Author: Thank you for reading. I really appreciate all of the feedback and can you believe it got 3000+ hits in one day! Another 700 or so on the second! Hah.
At her home, Anko sat on the edge of her bed staring at a glass of lukewarm water sitting on her nightstand. She couldn't bring herself to drink from it; instead, she reached back with her palm and gripped her shoulder as the pulsating feeling that she had missed for years was now returning.
She turned her head and looked out one of the windows in her room, not sure what the feeling of dread that accompanied her meant.
It took her a few minutes, but she stood up and left her quaint apartment after grabbing her trench coat. When she closed the door behind her, she leapt up onto the rooftops and started to run along them, trying to bite away the feeling with the cold night air.
Sasuke's body hit the ground with a thud worth a few shivers. He was sprawled out on the ground with his eyes rolled to the back of his head as the mind-consuming poison made its way into his body and began creeping up to his brain.
Naruto still lay on his side, bloody and battered. He was glad to see the Hokage and his backup, but things just didn't look good for him with Orochimaru standing in between him and the Hokage. He was scared. Terrified. If he had a tail, it would be in between his legs… but Ino was there at the time. He couldn't show how scared he was of the Sannin; even while she occupied his body. No, not in front of her. He hardly had enough training to fight off another genin, much less one of the legendary three of Konoha.
Naruto looked over to see Sasuke was unconscious. He himself was bruised and battered all over. The side of his head was a dark purple for a few minutes, but eventually his body began to heal itself as it had rapidly before when Ino drew the map to the hidden entrance. Naruto was starting to look like he had never participated in the fight of his short life while Sasuke just seemed to look worse and worse as the bruises began to swell on his face and body.
When the Hokage stopped only a few meters away from Orochimaru, the snake Sannin turned to face the trio as Kakashi and Inoichi rounded out the rest of the group. He grinned; Sarutobi presented him with a disappointed frown.
"Sarutobi-sensei. Ku-kuh-huh… You have aged considerably well, sensei." Orochimaru's callousness and the mockery in his supposed show of respect by calling his old teacher "sensei" did not go unnoticed. His tongue-on-palate kind of laugh gave a coarse and slightly nasal sound, eerie as his smile and intimidating as his eyes.
The Hokage slowly removed his Hokage hat and set it on the ground beside him. "You haven't aged a day." He closed his eyes for a second as he gathered the strength within himself to speak to his former student. "Tell me; have you still no remorse for your actions? The guilt of your treachery to your village and mankind as a whole must be weighing down your shoulders; I myself have killed many men and… even women and children in my lifetime, and I know," the disentangling look in his eyes and the direct eye contact he kept with his pupil once his eyes opened showed Sarutobi is as a shinobi, a man, and a mentor, all in one go; his lips parted and he was about to speak again, but he bit his lips once before glaring sharply at his pupil and bitingly he continued, "Better than some, of the toll that these kind of needless bloodlettings can have on your soul."
Orochimaru's Machiavellian smile graced his features pointedly. "Ha ha ha. Sensei. How old and bitter this life has made you; as for me, I have no reason to concern myself with frivolities like death. To me, Death is dead."
The Hokage lowered his head slightly and glared at his student from underneath his brow. He felt his body tensing up underneath his formal robes and knew he couldn't continue to speak with this monster any longer. What hurt him the most wasn't that Orochimaru was the demon that he was; but, that Hiruzen himself was the cause of his pupil's scandalous affair with lunacy.
Sarutobi Hiruzen looked at the floor where Sasuke lay beside his pupil before his eyes scanned the room further back in the darkness and saw the dull orange color of Naruto's jacket mixed with splotches of blood making his crumpled heap resemble a pile of orange and red leaves in the fall.
His eyes slowly moved back to Orochimaru and his presence here suddenly made complete sense. "You are here for Naruto. Who did you plan on striking a bargain with? Suna? Kumo? I suppose it would have to be Iwa."
Orochimaru sneered, looking at the Hokage with playfully sinister eyes. "Mizu."
Kakashi was taken aback, speaking out while the Hokage simply chewed the informative meal that was given to him, gnawing on what Mizu could possibly want with the Yondaime's only son. "But," began Kakashi, "Mizu is the weakest of the five great military powers; at least, their numbers and lack of talent after the seven swordsmen were disbanded makes them the weakest threat to Konoha as of today."
Inoichi thought it was foolish of Kakashi to give Orochimaru any ideas of how to better plot the destruction of Konoha, but he had to concede that the jonin had a point: Mizu was most definitely the weakest due to the fact that many of the seven swordsmen had either died, or became missing nin. Two of them supposedly tried to overthrow the government and assassinate their kage, which had shocked the Konoha elite when news arrived from their spies in the Land of Water.
"Your statement speaks to your inexperience, Kakashi-kun." He said affectionately, his tongue peeking out of his mouth to lick his lower lip. Orochimaru circled around Sasuke and knelt down behind him, gripping the young boy by his shoulder and pulling on his unconscious body to prop him up in front as an example. "When seeking for the perfect underling, you search for any of the three ones:" Orochimaru held up his hand and began to count them off, "you find the stupid ones, the ones who have no one, and the ones who are different. By seeking out these poor lost souls, you can build an army willing to die for you or your cause without any hesitance; without that useless instinct for self-preservation."
He looked down at Sasuke for a second with furrowed brows. "The seven swordsmen weren't any of those three. They were all smart, each from powerful clans, and each of them was the same in that they were powerful with a sword, and even more powerful together... but power in numbers can sometimes be dangerous for a ruling government... and sometimes it's better for your people to be stupid for things to smoothly..." Orochimaru released the boy and allowed him to hit the ground lifeless.
"You sick bastard… these are children. You can't convince grown adults to follow your ideals so you twist and contort poor kids like these to do your bidding? Damn you!" Inoichi's anger and growing concern for the well-being of his daughter got the best of him and he nearly made it half the distance between him and Orochimaru when the Hokage appeared before him in full battle attire and held an arm out to stop the younger blond shinobi.
"That will be enough Inoichi. You are here as my support since you know some medic jutsu and because of your extensive knowledge in different kinds of toxins and poisons. Kakashi is here to help me round out this fight, but neither of you are to interfere unless I ask for your assistance."
"Hokage-sama-"
"Do I make myself clear?" shouted Sarutobi, glaring at Orochimaru, though he was upset about his subordinate's outburst.
"You see, sensei? Smart underlings are no good. They only speak out against you and revolt against your wishes and desires."
"Orochimaru, your statement speaks to your inexperience. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain will follow. You are right in that sometimes it may be easier to have a mindless pawn carry out your will, but by outright denying your subordinates their ability to think and act for themselves, you are inviting weakness and instability in your ranks. One very important reason why Konoha has always been one of the strongest villages in our world is because of our will of fire. I hoped, long ago, to instill that passion in your heart, but what I failed to realize was that you cut it out and hid it away somewhere I would never find it."
Orochimaru and the Hokage stared at one another. To anyone else, it was the Legendary Sannin, Lord Orochimaru staring down the Professor, the shinobi god Sarutobi Hiruzen. To the two of them, it was a master and his pupil reliving a moment more than thirty years old where somewhere they may have felt that everything could possibly be different. Sarutobi smiled when he saw the much younger prodigious Orochimaru looking up at him with vexing eyes; golden eyes with the purple markings of a snake summoner.
Sensei… your idea worked for my new jutsu sensei! I tried molding my chakra the way you told me and it worked!
"Sarutobi-sensei. Ku kuh huh. You talk far too much for an old man. If Konoha is so strong, then why is that their ancient leader who can barely walk has to take the reins from a boy who simply couldn't handle his position? Bad decisions, I suppose. Now had you only made me Hokage…"
"Had I made you Hokage, the village would no longer be standing. You became too engrossed with the death of your parents, Orochimaru. It has driven you so far, and my failure to react has caused you to be like this… and it will not happen again!"
Suddenly, the Hokage formed twenty seals in rapid succession, ending his chakra molding by clamping his hands flat against one another in front of his face and biting both of his protruding thumbs at once, drawing blood from each of them. Orochimaru himself leered, tongue hanging out wildly as he kept up the pace the Hokage set and quickly formed his own seals and then biting one of his thumbs and turning his body to spit his blood out behind Naruto to summon a giant snake in the middle of the small hallway.
Kakashi was shocked when a gargantuan snake that could barely fit within the walls of the hidden remains of Orochimaru's former laboratory thrashed about wildly. He then formed several seals and then immediately brought his hand to his side as a crackling much like electricity sounded in the room.
Inoichi formed his own seals and prepared to use his mind controlling jutsu on the animal in hopes of getting it to reverse summon itself.
The Hokage pressed both his bloody palms into the ground and a large cloud of smoke began to appear in the middle of the room.
Just then, the giant snake lurched forward and swallowed up Naruto, Sasuke and Orochimaru before diving straight down into the ground in front of the Hokage and his subordinates, tunneling through the ground with ease in order to escape. In a rush, the Hokage and the elder Monkey King Enma dived down feet first into the giant tunnel made by the snake and followed closely behind it. Enma, angry as hell that he was summoned and expected to just get into the whole situation without so much as introducing himself gave the Hokage a furious glare as the mane on his head shook.
Kakashi came in quickly behind him with Inochi trailing him at a slower, but no less desperate pace.
When the snake suddenly turned in the ground and shot straight back up, the Hokage had to pause for a second to reposition himself. However, when he turned the corner he saw that there was now a fork and there were now two freshly-dug tunnels leading in two very different directions.
When Kakashi caught up, the Professor pointed at one and yelled, "If you and Inoichi meet him first, I want you to let me know. Do not engage him!" The powerful old Hokage then took the other route and dashed down the long tunnel intent to catch up to his wicked pupil.
Kakashi sighed and looked at Inoichi who just caught up, "Come on, this way!"
He nodded and the two of them ran down the other tunnel as the sounds of burrowing echoed heavily in the distance.
When Naruto woke up, Orochimaru grinned and stood upright, turning around to face the man who caught up with him.
"You have gotten faster,"
Naruto's eyes went wide.
"Kakashi-kun…..."
The crackling like thousands of chirping birds couldn't drown out the sound of the creaking bones in Kakashi's body when he saw the predatory eyes of the man in front of him, offering him a lifeless, hopeless smile when the jonin looked upon the man who was once his idol and one of the few people Kakashi truly respected the most.
"I wonder if your chirping birds have gotten far from their mother yet? Perhaps this snake should pay a little visit to the nest and see how the hatchlings are coming along."
Inoichi ran into the area where Kakashi's chakra was visible in the pitch black of the tunnels. When he saw the two golden eyes shining in the background he cursed.
"Oh, shit."
Warning: Ranting ensues.
Author's note with spoiler for manga/anime for those who haven't seen or read as far as Shippuden up to the new war arc: This is a very important part to the story that will set up the next series of chapters and the story as a whole. As far as Orochimaru being chosen as the villain, I assure you it wasn't an accident. The man has charisma, even if he is a scary bastard and there are certain dastardly things that are implied by his character. I haven't seen a better villain in an anime/manga series in a long time, and I think his weak death as a plot device for Sasuke's "measure-of-growth" was not done correctly. In fact, I'm hoping that Kabuto will eventually be overcome by Orochimaru's will (because he's such a big pansy, what's with that pathetic backstory? I don't want another Pein, damn it!) which cannot be done in by death, after all, he is immortal… well, that's what I believe. I touched on the subject of Orochimaru's chance at being normal and good in this chapter by having the Hokage reminisce and talk about the values he tried to instill in Orochimaru when he was a boy, but I just want to make one thing clear in this story: Orochimaru is pure, honest evil. If I have not convinced you yet, then just know that he will be the epitome of it by the end of this story.
Thank you for your reviews, and you too anon who I can't reply to except in the text. Wouldn't you rather make an account or sign into it so that you can favorite me? :) I'll be your friend.
Also, I'm a dork. I listen to and watch AMV's, and you might too, so let's be dorky together! I can't find very many decent AMV's on youtube about him. Anyone want to post me or pm me a link to a good one or one you've made about Orochimaru? I prefer serious ones with songs that actually fit him just a little bit. And it's such a pain to find anything with his voice in it. No one seems to think it's worth noting in their videos except one that I found on yahoo over a DevilMayCry song.
Thank you for reading and for your reviews, favorites, alerts and hits! I'll get back to you guys after my exams!