Orochimaru would never admit to being nervous about anything. Orochimaru didn't get nervous. He was cautious and wary, certainly, but any shinobi worth their salt was. Nervous, though? Never. That was for weaklings who couldn't adequately defend themselves regardless of who or what they were up against, such as a man going up against a dangerous mercenary without the use of his arms.
No, Orochimaru wasn't nervous at all.
"You look a little pale, Orochimaru," the blonde poked with a smirk that was already making the snake summoner's blood boil. "You nervous?"
Orochimaru sneered. "From being confronted by a whelp? Don't make me laugh."
It was enough of an insult to be challenged by a brat (especially when said brat was making cracks about his fabulous complexion), but a brat that strongly resembled the hurdle Orochimaru could just never overcome even after his death was more than just insulting; it was a personal affront to his very existence that he would not stand for. Arms or not, he'd watch the life drain from this upstart's eyes one way or another.
Naruto, meanwhile, was having a bit too much fun with this. The crescendo of indignation blossoming into rage that even a blind man could read on Orochimaru's face was too delicious for Naruto to pass up on. It was like the man got angry just from looking at him; he didn't know why, and he didn't really care. Emotional opponents made mistakes, and forcing someone as slippery as Orochimaru to make mistakes and act irrationally was key.
It was a double-edged sword, however, given the old adage about cornering a coiled snake, but it was a risk he was willing to take. It's not like he wouldn't have assistance if things got a bit hairy.
"A whelp like me who can still do this," Naruto began, the mockery practically dripping from his tone as he made a show of raising his arms and slowly performing hand seals with his shit-eating grin still firmly in place.
That grin stayed in place even when Orochimaru would not suffer the taunting any longer and rammed into Naruto's sternum with the Kusanagi in the blink of an eye. Orochimaru would have noticed the grin if he weren't so apoplectic, just like he would have noticed "Naruto" glowing before it was too late. The blonde went up in a magnificent boom, revealing himself to have been an Exploding Shadow Clone all along and tossing Orochimaru away like an obsolete action figure under a child's bed. The snake summoner fought through the pain and used the momentum to roll and stand upright, but he was too slow to evade the glowing, wind-enhanced Kusanagi in the blonde's hands.
Naruto carved right through Orochimaru's midsection with the man's own sword, completely bisecting him at the abdomen and discarding his halves like leaves in the wind. Naruto's grin was a mocking sun shining brightly over Orochimaru's dumbstruck expression. However, the grin finally made its exit and was replaced by disgust when snakes started spilling from the two halves. The snakes extended towards each other and connected, bringing the man's body back together and quickly reattaching him, meanwhile, a lone, white snake used the cover to slither away from the scene.
"That's fucking gross, dude," Naruto commented as the man fell into a hacking fit.
"Damn you!" Orochimaru hissed between coughs. His vessel was failing him, and the use of the Gathering of the Snakes to reattach himself only exacerbated it.
Internally, he was the tiniest bit impressed and intrigued that the teenager had duped and blitzed him so thoroughly. That intrigue, however, was but a raindrop in the ocean of fury Orochimaru was submerged in. This boy wasn't just a mouthy degenerate that begged to be killed, he was now a legitimate threat that needed to be killed. He would have been in a much better position to do so if his body wasn't literally falling apart, but he was angry enough to try. Another spiky, blonde prick was mocking him, and the damn Kyubi deprived him of killing the last one himself.
He'd end this boy if for no other reason that it would make him feel better, and he'd start by ripping the little shit's grubby paws off of his damn Kusanagi. His legs fused into a snake tail before he struck like a furious mamba, expertly weaving around the haphazard slashes of the Kusanagi and shooting his tongue out to wrap around Naruto's throat. However, it was intercepted by a strong hand clamping down onto it, and he was only able to catch a glimpse of Tsunade's scowl before her fist plowed into his face. She proceeded to unload a flurry of bone-shattering blows onto him, the last of which sent him skidding along the crowd like a tumbleweed in Suna.
Orochimaru had forgotten about Tsunade's presence in his anger. That was a mistake, and he was paying dearly for it. On the bright side, Tsunade had managed to quite literally knock some sense back into him, and his mind was somewhat clear of the fog of fury he had just been in so that he could finally assess the situation.
He was up against two dangerous opponents without his arms and a failing vessel. Kabuto was also clearly still out of commission if his absence was any indication. Orochimaru could admit when his goose was cooked and when it was time for a strategic exit. He was a reasonable man, after all.
"As fun as this has been," Orochimaru began, rising from the ground as gingerly as he could with a hateful sneer, "I believe it's time I took my leave."
"I disagree," Naruto chuckled, and he sent a quick pulse of chakra from his feet into the ground.
Immediately, four sets of hand sprouted in a large square around them before clasping into the snake seal. Orochimaru quickly recognized what was happening and hurried away, but golden chakra chains shot out from the ground and wrapped around him, pinning him to the dirt. Nothing but the purest of dread filled his very being as four violet walls rose around the three shinobi, closing them into a purple box and all but sealing the snake summoner's fate.
"Perfect execution, Karin!" Naruto called out, and four Karins rose from the corners of the barrier while a fifth poked her head out from the ground beside the trapped Orochimaru.
She flashed him a smile before poofing into smoke, the chains poofing away with her and freeing Orochimaru. He scuttled away from Naruto to make space while trying to calm his quickly bubbling panic.
"You like it?" Naruto lorded with a smirk that made every atom within Orochimaru scream in rage. "I made some improvements to the Four Violet Flames Formation. Gotta love barrier ninjutsu. It's so fuinjutsu-adjacent."
His smirk became downright malicious, and Orochimaru seethed. "You're not going anywhere, snake."
"Oh?" Orochimaru gave him a smirk of his own. "Watch me."
With that, Orochimaru started melting into the ground to circumvent the barrier from underneath. However, he stopped midway and howled in pain as he burst into flames, leaping up from the hole and rolling around on the ground to no avail. Eventually, the charred Orochimaru's mouth opened way too wide for any normal man, and out slithered another Orochimaru like a snake shedding its skin.
"What part of 'improved' did you not understand?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow, swallowing his further disgust at watching a man regurgitate himself. "Of course, we included a subterranean barrier. This is a perfect cube; no one gets in or out without my say-so."
Orochimaru was beside himself. There was legitimately no way out of this, and having to shed his skin only made matters worse, as the pain was now absolutely unbearable. His panic and fury mingled when he watched his blonde attacker seal away his Kusanagi into a scroll, and it truly sank in when seeing Tsunade step up beside him while cracking her knuckles that he was screwed.
Kabuto tasted blood. In fact, merely tasting blood did not even begin to cover his situation. He was practically a fountain of the crimson substance, as it was pouring out of his mouth without a care for the furious efforts to mitigate the damage Tsunade had done to him. His chest would have been caved in beyond his ability to repair had he not preempted the attack by focusing his chakra in his chest right as her fist struck. As a result, he was down, but he wasn't dead… yet.
Kabuto was brought out of his musings when a small, white snake appeared beside him and hurriedly slithered into his kunai pouch. Perplexed, Kabuto looked over to the direction the snake came from and saw a massive, familiar-looking purple cube. It only took a few moments for the medic to recognize what he was looking at, and he went pale.
"Oh… well, that certainly doesn't look good," he coughed to himself. "Perhaps I should go."
When he sensed three other chakra signatures quickly approaching the area from the south and a fourth coming in from the west, his decision was solidified, and he gingerly rose to his feet and fled the scene. Lord Orochimaru would be fine. If there even existed a way to kill him for good, Kabuto would've done it already.
"We have to hurry!" Shizune shouted as she, Jiraiya, and Tenten rushed to the clearing where they knew Tsunade to be.
"Going as fast as I can, here!" Jiraiya grunted, straining himself to go beyond even half-speed due to the drug that Tsunade slipped him.
What they found when they arrived confused Shizune and Tenten, but it filled Jiraiya's heart with even more dread. He recognized the purple barrier from the invasion, and he frantically sped up, fearing the worst for Tsunade. However; when he reached the barrier, he noticed something peculiar. Rather than one of Orochimaru's henchmen, it was Karin in the corner of the barrier with her eyes shut tight in concentration. If Karin was here, then Naruto was here, too, so Tsunade wasn't alone in the barrier with Orochimaru.
He sighed as the weight of the dread within him vanished, and relief washed over him in his place. When Tenten and Shizune joined him, however, he put his arm out and motioned for them to stay back.
"Don't touch the barrier," he commanded. "It'll burn anyone that does to a crisp."
Even more worry started to bleed into Shizune's already frantic expression. "But Tsunade's in there!"
"So is Naruto," he calmly replied, and that got the woman to pause and visibly calm down. "They're handling it. I'm sure they'll be fine."
Internally, he was warring with trying to get through the barrier anyway in order to provide help. He didn't want to leave Tsunade or Naruto at the mercy of Orochimaru regardless of his condition, but the choice was taken out of his hands. He hated the Four Violet Flames Formation because it was a bitch and a half to penetrate short of killing the people erecting it, and it looked as if Naruto and Karin put it up to keep Orochimaru from escaping as well as keeping others from interfering. He sighed through gritted teeth and stood back to observe the battle.
"Battle" was a very generous term to use for the pummeling that Orochimaru received from the duo of blondes. Tsunade was relentless in her strikes, putting her all into every single punch, kick, and chop to thrash him beyond reason. Naruto was no better, as he was right there to level him with unforgiving ninjutsu that Orochimaru could only narrowly evade each time. He stood no chance, especially in his current state.
"What is your quarrel with me?!" Orochimaru shouted to Naruto during a momentary lull. "I've never had any business with Akatsuki!"
"That doesn't really matter," Naruto shrugged. "Akatsuki seeks peace, and there are plenty of sick people in the world who do nothing but revel in the suffering of others. Some can be helped, some can even be redeemed, but there are many in which the world would just be a much better place without. You're pretty high up that list."
Orochimaru had to fight to keep from rolling his eyes at the uninspired drivel spewing from the teenager, and he merely scoffed. "So, a self-righteous, wet-behind-the-ears brat like you gets to determine that? Of all the sanctimonious knight templars I've encountered over the years, your ivory tower might just be the most ridiculous."
Orochimaru was expecting the teenager to get angry at the dismissal of his ideology, as most others like him were wont to do when their precious mission statements were called into question. Even Tsunade sent him a curious glance to see how he'd react. Naruto, meanwhile, just shrugged. It wasn't the first time he heard that sentiment, and it most certainly wouldn't be the last, either.
"I never claimed to be a good person, nor a moral one," Naruto admitted. "I'm a shinobi; we're all terrible people."
His eyes hardened, and the frosty, blue-eyed glare Orochimaru received brought up even more memories that made him seethe. "But some of us are just more terrible than others. No one deserves to suffer at the passing whims of others, and you've made a lot of people suffer, Orochimaru. That's why we're in this cube right now. Whether it be at my hands, Tsunade's, Jiraiya's, or even the old man's, this was a long time coming, and you know it."
Orochimaru wouldn't stand for this. He would not die, especially not to a bitter, drunken gambler and an indoctrinated child chasing a fantasy of world peace. His arms were damn near falling apart and his vessel was at the brink, so he almost certainly wouldn't be able to manage his Eight-Headed Serpent transformation. That did not leave him without options, though. He needed a new body, anyway.
Without warning, Orochimaru leaped backward and started to bloat, his skin practically popping and unraveling at the seams. Naruto and Tsunade quickly moved in to nip whatever was happening in the bud, but the snake-man shot away in a slither as he finished his transformation into his true form: a large, white snake composed of a multitude of other white snakes with an even more grotesque, reptilian rendition of Orochimaru's head sitting at the top.
"What the fuck…" Tsunade muttered, her stomach churning a sick amalgamation of disgust, horror, and morbid fascination.
"One of you will do; doesn't matter which," Orochimaru hissed before he struck, closing the distance between them in mere moments.
Time slowed down for Naruto. Incriminating information about Danzo wasn't the only thing he found while rifling through one of Orochimaru's bases. He happened upon some of the man's research into extending his longevity. Granted, it wasn't much, but it gave him a rough idea as to what was potentially happening. If he was correct...
Naruto pulled on Kurama's chakra in the split second it took for Orochimaru to attack. Tsunade, having gotten over her initial stupor at her former teammate's appearance, was preparing to counter his charge with another punch that would've been tantamount to Orochimaru slamming into a mountain, but she was unexpectedly wrapped up and yeeted away by chakra chains right as the snake-man appeared before Naruto and swallowed him whole to initiate his Living Corpse Reincarnation jutsu.
Orochimaru couldn't help the wicked grin he sported among the innards of the white snake. He and Naruto were blanketed in the slimy, undulated tissue alongside several other vacant-minded people, former and current vessels for Orochimaru's soul.
"How fortunate that you'll serve a purpose after all," Orochimaru giddily cooed as he slowly approached the teenager, whose head was down. "You'll be a temporary stopgap while I prepare Sasuke to be a permanent residence. It's certainly more productive than whatever drivel of peace you were spouting earlier."
The snake-man continued his approach, and the realm in which the switch was performed began to react in kind as more white snakes rose from the innards and surrounded Naruto. He was nearly vibrating in anticipation when he finally got within striking distance. He wouldn't have to worry about his arms any longer in just mere moments. He could lay waste to Tsunade and anyone else who stood in his way so that he could continue his journey to enlightenment in just mere moments…
The moment he was about to strike and devour Naruto's soul, the teen snapped his head up, and Orochimaru was faced with piercing crimson with slitted pupils. He paused in surprise, and his confusion got the better of him for a moment too long as a miasma of blood red chakra bubbled around them, engulfing the blonde entirely. The chakra soon became so condensed that it grew an almost black shade of dark red, and Orochimaru felt an immense pressure bear down on the plane while the chakra burned away the snakes and tissue surrounding Naruto.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Orochimaru panicked, struggling to regain control of his realm.
Naruto was soon completely shrouded in a dark red miasma, his eyes becoming pure white and two long ears sprouting from the top of his head. It only then dawned on Orochimaru that he had made a very, very costly error.
This boy was a jinchuriki.
Exactly how in the fuck was he going to beat a biju's will into submission??
He didn't get any chance to ponder any further before Naruto was completely free of his bindings, and he unleashed the single most ferocious roar that the man had ever heard directly in his paler than usual face. Steadily rising behind him was the massive form of a fox made of the same bubbly chakra, and it was snarling magnificently in a way that only the mightiest of biju could.
"Impossible!" Orochimaru exclaimed in alarm. When he heard all those years back that the Kyubi jinchuriki had fled, he didn't pass up the opportunity to find him and snatch him up for himself. However, the boy was impossible to locate, as if he had dropped off the face of the planet for who knows how long. Orochimaru had just assumed the boy was dead. In actuality, he was standing before him, preparing to torpedo his body transfer. He had to do something; he had to stop this. He had to disengage-
His frantic thoughts were unceremoniously interrupted by Naruto in his four-tailed state taking a vicious swipe at Orochimaru; meanwhile, the bubbly representation of the Kyubi opened his massive maw and chomped down on him.
Tsunade watched with bated breath as she cautiously rose to her feet, not even bothering to dust herself off from the surprise tumble, courtesy of her fellow blonde. She was more focused on said blonde blanketed in dark red chakra that she could barely stand to be around. Her necklace started to glow once more in reaction to the Kyubi's chakra, and she was once again eased by the phantom of her grandfather's essence. That ease emboldened her to take a step forward and approach the still jinchuriki.
Naruto, meanwhile, had his clawed hand shoved right through Orochimaru's head. Blood was spilling down the reptilian creature and onto Naruto's arm, burning away upon contact with the volatile chakra. Naruto remained still as he was actively trying to maintain control over his faculties with this much of Kurama's chakra flowing through him. No matter how much he practiced with it, maintaining control of four tails and beyond was always a struggle.
The crunching of Tsunade's heel on the ground behind him caused a momentary lapse, and he ripped his arm free of Orochimaru's head (taking a chunk of his cranium with it) before he went still once again. He could only slowly crane his head to look at her, and she gently placed her hand on his shoulder, allowing the chakra from the necklace to bathe the both of them. The Kyubi's chakra slowly receded, returning to the seal and leaving an exhausted Naruto in its wake.
Had Tsunade been paying attention, she would've noticed the grass becoming more vibrant and growing a few inches in the places she had stepped.
"You okay?" she asked him when he finally regained himself.
"Yeah, I'm good," he exhaled. "Thanks, granny."
The bonk to the cranium was certainly worth it if his snickers were any indication. Soon, the barrier went down, and the three other shadow clones of Karin vanished while she and the others quickly made their way over to them, the redhead and Shizune the most frantic of them all.
"Tsunade!/Naruto!" Were the respective shouts as the two companions of the blondes fretted over them.
Jiraiya looked down at the dead snake creature at their feet with wide eyes. "Is that…"
"Yeah," Tsunade answered, drawing everyone's attention to the lifeless monstrosity that was Orochimaru.
Jiraiya sighed, and all present could feel the pain and disappointment in that sigh. "How the hell did it all come to this?"
"Who knows?" Tsunade replied with a morose sigh of her own.
Karin then tugged at Naruto's sleeve, and she pointed westward when she got his attention. Extending his senses in that direction, he picked out a familiar chakra signature heading toward them. Jiraiya and Tsunade sensed their approach shortly afterward, but the relaxed body language of Naruto and visible excitement of Karin kept them at ease.
That was until they actually arrived, in Jiraiya's case.
"Hey, Pakura," Naruto lazily waved, ignoring the gaping of the Toad Sage as well as Karin practically vibrating beside him. "You're a little late."
"I can see that," Pakura observed with a hint of annoyance. "I was looking forward to facing off with that kill-stealing son of a bitch."
"You know, you could've killed Rasa at any time," Naruto snorted.
Pakura offered him a noncommittal grunt. "You know how Pain is about revenge killings of village leaders."
"Provided they're not named 'Hanzo'?"
"Exactly," Pakura laughed, then she took notice of the vibrating redhead beside him and smiled. "Hey, Little Red."
Karin managed to break herself from her starstruck state for just long enough to respond. "H-hi, Miss Pakura!"
Pakura snorted and ruffled her hair, sending Karin tumbling back into starstruck bliss, much to Naruto's irritation.
"You never complain when she ruffles your hair," Naruto pointed out with a pout.
"…Because she's cool?" Karin replied in a tone that suggested the answer was obvious.
"And I'm not?" Naruto retorted with exaggerated betrayal.
"No," was her frank and succinct answer, causing Naruto to drop to the ground and sulk while muttering about being unappreciated.
It was at this point that Jiraiya finally collected himself. "Pakura of the Scorch Release?? Aren't you dead??"
"As if a hail of kunai could put me down," Pakura scoffed. "I just never returned to Suna, so everyone thought I was dead, at least for a while."
Jiraiya didn't really know what he was expecting when he asked that. She clearly survived the assassination attempt on her, and she was apparently a member of Akatsuki now. He supposed that was really all there was to it.
"What do we do with him?" Pakura asked the now recovered Naruto, motioning to Orochimaru's corpse.
"Well, he does have a pretty massive bounty," Naruto mused before shaking his head, "but I was going to let those two decide on what to do with him. He was their teammate."
Pakura nodded and opted to step aside, as did Naruto and Karin to give the others their space. Shizune even put her hand on Tenten's shoulder and guided her away from the scene, leaving Jiraiya and Tsunade alone with their fallen, former comrade. Tsunade's expression was solemn, remembering Naruto's earlier words about this day being inevitable and conceding that he was probably right. Jiraiya, on the other hand, was forlorn. Even after chasing him all over the continent for over a decade, he hadn't ever really thought about what would happen when he finally caught him. On some level, he never allowed himself to think about it.
"You two were closer," was all Tsunade said before placing a soft hand on his shoulder and giving him the space he needed.
Jiraiya nodded in thanks, and he sighed. Without another word, he flew through a few hand seals and fired a Flame Bullet from his mouth, lighting the lifeless mass of snakes ablaze. The rest of the group watched on in silence, allowing the Toad Sage the closure he had been seeking for so long. When there was nothing but ash to speak of, he sighed a final time and stepped away.
"How do you feel?" Naruto asked, and he only received a grunt in return. "Understandable."
"Now that this is taken care of," Jiraiya began, completely moving past the previous topic, "what will you do now?"
Naruto hummed in consideration. "Well, we do have to head to Kiri at some point to return the Kiba to them. I think we've been distracted for long enough."
Naruto paused before cupping his chin in thought. "Then again, Orochimaru did have an absurd bounty on his head, and I'd be an idiot to not collect that."
"There isn't really much of a body to present," Pakura snorted.
Naruto frowned at that realization, but something in his periphery grabbed his attention. The other adults watched him quizzically as he moseyed over to a spot a little bit away from Orochimaru's remains where a bloody chunk of the man's head still lay. Those quizzical glances became exasperation when he picked up the chunk and sealed it away in a scroll.
"This should count, right?" he asked without a hint of irony.
"There has to be a Hokage to award you the bounty," Pakura added, opting to humor her comrade.
Hearing this, Naruto turned to Tsunade, and she only blankly stared back at him. Neither uttered a word for a solid minute, both seemingly knowing exactly how this conversation would go before it even began.
"Can you-"
"No."
"Come on-"
"No."
"But the bounty-"
"No. Find someone else."
"Ugh, I helped you with your hemophobia; you can at least do me this one solid."
Tsunade didn't have a reply to that beyond an aggravated sigh in concession of the point. Tenten, who had been as invisible as Hinata up to then, was watching the interplay beside the amused Shizune when she saw a golden opportunity present itself. She needed to get Lady Tsunade back to the village by any means, and she damn well would.
"Um, Lady Tsunade?" she asked as she approached. Tsunade setting her agitated, honey gaze on her nearly made her lose her nerve, but she held firm and steeled her resolve. "You have to come back to the village."
Tsunade quirked an eyebrow at her. "And why is it that I have to do anything?
"My teammate…" Tenten began with a downcast expression. "He was really badly injured during the Chunin Exams. The medic-nin said that his ninja career is likely over, but no one in the village comes anywhere near your skills as a medic!"
Her resolve grew even stronger. "His name is Rock Lee. He has spent years trying to prove that he can be a splendid ninja without the use of ninjutsu or genjutsu, and he's worked himself to the bone and even further to become one of the strongest genin in the village. He doesn't deserve to have all of that hard work torpedoed like that! Please, just come back to Konoha to at least take a look at him! If anyone can do anything for him, it's you!"
Tsunade closed her eyes, and a long-suffering sigh escaped her lips. Jiraiya and Shizune were watching intently, Shizune's gaze being hopeful while Jiraiya's was unreadable. Tsunade eventually opened her eyes and glanced back at Naruto, and then she returned her gaze to Tenten.
"Fine," she finally answered, and the girl lit up. "I'll come back to look at your teammate and to make sure the bounty gets sorted out, but I make no further promises beyond that."
Shizune was overcome with joy, and internally, she was bouncing. Finally returning home and settling down in one place was the one thing she pined for most in the world, but she continually sacrificed it to stick with her master and surrogate aunt. A smile also found purchase on Jiraiya's face. Just getting her back into the village was a victory in and of itself; he could wear her down to take the hat so that he didn't have to later on.
Naruto sighed in relief. Plan B would've just been infiltrating the village in the dead of night and robbing them blind.
"Does this mean we're making a stop in Konoha before going to Kiri?" Karin asked him.
"I can get the bounty for you," Pakura offered before Naruto could answer, and his gaze snapped to his orange and green-haired comrade.
"You'd do that?" Naruto asked.
"Mhm. I came straight here after returning from my mission, so I could use a few days to relax," she explained with a shrug.
"You are a lifesaver, Pakura," Naruto thanked her before tossing her the scroll containing the chunk of Orochimaru's head.
"Speaking of breaks," Tsunade began with exhaustion dressing her tone. "It's been a long morning, and I sorely need one. Shizune, we're hitting the casino!"
Shizune quite literally deflated. "Do you ever get tired of losing money?"
"Nope!" she cheered while heading back in the direction of town.
Shizune sighed away nearly 2 decades of exasperation before reassuring herself that they'd be back home soon enough, and she quickly caught up with the retreating Tsunade while the rest of the group moseyed on after them.
Along the way, Naruto heard stirring within the seal, indicating that Kurama had settled back in after his impromptu four-tailed cloak usage earlier.
'You know, you really gotta help me get a handle on Version 2. It's still really hard to control.'
"What the hell am I supposed to do about that?"
'Oh, I don't know, maybe calm your volatile ass chakra?'
"Even if I could do that, why would I? You handled the first three tails just fine. How about you get good?"
'…What?'
"It's an expression centuries older than you, runt."
'Sometimes I forget that you're literally millennia-old.' He internally sighed before changing course. 'So… what happened to Orochimaru?'
"I ate him."
'…Oh,' Naruto lamely remarked. 'Did he taste good?'
"No. He was rotten. I hope he doesn't give me indigestion like those other two humans did."
'I didn't know you made a habit of eating people. I figured wanton destruction via smashing and blowing things up was more your deal.'
"I don't need to eat, so it's only a 'special occasion' sort of thing."
'What was the occasion this time around?'
"That filthy flesh bag was trying to move in on my territory. I don't share vessels."
'Right, about that,' Naruto perked up. 'What happened to his soul? Is it just with us now?'
"No. My chakra incinerated it, along with any other lingering essence of his. His taint is nowhere present within you or the seal."
'…I didn't know your chakra could do that.'
"Of course, it can. I am capable of a great many things as the mightiest creature in existence."
Naruto rolled his eyes with a smile. 'Except humility, clearly.'
"Infallible beings of my stature have no use for such paltry concepts."
'Infallible to everything except for trees and dojutsu.'
"Shut your goddamn mouth."
It had taken a few days of nonstop travel, which was remarkably slow-going in his condition, but Kabuto finally made it back to Oto. Because he had to dedicate chakra to continuing his trek home, he couldn't finish healing the damage that busty freak of nature did to him, so he really wanted to get back to his lab and sit down for once. Tumbling through the dank, torch-lit hallways, Kabuto damn near salivated the closer he got to his personal domain. He didn't even know if Orochimaru actually survived or not, so that was another thing that needed to be sorted out after he got settled...
"Hey, Four-Eyed Fuckwad, where's Lord Orochimaru?"
Kabuto froze and forced himself to take a deep breath. He truly did not need to deal with this right now.
"You really should be more respectful, Tayuya," Kabuto ground out, wholly exhausted with her presence after only one sentence.
"And I keep telling you to shove it. You'd think you'd take a hint by now," Tayuya dismissed.
"What do you want, Tayuya?" Kabuto sighed. "I quite literally do not have the energy for your antics today."
"You fucking deaf and blind now? I asked where Lord Orochimaru was. You left with him a week ago to find his teammate with the massive ti-"
"Yes, I get it," Kabuto cut her off with a violent twitch of his eye, much to her amusement. If there was anyone that he found more insufferable than Guren, it was Tayuya. They both knew how to get under his skin way too well, and they unashamedly enjoyed doing so.
However, before he could respond, the white snake that took refuge in his kunai pouch during the battle slithered out of its hiding place and into the open. Then, inexplicably, it zoomed across the floor and up Tayuya's leg with unnatural speed, snaking up her body before she could react and chomping down on her shoulder where her cursed seal was. Red-hot needles shot through her veins as her cursed seal was forcefully activated, the searing pain exploding through her body coinciding with the jagged markings splaying across her skin.
Kabuto was confused, but he did not lift a finger to help, as his curiosity won over. He stood and watched the girl writhe in pain on the ground while the snake attached to her bulged and contorted in a grotesque manner. Then, the snake momentarily went still before almost retreating into Tayuya entirely, but even that lasted a mere second before it ballooned again, and a head of long, black hair pushed itself from the seal. Tayuya's wails of agony reverberated through the stone hallways, but Kabuto's attention was locked on the pale, skinny man birthing himself from the mark via the snake as a conduit.
Eventually, the girl's screams died out, and where the snake once rested stood a slimy, naked Orochimaru looking as if he were hanging on by a thread. His arms were pitch black, and he had the wobbly legs of a newborn fawn. It would have been almost comical if not for the venomous look of unfettered hatred in the gaunt man's golden eyes.
"I will eradicate Akatsuki!" he spat, callously stepping over Tayuya without a second thought and nearly falling over in the process. "Every last one of them will die a horrible death, especially that putrid fucking blonde! I will not rest until they are gone and forgotten by history!"
"Lord Orochimaru, are you alright?" Kabuto finally sprung into action, attempting to help his master along, but the man shoved him away and continued on his own power.
"Bring me Sasuke," he ordered with a hiss. "Round up the Sound Four and get the little shit here so I can take his body before I decay!"
"As you wish," Kabuto nodded as the man stumbled away to stew in his private chamber.
He looked down at Tayuya, who was beginning to climb back to her feet, and a familiar sadistic smirk found purchase on his face before he kicked her in the gut to send her back to the cold, stone floor.
"You heard him," he lorded, relishing the pain he could see she was still in. "Round up the other three and get going to Konoha."
"Fuck you," Tayuya spat with as much venom as she could muster, only to receive another, harder kick to her ribs.
"You really should be more respectful, Tayuya," Kabuto repeated, malicious glee waltzing about his tone.
Tayuya watched him walk away with a scowl. The hatred she harbored for the psychotic prick emanated from her in an almost visible cloud, but it was even more intense than usual. For whatever reason, after the creepy fuck that owned her life crawled out of her (which was five kinds of fucking gross, by the way), she felt way more strongly in her hatred than her usual cynicism and disdain for her existence would lend itself to.
Now, not only did she want to kill Kabuto (which was normal), her hatred and desire for righteous murder extended to everything about Oto and her current situation, including Orochimaru (which was markedly less normal). She shouldn't even be capable of having uncouth or otherwise negative thoughts toward Orochimaru given the cursed seal had already taken over and stripped her of her humanity. The familiar, jagged lines kissing her skin indicated that she clearly still had the fucking thing, so what the fuck was going on?
Fuck it; it didn't really matter. She was given a task to complete, so now she had to wait for Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dipshit to get back to the hideout with Spider-Bitch so that they and Fatass could rendezvous and leave for Konoha.
The group stood just outside of the walls of Tanzaku as they offered their final goodbyes and prepared to split into two groups to depart, Naruto and Karin ready to head due east while Pakura stuck with the group heading back to Konoha.
"Thank you for taking the time to teach me and help me along, Miss Shizune," Karin thanked with a 90-degree bow to the older woman.
"No need to bow, it was my pleasure," Shizune assured her with a laugh. "You're a natural. You'll be even better than me very soon."
Karin preened at the praise until she smacked away an attempt to ruffle her hair, courtesy of a snickering Naruto. Suddenly, Naruto lit up in remembrance, and he turned to Tenten. "You're a weapons mistress, right?"
Tenten momentarily paused in surprise at being addressed. "Uh, yeah. Why?"
Naruto reached into his cloak and pulled out another storage scroll, and he tossed it to the girl. "The Kusanagi is in there. I'm not much of a swordsman, so I figure you'd get more use out of it than I would."
Tenten blue-screened at his statement, and it took more than a few seconds for her to regain optimal brain function. "Excuse me?!"
"It's all yours," he confirmed with a nod. "Just be careful with it. It's apparently coated in a deadly toxin that probably only Tsunade could treat if you cut yourself or anyone else. It's also sentient, but that's less important."
"…Excuse me??" Tenten repeated, her brain still struggling to process what was happening.
"Naruto," Jiraiya called out, earning the teen's full attention at the notice of his more serious tone.
Taking stock of the man's deadly serious face, Naruto's demeanor shifted to match, and he nodded for him to continue.
"I need to talk to them," Jiraiya stated, and the atmosphere tensed.
Naruto was stone-faced and coolly staring back at Jiraiya's unwavering gaze. Tenten had been jolted from her stupor at the sudden shift in mood, and she looked between the two with a bit of confusion and worry. Then, she looked to Tsunade, who was equally silent and observing the scene with no intentions of intervening. Finally, she looked to Pakura (who was apparently alive?) who seemed to share her confusion, but she was also tense, likely in response to Naruto.
"Why?" was Naruto's only response, which didn't help Tenten parse the situation whatsoever.
"Nagato and Konan are alive," Jiraiya stressed, earning the alarm of Pakura. "I have to see them."
"What the hell do you know?" Pakura stepped in with a dangerous edge to her tone before Naruto held up a hand. She looked to him for a moment, and then she conceded and stepped back, something all of the adults took note of.
"Again, I ask you: why?" Naruto repeated in the same guarded manner.
Jiraiya sighed. "For years, I thought they were all dead. They were special kids, and I grieved for them. I thought the hatred of this world that made them orphans to begin with finally took them, as well. But learning they're alive and using that pain to carve out a path to peace through a sort of pest control, it's clear that the world has made them jaded. I have to speak to them. I have to know if their path to peace is the right one."
Another silence fell over the group, and all kinds of thoughts were swimming through everyone's heads. Pakura, in particular, was mildly irked that Akatsuki's mission was being boiled down to simple pest control, but she made no move to interject while Naruto was still silent. Eventually, however, he spoke:
"You're asking a lot of me, Jiraiya," he said, his piercing, blue eyes boring right through Jiraiya's own, but the man never once wavered.
"Regardless of your answer, I'll be there to see them," he stated, confirming that he wasn't asking permission, rather telling Naruto in advance what was going to happen.
"I can't guarantee your survival if you do attempt to infiltrate Ame, regardless of your intentions."
"I'll take that risk."
Naruto took his eyes away from Jiraiya for the first time to turn to Pakura, and the two had a silent conversation. Tenten waited with baited breath for something to happen, whether it be acceptance, firm denial, or even the start of a battle.
She initially assumed it was the third option when Naruto bit his thumb and flipped through a set of hand seals, and she readied the scroll containing the Kusanagi to defend herself and her sorta-master if need be, but she was proven incorrect when he slammed his palm to the ground, and a small puff of smoke revealed a blue salamander the size of Akamaru. Needless to say, she was again taken by surprise by the blonde enigma before her.
"Can you head to Ame and inform Nagato to expect a visit from Jiraiya in the near future?" Naruto asked the small, messenger summon, and the salamander nodded before vanishing in a blur.
The sight of a salamander still made the remaining Sannin nervous, much to Naruto's amusement. "This was one of the cool things I got from Hanzo's deposition that I mentioned."
"You have a summoning contract?" Tenten asked with a bit of wonder in her eyes.
"Do you not?" Naruto asked in mild confusion.
Tenten flushed and looked away. "No…"
Naruto blinked, and then he turned to Jiraiya. "Isn't she your apprentice?"
"Not officially," he shrugged.
Naruto snorted before turning back to Tenten. "Me, personally? I wouldn't take that level of disrespect."
Leaving Tenten confused and mildly offended, he gave the group one final wave goodbye before kneeling in front of Karin. "Hop on. I wanna get to shore by the day after tomorrow, so we'll be going full speed."
The redhead nodded and jumped into a piggyback on Naruto, and the duo vanished in a blur due east while the group bound for Konoha turned and left in the direction of the village. Meanwhile, the blonde's parting words were still echoing in Tenten's mind.
"Me, personally? I wouldn't take that level of disrespect."
Disrespect? For not being considered Jiraiya of the Sannin's full apprentice? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Was she not good enough to be his apprentice? Did Jiraiya not think her good enough to sign the summoning contract for the Toads?
Well, fuck that. She damn well was, and she'd prove it. She'd make him take her on by becoming so undeniably capable that even seasoned jonin wouldn't even be able to keep up. She'll become the strongest of her generation, stronger than geniuses like Neji or Sasuke, and even stronger than freaks of nature like Lee. She'll earn the Toad contract and Jiraiya's tutelage, and then she'll find Naruto and beat that stupid, sexy blonde's ass-
"Hey, brat!" Tsunade shouted from a decent distance away with the rest of the group. "You're spacing out again! Hurry the hell up before we leave you!"
Violently snapped out of her musings, she hurried along to rejoin the procession back to Konoha.
What in the hell is going on in the reviews lmao
Anyway, it's been a while. Being an adult is pretty trash sometimes, so getting the chance to actually sit down and write this chapter was pretty great and sorely needed. I hope it was at least worth the wait. You're all fucking rad.
Thanks for reading.
