for them, inevitably most of them would think he was lying to them so that they would give up but hopefully some of them would take his advice and put their lives above their pride.
Travelling for around thirty minutes Hinata says what they have all been waiting for, "Fence in sight, right at the end of my vision."
"Any ninja surrounding the fence?" Naruto asks.
"Yes, a couple that have approximately Chunin size pools of Chakra are dotting the outside of the forest of death." She responds, now being close enough to see the various ninja.
Picking up their pace it is only a minute or two before they break through the tree line and clear the giant fence around the forest.
"What?" a random Chunin yells seeing the group of three Genin soar over his head.
"Why are you out of the testing ground?" a black haired Chunin asks.
"We were attacked by Orochimaru in there." Sasuke speaks up, shocking the five Chunin that are now surrounding them.
"WHAT?" they all collectively yell in shock, the blood draining from each of their faces.
"Orochimaru?! Of the SANIN?" one white haired ninja asks.
"YES!" Naruto, "Go tell the Hokage! He needs to send… everyone, send everyone!"
The Chunin turn to each other before the supposed leader speaks up, "Kizo." He points to one of the surrounding Chunin, "You go and send the message up the chain of command." He yells at the man and almost instantly the tanned Chunin turns and Body Flickers away. Turning back to the three Genin the Chunin continues his questioning, "How did you get away?" he asks in confusion.
"He was just toying with u-." Naruto replies before his eyes widen in shock as the Chunin in front of him is turned into a red mist, spinning around to look for the attacker he morbidly notices the other three Chunin also obliterate before his very eyes.
Standing there in shock the three Genin hear a voice that they hoped they would never hear again, "Very clever Naruto, it's obvious to me now what the seal did." Orochimaru speaks up, suddenly appearing in front of them, no longer with that strange hint of teasing in his tone of voice, this time all the three can hear is the poorly supressed rage.
Naruto and Hinata have no time to react as the Sanin disappears from in front of them and both are sent sailing into the distance from a casual smack to the chest from the enraged Sannin.
Feeling his body lock up at the towering killing intent directed at him Sasuke can only watch as Orochimaru walks over and leans down, the world seems to slow down as the Sanin's teeth pierce the flesh of his neck, turning his world into pain.
A:N: Hope you like the chapter, make sure you tell me what to think about the combat, i'm not that sure how i want to write it in the future, i always feel combat for ninjas should be short and deadly. Anyways, follow and review! See you in a couple days.