Far From Home
Chapter 19
Hidden Moss was in an uproar as the figure of an Sound nin dashed across the moonlit rooftops, holding the body of one of their oldest clans. The nin dodged a barrage of kunai and turned to give them a cheerful wave. Several nin surrounded him and he used a flash bomb to blind them.
The nin and his prize were gone and heading out of the village fast.
The leader shouted commands, mobilizing a squad of ANBU. They'd been very wary when they'd found evidence of Sound's base close by and had been sending out nin to scout the area. They'd worried that the depraved little bastard would send his nin out to steal village secrets, but still, there was something odd about this attack. Orochimaru may be a depraved little bastard, but he turned out high caliber ninja and he would not stand for such incompetence. This whole thing smelled like a trap.
Sasori, disguised under a genjutsu left a trail for the pursuing ANBU to follow. It wasn't so obscure that they'd waste time running in circles, but it wasn't so rookiesh that they'd get suspicious.
Vines crept up from the forest floor and it would have caught a lesser ninja off guard, but Sasori avoided them with lazy calm, almost as if he'd expected them. In a way he had, he knew that members of the clan would try their best to prevent someone from autopsying the body and stealing their secrets. Moss was small and not particularly powerful but it did have some interesting lesser bloodlines.
Several saplings curled in on themselves, trying to block his path, they slowed him down but only a little.
He felt the sensation of something hitting him and looked down with disinterest at the poisoned senbon in his arm, this village also had a talent for unique poisons from the local flora and fauna that grew. He would have to visit this village later and accquire some of those poisons for himself.
One of the ANBU in the trees gaped behind his mask.
"Impossible, that should have dropped him like a fly."
"Maybe it's the resurrection jutsu?"
"Iwata-sama was correct, there's something not right about this. It must be a trap."
"But we can't let him carry off Hotaka either…if Orochimaru found out we've revived Mokuton…"
"Hn."
The leader grunted and began pushing his awareness and chakra out to the surrounding plant life while the others spread out to flank the intruder.
The Mokuton must not be revealed till the clan had a steady population of users.
Vines from trees tried to snare him from ahead, razor-sharp marsh grass tried to slash him from below, tree roots thickened to slip him up, thorny brushes were pushed together to form barriers to slow him down and plants secreted their poisons to irritate his skin. It did not affect the Puppet Master in the least, which furthered the belief of the pursuing team that he was a corpse.
In the meantime, Konan was making her way across the base slowly towards Orochimaru and Kabuto, take down the leaders and the notorious village would likely disband.
Kisame waited outside for the signal. Once Sasori and the Moss nin were in view he would go down below and raise hell.
It was a simple idea on paper, but the tricky part would be to coordinate everything so that it all came together perfectly.
Kabuto was still sore about losing the Sukinshifuta woman and the two guards who had been changing shifts when she escaped were on scouting duty. Aoidori called in.
"Kabuto-san." She said, "We've spotted a team of ANBU on the tail of one of our ninja. Has Orochimaru-sama sent anyone out to raid Moss?"
He scowled. No one but the hidden sentry and the scouts should be out this time of night. Something was wrong.
"No raids were authorized, tighten security around the base and search for intruders." He said curtly.
"Sir!" They acknowledged.
He relayed the message around and in the shadows Konan frowned, they'd hit a snag, Sasori had come too soon and she hadn't located Orochimaru yet. Though not unexpected, it would cause problems. As he passed she set two small tracking bugs on Kabuto which climbed into his white hair.
Orochimaru was contemplating the impending invasion of the wizard community he'd come across, he had no doubt that he'd get the Sukinshifuta woman back eventually.
As for Voldemort, he'd known what he was almost the moment he'd seen the ignorant man. They were from the same clan. Strange that one with such a weak bloodline had such strong traits that dated back to the clan's founders and the fool had never been properly trained and never could be. Such a waste, but he had potential with experimentation and gene splicing, his corpse would make a generous sacrifice.
Orochimaru's clan had originally come from Hidden Grass, they'd been devastated during the first war and nearly annihilated during the clan purges where'd they'd fled to Leaf, stealing away one of Grass' greatest treasures, the Kusanagi blade out of spite. The second war had all but finished them off and Orochimaru had to wonder when some of his people had taken the time to flee to other countries.
Kabuto opened the door.
"Orochimaru-sama. A ninja disguised as one of our own is bringing Moss ANBU here."
The Sannin smiled.
"Really? Well then, we should go welcome them. Send a team of our ninja to engage them and find out if they've got any interesting jutsu."
Kabuto bowed. "Yes Orochimaru-sama." Then left.
"Where did that little bastard go?" The ANBU captain growled.
"Straight into Sound's hidden base." Toad reported.
"Now I know it's a trap." Another ANBU grumbled.
"Rabbit, get back-up, we're going to invade the Sound base."
She nodded and took off.
"Toad, Monkey, Heron, I need you to go knock off the sentry in the area. Then regroup here when our back-up arrives." They sped off, leaving four ANBU at the entrance.
Aoidori was one of the first targets, she didn't realize what had happened till she felt the poison dart in her thigh. By then it was too late, she fell to the ground never to wake up. Toad and Monkey took the next two targets by surprise, Heron got into a struggle with another sentry.
By then Kisame was already causing havoc below, flooding the halls and listening to the sounds of panicking nin as his sharks dragged them to their deaths. One of his techniques was Ultimate Feeding Frenzy. Few ninja saw, none had survived it.
It was not long before the Hidden Moss' elite added to the carnage, they say that the base was in confusion and took the opportunity to regain not only a vital clan secret but to gain notoriety. Anyone who could wipe out a group such as Sound would go down in the history books.
Kabuto had slipped away, Orochimaru was cornered, but he was not fighting for his life. Still, Konan and Kisame were a match for him, the shark nin's moves were predictable, he was bred and born to outmuscle his opponents, Konan was more unpredictable and could switch from subtle killer to powerhouse to trickster.
He was exhilarated, it had been quite a while since he had ninja on his own footing.
He and the shark nin seemed to dance on the water, Kisame was trying to sever limbs, preferably his head from his neck, Orochimaru danced teasingly just out of range of the fearsome Samehada with with a lithe agility few could even hope to achieve.
Konan kept to more basic maneuvers, trying to figure out his patterns and discern a weakness.
She flung a handful of shuriken at him, and he vanished, leaving her puzzled as to how he could still perform some maneuvers without a single handsign.
It was one of the things that made his clan so great, even injured their ability to go boneless and still move provided them ways to still be able to use jutsu.
His long neck ended up behind her, fangs poised to bite, but when he bit down paper flittered liked leaves to the ground.
He was on the lookout, he had taken her bait and he was curious to see what she'd do next. He was not disappointed, when the paper reformed into a scribbled red and white mass shaped like a hawk. They were exploding notes.
It shot down after him, the speed and aerodynamic design kept up better then the demon nin had. What was slightly more worrying was that it didn't have to touch him to deal damage, they just had to get close. Looked like Rain kunoichi had learned a few tricks from her former lover.
The world exploded, he grit his teeth at his burned flesh, silently cursing his sensei for crippling him that fateful day.
"I really don't know what you two want with me. Surely, you didn't grow so attached to that feeble community of "wizards" that you came to get revenge?" He asked, as he pushed back the pain.
"I don't bother with revenge Orochimaru-san." Konan said. "Everything I do is strictly proffessional."
This of course translated to, "Your simply a threat I'd prefer to take out sooner." or perhaps, "There's a nice bounty on your head."
"Strange words coming from a fanatical follower of Madara and Pein." He taunted.
She narrowed her eyes slightly but didn't reply.
Kisame wondered where the hell Sasori was. Not like he and Konan couldn't take Orochimaru on and win, but…
The shark nin grinned, …he couldn't guarantee a non -mutilated corpse if the puppet master was gonna be late to the party.
He gripped his sword, ready to go another round with the wily Sennin when-
Orochimaru suddenly went very still and slumped to the ground.
Kisame blinked stupidly and gaped, unable to process that his historical epic battle with the last Sennin had been taken from him.
Konan caught on more quickly.
"You're a little late Sasori-san."
"I prefer to think of it as perfect timing. I'm surprised you didn't notice by now."
"What…have you…done…t-to…"
"I've injected you with the poison of one of the deadliest creatures on the planet. It's poison is shutting all your systems as we speak, running and fighting has only pumped it through your body faster. Normally it would about twenty minutes for it to affect an adult, but in your case it only took five and the worst thing is, there's no cure."
Orochimaru couldn't breathe, couldn't move, could barely think, his nervous system was shutting down, his organs were shutting down.
"Don't be ashamed Orochimaru, you couldn't have been brought down by anything less then your equals." Sasori smiled.
He would certainly have to remember the poison of the cone snail again.