Chapter 32

Orochimaru stood before them, all of fifteen years old, his characteristic purple and gold paint around his eyes.

Baki took a half step back. "What the –"

"Um, impossible," Jiraiya said. "What gives?" He pointed at the young man's face.

"A far more effective disguise than yours, ne?" The young Orochimaru smiled contemptuously. "A few desert wrappings could not keep your identity from me, Jiraiya. Your whole being gives it away."

"Or, you're bluffing," Jiraiya said. "You only recognized me by my voice, and you're annoyed that I put one over on you."

Orochimaru let out his breath in a huff, his expression going from smug to infuriated in a heartbeat.

Jiraiya peeled off a scarf and grinned at him.

"Don't undermine and belittle me," Orochimaru said. "I am much more powerful than you could hope to ever be."

"Let's get it on, then," Jiraiya said. He gestured. "Prove it."

Jiraiya and Orochimaru both called on their summons in an instant. An enormous, roiling puff of smoke behind Orochimaru cleared to reveal a serpent as tall as the Kazekage Complex.

Behind Jiraiya, the bulky form of Gamabunta was like a mountain.

"Oh, I see you found him," Gamabunta said, eying Orochimaru.

"Yeah," Jiraiya said. For once, he was deadly serious. The smile was gone.

"Where is my sacrifice?" Manda asked Orochimaru.

Kabuto looked nervous.

Orochimaru gestured grandly. "These men are your sacrifices, Lord Manda. The ones in Suna shinobi uniform. Including Jiraiya."

Manda surveyed his meal prospects with coldly glittering eyes.

Yondaime's breath died in his throat.

In that split second moment of shock, Manda lunged.

"No!" Yondaime desperately brought his gold dust up to counter, but it was too late.

Manda snatched up Chounin in his jaws and swallowed him, whole.

Yondaime summoned his gold dust and wrapped it around everyone protectively, stunned and horrified.

"I will consider that partial payment," Manda said to Orochimaru.

Jiraiya clenched his jaw, scowling.

Gamabunta glared sternly. "There will be no more sacrifices to you ever again when I am through with you."

"I'll eat you whole," Manda hissed.

"Oh yeah?" Gamabunta retorted. He drew his katana. "Even with my sword lodged in your brain? I'll cut you to pieces."

Orochimaru didn't waste any time. He opened his mouth and pulled out the sword of Kusanagi, regurgitating the katana in a smooth, inhuman movement.

"I thought long and hard about how to defeat you," Jiraiya said.

"Yes?" Orochimaru looked amused. "What were your conclusions?"

Jiraiya whipped aside his sand cloak, revealing a hilt sticking up from his obi. He drew the katana with a classic two-handed grip and dropped into a fighting stance. "I'll need a really good sword."

Orochimaru snorted. "What is that?"

In spite of his apparent disregard, Yondaime thought the katana unusually beautiful. A white hilt, with a light, silvery blade. It glowed in the desert sun, more like platinum than steel. Yondaime wondered what it was made of.

"Its name," Jiraiya said, never taking his eyes off of Orochimaru, "is Ame no Habakiri."

Orochimaru's eyebrows rose in a flash of surprise.

Jiraiya attacked.

At the same moment, their summons charged each other.

xXx

Kankuro was miserable. He was slumped over the couch, the tv on. It was a warm, stuffy kind of day, something mostly dealt with by the adobe construction of the mansion, but Kankuro was still aware of the hot smell of the windless day. The dust in the sunlight. "Dad…"

Gaara and Temari played a game at the kotatsu table. Kankuro considered it a sign of their situation that Gaara was willing to let himself be absorbed in such a thing. The game was a favorite of his and Temari's. It was called a few different things around Suna, but their set was called Tate Date. Sometimes, people selling the game called it Kempi. Either way, it was about taking long building blocks like sticks and building a tower one piece at a time. Players traded off putting in pieces. Then, once the pieces were all gone, the players had to take turns pulling out sticks from the tower, dismantling it as much as possible without making the tower tumble. Tate Date sort of meant 'building contract', though it had been chosen more for the catchy aspect of the name than making sense in regular language. Kempi was a word that meant 'to build a monument'.

Kankuro wasn't playing because his hands were shaking. He'd gone three rounds with his siblings and then quit out, to lie on the sofa and watch tv.

Aio and Josei had tried to shove food down their throats at lunch, but Temari and Gaara hadn't been very interested, and Kankuro couldn't eat at all.

xXx

Yondaime left Orochimaru to Jiraiya. He glanced at Baki. One of them would end up fighting Kabuto, and the other Kimimaro.

Kimimaro dropped into a crouching battle stance and grew what looked like sharp bones from his hands, elbows, shoulder blades, and knees.

That decided Yondaime in an instant. "Take Kabuto!" he yelled at Baki, and lashed out at Kimimaro with his gold dust. Pearly white bones ripped themselves out of Kimimaro's body, making a shield against the gold dust, rolling into a spiny ball.

Yondaime was impressed. And worried.

He wondered if anything about Kimimaro's story was true. Is this man terminally ill?

If that were true, all he would really have to do was fight Kimimaro until the man was running out of chakra. The illness, in theory, would overtake him in that weakened state.

But he couldn't count on that.

xXx

Baki and Kabuto eyed each other warily, sizing each other up while the battle raged around them.

"You know….Orochimaru-sama is a foolish enemy to make," Kabuto said.

"Yeah, whatever," Baki said.

Kabuto narrowed his eyes. "You're related to that Jiraiya-sama, aren't you?"

"We've grown closer since he's come to Suna," Baki said. "I'm flattered you noticed. He must be good for me." He created wind blades in both hands. Since they were weightless, he could find with two just as easily as he could one.

"Ooh, wind blades," Kabuto said mockingly, pretending to be impressed. "Is it true they can cut through anything?"

"They'll cut through you," Baki said. He leapt for the man in a flash of whirling blades.

Kabuto narrowly avoided the slicing attacks, a slight edge of speed that was bound to be worn out of him soon. Baki's wind blades cut into the blur surrounding Kabuto's body from the rapid movements.

Shimeru leapt into the battle and made a rapid series of hand seals. Bandages exploded from his hands and wrapped around Kabuto's arms in an instant. Shimeru yanked, snapping the Cloth Binding Jutsu taut.

Kabuto fell on his back in the sand with a yell.

Baki lunged.

xXx

Jiraiya and Orochimaru's sword battle led them eventually away from the rest of the group, just as Manda and Gamabunta raged against each other in the distance, where kicking up waves of sand didn't drown and choke their allies.

"You know what I'm going to do once I'm finished with you?" Orochimaru teased. "Kill Sarutobi."

"You wouldn't!" Jiraiya roared.

"I would!" Orochimaru laughed. "And I will. Kusanagi will taste that old man's blood, and then I will send him to hell, where he belongs!"

"How can you say that?" Jiraiya barely deflected Kusanagi. Their swords left notches in each other. "He loves us! He's our sensei!"

"Did he ever save you?" Orochimaru asked. "Did he ever save you from me?"

Jiraiya made a hand seal and touched his throat. He spat oil in Orochimaru's face, then rapidly followed it up by blowing fire. Flames leapt and roared high, oil spattering on sand and catching fire there, all around them.

Orochimaru shrieked, and then collapsed from inside, shedding skin and hair and clothes. He burst forth in a puff of smoke some ten feet away, clad in a shadowy purple kimono and hakama, his appearance like that of his adult self. "You fool! I could molt a thousand layers away from my body! Your pathetic jutsu will never touch me."

"That's just the sort of bravado you would say if I was getting close to kicking your sorry ass!" Jiraiya retorted. "Let's see how you deal with more fire. Go ahead, shed all your layers!"

Orochimaru responded with quick hand seal and a torrent of water, miniature tsunamis crashing forth from around Kusanagi.

Jiraiya's fire breathing technique roared around it, struggling. Their jutsus locked, grappling. Abruptly, Jiraiya changed tactics, dropping to the ground and pressing his palm flat against the sand.

Rocks surged up underneath Orochimaru, shaking the ground and spraying sand. The earth release technique smothered Orochimaru's water release.

Orochimaru sliced through the stones attempting to trap him in a rocky fist and dived at Jiraiya, Kusanagi raised vengefully.

Jiraiya raised his own sword in defense.

xXx

Yondaime gestured sharply, crashing wave after wave of mingled sand and gold over Kimimaro. The young man struggled, his bone technique raging underneath the surface, poking holes through the top of Yondaime's barriers at random intervals. Yondaime floated above the ground on a gold dust disk, shielded. "Die already!" He crushed down as hard as he could with his magnetism release, commanding it to compact.

Loud cracking sounds filled the air as bones fractured and broke.

He felt the man still struggling. Good god. Waves of Kimimaro's strange chakra continued to crash against his gold dust and sand, seeking release. Yondaime didn't dare let up. He was sweating in the sun, sweating from exertion, but he didn't dare let up.

xXx

Baki stared in disbelief at the golden glow surrounding his wind blades where they were imbedded in Kabuto's body.

Kabuto grunted with the effort. "I used my…chakra scalpels to keep you from…cutting too deep." Baki's left blade was halfway into Kabuto's arm, and the other one was at Kabuto's neck. Baki didn't know how Kabuto still spoke.

Shimeru looked horrified. "You're a medical ninja."

"Damn," Baki said softly. Medical ninjas were a pain. Always a pain. His mind flashed back to Chiyo for a moment; Suna's top medical ninja of all time. She held the record for both a puppet master and a medical ninja in terms of power.

What do I do against a medical ninja?

Baki leapt back and spread out his hands. "Wind needle!" Invisible flashes of razor sharp wind flew from his hands, leaving only a swift, mirage-like trail in their wake as other air rippled around them to get out of the way.

Kabuto arched at the impact of the needles with a howl of mingled pain and amusement. He fell limp. "You…You're quite something."

Baki was frustrated at the compliment. He hated enemy compliments. "Shut up." He gestured sharply. "Shimeru! Get him!"

Shimeru snapped out of his shock and lashed out with his Cloth Binding Jutsu, wrapping Kabuto up like a mummy, all the way up to Kabuto's neck. The long strips of cloth bound Kabuto's arms and legs. He yanked on the cloth binding around Kabuto's neck, seeking to strangle the man.

Kabuto let out a strangled yelp and turned an unappreciative shade of plum. He twisted and squirmed against Shimeru's bindings, and managed to somehow make another chakra scalpel, suddenly slicing through some of the bonds pinning his arm.

Then he passed out.

"Don't break his neck," Baki said. "We need him."

Shimeru nodded. "Hai."

Baki glanced out across the battlefield. In the far distance, a giant toad wielding a katana fought a giant serpent. Some hundred yards closer, Jiraiya and Orochimaru clashed. Jiraiya had shed his disguise, revealing his bright red haori in the sun. Orochimaru had transformed as well into darker garments, indigo or dark purple. Nature releases churned around them while their katanas swept and arced, sun dancing off of the blades in an irregular twinkle Baki couldn't look at too closely, or risk being blinded.

Much closer and to the right, away from everyone else, Yondaime stood hovering on a gold disk fifteen feet off the ground. Curved bones like the ribcage of some enormous animal stuck out of the compacted sand, still and silent.

Suddenly, Yondaime glanced over at Baki and Shimeru. He glided over on his disk, crossing the distance in a matter of seconds. The disk dissolved. In the same instant, Yondaime jumped down and landed in a crouch.

"Did you get him?" Baki asked.

"I think so. For now." Yondaime took a few deep breaths, winded and thirsty.

Shimeru bowed. "Kazekage-sama. We have captured Kabuto for your convenience."

Yondaime nodded. He swept the back of his sleeve across his forehead and turned, surveying Jiraiya and Orochimaru in the distance. "It's just up to the Sannin now." He didn't know if he could afford to turn his back on Kimimaro or Kabuto for very long.

"We should help him," Shimeru said.

Yondaime nodded distractedly. "I'll have to stay here. I am the only one who can contain Kimimaro, and I can put an enclosing barrier around Kabuto as well. I am needed here for containment, but you two should go ahead."

"Kazekage-sama, I can't leave you," Shimeru said.

"Then stay," Yondaime said. "Make your choice. If you're going to be distracted from the battle by thoughts of my well-being, you'll be of no help to Baki."

Shimeru flinched. "Yes, Kazekage-sama." He bowed.

Yondaime nodded at his former student. "Baki. Go. Jiraiya needs you."

Baki didn't have to be told twice. He took off with a spray of sand, racing to join the other battlefield.