"Run."
This was all Sasuke said before the three genin broke off into a sprint. They disappeared into the grasps of the woods, Orochimaru in hot pursuit behind them as they ran. Chakra pumped into their soles and allowed them to jump from tree to tree with a hurried swiftness. The haste in their feet snapped branches and cracked wood. For a few seconds, Orochimaru's presence was an effectively ignored with the three simply trying as hard as they could to make distance. Thoughts raced through Sasuke's mind, paced in time as he leapt through the trees.
"Orochimaru has Konoha in his sights and will not rest until he's got its treasure". What could that mean. He thought, recalling Naruto's paraphrased passage.
I doubt it's monetary if he's chasing after us. He clearly wants something we have…it must be either the sharingan or the nine-tails. Or maybe it's something we don't know about.
If their pursuer had been more in the vein of Zabuza, then it would for sure be about Naruto, but Dosu had specifically stated earlier that Sasuke himself was their main target. This may have seemed slightly strange at first, after all, you'd have to perform a fairly complex surgery to excavate a sharingan without irreversibly damaging the eye. Then again, he'd literally just seen Orochimaru discard his face like it was nothing, so a makeshift eye surgery may not have been that far out of the question. He looked backwards, attempting to try and get a read on their chaser.
There was nothing behind them except the trees.
He looked forwards. Naruto, who was at the head of the pack, noticed his friend's movement and called back.
"Sasuke, where is he?!"
FWOOSH!
Out of nowhere, Orochimaru fused out of the tree in front of Naruto. The pattern of the bark bleed into his to his body, trailing up his clothes as he further extended himself out of the trunk. Naruto's eyes widened, though they were quickly covered up by the grip of Orochimaru's hand. He gripped onto the boy's head, strong enough to completely stop his forward momentum before tossing him towards the ground like you would a piece of garbage. Sasuke and Sakura quickly refocused themselves. They jumped to opposing trees, Sasuke taking aim with his fire style. The flame surged forward, crackling embers only serving to illuminate the fiendishness of Orochimaru's eyes. He responded with a jutsu of his own, a spinning disc of wind circling around his hand like a shield. The fire jutsu dispersed as soon as it touched the breeze and began to split into four different threads. They wrapped around the windmill, thin orange veins of flame becoming entrenched within the grip of its vortex. Before Sasuke could move, it shot towards him, splintering into whips of flame and gust. They wrapped around his limbs, stinging his exposed skin before, with a sharp tug of his hand, Orochimaru tossed him down to the floor like he had Naruto.
This easy disposal shifted Orochimaru's smug smile to a more sadistically twisted one. He hadn't even need to unfuse his lower body from the tree. However, he had gotten so caught up in his own easily-satiated ego that he didn't even notice Sakura rebounding off the nearest tree. She leapt forward brandishing her kunai with gritted teeth. For a second, it looked as if she was about to successfully stab Orochimaru in the back of the head. That was, before Orochimaru snapped his body towards her at speeds that's sheer velocity would break the bones of any normal human. One moment, he had been ignorant of her presence and the next, he was fully prepared for her attack.
He raised a palm to block the kunai, seemingly willing to simply tank the stab wound as it were. The knife pierced through his hand, stopping just short of carving his eye. However, what had first seemed like a cause for victory quickly transferred to fear in Sakura's features. The blood staining her knife was not red, but a teal shade of green. Not only that, it fizzled and burnt, cracking and rotting the metal of the kunai. This same venom seemed to be coming from Orochimaru, as it leaked from his stab wound in the same way you'd expect normal blood to. He started pushing his palm forward, forcibly embedding his hand into the blade of the kunai with no regard for the damage it would cause,
Sakura's reflexes luckily kicked in quick enough to realize his ploy. She let go of the handle, feeling it beginning to degrade under the weight of the venom. Falling through the air, she stuck her legs out to try and get a grip on the tree that would let her control her descent. Orochimaru fused back into the tree trunk and raced downward before popping out and grabbing her knees. Sakura's freefalling stopped as quickly as it had started, as Orochimaru smashed her into the side of the tree trunk with enough force to bend her back over it like a lake-side bridge. Much like the others, she was quickly thrown to the forest floor.
"Fuck." She groaned, running a hand across her back as she stood up.
"Are you okay?" Sasuke, who had only just started to get his own bearings back, asked.
She nodded, shakily standing upright with a slight trip.
"Ah, he's slimy." Naruto groaned, trying to drain the residual grease he'd received from Orochimaru's grip out of his hair.
His eyes drifted down as he did so, finding a paper that had fallen from his pocket.
The flare seal!
He hurriedly reached down for it. If he could properly activate it, they'd be able to get some jonin down here, which would mean that-
SLINKT!
Naruto instinctively pulled back his fingertips as he felt something shoot forward. A steel blade stuck itself into the paper of the seal, disrupting it's fujinjutsu. Looking up, Naruto grimaced as he saw the source of the blade. The sword stretched out from Orochimaru's mouth; smooth, sharp metal having taken the place of his tongue. It retracted back, taking the paper with it as its properties shifted from steel to the skin of his freakishly long organ. It was like a measuring tape that had been pulled to its limit and was now retracting back. As it returned to his mouth, Orochimaru snatched the sealing tag from its perch, comically careful with its removal as to avoid a papercut.
"Damn it." Sasuke growled with gritted teeth.
He had clearly been thinking of a similar use for the explosive tag.
The snake sannin marched in front of them, a cocky stride presents with his steps. There was not a hint of even the slightest edge of defensiveness in his posture. He was completely calm, a stark contrast to the all obviously on-edge genin.
"Ah, it's nice to be able to move like that again." He snickered, popping his shoulders backward. "Wearing a face just gets so stuffy."
Naruto growled, thrusting his hand out forwards in an attempt to take a hardline stance.
"Okay listen Orochimarrow- "
The man in question snorted.
"-what the hell do you want with us anyway? What big treasure have we got that's so important to you?" He continued.
Orochimaru continued to giggle to himself, only just being able to quench the laughter as he responded.
"I suppose I could tell you, but it wouldn't be very fun would it? I've been planning stuck planning for…gosh, I don't even know how many years now. To waste it on your loose lips would be a very irrational decision."
"Huh?! I do not have loose lips!" Naruto shouted back, for some reason deciding to pick a schoolyard fight with a face-stealing freakshow.
In the meanwhile, Sakura leaned over to Sasuke, whispering in his ear.
"Who is this guy?"
"We don't really know. He used to be a high-ranking Konoha ninja I think, but he presumably left the village. I'm pretty sure he had some kind of relationship with Ookami." Sasuke whispered back.
The pair quickly returned their gaze to Orochimaru and Naruto, though their minds were more focused on escape routes than the childish squabble that Orochimaru had strangely decided to indulge in.
"What the hell do you know anyway?" Naruto barked.
"I know plenty Mr. Uzumaki. I was a student of the third after all…"
There was a flicker of intention in his eye, crevasses slanting further in hopes that Naruto would take the bait.
"Bullshit."
"A pathetic denial of reality if there ever was one." Orochimaru spat back.
Naruto hesitated, wondering whether he should further engage with the man. This man was pretty obviously not at trustworthy source on anything, but in that book Sasuke had showed him, he'd had a special title and everything. He'd seemed incredibly strong from the small amount of ability he'd been able to show off, so maybe it wasn't that farfetched. And hey, if it turned out he was lying about being Hiruzen's student, Naruto could just discard his answers.
In other words, he took the bait.
"Alright then, what do you know about Yugito Nii?" He asked, recalling one of the bigger mysteries that had arisen from his and Sasuke's investigation.
Orochimaru laughed slightly, finding the question in and of itself amusing.
"Hiruzen valiantly took her in as an immigrant when she was an impressionable young jinchuriki. Of course, in reality she was political capital to further consolidate Konohas global power. Because of this, her life didn't really matter and he had her killed as soon as the Mist put the pressure on, despite the fact that he had treated her like family for as long as she'd lived in the village. Now, does that remind you of anyone?" Orochimaru asked with a twinkle in his eye.
"Naruto, we've got to move." Sasuke tried to cut the conversation off but his words only ran into the back of Naruto's head, not his brain.
The Uzumaki looked at the man in front of him with shock before grimacing and turning sideways.
"Now I know you're talking bullshit." He spat.
His voice was uncertain and his posture ridged. Orochimaru smelt blood in the water.
"You seem eager to dismiss it."
"Damn right I am, no way Old Man Third would do something like that!" Naruto shouted, his put-on solemnness completely wilting away in favor of his true anger.
Orochimaru snorted yet again, clear humor in his eyes. It actually took him a few seconds to completely compose himself as his laugh overpowered his initial attempts at words.
"God, you really believe that don't you? It would seem idealistic delusion runs in the blood line then, wouldn't it?"
There was a small silence before Naruto spoke once more. His tone was lower than Sakura and Sasuke had ever heard it before.
"The fuck did you say?"
His body was tense, indicating that he was going to charge forward at Orochimaru any second. Sasuke couldn't let this happen. Naruto stood no chance and would be disposed of immediately, which meant Sakura and Sasuke would be thrust into the position of either leaving him in Orochimaru's clutches or endangering themselves further by attempting to lug him along with them. Sasuke though fast, leaping forward and shooting a massive fireball jutsu at Orochimaru.
"Quick, let's go!" He yelled at Naruto.
Luckily, the obscuring of his aggressor from sight seemed to have snapped Naruto back to reality. He nodded to Sasuke, quickly joining his teammates as they vaulted up to the tree tops. They had only just made it past Orochimaru's original standing position when the smoke and ash of the fireball faded, and revealed a towering stone wall in its place. Despite the three's attempts to flee, Orochimaru did not look the slightest bit concerned, gaze locking with Sasuke as he casually scanned their path of movement. The Uchiha's eyes widened before he quickly redirected his attention back to the other two.
"Split up, I think he only wants me!" He screamed, bark cracking under their feet while they leapt from tree to tree.
Instead of following his orders though, the two turned back with concerned expressions.
"No way Sasuke! That dudes crazy!" Naruto screamed back, barely even focusing on the trees he was jumping from.
"Just do it."
A rustle from the leafy crowns indicated that there was no time to even follow the instruction. Orochimaru burst down from the treetops, tongue whipping through the air like a stretch of rope. It was just as long as one too.
"He's already ahead of us?!" Sakura explained, finally beginning to grasp the towering speed gap between the two.
The tongue shot forward, wrapping around Sasuke's ankle. It twitched like a muscle, beginning to retract back as the man lurched over on all fours on the side of the tree. Sasuke yelled out in surprise, back scraping over rough wood while drops of bile and saliva dripped from the appendage. The initial surprise wore off quickly though and Sakura swiftly halted its retraction by throwing a kunai knife into it like it was a dart board. With this, Orochimaru's tongue became stapled into the wood. There was no observable reaction from him aside from a slight sigh of annoyance, which was followed by him dropping Sasuke and retracting it upwards from the kunai with the same amount of concern. The texture of his tongue tore under the kunai blade, but somehow, this was not a pressing matter to him. Venomous green blood leaked in the wake of his attempted kidnapping and sizzled against the brittle bark of the tree. Sasuke groaned, gently resuming his chakra control on the tree though this was far from comfortable considering Orochimaru was less than a meter in front of him.
"Shadow clone jutsu!" Naruto's voice boomed out across the forest, a mob of about a dozen shadow clones leaping onto the same tree.
They quickly grabbed Sasuke and tossed him into the original Naruto's grasp. The two, along with Sakura, leapt off into the abyss of the woods while the clones began to circle around the tree. The first two ran forward, spiraling around the circumference of the tree in opposite directions.
SMASH!
As soon as they reached Orochimaru, he stuck both his arms out wide enough to catch them both in his grip and quickly slammed them down against the side (or, due to the gravity-defying chakra-walking, his floor) of the tree with enough force to dispel them immediately. This turned out to be no more than a distraction, as another clone leapt forwards with a sharp flying kick attack. In response, Orochimaru leant back so far against the tree that every law of physics should've dictated that his spine shatter into a million pieces but yet it didn't. All it meant was that the clones kick sailed over his face, the most it did in damage being a small brush of the very tip of his nose.
"Huh?" It exclaimed, right before Orochimaru's claw-like fingernails embedded themselves in the back of its neck.
He turned back to the still existing mob of Naruto's that was squirming up the tree like termites to an anthill. He made a small tsk sound before slamming his hand into the tree trunk. Chunks of bark fell down to the floor, before Orochimaru knocked on the wood with surprisingly grace.
Hm. Nicely hollow.
His hands quickly wove into signs, expression uncaring for the charging mob of Naruto's before he placed his palm onto the flat, unearthed wood.
"Earth release: resonating spikes." He said calmly.
Before the clones could even move, the mass of earth chakra he'd just pumped into the internals of the tree trunk began to expand out into a mess of sharp wooden spikes that easily skewered the Naruto clones. A mass of smoke dissipated from the area, marking each one of the copies as dead. Orochimaru looked onwards, watching as the last flushes of Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura's forms drained from the horizonal mess of branches before he calmly took a breath in. It had been fun to mess with the Uzumaki boy, but this was beginning to bore him. It was time to finish up.
There was no looking back now. Team 7 bounced through the confines of the lush forest, harsh pants and weary limbs not doing anything to slow down their desperate dash. Their sense of direction had been totally annihilated by this development, the constant switching of routes meaning that they only barely had an idea of what way they were even moving. This didn't matter as much as you'd think because left and right were no longer important to them. The only imperative was to run. Orochimaru had clearly been toying around with them, and even then, he was undoubtedly leagues above even what they'd observed Kakashi and Zabuza fighting at. The thought of him sent a shiver down the trio's spine, so they tried to centralize their minds on the escape instead of what exactly they were escaping.
After what felt like an hour of continuous fleeing, they started to slow down, feet resting on the moss covered top of a branch. Their bodies ached; legs worn from the unceasing sprint they'd just been a victim of. Even with their super-human characteristics, the human body just wasn't cut out to run full-speed at the length they had been doing it for, especially with no breaks. It was only fair that they took one now. Naruto was the first to communicate in something other than puffs and pants, looking over at Sakura.
"Do you think we lost him?" He asked.
There was suddenly a presence behind him.
"Oh yes, I think you definitely did." Orochimaru laughed.
The three immediately whipped around to face him but it was too late. The crackles of a fireball jutsu flickered from Sasuke's gums, but they were quickly silenced as Orochimaru unphased from the tree and slapped a hand over the boy's mouth. A hyper-focused blast of wind forcibly crammed itself into the opening, sending sparks searing into the back of his throat and a thick smoke leaking from his now-coughing mouth.
"Bastard!" Naruto screamed, leaping forward with a punch primed and ready.
Orochimaru utilized his grip on the other boy's head, tossing Sasuke towards the others like he was literally nothing before setting his sights on Naruto. Naruto didn't even see him move. One second, he was still holding Sasuke, the other, he'd already knocked Naruto out with a single punch. The boys limp form slammed to the ground, Orochimaru standing over him as a way to deter Sakura and Sasuke from getting any closer.
"Well, compliments are in order. You three are surprisingly quick. Like a pack of helpless little bunnies, but quick helpless little bunnies." He smiled, bubbly tone of voice completely clashing with the sadistic gleam in his eyes.
His posture was overly-animated in an atrocity of anatomic-contortion that really shouldn't have been possible. It was like he was the lead in an overly-artsy theatre performance that required 110% of effort in its performances. Sakura wasn't scared by this though, gripping a small tag of paper she had in her hand.
Fwoooo…
A small rusting rumbled from below Orochimaru before countless threads of ultra-fine razor wire erupted around him. They cut into his limb, ensnaring him in a barbed-tip cocoon of wires and metal. This was courtesy of a wire-trap that Sakura had laid as soon as they touched down on the branch. She rushed forward, grabbing the unconscious Naruto and stowing him on her back before she and Sasuke prepared to flee.
"C'mon let's go." Sasuke groaned, throat still sore from the fire being redirected into his mouth.
They were about to follow the directive before the unmistakable sound of Orochimaru's giggle came bouncing into their ears.
"Hehehe. Oh my god. You actually thought I didn't notice, didn't you?" He mocked, before his body decayed into a massive bundle of snakes.
Sasuke and Sakura quickly leapt forward, attempting to vault away as the real Orochimaru emerged into view. The leaping girl looked back, harshly throwing shuriken and kunai to menial effect. After all, Naruto was heavy. Balancing him on her back completely destroyed any chance of her aim being true at this stage. Even if she'd been functioning at one-hundred percent though, it was useless. Orochimaru effortlessly dodged around the weapons, not even caring if he got hit but finding it so easy to avoid that he weaved around them anyway. From the way he was moving, it was clear that this was the ninja-equivalent of an older kid purposely holding back on his younger sibling during a race, but even then, he was moving nearly too fast for her eye to perceive.
The feeling of helplessness was one distinctly familiar to Sakura, but even in the custody of her mother, she'd never felt quite this vulnerable before. She and Sasuke were running at speeds beyond their limits, limbs aching all the way. Orochimaru wasn't even trying and he was effortlessly outclassing them. In that regard, it was even more brutal than if he had killed them outright because at least that way, the tension of knowing he might snap would've faded by now. Instead, he left them alive with the knowledge that any second, he could off them for good. Sakura had to grit her teeth to try and avoid completely breaking down right then and there.
As she rushed through the trunks of the trees, she spotted something from the corner of her eye. Sasuke was balancing on a trunk, waiting for her to pass. When she did, he leapt out from behind the hiding place and planted his feet firmly on the branch between her and the somewhat-distant Orochimaru. She would've fearfully asked what he was doing but her instincts kept pushing her forward.
Sasuke's hands stretched into elaborate hand-seals, moving so fast his arms were essentially a blur. He was betting it all on this. If it failed, he'd probably start suffering from Chakra fatigue immediately. This was his ultimate jutsu, one of the ones he'd been specifically practicing during the training for the chunin exams. He had little control over it but considering the current situation, that mattered not.
"Fire release: Flame Tide!" He screamed, before breathing forward a roaring wave of flame at Orochimaru.
It was massive, the illumination of its embers making it almost look like molten lava instead of pure flame. It sailed through the air like the tides of a stormy sea. The woods and grass beneath it sizzled and burnt under the overwhelming heat, lush greens scorching into dark blacks and bland greys. Now all he needed was for the same to happen to Orochimaru.
But it didn't.
No, instead, Orochimaru looked at this titanic attack with a glint in his eye that may have been brighter than the flames themselves. Despite the fact an attack capable of completely eradicating him was sailing forward at this very moment, Orochimaru looked nothing short of completely joyful.
"Sasuke Uchiha, I am very impressed!" He laughed, biting into the tip of his index finger with sharp serpentine fangs.
Blood trickled down from the bite mark. This was real blood, not the fake venomous ooze that had permeated his body prior. However, this" real" blood soon dyed itself jet black, turning into ink as it trickled down the length of his finger. Orochimaru twisted his digit around in a circular motion, leaving a gravity-defying circle of bloody ink floating in the air before he bounded forward. The circle dispersed into smoke and a hulking snake creature flew forward, nearly bigger and certainly longer than Orochimaru himself. It had scales were so thick that they resembled the plates of steel armor that were accustomed to wartime Iwa. With that, Sasuke realized his strategy.
The snake plunged forward, swallowing Orochimaru whole just before he was incinerated by the flame tide. Its thick, shiny scales bulldozed through the heat with little difficulty. Even when a plate of armor peeled off from over-exposure to the fire, a new one quickly regenerated in the same spot and Sasuke could do nothing about it. All he could do was try and crank the heat up even further as the long stretch of snake spiraled through the gulf of fire. Just as it reached the end of the jutsu, it opened it's mouth up and spat Orochimaru forward like a bullet.
Sasuke didn't even have a chance to cancel the jutsu before he was pinned down flat against the base of the tree branch. He flailed his limbs, trying desperately to get free but Orochimaru's grip was iron tight. The older man quickly picked up and slammed him down against the bark, halting his protests for the moment.
"Please calm down Sasuke, it'll hurt less if you sit still."
That was it, he was going to rip the Sharingan out of his head. The man's cadence told him nothing else and he didn't doubt he could do it either. Sasuke summoned the last of his strength to try and slip free, urgently pushing his body up with every bit of accumulated adrenaline he'd built up over his fights with the sound ninja.
"Oh, for heaven sake." Orochimaru groaned, in what was probably his first display of emotion of the night that wasn't sadistic glee. "Genin are so disrespectful these days..."
He reached into his pocket and brought forth a small vial of translucent violet gel. He popped the cap off, dipping the tip of his un-bit index finger in before bringing it to Sasuke's mouth.
"Open."
"Fuck you." Sasuke mumbled through the grip of his palm.
CRACK!
Orochimaru punched him in the face so hard Sasuke thought his skull had split open. His vision that had previously leaked in through the slits of Orochimaru's fingertips was now completely lost, the blow destabilizing it into a fuzzy blurred mess of nothing.
"Please try and listen better in the future." Orochimaru hummed, frustrated at receiving even the most minor bit of push back.
He stretched Sasuke's mouth open, dabbing a few liquid-soaked finer tips onto the boy's tongue before dropping his hold. Sasuke tried not to taste it but even the most basic movement of his lips sent droplets of the liquid both down his throat and onto the top of his mouth. It tasted bitter and unwashed, a distinct dirt flavor bleeding through its intense citrus qualities. Sasuke felt his body involuntarily start to tense up. It was like his muscles were contracting, sharp and swiftly enough to get a small grunt out of him. He was completely paralyzed.
"Now, let's try this again."
Sasuke used his last bit of autonomy to close his eyes. However, this in no way obstructed Orochimaru from his main goal. Sasuke suddenly felt the snake sannins hot breath whispering against his shoulder. This was swiftly followed by Orochimaru sinking his teeth into the area with all the sharpness you'd expect from a snake-fanged ninja.
"Aaaaah!" Sasuke screamed.
He could handle the bite if it was just breaking the skin but this felt like it was going deeper. His chakra nodes were on fire, the acid of Orochimaru's teeth scorching them down to the point where Sasuke could no long anything on the left side of his body. With a sharp tilt of his head, Orochimaru ripped the very manifestation of Sasuke's chakra out from his shoulder. This energy took the form of a long, rope-like blob that dripped from Orochimaru's mouth. Meanwhile, tears welled up in Sasuke's eyes, the left side of his body feeling like it was going to split in two if the chakra link moved any further.
"Sealing Jutsu: curse mark!" Orochimaru grunted through his clenched fangs.
Suddenly, the long thread of chakra turned into a stretch of dry black ink. It proceeded to burrow back into Sasuke's shoulder which admittedly alleviated some of the pain he was feeling. In the wake of the chakra drain was a small black mark, it's ink dry and sealed on so perfectly that it was like Sasuke had had it since the day he was born. Sasuke was in no hurry to recover though. His nerves still stung whenever he even tried to use the left side of his body, which, coupled with the liquid paralysis, meant he was not going to be walking right for a while.
"Sasuke!" Sakura cried.
Her concern finally grew enough to overrule her instincts as she stowed Naruto onto a nearby branch and began to leap forward from tree to tree with her kunai at the ready. Orochimaru looked at her, seemingly annoyed that she was even making an attempt to save her friend.
"I have no idea why you continue to insert yourself into my fun Ms. Haruno but let me make this clear- "
Orochimaru tossed a few hand-seals together haphazardly, pointed his palms out at the approaching Sakura and proceeded to blow an entire stretch of trees down with just the power of his wind jutsu.
"You are a non-factor."
"Ah!" Sakura screamed, losing her footing completely as an entire section of forest came crashing down to the ground.
She should have really counted herself lucky she'd only hurt her back and hadn't gotten crushed by the resulting avalanche of tree trunks. Naruto's unconscious body fell to the ground as well, harshly slamming onto the floor without even the slightest sign of waking up. Suddenly, the tightly contained woods began to feel very open. This was probably because all the wood that the woods were composed of had been blown down to the ground. Years of accumulative fauna destroyed just like that.
"Sakura! Naruto!" Sasuke screamed.
Seconds later he caught Orochimaru staring at him with a curious look.
"You know what, I may have spoken too soon. She's not a non-factor at all." He mused.
Sasuke glared at him, the distorting pain of the curse mark finally starting to wear off to the point where he could at least make out what was in front of him.
"Tell me Sasuke, have you heard about the theory of the Magenkyo Sharingan? It's supposed to be triggered by excessive grief is it not?"
Sasuke's heart stopped.
He knew immediately what Orochimaru was implying.
"Don't." He grumbled, barely able to use the left side of his mouth to talk.
It was meant to sound intimidating but his voice was so hoarse it more closely resembled a plea for mercy.
Orochimaru looked down at him with eyes that were so cruel and heartless, no sane human would be able to consider them human. He saw Sasuke not as a human with equal amounts of emotion, but as a test subject. A crash-test dummy that's only use was to test the limits of traumatic abuse, this torrent of manipulative deceit only halting when something gave.
"This will be an interesting experiment. Drat, I wish I had my log book, this should really be written down under proper conditions…" Orochimaru chattered, tone completely absent of the fact that the experiment he was pondering on would entirely consist of him murdering a teenager in cold blood.
"Please don't." Sasuke pleaded, begging falling on deaf ears.
Orochimaru was now enraptured in his own world, with there being little to no hope of anyone but himself pulling him out of it.
"Hm, now the question is what one would hurt more. Ms. Haruno is definitely more helpless, and I imagine there's the potential attraction factor, but I also imagine your kinship with Mr. Uzumaki is significantly larger. It's almost as if these two are filling a substantial hole in your heart, so dispatching of either of them would splinter it significantly. Now I just have to decide which would get you more riled up, so maybe just offing them both would- "
A light bulb went off in Orochimaru's head. He turned to Sasuke with a genuine smile, utterly pleased that he'd managed to figure it out!
"That's it! How about you decide for me Sasuke?!"
Sasuke could not speak.
He just shook his head, welled-up tears of pain finally beginning to roll down his eyes.
"No, see, here's the genius of it. You must decide because if you refuse, I will simply kill them both. Now, if you comply, one will be spared, but you will have also had a direct hand in killing the other. Which one of them will you choose?"
It was strange the way he spoke. So pleased and jubilant yet also hyper-aware that this was a decision that would mentally annihilate Sasuke for years to come. He couldn't move, his nerves were on fire and now he was being forced to choose which one of his friends would die.
"You seem a little bit quiet." Orochimaru commented, crouching down next to Sasuke's limp body with his legs crossed.
Sobs welled up in Sasuke's throat, cutting off every word that tried to come through to his mouth. He desperately wanted to lunge forward and tear into Orochimaru. He wanted to put the man through hell for even floating this conundrum his way. The mere act of even suggesting it was far too grave a crime for him to get away and Sasuke would show him.
No, he wouldn't. He couldn't move a muscle.
"Kill me." He finally said, attempting to hold back any shakiness in his voice
Orochimaru sighed, before once again smiling a sharp, sadistic grin at Sasuke.
"Well I can't do that. I wouldn't want to risk ruining those pretty red eyes of yours." He snarled.
Now he wasn't even trying to hide his cruelty behind sweetness anymore, he was just plain mocking.
"Besides, Itachi would be very angry at me if I killed his little brother. I feel you're being a bit inconsiderate of his feelings Sasuke."
Sasuke didn't know how Orochimaru knew all these things about him, and at this point, he didn't really care. The butterflies in his stomach had turned him into a human vivarium, flaps of their wings uprooting nausea and sickness that burrowed directly back into his brain. A few seconds past by but Sasuke tried to stretch them out to hours, hours were his friends weren't dead. Unfortunately, Orochimaru was not particularly patient.
"I am going to give you five seconds until I just kill them both." He said with monotone.
"No, please!" Sasuke cried, his tears and shattered voice not even having the slightest bit of effect on Orochimaru.
"Five…"
"Stop!" Sasuke screamed.
"Four…."
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Naruto felt the soaking wet ground of his mindscape underneath him. Time was currently frozen and he could barely move.
"What's going on?" He muttered to himself.
"That man will kill your friends in four seconds. If you chose to awaken now you will be easily disposed of as quickly as he did the last time. Your only choice is to call upon my power."
Naruto blinked a few times, not even facing Kurama. He just let what he'd just heard wash over him, like the tides that rippled underneath.
"How do I know you're not bullshitting?" He said back, still not bothering to sit up.
"Is that a risk you're willing to take?"
Silence entered the room. What felt like a half an hour to Naruto here was only half a second in real time, so he had a while to just sit there like a sponge.
"…No."
"Three…" Orochimaru counted down.
BOOM!
An explosion of red drew both his and Sasuke's sights to the front of the forest, where, to both of their surprises, Naruto had stood up. But he hadn't really stood up as much as he had stood up. Streams of thick, pulsating red chakra wove around the boy. Sparks flew from his body, shooting off into the distance and simmering against the bark of the trees. The mass of his power was so potent that he had made even made a slight dent in the ground.
"Oh goodie, I was so hoping to see this. It's not every day that you see a jinchuriki- "
Orochimaru was at first jolly about Naruto's new transformation but he quickly silenced himself. Sasuke looked to the side, attempting to gauge what had caused the man to stop speaking and was utterly shocked by what he found. For the first time since they'd encountered him, Orochimaru's eyes were displaying something other than complete control over the situation. He was scared, at least a little bit.
No, this can't be right. His link with the fox wasn't supposed to be good enough to even manifest it slightly…can it be?!
Naruto's baby blues were now a dark shade of crimson, threads of red, kyubi chakra orbiting around his body in a fiery coating. However, Orochimaru's eyes were fixated on one thing alone. The chakra on his back had turned into what could only be described as a hard-light construct. It resembled a thin, tattered cape that barley even stretched over half of Naruto's spine, yet Orochimaru was looking at it like the boy had brought forth the whole Nine-Tails with him.
The nine-tails ultimate ability, the crimson cloak?!
Suddenly, he was taking this battle very seriously.