Chapter 6

"Rise and shine, Broody!"

Sasuke's shinobi instinct kicked in as his right hand went for the kunai on his pouch and slashed it in a wide arc as he stood, aiming for what should be an attacker's throat.

He blinked. The kunai met nothing but air.

Loud, guffawing laughter erupted from across the banked campfire.

"Oh my gawd! You should have seen your face!"

A kunai zipped through the air, landing with a thwack a few inches away from Hari's hooded face. She swore as she slipped and rolled away.

"Fu—oi!"

Sasuke ignored her and began the process of clearing camp, intent on covering more ground today and hopefully catch the giant snake.

"I made breakfast!"

Sasuke turned around. Hari was holding up a tin mug of steaming dark liquid and a plate of fried eggs with a slice of bread. He frowned. "What is that?"

Hari thrust the mug at him. "Oh this? It's coffee."

"…" Sasuke frowned at it.

"It's a lot stronger than tea. I have a feeling you'll like it."

Sasuke turned to her, still frowning.

"Aw, don't be like that, Broody. I didn't poison it if that's what you're thinking."

Of course, that was what Sasuke was thinking. "Hn," was the only thing he said before turning around and walking away.

Hari gasped. "Rude! Fine, I'll eat this myself." She harrumphed and made a show of tucking into the food she was carrying, sitting by the small remains of the campfire.

Good riddance. Sasuke felt the opportunity to leave the infuriating woman behind was worth the loss of one (poisoned?) meal. He had food packed away anyway – he could just eat while searching for the snake. Once out of sight of the clearing he jumped into the branches of the nearest tree and went on his way.

"Are you not going to follow him?"

Hari looked up from her fried eggs to see Death sitting across the campfire, which was now nothing more than a few wisps of smoke. Death was now wearing the body of an old woman, with spindly fingers and a weather-worn, brown face.

Hari swallowed and gestured with a fork. "He isn't going to escape that easily. You taught me how to track souls down, remember?"

Death nodded. "He will find out about the snake eventually."

Hari snickered. "He can try."

Death was silent for a moment. "It will give him more reason to try to kill you."

"And this should worry me why?"

"Hmm. I see your point."

Hari finished her breakfast and stood up. "Well. I guess it's about time I track down Broody." She closed her eyes and focused. "Woah. How could he travel that fast?"

"Chakra," Death answered. "That is what differentiates civilians from shinobi. It takes years of training, so no, you won't be able to use it," he added the last to Hari's unasked question.

The witch pouted. "You just had to ruin my fun, don't you?"

"Someone has to keep you in check," Death responded dryly.

"On the contrary my dear," Hari adopted an exaggerated British accent, complete with fluttering eyelashes. "Between you and me, I am the life of the party."

Death just looked at Hari.

"Let us agree to forget that the past ten seconds did not exist."

"Agreed."

Hari took out the Elder wand and flicked it once at the campsite. All evidence that they had been there – including Sasuke – was removed. The clearing looked as if nobody had been there for at least several weeks. "That should discourage anybody from tracking us down," Hari hummed, satisfied with her handiwork.

"If you had thought to use this before, then Uchiha Sasuke would not have tracked you down so easily."

"Shut up. And anyway, it's thanks to that we don't need to comb through the entire continent to look for him."

Death chose not to comment. Sensing what Hari was about to do, he stepped behind her, directly in her shadow. "Be careful, Mistress."

Hari scoffed. "What do you take me for?"

Death did not answer. Instead he let himself melt into her shadow, effectively hiding his presence from the mortal realm. But not before sending a single thought through their connection.

Hari bristled. "Oi! You—take that back!"

The only response before Death disappeared into her shadow completely, was the sound of laughter, like bones rattling.

Sasuke frowned at the cliff face rising several feet in front of him.

He had followed the giant snake tracks for a good two hours to this place, a natural cul-de-sac surrounded by rock and a few trees. A dead end.

But still, no snake.

"There might be a nest somewhere," he muttered to himself. He carefully studied the surrounding terrain. More cliff faces and sudden drops into coniferous forests below, but no nest.

"Oho. Look who it is boys."

Sasuke turned. Seven shinobi were standing on the branches of the trees surrounding the clearing, their hitai-ate slashed through the middle. Rogue nin. Several of them were previously from Oto, including the one in the middle who had a manic grin on his face at the sight of Sasuke's face.

Sasuke frowned. "I'm not here to fight you."

A thin bastard with a scar across his left cheek barked a laugh. "Isn't this a nice coincidence? We didn't think we'd bump into you either! We were hunting the giant snake that's supposed to be around this parts."

The ex-Oto leader smirked. "But I guess bringing the head of the infamous Uchiha Sasuke would net us better rewards, eh?"

Sasuke's right hand was now on Kusanagi's hilt. He took a step back. Seven opponents, all of them rogue nin. Five from Oto. Two from Lightning. How those Oto shinobi end up here he had no idea, but there was no love lost between him and the rest of Orochimaru's shinobi. Judging from their chakra, there were all at least chuunin level, but the leader—who was the largest of the group—was definitely jounin level.

Sasuke smirked. "Seven against one are not good odds for you," he said, sliding Kusanagi out of its hilt. "You should have brought ten more to even the odds."

The leader glared. "Get him!"

Two of the shinobi leapt from the trees, straight for Sasuke. The Uchiha stepped back, an inch shy of the kunai blade one of them had thrown in his direction. Sasuke used Kusanagi to deflect three more kunai.

The rogue nin to his left spun around into a roundhouse kick aimed at his head, the other a low, sweeping kick to the ground. Sasuke twisted his body like a cat and landed unscathed, leaping back.

"Stop moving you piece of shit!"

Sasuke snorted. "That's not how this works, you moron." He leapt up into the air.

"Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu!"

When Sasuke landed, two singed bodies lay unmoving in the dirt. Two down, five to go.

Without any prompting three shinobi leapt at him with battle cries.

Sasuke let lightning-infused chakra flow through Kusanagi. The blade glowed blue-white, crackling with electricity. "Come at me then."

Several things happened at once.

Sasuke swung his sword. He could feel the blade slice through fabric, skin, and muscle. One shinobi had his hand cut off, another a gash through his abdomen. The last one was not so lucky. His head rolled on the floor.

Amateurs, Sasuke thought.

As two wounded shinobi and a corpse collapse onto the ground, the ground trembled, and the two remaining shinobi in the trees screamed in panic as something huge and long and scaly shot out from the forest behind and rammed into them. Trees were torn from the ground. Dirt and stone sprayed several feet into the air.

Sasuke leapt away. The iron tang of blood mixed with the humid smell of upturned soil was heavy in his nose. He blinked away the dirt that managed to get into his eyes.

The line of trees where the rogue nin had been were gone. The other two shinobi who had not engaged him in battle were gone, too.

Sasuke blinked. He blinked again.

One of the wounded shinobi by his feet screamed as he clutched at the stump where his hand used to be. The other one with a gash on his stomach was now unconscious. Sasuke could sort of understand the state they were in.

A giant snake was staring down at them with its eyes bound tight in what appeared to be a dark cloth. This was definitely a very large snake – not as large as Manda thank the gods, but probably half his size. Which is still pretty big.

Sasuke's eyes traced the gleaming black scales on its face, down to its bloody jaws where a human arm and a leg was dangling out of. He swallowed.

Ah. So that's where those two idiots are.

The snake coiled its body around itself, nearly silent. Sasuke readied Kusanagi in its grip.

The shinobi on the ground, in his panic, threw a kunai in the snake's direction.

The snake's tail whipped out, lightning-quick, and slapped the kunai away like a fly. The tail whipped out again.

The shinobi on the ground flew across the clearing straight onto the cliff wall with an audible splat.

Sasuke frowned. The snake was fast, and it was strong. And for some reason, it was blind but was aware of its surroundings acutely enough that it could react even to a kunai sailing through the air. It might pose a bigger challenge than the seven-man team of rogue nin.

But instead of attacking, the snake looked at Sasuke for a few moments. It tilted its head, then opened its jaws wide. Sasuke could see its bright red mouth and the sharp teeth, the fangs that dripped in purple poison. Two dead shinobi dropped to the ground in a heap.

That is a nasty way to die, Sasuke thought inwardly as he saw the swollen purple faces of his would-be attackers.

The snake looked at Sasuke again and, nodding to itself, made to leave.

"Wait!"

The snake stopped. It turned its head slowly at Sasuke.

For a moment Sasuke froze. He spoke out without thinking, and he did not really think the snake would actually stop, as if it understood him. He swallowed and cleared his throat. "You can understand human speech?"

The snake paused for a moment, then nodded.

"Then…thank you."

The snake nodded again, as if saying it was no trouble.

Sasuke had an idea. He summoned one of his nin snakes, a large adder.

"What is your order summoner?"

"Ask this snake if it escaped from a lab that might have been hidden around here."

The adder glanced at the giant snake. "I will do so." It slithered closer to the larger snake and began to hiss.

The giant snake leaned down its head and hissed back.

This took several minutes. Sasuke watched as his summoned snake seemed to wag its tail like a dog in delight, hissing at the giant snake, who remained coiled onto itself, the tip of its tail swaying gently in the air.

The adder crawled back to Sasuke and raised its head. "You should be honored, Summoner. You have been saved by one who we have thought to exist only in legend! She says she was never captured by humans nor escaped from any laboratory. I must bring back news to my brethren!" And with a poof of white smoke it was gone.

The giant snake nodded its head to Sasuke once, then slithered away.

Once the snake was out of sight, Sasuke slid Kusanagi back onto its sheathe.

There was a pop of white smoke. Aoda appeared in front of Sasuke. The large snake bowed it's head.

"We meet again, Sasuke-sama."

"Aoda. I did not summon you," Sasuke frowned.

"Manda-dono and the White Snake Sage requests you presence."

"Why?"

"One of the hebi reported that you found the Emerald Empress."

"The what?"

Aoda tilted his head. "You met the legendary snake empress. Manda-dono and the Sage want to hear the details from you."

He wrapped his large body around Sasuke without further ado, and with a pop of white smoke they were gone.#