A/N: Warnings for blood and violence. Sorry for the late update, things have been busy due to the lunar new year festivities haha. Also please excuse me for revising the canon timelines a bit X'D
I'm so excited, I've been waiting to write this chapter for literally years!
Sakumo wakes up with a scream on his lips and his heart feeling like it much just burst upon its next beat. Gasping for breath drags cold air painfully through his raw throat and Sakumo chokes and wheezes, his body twisting as he clutches at his stomach. To his surprise, his hand doesn't meet the warm wetness of blood, but instead, the hard panels of his flak jacket.
The pain seeps away but every sensation is overwhelming, as if they've been amplified tenfold. He can hear the rush of blood through his veins, the pockmarked cement floor beneath his twitching fingers, and the scratch of his clothes against his skin. He can even taste the air—the faint chemical scent of a jutsu and the earthy smell of an underground hideout. Yet, he can't quite move. Every touch triggers an overwhelming cascade of information through his brain and his body threatens to shut down.
"Ah, that was a bit more dramatic than I'd expected," Orochimaru's raspy voice says.
Sakumo turns but it's too late: the kunai in Orochimaru's hand slides blade first under Sakumo's jaw and the scientist's whole hand passes into his head. Flinching back violently, Sakumo leaps into a defensive position, but the kunai is gone.
Orochimaru smiles, his golden eyes narrowing. "Welcome back, Hatake-san."
As impossible as it is, Sakumo feels undeniably, unmistakably alive. Or at least, more alive than he's been since he'd died. "What did you do to me?" The elaborate fuinjutsu arrays on the floor have not escaped Sakumo's notice, and that strange kunai...?
"Edo Tensei," Orochimaru says, walking boldly forward. "A most interesting and useful jutsu developed by the Nidaime. I've been focusing all my energies on this ever since Danzou-san told me about the existence of ghosts... I hope you don't disappoint me, Hatake-san. This could finally be the bridge between life and death that I've been seeking."
Sakumo grasps the handle of his chakra sabre - another impossibility, but that is for another time - and strikes. Orochimaru dodges the first blow, elongating and twisting his neck out of the way, and Sakumo follows after him, his bare feet stepping along the ground in tight, familiar footwork as he leads with his eyes and follows with his blade. The burn of oxygen in his lungs feels amazing. The first jolt of adrenaline through his veins cushions the oversensitivity plaguing him and makes him fly. Letting his muscle memory carry him instead of his conscious mind, he lets the predatory, animal parts of his brain take over. The wolf will sink its fangs into this snake.
Orochimaru pale neck flashes and Sakumo brings his blade down without mercy.
"Stop."
His body locks. The honed steel edge rests against the Sannin's neck, drawing a bead of blood but cutting no further. Sakumo's arm trembles.
"Step back."
His body obeys like a puppet on strings. His arm drops to his side and the tantou rests loosely in his grip, wet with blood but rendered useless with a few commands. Sakumo's breaths quicken in fear–what has he done?!
"Looks like all your skills are in order," Orochimaru says in that smug, oily tone of his as he wipes at his neck. Beneath the smear of blood, the wound is already sealed. His long, cold fingers press up against Sakumo's neck almost like a caress and he hums in satisfaction. "And it seems that your new body hasn't burnt out. Looks like it was right to use a jounin as vessel, even though they're so hard to come about."
"A vessel?" Sakumo croaks, forcing the words out.
Orochimaru grabs his hand and holds it up to his view. That's when Sakumo notices that there's something wrong with it. His skin is pale and cracked, as if his clay body had shattered in the kiln and been pieced together. There is nothing beneath but a black essence, perhaps the ink that had been used in the jutsu that resurrected him.
"A human soul must always be housed in a human vessel," Orochimaru says. He takes Sakumo's sword from his other hand and brings it down, cutting off the hand that he held in his grip. "But once it is taken, it is no longer bound by the limitations of flesh and blood."
Sakumo inhales sharply as he braces for the pain that his eyes are promising him but it doesn't come. The stub of his hand is numb. The edges are already reconstructing itself in a flurry of small, white pieces of paper, each one of the regaining the bloodless colour of his skin as they attach and reform his hand.
"Immortal. Indestructible." An appreciative smirk stretches Orochimaru's thin lips. "I understand the irony, Hatake-san. You ended your life so early and what a waste that was." The scientist's smile widens. "Since you've found no use for your life, please don't mind me if I make use of it instead."
"I'd rather you not. I find that I have a great many regrets and I would not like to add to them."
Orochimaru shrugs, already losing interest in the conversation. "Too late. Your son has thrown our plans into shambles and as his father, I think it fitting that you help us fix them. Go to Konoha. Free Danzou. We can speak again when you're back."
Sakumo stiffens as he feels the command settle into his mind, sinking into his new, artificial body and imbuing it with a restless compulsion to fulfil the command. It is as if he has been shoved to the back of his mind, watching through glassy eyes as the world outside his body plays out. A katana is pressed into his hand, along with kunai to re-stock the holster at his thigh, before Orochimaru nods in approval. "You'll know where to go."
And Sakumo does. It is an odd sensation. Sakumo sees Orochimaru's underground lab flash by in the corners of his eyes as he jogs out of the sealing lab and through the snaking hallways. There are cells carved into the stone walls and fitted with bars - some empty and others filled with shadowy, half-formed things - and just as many locked doors, each numbered with kanji.
He climbs up a wooden ladder to the floor above, unlatching a locked trapdoor as he does, and almost immediately, there is a katana at his throat. "Who are you?" Hinoto demands, her dark blue hair spilling over her shoulder as she presses the blade harder. Behind her, there's a hall full of ROOT agents staring at them, all paused in the middle of whatever they were doing—though it's nothing much more than training or sleeping curled on the bare cement floor.
Sakumo's mouth opens and it is Orochimaru's low, rasping voice that replies. Hinoto steps back, her face pinching with repulsion. "You can leave him alone. Remember what I mentioned? This is the one I'll be sending over."
"Excuse me," she says stiffly. "I didn't mean to interfere."
Orochimaru's control over Sakumo's vocal chords ceases abruptly and Sakumo coughs to clear his throat, equally repulsed himself. But then the blank, dissociative state takes over him again and he's back on his journey out of the underground bunker, opening up another trap door before emerging in the middle of nowhere.
He breathes in the crisp, cold air as he grasps the frost encrusted ledge and pulls himself up. In any other circumstances, he would have marvelled at the sweet, woody scent of the air as it fills his lungs, but dread takes over his thoughts as he sets the trap door back into place and starts sprinting through the forest.
It doesn't take him long to recognise the path that he's taking. They're not far from Konoha. At his estimate, it's less than a day's journey if he keeps up the pace. With the inhuman stamina that this body seems to have, Sakumo realises that he'd better start thinking of some creative ways to break out of this jutsu before everything goes to hell.
'Sage help us.'
"Halt! Halt!"
"Stay back!" Sakumo shouts, but his sword is too fast for even himself, and the guard falls to the ground with his flak jacket cut open and crimson soaking its threads. His partner is smart enough to retreat, hauling the injured chuunin to the side as Sakumo takes off through the gates.
Damn Orochimaru. Does he have so much confidence in Sakumo and the Edo Tensei's abilities that he's making Sakumo fight his way through the village? Sakumo grits his teeth. Orochimaru may have given Sakumo back just enough free will to speak, but his body is still utterly beyond his control. At the back of his mind, Sakumo knows that this potential massacre is nothing more than an experiment for the scientist. The only silver lining is that it is still early in the morning and the streets are relatively empty.
His sandals throw up dirt as he shunshins straight towards the T&I.
"Go get the Hokage!" Sakumo yells at a group of chuunin that he passes, catching a glimpse of their shocked faces before he's intercepted by another group of shinobi right in the middle of a street. There are jounin amongst this second group and they rush at him with determination on their young faces, and horror chokes him as he mows them down like they're genin fresh out of the Academy. Everything is over in a blur and he's left holding a shinobi's shattered arm by the wrist as the man whimpers, his companions laying scattered about him in various states of injury.
Sakumo lets go of the man and retrieves his katana from the stomach of another, trembling as he feels the wet warmth of blood soaking through his gloves. He doesn't even feel the chakra drain when he steps over their twitching bodies, only the building urge to scream in his chest. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, trembling as he struggles hard against the commands constricting him. "I'm so sorry."
Catching a glimpse of himself in a shop window, Sakumo inhales sharply. He had not thought about his appearance but it is shocking how clearly undead he is. With his blackened sclera and the blood splattered on his cracked white skin, he truly looks like the product of a forbidden jutsu.
"S-Sakumo-san? I felt your chakra..." Rin flits up to him, her face blanching at the sight of the bleeding pile of shinobi behind him. Her hand passes through his arm when she reaches out to him tentatively. "What happened to you?!"
"Go find Kagami," Sakumo rasps, his eyes flickering between Rin and the med-nin that's bravely sneaking towards the downed shinobi. "Tell him I need his doujutsu." Sakumo doesn't know whether Kagami's particular genjutsu will be enough to break him free from Orochimaru's control, but this is his only chance. "Orochimaru did something to me and I can't control my body." As if snake Sannin had heard him, his feet start moving forward and Sakumo is helpless to resist.
"Hang on," Rin assures him as she keeps up with him. Her gaze is steady. "We'll definitely figure something out!" Sakumo manages a creaky nod and she turns towards the ANBU headquarters, her hair flying behind her as she sprints off.
Sakumo presses on deeper into heart of Konoha and soon the iconic round roof of the Hokage tower comes into view together with the plain, rectangular building of the T&I. Without slowing down a beat, his hands flicker through a rapid series of hand seals and a great fireball slams into the facade, sending shinobi scattering as chunks of flaming plaster and cement rain down.
Several shinobi in the grey T&I uniform ambush him from above as he enters the reception area, claiming an arm in the brutal scuffle that follows before he sends another fireball barrelling in their direction. Heat explodes within the narrow confines of the room and screaming shinobi fall to the ground, curling up to shield themselves. Those with water affinities immediately focus their Suitons on their burning comrades, prioritising their lives over Sakumo, who has turned away.
The layout of the T&I is simple. After the reception area, only a single metal gate, a short hallway, and a deep stairwell keeps outsiders from the maze of cells and offices below. It wouldn't take long for him to get into the cells if they aren't able to mount a defence quickly.
Everywhere the flames lick at him, Sakumo's skin turns to ash, but his body reforms quickly enough that he escapes the flames practically untouched. Even his missing arm has regenerated.
"Get a Nara and a sealing team!" Sakumo shouts back at them even as he incapacitates a desperate chuunin that pits herself against him. "Or an Uchiha!" Choking out an apology as he slams the kunoichi onto the ground, Sakumo continues forward. His stomach turns at the memory of her spine snapping under his hands. She should have run!
Leaving her to the mercy of the smoke and flames, Sakumo reaches out and grasps the metal bars of the gate, only to be repelled swiftly enough to send him staggering. Relief floods him. At least the seals are working. If nothing, they should delay him for a while. He peers through the metal bars and down into the narrow hallway. It is strangely empty. Turning back, he's met with wall of smoke and a suspicious silence.
'Good,' Sakumo thinks to himself, clutching desperately at the slightest shred of hope. Maybe they've taken his advice. It'd take more than a smattering of jounin to take him down, not when he had rivalled the Sannin in his prime. Now with this indestructible body...
"To think that Orochimaru would send you, of all people."
Sakumo whirls around, his sword arm snapping up to the ready before it's forced down again by Orochimaru's will. Danzou emerges from the stairwell with his right sleeve missing from the shoulder, a truly grotesque arm revealed to the world. It's embedded with restlessly rolling eyeballs, each one of them with its own eyelid and spinning tomoes in their irises. Utterly disgusted yet unable to look away, Sakumo counts the blinking crimson eyes. 'Ten.'
Danzou flicks the blood off his katana and steps through the gate, bending reality just as easily as when he had almost murdered Sakumo. "Let's go."
They make it through the smoke-filled reception and out into the streets without a hint of resistance and Danzou sneers. "To think that it would just take a few Sharingans..."
"What have you done to yourself?" Sakumo hisses but Danzou keeps walking.
"You should know," Danzou snaps back.
He comes to an abrupt stop when shadows snap out from the opposite side of the street and captures them both, freezing them onto the spot. "But I'd rather you explain," Shikaku says, his forehead shiny with sweat as he steps out into the street with his hands clasped together. They are forced to move together with him but Sakumo is glad.
"It's the Izanagi," Inoichi pants, having appeared behind Danzou at the T&I's wrecked doorway with his hands held up in his clan jutsu's hand seal. "And an Edo Tensei." One of his eyes is shut against the trail of blood dripping from the wound at his hairline and his side is hastily bandaged.
"An Edo Tensei?" Chouza murmurs, causing the street to shake and rumble as he comes up the other side of the street and completes the triangular formation. His great mass blots out the sun and Sakumo's heart leaps again in hope. "If that's really Sakumo-san, we'll be in for a hell of a fight."
A/N: To the reader who wanted an older Ino-Shika-Chou fight, yay! It turns out that we do have one! Though a short one ;)