AN: Hello! Back in the states, hectic life being fun. Had a free morning and I was feeling like writing! Slight, implied few-days timeskip between this chapter and the last.
There was something absolutely peculiar about the human body and mind. Orochimaru had grown to nearly 70 before sending herself back in time, and she'd observed phenomenon after phenomenon. There was a theory among the masses and progressive part of society that all people were equal, and that nearly all had the ability to become exceptional.
Orochimaru actually did believe that everyone had potential: She'd seen idiots grow into s-rank ninja, she'd even met a renowned scientist once who was both deaf and blind, barely trudging along with the help of medical fuinjutsu to navigate (her interest had been piqued by the seal applied to the man, a rudimentary and experimental seal that had been applied after medical examination determined the man's neural pathways for vision and sound too decayed to be healed, the seal had managed to help the man replicate an echolocation jutsu ).
But there was one glaring truth, regardless of whether or not average civilian potential was present among all humans: the potential to be a great ninja was terribly tied to genetics. There was a reason few kages (including no hokages) had ever been civilian born, why you saw s-rank shinobi beget s-rank shinobi. Part of the reason was privilege: those born to powerful or renowned shinobi were afforded tutoring by those shinobi, those born to clans were afforded secret clan techniques and resources not given to others. Hell, the great Naruto Uzumaki, in addition to whatever genetic gifts he was endowed, was given personal favor by hokages and nigh infinite chakra by his father on his birthday. The other part, besides the privilege, was purely genetic. Not even touching on the topic of kekkai genkai, all sorts of traits intrinsic to being a good ninja was genetic, the most notable being chakra capacity.
It was why Tsunade would likely always be a better ninja than Sakura, even if one day long after Sakura's death she surpasses Tsunade's overall skill due the benefit of medical advancements: Tsunade simply had far more chakra than her apprentice. While Tsunade's perfect chakra control was an amazing feat, it was the combination of perfect chakra control and the roaring chakra capacity of Senju and Uzumaki blood that had made the woman a powerhouse and world legend, it was what let her heal hundreds at once, and share chakra through summons to an entire battlefield.
Orochimaru was not so naturally gifted. She'd been civilian born, although lucky enough to have a slightly higher chakra capacity than most civilians, it had been only average for a shinobi. Jiriaya had far more chakra than her and used that to keep up. Not only was Orochimaru civilian born, but she was an Orphan. She had been very close to her parents at a young age, they'd been encouraging, loving, supporting, all manner of fantastic adjectives. They'd been poor but comfortable, they had to scrape together funds to pay for Orochimaru's academy fees, take out of their retirement.
It was one of the things Orochimaru never forgave the Shinobi world for, killing her parents.
So while Orochimaru understood that genetics and privilege were all incredibly wound up in who became a strong shinobi, she also knew it wasn't everything. She'd persevered to the top of her academy class, became the prized pupil of the Third Hokage, outshining the Senju heiress. She'd made a name and legend for herself in the second shinobi war, and established herself as one of its most powerful shinobi during the third. She became a world-leading scientist, and achieved things thought nearly impossible, with her daring, her willingness to do the taboo. And ultimately, she'd nearly been promoted Hokage, someone who should've been a shining beacon to the civilians of the world that achievement is entirely within their reach. Of course instead they gave the job to the shinobi-born Minato, a barely wet shinobi who made a name for himself by having Jiriaya steal Hiriashin from the Senju libraries (what a sweetheart Tsunade was to let Jiriaya persue the Senju's fuuinjutsu library, a privilege she'd never gave Orochimaru). Jiriaya handing the boy a premiere-level summons for free after he'd been handed clan treasures, helped solidified the boys jumpstart over Orochimaru.
It was all this privilege and genetic benefit that had Orochimaru obsessed with techniques and kekkai genkai. She wouldn't let clans hoarding techinques hold her back, and so she resolved to learn every technique in the world, including all the clan ones. She even explored how to give herself, to give others, to maybe even give everyone kekkai genkai. When she learned she didn't have the chakra capacity to enter sage mode, even after she spent months learning how, mastering it far faster than the shinobi-born Jiriaya who DID have the chakra capacity to enter sage mode, she vowed she would figure out a way to give herself sage mode. That was something she accomplished. (nevermind that Kabuto was the one to finally finish her work, she had done most of the research leading up to it).
Orochimaru had always toyed with the idea of being a champion of the downtrodden. A superior ninja who preached equality and access, who gave power to others to allow all the privileges of a shinobi-born life. She'd toyed with the messiah-tactic in her recruiting for the sound village, promising power, and giving it to some. Her cursed seal was to the be the culmination of that promise, a powerful seal that granted sage mode, possibly even kekkai genkai, in return for the loyalty to Orochimaru that only the promise of death can buy.
By the time she'd finished her curse seal, by the time it became something that was more power-giving than it was control, it had been outlawed and herself thrown into a state of constant observation by the shinobi of the leaf, with the threat of powerful, clan-born shinobi like Naruto and Sasuke to keep her in check, to keep her down. Of course the sage-mode enabling part of the cursed seal wasn't what made the seal illegal, but rather the soul-corrupting, Orochimaru-body-stealing-enabling part that made it illegal. Also the part that let Orochimaru cause extreme pain or even death to those who dared defy her. Of course her cursed seal had never been perfect. It didn't magically give those without the chakra capacity to enter sage-mode more chakra. But it was one of her miraculous inventions, using the sage-chakra absorbing cells of Juugo to enable the wearer to absorb sage chakra. Juugo's cells had a safety mechanism that caused excess chakra to be pushed into monstrous battle transformations and rage, and Orochimaru had managed to rewrite the kekkai genkai into pouring the excess back into the world around them.
It was out of his contribution to one of Orochimaru's greatest accomplishments that caused Orochimaru to visit Juugo. The adult the boy had turned into had been grateful beyond all words when Orochimaru had finally gifted him the ability to suppress his transformations, a single gift made for selfish reasons had undone decades of neglect and abuse and given the adult Orochimaru a loyal follower. It was for this reason that she gave the boy the new cursed seal, unshackled him from his chains, and watched amused as the boy cried into Kimimaro's shoulders. Kimimaro was out of the hospital, and as he hugged his crying, joyful friend, he gave Orochimaru a look of loyalty that spoke of a gratefulness that extended far more than fetching the medic that saved his life. It was a look that harkened back to what Orochimaru had once pondered about, made idle plans to explore but had never fully fleshed out. It was a look someone gave their messiah.
~!~! ~ ! ~ ! ~ ! ~ ! ~ ! ~ ! ~ ! ~ ~!~!
Orochimaru felt blessed. Her plan to keep the presence of Naruto and Sasuke in her base a secret from Tsunade had thus far panned out, the two boys enraptured by the zombies she'd reanimated for them. They took their task to train seriously, as they had to (quite a thing to control someone), but they managed to squeeze in as much bonding and story telling as their mouths could muster. The sound four took the task of guarding the room where the boys were being kept, and keeping the boys presence a secret, as seriously as one would when told to do so on threat of death by Orochimaru.
It was amusing the forlorn looks the two boys gave Orochimaru when she entered the room, the quick "I love you's" given by the two mother's. As though Orochimaru's very presence was the harbinger of their ends. It was amusing to see the absolute despair on Sasuke's face when Orochimaru told the two zombies to accompany him into the other room, the defiant attempt by Naruto to stop him from taking his mother away that was thwarted by a simple biding with wood release. The two women of course complied, as the Edo tensei were augh to do. Orochimaru could've just summoned the two women to her for a status report, but it was far more amusing to see the two boys think they were done with their mothers.
She got a status report from the mothers. Of course the boys training had gone as well as only 5 days of training could go, they were focusing on teaching clan techniques that would be hard to learn otherwise. And apparently Naruto now knew who his father was. Presumably nothing bad would happen of the boy knowing who his father was. Luckily Orochimaru learned that Mikoto had not yet mentioned to Sasuke the truth about the Uchiha massacre (probably thinking telling the boy Konoha killed his family would only cement loyalty to the man who took him from Konoha and gave him back his mother), and the lady was surprised when Orochimaru told her to NOT tell Sasuke the truth of the massacre, to give no mention of Itachi's motives, the planned rebellion, or any of the details of the night, nor to tell Sasuke that Orochimaru had forbidden her from telling him anything. Whether she was more surprised about Orochimaru seeming to know the details of the massacre or about his lack of willingness to use that to exploit loyalty out of Sasuke was not something Orochimaru could tell.
Given the timeframe, a reply from her diplomat should be arriving that day, ideally to schedule a meeting to discuss the return of Naruto and Sasuke, and Orochimaru decided to finally pull the trigger.
She summoned Kimimaro to her private laboratory, hid underground her two Tobirama's, and summoned Tsunade and Kabuto to standby. She carefully removed his curse seal (she had designed the curse seal to be impossible to 'unseal' without killing the host, and it had significant protections against simply being cut out, as it was interwound into the man's chakra network. However, with her knowledge and control of the seal she could "unwind" it from the network, tightly contain it within itself, and then removing it was as simple as cutting about an inch and a half of flesh off the man's neck around the seal, which was simple enough with trained medical shinobi like Tsunade and Kabuto). After she bound the seal(she was going to keep that part a secret), she summoned Kabuto and Tsunade in the room, had Kabuto cut off the flesh, and the two of them quickly healed the wound to prevent complications.
Orochimaru then gave Kimimaro the new cursed seal, the one that would enable him to enter sage mode. She spent a brief amount of time teaching the boy how to use it, marveled at the sheer power of his techniques. Between sage mode and his kekkai genkai, Kimimaro was certainly the strongest living ninja under her employ. She instructed him to go find Juugo and spend the timebeing training, as Juugo also needed to learn to control a real, structured sage mode. He was happy to comply.
~!~ ~~! ! !~ ~! !~!
The diplomat arrived back, along with a small green-brown toad lying on his head, looking tired and sweaty from days spent running, with the news that Hiruzen had agreed to a meeting to discuss diplomacy as a way of resolving the situation. Apparently, Hiruzen proposed that Orochimaru, or a designated negotiator and only up to one additional ninja, meet Jiriaya and a negotiator ninja at a neutral location. The toad was to be told the news of acceptance of the terms, and would then relay them to Jiriaya. Amusing. It would be absolutely delightful to see Jiriaya again, especially after the warm hello Orochimaru got to give him last time. With a smile that made both her own diplomat and the toad squirm, she accepted the proposed meeting place of a minor lord at the border of Land of Fire who was the frequent host of diplomatic talks between the Land of Rice Patties and the Land of Fire(the civilian governments).
She smuggled Naruto and Sasuke, along with the sound five to a hideout (one of her more private ones, that was more of a cache than a real hideout/base). She summoned the two zombie mother's, reiterated the instructions to train the boys, protect them, prevent kidnapping, prevent the boys from running away, and detain any creature that entered the room besides Orochimaru or one of the sound five, took Kimimaro and traveled to the manor for the meeting.
~!~ ~ ! ! ~! ~~
Orochimaru did pack an outfit for the meeting. Before she had left, she had gone to her wardrobe, been dismayed at the lack of solid female clothing, considered wearing the dress from the seamstress that hadn't been ruined, and stalked around the village looking for someone about her size. She quickly found a civilian baker who matched her dimensions, and after a mere look was on her way to the baker's house to peruse the wardrobe. Most of it was quite plebian, but in addition to a tacky white wedding dress that spoke of shopping on a budget, the lady did have a long and quite well-kept pale blue bathrobe. There was something about the causal nonchalance of attending diplomatic talks between two ninjas in a bathrobe that spoke to Orochimaru, and it was quickly sequestered from the baker as the outfit for the talks. She was even a good enough mood from the image of a bathrobe to pay the woman for trouble of having Orochimaru terrify her, make her leave work to escort her to her bedroom, walk past her two children who seemed far more interested in meeting Orochimaru than was good for their mother's heart, and take some of her clothing.
! $ ! $$ $ $ $ ! ! $!$! !$$$! !
Kimimaro did his best to not give Orochimaru a strange look when she donned the bathrobe prior to entering the manner for talks, nor did he seem altogether comfortable with Orochimaru stripping naked first, his eyes briefly pulling to her breast before he reddened, slammed his eyes shut and turned around. She entered sage mode, and sure enough, she could feel Jiriaya's presence in the manor, also in sage mode, their mutual presence seeming to acknowledge and touch each other. Kimimaro had been instructed to not enter sage mode unless it came down to a battle, Orochimaru had no reason to advertise to Jiriaya that the miracle of her invention was inherently giftable.
She glided into the meeting room after being escorted there by a servant who was all too-aware of the reputation of Orochimaru. A stern looking, grey-haired negotiator ninja stood behind a chair on the far-side of the table, a casual-looking Jiriaya who was slumped in a chair with his feet propped up on the table, a pose that screamed "non-dangerous" but was defied by Orochimaru's ability to feel the sage chakra flowing into him, as well as the emotion sensing telling her that he was incredibly on edge.
"Orochimaru-baby, good to see you again" Jiriaya said, mouth smiling, but without actually breaking the stillness needed to gather sage chakra. The negotiator frowned at bathrobe-clad Orochimaru, gestured to the seat across from him, and pulled out his own chair, prepared to sit as Orochimaru did.
Orochimaru sauntered over to the chair opposite the negotiator, giving herself the rhythmic sway of a woman without a care in the world. "Hello Jiriaya, it's good to see you doing better than you were last time we chatted".
The negotiator coughed, sat as Orochimaru plomped herself in her chair, and started
"Hello. My name is Taro Aso. These are negotiations regarding the kidnapping of Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumuaki Naruto by the 'Sound Four' of the Sound Village. Konoha has heard the plea for a non-violent resolution to this issue and agrees to not take the kidnapping as an act of war by the Sound Village in exchange for the prompt return of the two kidnapped boys in full health, as well as the four ninja who allegedly conducted this kidnapping without the permission of the Sound Village. If their actions are not to be taken as representatives of their village, the Sound Village in good faith should denounce their actions as those of Missing Ninja and relinquish them to Konoha whose laws they have violated"
Orochimaru stayed silent throughout the spiel. The Sound Four weren't really all that much to her, but the position of power was on her side, not Konoha's. Konoha would normally have an advantage in such negotiations with a smaller village as they could use the threat of extending the wrongdoing into an act of war, a war whatever village they were negotiating with would prefer to avoid. However, Orochimaru had an even stronger card to play
"Hello Taro Aso, my name is Orochimaru of the Sannin." Orochimaru let a feminine purr in her speech. "I want these negotiations to be quick as the outcome of this meeting can really only go two ways from my point of view. I am going to give back Naruto and Sasuke to you, and in exchange you will leave me and my village alone, all forgiven. Alternatively you can refuse, I will kill both of you, and then as they valiantly rise the Leaf village to the call of war against Sound, I will go to Kumo, and offer them a new dojutsu breeder, as well as wood-release babies in exchange for their help of war with the aggressive Konoha tyrants who want to conquer a country on their border. I will then go to Iwa, and hand them the fourth hokage's son and the Kyuubi, and see if in exchange they will also be convinced to help Sound repel and crush their would-be-invaders. And even if Konoha manages to defeat us, or the alliances don't pan out, after hundreds of leaf ninja have died for the cause of reclaiming the bloodline and jinchuriki they'll never get back, and the sound village is razed to the ground and captured by Konoha ninja, I will still be perfectly happy because I will simply flee, to re-enter the underground and fuck over Konoha another day."
I pause there, relishing the alarm and tenseness in Jiriaya's emotions. The negotiator was relatively calm however, and I continued "to me, the choice is clear. I don't want to bother Konoha, I don't want their jinchuriki or their Uchiha, they can have them back. In fact, I will even sweeten the deal, and give intel on the Akatsuki to my dear friend Jiriaya here". At the mention of Akatsuki, Jiriaya narrows his focus to a razor edge and with a surge of intent that draws me to look at him instead of directly at the negotiator, I see him scratch the pants of his leg in what must clearly have been a signal.
The negotiator sighs. "Fine. In exchange for forgiving the actions of the Sound Village for kidnapping Konoha's ninja, the Sound Village shall provide intel on the Akatsuki-" the man pronounces the Akatsuki like it's a foreign word, enunciating each syllable carefully, he clearly has no idea what it is but understands it must be important if it bought Jiriaya's approval "and promptly returning unharmed the Ninja that were kidnapped".
I smirk, and stand. I nod to Jiriaya and the negotiator, and tell them I'll be back the next day with the two boys and intel on the Akatsuki, and I saunter out of the room again, Kimimaro stiffly following behind me.
! $ ! $!$! $$ ! !$
Sasuke gives me a glowering look when I inform him that I'm returning him to Konoha, and looks at his mother longingly. I state "I am perfectly happy to let your mothers go with you, but Konoha is unlikely to let them anywhere near you two, and probably just keep them sealed away to prevent them from relaying info to me." I inform the two of them that perhaps one-day if I see them again I'll resummons their mother's for them and let them bond some more. Sasuke demands to stay with me and his mother, but I tell him that I can't help him get strong, only Konoha will be willing to, I give him a sickening spiel about how Konoha made ninja strong like myself, itachi, the hokages, and despite his protests I gather him up with a tendril of wood release and pull him along with me to the manor, making sure to blind him and Naruto as we leave the hideout. The two undead mother's give out last goodbyes as I take their sons away, and I instruct them to wait and guard the hideout. I fill out a sheet of info on the Akatsuki as I make my way to the manor with the two boys, Sasuke tied up and gagged after he proved himself unable to stop complaining, and Naruto following, sadness of saying goodbye forgotten as he bounded around in that energetic-child manner. Naruto asked me a few questions like "Why did you leave Konoha" and "Are you a guy or girl? My mom kept saying you were a guy but you have boobs and only girls have boobs" and "did you steal my sexy-no-jutsu" and "can you teach me a jutsu" that made me question his education, and after kurt replies along the lines of "political reasons, girl, no, no" he eventually stopped bothering me and annoyed Kimimaro and Sasuke for the rest of the trip. It was definitely fun to see Sasuke tied up in wood release, carried like a baby by Kimimaro getting poked incessantly by Naruto.
I filled out quite a lot of Akatsuki information:
"
Mission of organization: Acquire all tailed beasts to create a doomsday weapon to destroy the shinobi villages and use threat of destruction to create worldwide peace.
Nagato Uzumaki, leader, wields rinnegan, uses rinnegan to control human puppets to fight with, also leader of Rain village
Konan, blue haired, female, known as an Angel in rain village, uses paper techniques
Itachi Uchiha, you guys know him
Kisame Hoshigaki, bingo book describes him as well as I can
Sasori of the Red Sand, ditto above
Deidara of Iwagakure, explosion release, can mold explosive clay to create animated explosives
Hidan of Yugakure, Jashin-worshipper, apparently immortal and can survive nearly anything, including decapitation. Signature technique involves using an injury-mirroring technique based on ingesting someone's blood, then inflicting self harm
Kakuzu of Takigakure, technique involves stealing hearts from enemies, storing multiple hearts in body. See bingo book for else
Zetsu: strange plant man, two-halves, white part can copy chakra signatures and use wood release, black part expected very dangerous, white zetsu can microscopic clones that can sit idle and be undetected by all chakra sensors, can only be detected by Sage Mode but you have to know what to look for
Tobi: a masked man who is secretly Obito Uchiha, who was kidnapped by Madara Uchiha (who escaped the battle with Hashirama and survived long enough to brainwash Obito before dying). Obito Uchiha currently crazy, has Mangekyou sharingan, can enter an alternate dimension and use technique to avoid physical harm or travel great distances fast, is secretly tricking Nagato, has plan on fusing the nine tailed beasts back together into the 10-tailed beasts (which is a real thing), reviving Madara Uchiha with Nagato's rinnegan (rinnegan can truly revive the dead), sealing Jubi into Madara Uchiha, Madara then planning on using power of Jubi to cast a genjutsu on entire world to achieve world-peace.
Orochimaru also filled all the other info she had.
Orochimaru was pretty skeptical that Jiriaya would even believe the above, so she decided to give him about half of the white-zetsu spores she had managed to acquire, locked into a sealed glass jar. Orochimaru was actually being incredibly generous with the amount of information she was giving Konoha, but the Akatsuki was as much her enemy as it was Konoha's and she had no intention on letting things escalate to where they did last time. Ideally with this foreknowledge, maybe something good will happen.
Orochimaru dropped off Sasuke and Naruto at the manor, the two of them running over to Jiriaya, and she gave the Akatsuki paper and jar of white zetsu spores to a servant who carried them over to Jiriaya.
She waved from the distance, and promptly shunshin'd away with kimimaro.
Hopefully nothing too bad will come of Konoha knowing this much about the Akatsuki this early.