Naruto was pumped. After a tiresome journey dealing with the pale weirdo, Sai, it was now time for some action. The piecemeal team of himself, Sakura, Sai (the stand-in for Sasuke), and Captain Yamato (the stand-in for Kakashi while his sensei was recovering) was an ordeal for Naruto to accept, but he could deal with it if only just for the mission.
Yamato wasn't even that bad in Naruto's esteemed opinion; he was firm and occasionally creepy, but he was a good man. Sai was… well, Sai, but none of that mattered anymore. They were finally at the bridge where Sasori was set to meet his informant, and there was a decent chance that the informant could point them in the direction of Orochimaru, going a long way in their search for Sasuke. He was gonna find the emo bastard and bring his ass back kicking and screaming if he had to!
The three sat out of sight while their superior took up the disguise of Sasori and made his way to the center of the bridge to meet the informant. It didn't take long for a cloaked figure to meander over the bridge and meet with their undercover leader. Naruto only realized that he was vibrating in anticipation when he felt Sakura's gloved yet tender hand on his shoulder. Sending a smile to his caring friend, they became even more attentive when the figure removed their hood to show none other than Kabuto Yakushi.
Naruto and Sakura were vibrating now; this was even better than they could've hoped for. Who better to give info on Sasuke's whereabouts than Orochimaru's right hand himself? Things were going to be a breeze…
That was until they heard Captain Yamato speak through Sasori's gravely drawl.
"Danuta."
A shared puzzlement came over Naruto and Sakura while Sai continued staring impassively at the interaction. Apparently, Kabuto shared their puzzlement, and the two teens started to worry that Yamato might actually blow his cover. Straining their hearing, they kept a sharp eye on the developing situation.
Kabuto was finally glad to get out of the base for literally any reason. He was at his limit with Lord Orochimaru galavanting around in the body of an ostrich, and if it weren't for the fact that Lord Orochimaru seemed inexplicably more powerful with the ostrich as a vessel than any human, he'd swear that his master's insistence on keeping that vessel was a sign of him going senile.
Then again, he took Sasuke's suggestion to switch to using Pine-Sol in the bases rather than lemon Pledge, so the jury was still out on his senility.
Regardless, Kabuto was just happy to get out and get some fresh air. He was meeting with Sasori to maintain the façade of being under the puppeteer's control, feeding him slightly out of date information about Orochimaru's movements to keep him and Akatsuki just a step or two behind the Ostrich Sannin.
He could immediately tell, however, that whoever he was meeting wasn't actually Sasori, and he could as well sense the three interlopers hiding on the other side of the bridge. He would keep up the façade, though. He could easily escape and inform his master of Sasori's apparent demise if necessary.
"Danuta."
And just like that, Kabuto was back off his game. 'Danuta? What the hell is he talking about?'
"Um, what? I'm Kabuto, Lord Sasori."
"Danuta."
Kabuto just stared blankly at the equally blank pair of eyes gazing back at him. A beat of silence passed over the bridge's occupants before "Sasori" spoke up again.
"It is me."
Kabuto strongly considered turning around and walking away right there until he felt a new chakra signature enter the area behind him. Strangling a long-suffering sigh at the appearance of his ostrich master, he decided to humor the imposter. Neither he nor the other three had reacted to Orochimaru's arrival, so it stood to reason that the bird-man was masking his presence rather well, most likely for a reason.
"Yes, I can see that," Kabuto finally responded. "You're here for the locations of Orochimaru's newest favored bases, I presume?"
"Will you go there?"
"…I'll likely be heading back to one of them after this meeting, yes."
"Do you eat?"
Kabuto was silent again. '...How the fuck do I even respond to that??'
"I've got the money."
Kabuto was about to walk away from this guy, Orochimaru's schemes be damned. He did not have the energy for this.
"Danuta."
Fortunately, Orochimaru chose that moment to make his presence known. Unfortunately, Orochimaru chose that moment to make his presence known.
"Well, isn't this a fine sight," came a slithery intonation from the tree line. All activity ceased and the collective attention turned to…
"Is that an ostrich?" Sai finally spoke up in a tone unfamiliar to himself. Utter confusion is not a feeling he had ever experienced under Danzo's care. He'd have to research more into it.
"That's… definitely an ostrich," Sakura replied in equal confusion.
"That ostrich must know where Sasuke is!" Naruto shouted while palming his fist, ignoring the look Sakura gave him. "Let's hogtie and interrogate him!"
Sakura had begun to become a little concerned with her best friend's mental health considering how quickly and freely he had accepted the situation, but before she could raise those concerns, Yamato leaped back to their position. She had then a more pressing issue to address.
"Captain Yamato, what the hell was that on the bridge??"
"I blacked out!" Yamato answered in a panic.
Sakura was now genuinely convinced that she'd need to have Lady Tsunade intervene in the psychological health of her team, but that thought would have to wait. Kabuto and the ostrich (it was dawning on her just who that ostrich was and she had to fight the urge to throw her arms up and go home right there) approached, and Naruto, in his excitable glory, hopped to his feet to engage the duo.
"Hey, Bird brain! You're gonna tell me where Sasuke is right now!" Naruto demanded before placing his hands in the familiar cross. "Don't make me have to beat the information out of you!"
"Little Naruto, you've haven't changed a bit," Orochimaru cooed in the most condescending tone he could muster. The effect was dimmed by it coming from the beak of an ostrich, but the bridge's other occupants remained tensed and ready for action.
With the exception of Naruto, of course.
"Um, do I know you?"
Orochimaru's trademark smirk (insofar as an ostrich could smirk) disappeared, and a frown took its place. "Surely you didn't forget about Sasuke already?"
"Of course, I haven't forgotten about Sasuke! But I've never met you before, so tell me where the hell Orochimaru is keeping Sasuke already!"
A simultaneous facepalm occurred between Kabuto and Sakura, and, for a brief moment, the two medics shared a look of sympathy for having to deal with an outrageous buffoon of their own.
Sai, meanwhile, was busy penning a message to Danzo to inform him of the development. The potential speed of Orochimaru's new vessel was not to be taken lightly, and the idea of gene splicing could go a long way in improving future ROOT operatives.
"You're even dumber than you were in Tanzaku," Orochimaru huffed. "Not that it matters, anyway. You'll never be able to get Sasuke back. You're much too weak."
Sakura did not like the silence that followed, as Naruto's anger was never quiet. It made her uneasy.
"A few years of goofing around with the pervert have only served to expose just how pathetic you were, are, and always will be," the ostrich continued with a sneer. "A failure training another failure to be as disappointing as his dead parents."
And now Sakura was slightly panicking. The rage seeping out of Naruto was visible; in fact, it was literally bubbling. She knew what that meant, and as much as she wanted to deck Ostrichimaru for talking shit about her best friend, she was more worried about him losing control. Yamato stepped between her and Naruto, readying for the likelihood that he'll need to subdue him, but Orochimaru was not finished.
"What's wrong, Naruto? You gonna cry? Like a little bitch? Like how you probably cried like a little bitch when Sasuke abandoned you?"
Kabuto hid a snort at his master's antics. The ostrich vessel had revitalized him, and he was able to kick the shit out of Sasuke (and just about everyone else under his command) at his leisure as if he was in his prime again. Kabuto surmised that if he was going that far to rile the jinchuriki up, he must've really been spoiling for a decent fight for once.
And from the look of Naruto's feral appearance and peeling skin, it was working. He took a few cautious steps back, as he could already tell that he definitely did not want any part of that fight. He was glad that he did, as Orochimaru went for the kill:
"I wonder if Tsunade and Jiraiya will think about you at all in their final moments as I kill them after taking Sasuke's body. I'd suppose not, though. After all, not even your parents loved you enough to live to see you grow up, so why would your two surrogate parents?"
The next few moments were a blur to Kabuto. An explosion of toxic chakra and a red fist colliding with the beak of his master was all the warning the spectacled man received before he was forced to dodge the tumbling form of an ostrich zooming past him, followed by a roaring blur of red.
He turned around in time to see his master right himself and flip onto his feet, launching into a set of hand seals with the feathers on his wings before a sea of snakes appeared around him. However, each snake had the head and neck of an ostrich, and a blade protruded from the beaks of the bird-snakes. Meanwhile, the bird-man regurgitated the Kusanagi and readied himself for the fight he was craving.
"En garde!"
Definitely lost the plot with this one, and that's why it's my favorite. Leave a review if you got what the interaction between Kabuto and Yamato was referencing. Thanks for reading.