Tsunade groaned
"Sarutobi…" Danzo acknowledged weakly.
"Don't strain yourself now," Sarutobi said, pushing back the Iwa-nin's katana with his staff, the Kongōnyoi. A young kunoichi crouched down beside Danzo's battered body. "He's hurt really bad, Sarutobi-sensei," Tsunade said, quickly assessing the damage.
"Just try to patch him up as much as possible," Sarutobi snapped. Tsunade nodded, doing a series of hand seals. She bit her thumb, and slammed it to the ground. "Kuchiyose no jutsu!" A white slug, almost two metres long, appeared in a poof of smoke. It had large blue patches on its skin. "Let's get to work, Katsuuya," Tsunade said, her hands glowing with a gentle blue light.
As Tsuande and Katsuuya were busy saving Danzo, Sarutobi stepped back a few paces, performing hand seals, his fingers a blur of rapid movement. "Katon, Karyuu Endan!(Fire Element, Fire Dragon Flame Missle!)" A wide arc of fire shot out from his mouth, incinerating everything in front. The Iwa-nin tried to get away, but was caught in the inferno.
About a dozen other Iwa-nins emerged from the surrounding foliage, but Sarutobi detected at least twenty more hiding in the trees. One of them spoke. "Give it up, shinobi! You are outnumbered!"
"Ha! As if that matters! Kuchiyose no jutsu!" Another teen, this time with a shock of grey hair, sat atop a human-sized toad. "Yosh! Show them what we've got, Gamabunta!" The toad snorted in affirmative, and both toad and shinobi inhaled deeply. "Katon, Gamayu Endan! (Fire Element, Toad Oil Flame Bullet!)" The toad spat a globe of yellowish toad oil in the direction of the enemy group. Simultaneously, Jiraiya blew a stream of fire into the oil, igniting it. The Iwa-nins scattered mostly unscathed, but disoriented. Gamabunta burst through the dissipating flames, wakizashi drawn. It was surprisingly agile for its bulk, leaping here and hopping there, raining a flurry of blows on the enemy.
One of the Iwa-nin did a quick body flicker to Jiraiya, holding a kunai to his throat. "It's over, brat," he said grimly. Hmph. Jiraiya smirked. "It's over, but not for me." His unruly hair grew hard and spread over his body, encasing him in a protective shell of spikes. The Iwa-nin gurgled as he was stabbed by the spikes.
Just as the spikes retracted back to its normal size, another Iwa-nin headed for Jiraiya, his right hand forming a half Tiger seal. "Ninpou, Tsuchi no Yaiba!" A jagged stone blade coalesced from the air. Shit! Too fast! Jiraiya covered his face with his arm instinctively in a futile attempt to block the blade.
But the expected blow did not fall.
Jiraiya opened his eyes slowly. A few snakes had impaled the Iwa-nin in numerous places, stopping him less than a foot from Jiraiya. "Pay attention, dobe. You're going to get yourself killed," a sneering voice remarked. Jiraiya scowled. "I don't need your help, Orochimaru." His pasty-faced teammate looked at the impaled Iwa-nin, his blade of stone crumbling into the dust, and smirked. "Seems like you did."
Four Iwa-nins approached and surrounded Sarutobi. Unfazed and calm, he performed a series of hand seals, ending in the Monkey seal. "Magen, Yamazaru Naraku! (Demonic Illusion, Ape Purgatory!)" Their surroundings faded into hellish semi-darkness, as numerous small primate hands clawed at the Iwa-nins' foot, securing them in place. In the genjutsu, more of these small, demonic-looking monkeys emerged from the ground, their jaws agape in a wail of untold sorrow and malice. The Iwa-nins screamed in terror, immobilized as they slowly suffocated under the influence of genjutsu.
When they collapsed, Sarutobi called out to his team. "Be careful. The Iwa-nins we are up against are of at least Chunnin-level." As if to illustrate the point, a hand burst from the ground near where Tsunade was patching Danzo up. The tunneling Iwa-nin was fast, leaping towards Tsunade and the unconscious Danzou, drawing a kunai. But Tsunade reacted even faster, landing a lethal, chakra-infused punch at his ribcage, shattering his lungs and killing him instantly.
"I think there are still some of them in the trees," Tsunade muttered. Orochimaru nodded curtly, and made a few hand seals. "Futon, Daitoppa! (Wind Element, Great Breakthrough!)" A great gust of wind shook the trees of the entire area hard. Some trees fell down, and there was some movement in the shadows. "They're running away!" Jiraiya said.
Orochimaru bit his right thumb, and smeared the blood on his left arm, where there were some arcane-looking symbols. "Kuchiyose, Tajuu Orochi!" Hundreds of venomous-looking snakes appeared on the ground, writhing restlessly. On Orochimaru's order, they slithered away into the forest. He unsheathed his straight-bladed sword, the Kunasagi, and ran into the forest, followed by his teammates.
Orochimaru was faster, disappearing with his snakes into the greenery ahead of Sarutobi and Jiraiya. By the time they found Orochimaru, he was already cornering six unfortunate Iwa-nins, genins by the look of them, who did not escape in time, surrounded by snakes. "W-wait! We surrender! P-please do not kill us," one of them stammered in fear. When Orochimaru and his snakes continued to close in on the Iwa-nins, Sarutobi barked, "That's enough, Orochimaru!"
Orochimaru scowled, but he dispelled his summoned snakes. "Got it, Sarutobi-sensei."
Then, without warning, snakes extended from under his sleeves and shot towards the prisoners. Before either Sarutobi or Jiraiya could do anything, the snakes had already run the Iwa-nin through their hearts.
For a moment, Sarutobi and Jiraiya were too stunned to speak. The utter silence of the forest was only punctuated by the quiet, maniacal chuckles of Orochimaru. Then Jiraiya spoke up. "Orochimaru! Why did you kill those people? They had already surrendered! They-"
"Shut up." Orochimaru interrupted, licking his lips slowly, as if savouring the moment. His face was contorted in a mask of malicious glee. Sarutobi looked disturbed, but said nothing. "Let's get back."
As they walked back to Tsunade and Danzo, Jiraiya stole a sideways glance at Orochimaru. He was his old, aloof self again. Orochimaru…… what the hell happened to you back there?
Nara Shikada stopped dead in his tracks as he surveyed the carnage in front of him. Dozens of bodies littered the ground, all of them Iwa-nin, from their attire. There had obviously been a vicious battle not long ago, but- Shikada narrowed his eyes. He was leading a team of reinforcements for the army in the fort, under the order of Niidaime-sama, for the very purpose of destroying this army.
A ninja leapt down from above. "Why have we stopped, Shikada-taicho? The-" He was cut in midsentence by the sight of the smouldering battlefield in front of him. "Shikada-taicho, what…"
"Oi, Shikada!" Shikada glanced in the direction of the call. "Sarutobi-san!" he recognized the man as his former teammate. He was flanked by two teenage shinobi, presumably his students. "What… what's going on, Sarutobi? Did you destroy this army?"
"My team and I did this together," Sarutobi said, with a measure of pride.
"Yeah, we helped!" another teen, this time a blonde kunoichi, chipped in from a few metres to Shikada's left. She had a human-sized slug beside her, carrying an injured man.
Shikada whistled lowly, surveying the carnage. "Incredible…… after all these years, you never fail to amaze me, Sarutobi-san."
Incredible.
A/N: Same with previous chapter, slight revisions, especially to Orochimaru's burst of cruelty near the end of the chapter. Nothing that alters the dynamic of the scene though. Still the same request, criticise criticise criticise!