A/N: Chapter two, electric boogaloo.
It wasn't possible. It just...wasn't. When Orochimaru had first looked for immortality, many whom he asked about the concept spoke of The Eight. Demons, some said, conjured by the Sage of the Six Paths in his darkest hour to defend the innocent from those who would use Chakra for selfish reasons.
Orochimaru had never put stock into such stories, because Orochimaru was a man of science, one who looked into the Why. But even he knew a tall tale was just that, some times. This one was rather simple to see as just that.
Birds fly, grass grows in the sun and good soil, Shinobi build bars with entryways on the third floor as a rite of passage to drink yourself stupid.
Facts, simple everyday points of reality that couldn't be disputed. On the inverse, some things very blatantly weren't facts.
The sky is purple at noon, Genin can kill someone and get away with it without getting caught, and demons exist.
These things just were for the former, and just weren't for the latter.
So when the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki is suddenly returned to the fray, screaming indignantly over the shoulder of some random, black-cloaked figure, Orochimaru simply raised an eyebrow, on the whole unconcerned.
His other eyebrow joined it when the blonde child started shouting at Sasuke-Kun over being a coward and not fighting Orochimaru-though without the Sannin's name actually being involved, poor naive thing. He was also, as it happens, pointing at the still-disguised bosom of this shell.
The cloaked figure who had carried him-who Orochimaru was watching with the faintest bit of curiosity because wow they hide their signature spectacularly it was like there was nothing there at all-visibly began looking between the shouting, angry boy, and Orochimaru.
Their head traveled between the two a handful of times before the Cloaked one turned to face Orochimaru fully, and the blonde stopped shouting-mercifully-at the slow, tortured rasp of steel as the Stranger drew a long, dual-sided blade that Orochimaru did not recognize the make of, thought it tickled at his brain. They grabbed the hilt with both hands, blade held aloft, its wide, flat face poised before the hood in a pseudo-salute, before the figure shifted it closer to their right shoulder, blatantly gearing up for a fight.
Orochimaru, dismissive, flicked a Kunai at the stranger.
His eyes widened when it slammed into his stomach a heartbeat before impacting the stranger, and then the second impact hit him.
The no-longer-classifiable-as-human screeched unlike anything he had heard before, and the sound itself sent Orochimaru back half a step, his heart rate spiking. The children collapsed to their knees, the girl crying, and the boys looking physically ill.
Orochimaru sympathized, in a distant corner of his mind.
The world felt colder very suddenly, and colors had begun to grey at the edges of his vision. He fluctuated his chakra, even twisted the handidly returned kunai a bit, but the Genjustsu didn't break. Most peculi-sword!
Orochimaru weaved back a step, narrowly avoiding the cleave that would have rent his head from his shoulders, then lept sideways as the blade tried slicing him down the middle. Again and again and again he swept up, around, and beneath the swinging length of steely death, trying and failing to catch a glimpse of who was inside the flowing, constantly in motion pile of whipping black cloth.
He lept back across a wide gap, and watched the swordsman stalk sideways along the branch he had swiftly vacated slowly, confidently, then back the other way, pacing and patiently waiting for Orochimaru to return.
It was a challenge that raked at Orochimaru's pride.
The stranger even had the gall to let the tip of their blade drag along the branch, scoring an obvious, even more rankling, line in the bark.
Orochimaru reached up, and pulled Kusanagi from his lips, flicking the blade clean of any lingering saliva.
The swordthing returned to their ready position, and Orochimaru blurred across the gap, roaring in anger, his real voice leaking through, as the creature parried his first strike, and returned with a vigorous swing aimed to rend him at the hips.
The duel was fierce, swift, and unlike any bout of Kenjutsu Orochimaru had ever had, his one-handed style pressed to the limits against this stranger, and their double-handed Mastery of the blade. He knew he was outmatched, in skill at least, but he was faster by a hair, and so the first blood was his.
He spun with the momentum off of parrying one of his foe's many swiping attempts to disarm him-quite literally-and smirked as his blade found purchase in his enemy's stomach.
And then he was howling in agony as their larger blade stabbed into his back, missing the spine but piercing quite painfully through his spleen, kidney, and probably both sections of his stomach.
They both ripped their blades from each other in near tandem, and Orochimaru lept back, one hand resting against where the sword had stabbed into him at a downward angle. The wound was small, but...
It burned. Burned in a way Orochimaru had not felt since he made himself immune to almost every poison known to man with small, slow doses of Kusanagi's ever-brewing fluids.
He hadn't wanted to play his hand after one hit, but his foe was already marching towards him-slow but purposeful in a way that was actually rather menacing-so options were tight. There was the slight shift inwards, before he was crawling out of his former mouth, which...didn't even make the cloaked stranger slow down, because of course, he wasn't that lucky.
Orochimaru stood up and gave this mysterious enemy his best smirk, head tilting back confidently. "I'm afraid its the end for you, my wonderfully skilled sword-wielder. This blade of mine, Kusanagi, is coated in the deadliest toxins it touches-" Orochimaru's smirk slowly faded as the cloaked Kenjutsu Specialist continued the assault, completely unphased and...not bleeding...from a stab and then pull that Orochimaru knew from experience was enough to disembowel someone hard enough they fell connected by a flab of skin and not much else.
They were walking towards him, swinging as though they would never heft a blade again, not even slower than they were mere moments ago.
Orochimaru was, understandably, curious out of his mind, and lept back once more, stood on the trunk of the tree they were fighting on, staring down at the swordsman, who was staring up at him...curiously? Angrily? The Sannin frankly couldn't tell.
"You...what are you?"
It wasn't possible. It just...wasn't.
Unless it was.
He had seen Hidan take hits like that, but even he was at least temporarily crippled by them.
So an immortal, or at least, a quasi-immortal, since the poison had no effect, much like the stabbing.
Wait…
Black robes, blade unlike a Samurai's, ceaseless and seemingly immortal…
"No...it can't be…"
Oh, but it could.
The pieces all lined up, and the longer he thought, the more fell into place. He reached back to where his previous body had been stabbed...and felt a scar lingering.
"-Marked forever were their foes, doomed to be hunted as prey-"
The shriek, the sword, the look, and aura...everything matched up...but that begged the question, where did-
The boy.
But how-
"-and so the sage called upon his demons in the first known Kuchiyose no Jutsu-"
Sarutobi had kept an iron grip on the boy-that much was obvious, the other villages were still trying to figure out how the Yondaime killed a Bijuu-so the contract was hidden, somewhere in or around the village, and had slipped the notice of every other shinobi and Kunoichi who had ever passed it. Except, of course, for this boy.
Intriguing.
Orochimaru glanced at the blonde and-
Gone.
The Genin had fled sometime during his duel with a fucking demon from several thousand years ago and were now just barely within his sensing range.
Sasuke was with them.
They vanished from his range.
Sasuke vanished from his range.
He had missed perhaps his one opportunity at nabbing Sasuke here in the forest.
He could feel a small horde of Shinobi closing fast on this area, a massive Chakra well that he recognized as Sarutobi among them.
He had missed the opportunity to grab Sasuke, and he could feel a small horde of Shinobi closing fast on this area, a massive Chakra well that he recognized as Sarutobi-sensei among them.
And, to put the cherry on top of this whole horrible, nightmarish scenario, the Demon popped out of existence with a puff of Chakra Smoke, returning color to the world, and letting him focus again on more than one thing at a time.
Orochimaru lost his cool spectacularly.
A/N: Poor Orochimaru, never saw it coming. Hope you enjoyed.