New chapter. Sorry about the delay

The Prankster King of Konoha

Chapter 9

The Snake Sannin

Naruto grunted as he was plowed through yet another tree. For anywhere that wasn't the Forest of Death, this wasn't a problem. He was able to break through trees since he was eight years old, so getting tossed through a few, while painful, wasn't the worst thing in the world.

The trees in the Forest of Death, however, were about as thick as a house and twice as hard. It took the combined effort of Naruto's most lethal traps and a literal Tailed Beast to put a serious dent in the topography of the forest, so to emulate that with nothing but the velocity of his own body was harrowing. It took a whole minute, but Naruto had finally come to a stop. Smashing into enough trees had effectively bled off his momentum, allowing him to smack painfully into the bark of a particularly sturdy tree. The blonde hissed as the unrelenting wood did unholy things to his poor spine, but he sucked in the pain and braced himself as he fell to the forest floor.

He hit the ground with a dull thud, rolling on impact to lessen the fall. It still hurt like hell, but it was nothing that judicious use of the Fox's chakra wouldn't rectify.

Speaking of the Fox…

"You knew that bastard was here?" Naruto all but snarled. The need for secrecy had been bypassed due to both his unbridled fury and still present pain. "Why didn't you say anything earlier?"

"I didn't want you to get mad," was the Fox's answer. The damned Beast sounded apologetic, but Naruto knew that it was anything but. The creature cared for Naruto, no matter how much it denied it, but to say that it cared for the boy's anger was stretching it. The Fox didn't give a damn. It neglected to tell Naruto for the fun of it.

Sure enough, Naruto could feel the Fox's mirth, no matter how hard the damn thing tried to hide it.

It was an annoying trait that his prisoner had, and it had bothered Naruto to no end. Kurama would cause mischief no matter where he was, and even Naruto wasn't exempted from that rule. Unfortunately, there was nothing that he could do about it without alienating the moody Fox, so it was something that Naruto had learned to put up with.

"Where is he?" Naruto asked. He had managed to reign in his temper. Mostly.

The Fox, who by this point wasn't even trying to hide his elation, spoke through choked laughter. "Back in the clearing, brat. He's posing over your little squad mates."

So they weren't fighting then. That was good. His teammates were skilled, but they weren't on the level of a Sannin.

"The smaller humans are afraid. Terribly so. They can barely move."

Naruto nodded. That was the correct reaction to facing Orochimaru. Of all the Sannin that Naruto had met, and he had met all of them by now, Orochimaru was the only one whose chakra felt like oil. It was of the same potency as the other two—powerful and oppressive—but for some reason Orochimaru's felt slimy and disgusting, as if his very essence was trying to seep in through any cracks it could find in your soul.

Naruto hated the man, and he hated their first meeting as well. The blonde usually came out on top in any situation he was in, even the ones he didn't plan for, but there was no mistaking who had won their last encounter.

"Kurama," Naruto started. The Fox had slowed his ceaseless cackling, but only a little. "How quickly can you gather the chakra for that cloak we used last time?"

Naruto didn't get a response, so he pulled himself out of the divot he had collapsed into. It only took him a few seconds to fix his clothes, and a few seconds more to tighten his shoes. His eyes scanned the perimeter, taking special care to note where his traps could be.

Unfortunately, there weren't any active ones around here. This was where Gaara had went on his full-powered rampage, and that rampage extended well into where that damned snake currently was.

It was far too late to think about setting up any new traps. His teammates needed him now.

"I am confused," the Fox finally said. Naruto raised an eyebrow but didn't respond. He took off, his still aching muscles pushing him as fast as they could through the wrecked foliage back to his teammates. "You're showing an awful lot of care for these brats."

"I don't see what's confusing about that."

The Fox hummed. There was obviously something going on there, but Naruto didn't have the time to puzzle out what. The sounds of fighting echoed from the clearing ahead, along with the sound of breaking branches and the crackle of burning wood. His teammates were fighting.

"How much time do you need to make that cloak again?" Naruto asked once more. He was, again, met with silence.

"The snake is stronger than my sibling," Kurama finally said. "As loathe as I am to admit it, that man is stronger than one of my kin, as weak as Shukaku happens to be. This isn't a fight I would recommend."

Naruto nodded but kept his pace back towards the clearing. "Noted. How much time do you need?"

Silence once more. Naruto had never remembered the Fox being this reticent. At least, not of his own will.

"I won't be able to muster as much as you used before," he said. "But I can muster a single minute's worth. It will take me ten minutes. You can wait just outside of the snake's range until then."

"I don't have that kind of time." Naruto landed on a branch, just in time to see Orochimaru completely dismantle the rudimentary guard that Sasuke had managed to put up. All things considered, it was a good guard, but Orochimaru was the boy's better in every way. The older man slipped into the Uchiha's space, then delivered a series of blows that left the young Uchiha reeling. Before he had a chance to recover, Orochimaru delivered a devastating kick into the boy's stomach, sending him flying into the bark of a tree.

Sasuke slumped to the ground. He was dangerously still.

"Sasuke!" Sakura shouted. The desperation and agony in her voice threatened to shatter Naruto's soul. The pinkette's hands dipped into the pouch she held around her hip, and out came an abundance of tiny, black balls.

Naruto knew what was in those balls. He helped create them, after all. They appeared tiny, but they packed quite a punch when injected with just a small amount of chakra. Against any other ninja, the usage of said explosives would be overkill and potentially lethal.

Against Orochimaru, however, they would be little more than a distraction.

"I need to go. Now."

He could feel the dissent echo through their connection, but Naruto didn't have the time to think about it. He was moving before he finished his thought, free falling directly towards his most hated nemesis.

He wasn't surprised at all when Orochimaru turned, his arms coming up to block Naruto's flying kick. Not wanting to stay too close, Naruto used the snake's block to springboard away, landing away from the much older man.

"Naruto?" Orochimaru said, a perverse excitement lacing his words. "My, what a fortuitous pleasure."

Naruto didn't share the man's excitement. He retrieved a kunai from his hip pouch and threw it. It was, of course, nothing to the old Snake, but that was the entire point. The snake swatted it out the air with little more effort than one might a fly, but in doing so had left his flank open.

Sakura's explosions detonated, tearing into the man's back. Fire and ash engulfed the Sannin, obscuring him from view.

Naruto turned away, rushing towards his still conscious teammate.

"Sakura," he said, his words coming out before he landed. "I will make an opening. You go get Sasuke and get out of here.

Sakura, battered and bruised and much worse for wear, looked as if she had questions. He, unfortunately, did not have time to answer any of them.

"There's no time," he ended up saying. "Just get the Uchiha and hightail it out of here. I will distract the old pervert so you can get it done. When you're a safe distance away, shoot the emergency flare into the air. Reinforcements will come and they'll be able to come back and get me."

Left unsaid was Naruto's uncertainty as to his own survival. He wasn't stupid enough to believe that Sakura's explosions were enough to put Orochimaru of all people out of commission. Knowing the slippery, disgusting old man, it probably wasn't enough to even scratch him.

"Kukukukuku," came a disgusting voice from the ashes. "Are you working together with people now? I thought you were going to be a lone wolf forever?"

A pressure, disgusting yet powerful, emanated from the smoke. Orochimaru's killing intent was impressive, but it wasn't something new to Naruto.

"The girl, brat," growled Kurama. "Check on the pathetic meatbag."

Naruto turned, then swore. Sakura was literally shaking. Or, at the very least, shaking as much as a person that was scared stiff could.

"Fox, we need a new plan."

"I wasn't aware we had a first plan. You ran in and started punching."

Orochimaru burst from the dissipating smoke, a wide, snake-grin stretching across his deceptively ambiguous features. Naruto saw the punch before it came, and he braced himself for impact.

It was almost worse than the wind jutsu.

"I thought I told you, young Naruto, that having comrades will only make you weaker." The Snake Sannin's smile widened as he spoke. Naruto wanted nothing more than to gag at the sight. "And now look at you. Do you even have any traps prepared?"

He did, but none that weren't wiped away by that enormous wind jutsu. He had other traps set up in the forest, and under normal circumstances he would have led the Snake on a goose chase through all them.

He turned to look at Sakura. It was a rookie mistake to take his eyes off his opponent, but he needed to check on her.

She was still shivering, but it seemed as if she had gotten her wits about her. Her fingers were already coiled around something in her bag. Judging by the placement, he could guess what she was planning.

Which left things up to him.

"ETA on that chakra cloak?" Naruto asked. The Fox's silence was worrying, but no more worrying than the Sannin that was bearing down on him.

"About six more minutes," the fox growled. It was a timer that gave Naruto no confidence, but it was one he was going to have to work with.

Of course, if the normal way didn't work…

"It's been a while, Snakeface," Naruto said. It was an extreme effort to hide the way his voice shook, or the way that his finger twitched unconsciously towards a certain spot on his neck. "One badass, awesome child not good enough for you?"

Orochimaru's smile only seemed to widen at Naruto's words, something that turned his eerie, unnatural face spiraling straight into the uncanny valley. He opened his mouth, but instead of words, out came a long, slimy, serpentine tongue.

Even Naruto couldn't suppress his shudder as Orochimaru licked at his own cheek. He dislodged a bit of skin from the charred remains of a face that definitely wasn't his, then reached up and just pulled the whole thing off, as if it were a mere mask a kid might wear.

"Are we getting jealous, Naruto-kun?" the vile man asked. "You hardly need to worry, I have not forgotten my plans for you."

Neither had Naruto. It was hard to forget such things when you were first notified of them by the man himself, whispering into your ear like a particularly malicious wraith while you were asleep.

Naruto took out his kunai, brandishing it before himself as if to ward off the man's intentions with just the might of the steel in his hands. "Don't worry, you'll soon be forgetting all plans you have for any of us."

Naruto threw his kunai, the blade flying straight and true towards its target. He had no illusions about what would happen: Orochimaru was a ninja with several more decades worth of skill and experience. The slimy bastard didn't even bother to dodge, instead choosing to snatch the blade out of the air with his tongue. A part of Naruto was fascinated how the man's appendage wrapped around the handle like a snake might around a field mouse.

The other part was using the distraction to flip through handseals.

"It impresses me every day that you have the capacity to learn a jutsu."

"Is now really the time, Fox?"

Naruto's hands finished their sequence, and Naruto inhaled deeply. It wouldn't be as powerful as the Snake's, but it would be enough.

"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!"

Wind came rushing out his palms at an alarming speed, cutting through the branches and trees between him and the snake and buffeting what it could not. It hit the Sannin with all the force of a train, and the Sannin…

Smiled. He continued to smile as he quite literally weathered the storm.

"I don't think it's working, kit."

"I can see that, thank you. Would you like to help?"

"I don't have filtered chakra for you, yet."

"Then give it to me unfiltered!"

"Are you sure?"

Orochimaru smirked as he walked against the gale. Both his clothing and his skin flapped heavily against the wind, but he continued despite the opposition.

"Fox!"

"Fine!"

Naruto felt a surge of power rush through him, pushing his abilities beyond what he was used to. The world seemed to slow, becoming both clearer and more vibrant. He could feel his chakra coils stretch, bending and burning and straining the limits of what he was willing to tolerate. It was uncomfortable, but it wasn't the worst thing he'd ever experienced.

No, the worst thing he ever experienced came next.

Blood spilled from his pierced lips as fangs that weren't there before elongated and bit into his skin. His muscles bulged, adding power and dexterity, but with that added strength came an agonizing torture. He could literally feel himself burning from the inside out, and that pain only increased as the Fox's red chakra started to overflow from his coils and bubble out of his skin.

His wind jutsu became stronger, pushing out from his palms twice as intense as before. Naruto took a slight delight in the way that the Snake's eyes finally widened and his gait stopped.

He wasn't pushed back, however, and that was the problem.

"I need more, Fox!"

"That's too bad!" the Fox responded. There was finally some urgency in the beast's voice. Panic, though not much of it, had started to seep into his voice. "I can't feed you chakra and work on purifying enough to get you the cloak at the same time! Choose one or the other!"

Naruto watched as the Snake's smile slowly returned. He seemed to get used to the new intensity, and it wasn't long until he was approaching them once more.

Naruto's decision came easily.

"Flood me," he said.

The Fox didn't need to be told twice. The chakra, which was slowly bubbling out of his skin, exploded from him like water exploding out of an overfilled balloon. Naruto's technique went from a strong gale to a tornado, and Orochimaru was caught off guard. The Sannin, as well as the tree he was standing on, was torn out of the ground as the wind all but dragged it through the sky. The entire jungle in front of the boy was uprooted and sent flying, leaving nothing but bits of upturned dirt in its wake.

Orochimaru's surprised face was almost worth the obscene amount of pain that Naruto was currently suffering.

"Naruto!" he heard Sakura scream, but her words seemed muffled around the pain. His teeth clenched as he tried to ignore the feeling of his nerves being lit on fire.

Honestly, it was taking all his concentration to stay awake, much less hold off the Snake Sannin.

"Get… out…" he struggled to say. His voice was turning bestial as he all but growled his words out. He could feel the bloodlust start to rise, like moss growing up the side of a tree. "Take Sasuke and… go…"

The Fox's power was just raw chakra now, but Naruto could still feel Sakura's emotions. She was scared, unsure; torn between running as fast as she could and staying to help her friend who was going through something that she couldn't begin to understand. That was… valiant of her, he supposed, but it was inconsequential. What mattered right now was that she was hesitating.

He couldn't have that.

Mustering up the chakra burning through his veins like fire through a forest, he turned. He had no idea of the visage he was showing the poor girl, but he could only imagine the slit, crimson red eyes and the gruffness of his voice could not have been reassuring.

"Get out of here. Now."

Fear. He could feel the fear resonating from her like heat from a radiator. Still, it cleared out the hesitation that was flooding her body. She rushed over to Sasuke, who was still flat out on the ground, and retrieved him. He watched as she took one last look back at him before jumping away.

Naruto watched as she left, then turned.

He wasn't surprised when he saw Orochimaru looking back at him.

"My, my, Naruto-kun. You are becoming more and more interesting by the day. I knew that I made a good choice in scouting you."

Normally Naruto would have a good comeback to that, but his mind wasn't correct right now. Instead, he snarled, his sharpened fangs showing.

"Boy, calm yourself. You can't beat him by just…!"

The Fox's voice. It was coming through, clear as day. Clearer than he could ever hear it. Instead of being forced through their mental connection and muffled, it was as if the Fox were right next to him, speaking directly into his ear.

And yet, Naruto couldn't understand him. The words were bouncing directly off of his brain and onto the floor, for all that it was doing for him. All Naruto could think about was Orochimaru, and what he did the last time they had met.

Naruto hated the last time they met.

"AARGH!" Naruto roared, his scream reverberating off the trees and forcing the air back. The Fox's chakra bubbled and boiled, rising around him like a cloak and taking on a rudimentary form of a fox. Power, lesser than the complete form of the purified chakra but more than what he was, focused almost entirely on his legs and, with that, he crouched.

He was on top of the Snake in the very next moment. His fist reared back, chambered like a round in a cannon, before unleashing with all the force of one.

The Snake Sannin caught it, smiling even as the bones in his arms cracked and his fingers shattered. Still, Naruto's strike was stopped short, and Orochimaru could only cackle as Naruto's onslaught was halted.

"Stronger still than when I first found you, hacking and coughing just outside of Danzo's base." Orochimaru's ridiculously long tongue snaked out of his mouth, before licking at his cheek—a move that the man was fond of. "But I see that your abilities haven't changed in the slightest. Still hanging on to the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox. Are you not going to get stronger on your own?"

Naruto's chakra cloak bubbled as his emotions came to the fore. Stronger? He had gotten stronger! He was getting stronger every single day! The chakra flared, and new power came into his already stressed body. Orochimaru's battered arm was swatted away, and Naruto brought his other arm out to strike at the man.

This time, however, Orochimaru didn't feel like taking the brunt of that attack. He dodged, flowing like a leaf in a river. Each devastating attack missed—not by much, but by enough that the extraordinary force was wasted and Orochimaru came out unscathed. All the while, he was still smiling that enraging smile. The one that stretched across his entire face and made Naruto feel slimy and gross.

Naruto only felt his rage grow.

"Boy," the Fox screamed. Naruto winced—the words sent a ringing through his head that was painful, but they stuck. "Take control of it! Don't let it overpower you!"

There was… logic in the Fox's words. Naruto knew it, but… he just couldn't. Everything in Naruto wanted to tear Orochimaru apart. And with just a little more power he could.

A part of him was sorry that he was about to do this, but another part recognized that it was the Fox's fault in the first place.

"Boy. Think about what you're doing before you—aargh!."

Naruto ripped the Fox's power away. It wasn't nearly as much as he could have taken, but it was enough to make a difference. The cloak around him morphed, somehow burning his chakra coils more than they already were, sending a new wave of pain through his already tired body. Tails started to sprout from it, a total of three taking form behind him.

"I will end this. Now."

Orochimaru grinned. "You still don't get it, boy."

Naruto roared, this time creating a physical pulse of energy that pushed even Orochimaru back. He leapt, moving faster than he did in a while. His time using the purified cloak allowed him to keep up with his own movements, but every action felt like he was tearing his muscles apart.

It was fine, he reasoned. He was also tearing the Snake apart.

A vicious haymaker tore into the Snake's face, powering straight through the rudimentary block that the man tried to make with his shattered arm. He reveled in the way that the man's jaw crunched, and then in the way that blood flew like spittle from his mouth. Before he finished his attack, another one came up, and it wasn't long until he was raining down an endless barrage of blows.

Eventually, the man's body gave way, and the Orochimaru he was battering melted away into a pile of brown sludge. Naruto snarled as Orochimaru's mud clone dissolved, and his anger only grew as he watched the mud burn away at his feet.

Naruto turned, his slit eyes roaming over the forest. He knew that the Snake hadn't left yet—Orochimaru wasn't the kind to leave his prey unattended.

Sure enough, a wave of nauseous excitement reared up behind him. He was swinging before he even turned, and he had to snarl as Orochimaru weaved around his blows once more.

"You know, Naruto-kun, I had always respected that mind of yours. You were able to think yourself out of every predicament you were in. You were able to think yourself out of Danzo. You were able to think yourself out of me."

Naruto growled, and one of his tails simply flexed. It stretched from behind him, before shooting ahead and wrapping around Orochimaru's left leg. Orochimaru flailed as he was ripped from his feet, it didn't take him long to flip through enough seals to start a jutsu.

"Fire Style: Phoenix Fire Jutsu!"

One handed seals weren't impossible, but it was a rare ability. Naruto couldn't put it past Orochimaru to know how to do it. Fire washed over him, making him uncomfortably warm, but the worst of the flames washed harmlessly off his body. His last tail reared up, before lashing out like a whip. It sliced through the snake's arm, leaving only a bleeding stump behind.

"You die today, Snake."

"I'm inclined to disagree."

The Snake then chuckled, an act that held an incredible amount of malice, and watched as Naruto's tail reared back. It impaled the man through the heart, leaving a massive hole behind.

The man then melted, his body coming apart as yet another mud clone dissolved.

Naruto snarled, then twisted rapidly on the spot. Where was he?

"Boy," the Fox muttered. Naruto could hear the way that the beast struggled to speak. "Stop."

"I can't stop, Fox!" Naruto snarled. "He's still out there. He's still—"

Pain. That was the first thing to register. Pain unlike the constant burning of his tenant's chakra. Pain unlike the screaming of his muscles or the tearing of his tendons. Pain shot through his body, and it started at his abdomen. Naruto looked down.

"My, my," Orochimaru cooed into his ear. "All that power and you're still so pathetically weak."

Naruto could feel the snake's breath as the pervert's mouth opened. The Fox was screaming in his mind, roaring and bashing against the edges of his prison, but it was to no avail.

Once again, the Snake Sannin had sunk his teeth into Naruto's neck.

Once again, Naruto blacked out from the pain.