"Don't you want to swoop down there and help the other you?" Meiko wondered. "Orochimaru was tough before he got his hands on those weird eyes. I have to admit, I was kinda nervous about the possibility of confronting him even though the Cube seemed like the best place to do so, what with that kickass seal and all…"
"Absolutely not." The Seventh Naruto shook his head. "Orochimaru is a very slippy ninja to get hold of. The moment he feels pressured, he can disappear without a trace. I've no doubts he's got a plan of how to return to his home universe even. It's best if he believes he can win the whole time, you know. I'm sure that the other me knows it too."
"Hmm… So that's how it is…" Meiko turned back to the battle that was about to begin. It still seemed crazy that Naruto would confront Orochimaru all by himself but if the slithering serpent was as hard to corner as the Seventh claimed, perhaps it was for the best to wear him out before applying some pressure.
"You're going down!" Naruto shouted out while taking a daring leap at the enemy. By all means, he was slower in his initial surge of action than when he showed his newly gained strength before, his movements seemed almost reckless but that was Naruto's signature style. When facing any other opponent such an attack might have been treated as a reckless mistake but Naruto was no other opponent.
He was The Show-Off, Number One Unpredictable, Noisy Ninja. Although his antics only worked when his opponent knew that and let it get to their head.
"Naïve!" Orochimaru hissed and extended his hand outward, a handful of black snakes launched their attacks at Naruto from inside Orochimaru's sleeves, attempting to dig their venomous fangs into the young man's flesh while he was airborne, aiming to drive his foot at Orochimaru's head on a downward slam.
Naruto grunted when the serpents wrapped all over him and constrained him momentarily, inflicting seemingly meaningless bites but the future Seventh looked uneasy in his lands, his balance looked shaky and his face broke into an unhealthy sweat that did not suit such an early stage of battle. Orochimaru's serpents worked with venom and it seemed like a particularly nasty strain given the immediate after-effects.
"Trying to lure out my gravity manipulation ability so you can hit me in the window of the technique's cooldown with your best shot, Naruto-kun? As I said… Naïve…" Orochimaru chuckled to himself before raising his hand up again, letting the striking shadow snakes inside his sleeve to strike at Naruto from a distance again.
The upper halves of the snakes fell with a blunt and pitiful thud shortly before dissolving into ashes that scattered in the building up pressure of the battlefield. Orochimaru's surprised eyes registered a handful of shadow clones standing in between Naruto and him, they held their kunai knives in their hands and, judging from the drips of purple falling off of their blades, had disposed of the rushing shadow snakes as soon as they reared their heads.
There was not even a doubt that Orochimaru felt shaken by how sudden and unexpected the multiplication was. It was like the clones just popped into existence from nothing, barely a hand seal or telegraphic sign in sight and, what's even more surprising – they manifested themselves in a position where they would have served their master the most use, instead of just randomly scattering around him.
Two more clones popped-in behind Naruto, putting their hands together into a handspring and aiding their afflicted original to cannonball through the air with another attempt at a crushing blow from above. The bottom half of Orochimaru's body turned into a shadowy protrusion as the serpentine Sennin slithered past all of Naruto's clones in an instant with a sinister flicker in his yellow eyes. Once Orochimaru's body returned to normal, humanoid shape, Naruto felt a tight pressure around his entire body as white serpents coiled around both the airborne original as well as his clones.
"Hmph… And here I thought I'd get to stretch out my new abilities some…" Orochimaru glanced back at his struggling opponent. "Oh well…"
The Sennin opened his mouth, his jaw snapped out of place in a manner entirely unnatural for a human being while an ancient sword of the traditional style of craftsmanship blew at the restrained Naruto like a blow-dart. The sword pierced both the white snake that restrained Naruto as well as the gut of the struggling young man, leaving him to slump without any traces of life down on the ground.
A loud popping noise followed and, much to Orochimaru's surprise, the Naruto he had just pinned down appeared to be just another clone. His Kusanagi clanged in a soft landing as it was no longer etched into anything. The white serpent that had constricted around Naruto and ended up impaled alongside him had withered away in seconds and turned into just a handful of dried out and lifeless scales.
The pale Sennin was more than experienced enough to snap his neck in order to look upward fast enough. An azure blitz split through the gloomy atmosphere of the Black Cube when Naruto's clone slammed into Orochimaru at the first sign of an opening with a Rasengan in hand while two more versions of Naruto lingered on the ceiling with their feet firmly attached to it as they lurked looking for another opening, aiming to swoop down like bats and hit their enemy as hard as the craving for it in their chests demanded it.
The clone stood up from the fallen Orochimaru, examining the lifeless husk of the serpentine humanoid. What it hit didn't look like Orochimaru but instead just an empty flesh bag, it looked as if a skin and flesh costume that someone had abandoned with a gruesomely dislocated jaw. Naruto knew that technique though neither of his present versions could see where the real, current Orochimaru had slithered off to after shedding from his old, injured self.
"Struggle…" Orochimaru's voice filled the room. "Struggle and never let down your guard, my precious prey, for that is the natural order and your true state."
Naruto dropped down from the ceiling while all remaining clones of his retreated. There was not a hint of heavier breathing or sweat on his face. Naruto's eyes were no longer hazy nor did they looked like the young man was seeing double. It only made sense that somebody with such unmatched vitality and a legendary titan slumbering inside him would get used to and overcome venom of all sorts this quick. The stare that Naruto gave the darkness to which Orochimaru had retreated was no stare of prey, it was the stare of a huntsman.
"I'm not the one running away and running my mouth, you know," Naruto raised his arm with a kunai in hand at a corner of the shadows. Just a mere moment later a frightening fit of laughter filled the room. One would have thought a discovered snake would feel desperate and cornered but Orochimaru couldn't help but proclaim his excitement.
"Well, well…" he muttered before half-human, half-snake shape resembling Orochimaru from his abdomen up only took a dive at Naruto. The youth jumped up to meet Orochimaru's headbutt with one of his own, never being one to resist such an obvious challenge though it might have been Naruto who was fooled this time.
The white scales of Orochimaru's serpentine lower body ripped before opening up and releasing another, smaller version of Orochimaru with a reptilian tail that slithered toward its fallen sword and grabbed it with its teeth before arcing its body in a wave motion considered unnatural even to a human contortionist. Naruto grunted in pain and rolled as far as the force of Orochimaru's diving slash drove him with a crimson gash on his chest. Not being one to let up of the chance to deal with his prey, Orochimaru slithered on, continuing its sword-in-teeth dive while the larger serpent that gave it birth withered away into a mere translucent shedding.
"Naruto Uzumaki Barrage!" a pair of clones chanted out while diving from up above and stomping at Orochimaru's head, pinning the serpent to the floor at once. The original then charged forward with a running kick that sent the fallen reptilian flying off into the shadows, Orochimaru's body regained humanoid appearance in mid-flight with the pudgy lower tail splitting into two legs that soon replicated even the baggy black trousers that the Sennin wore before his transformation.
"Wonderful… No other ninja could have invented an entire fighting style out of the Shadow Clone Jutsu." Orochimaru complimented the young man he had considered utterly useless and unimpressive for so long. He never ignored Naruto's vitality and stamina but it always seemed only as if though it was something that made this rugrat more irritating than talented. "Perfectly controlling where the clones appear and when with lightning-quick precision. It is hard to compete against such an opponent in close-quarters."
"Teehee… I call it Clone Kata, you know." Naruto smirked. "I've learned something interesting in this universe. Some ninja choose to master and improve their old techniques instead of rushing ahead toward new ones. That was what gave me the idea, you know."
"Hogwash…" Orochimaru hissed. "If you stick around and only study old subjects you'll rot away and die being ignorant. Forget the universe, a single world has too many secrets for any one man to learn. Unless you learn every jutsu, every secret in existence, you'll have wasted your chance at life and such a thing is utterly unforgivable."
"People aren't meant to learn everything there is to learn. Knowledge is obtained and passed on to the future generations so that they can develop it, add onto it and pass it on further, you know. Reaching the end of the line is okay when there are people that continue on the path you've set for them. That one I've come to realize from what Pervy Sage left behind for me…" Naruto gripped at his heart, pulling the severed bits of his tracksuit together as he clutched at the red gash there which had already stopped bleeding and endangering Naruto's life.
"People only die when they accept death. Death is the end of knowledge, the end of improvement and, as such, it is my only and true enemy. You know, Naruto-kun, if I learn every secret there is to know, I am bound to learn to leave something as irksome as death behind." Orochimaru shook his head and continued posturing.
"If you spend your life running from death, you won't have lived a single day, you know!" Naruto swiped his hand aside from his chest and entered a fighting stance, sensing the elevating tension of evil intentions inside Orochimaru's heart.
"Annoying, annoying… Beyond annoying…" Orochimaru hissed out. "If Sasuke-kun is like fine caviar, a premiere meal of deluxe value, you're like ramen. Bland, greasy and there's entirely too much of you! The value of ramen might grow as its quantity grows but, at some point, it becomes just leftover trash and is best thrown away, the ingredients wasted in it better served to decorate finer meals."
Orochimaru bit his thumb and went through a handful of hand seals, planting his hand onto the ground and calling forth for a large gate of demonic appearance to rumble upward from underground. In a single, black and white blur, Orochimaru leaped atop of the towering Rashomon gate and placed his hand onto the roof of the structure while his free hand weaved a one-handed seal.
"Rashomon: Demonic Dragon Flame!" Orochimaru chanted as an infernal blaze lit up in the slit between the two sides of the Rashomon gate. The inner workings of the demonic gate rumbled and crunched until tongues of compressed flame shot out from the horns of the decorative beast that revealed themselves to be makeshift flamethrowers.
Orochimaru observed the swarming wall of flames with a sense of smugness and pride. It was grandness that began to slowly dissipate when he realized that something just as grand as his Rashomon was deflecting the flames. With a single, tenacious swipe of his sakazuki shield, Gamaken pushed the stream of flames aside and thrust his sasumata at the center of Orochimaru's demonic gate.
While under normal circumstances the structure would have been more than staunch enough to withstand such an offensive, the pent up and overflowing blaze working inside its ancient arrangements could not withstand both the internal and external force and therefore burst, cracking the gate and filling the cracks with intense blazes that, once the gate couldn't hold itself together, simply blew up.
"Thanks, Ken!" Naruto extended his fist for a bump but the giant sage just shook its head.
"No, I am still far too clumsy…" Gamaken shook his head and dispersed into a cloud of smoke, returning back to the location it was promptly called for from.
Shaking on his feet with extensive damage over his body, Orochimaru stood back on his feet after the blast had thrown him off of the Rashomon's roof and planted multiple of its rubble on top of the Sennin. The flesh of the serpentine Sennin had peeled off in multiple places revealing just another, younger and slimier layer developing underneath and pulsing with pus due to its unplanned and early exposure to the outside.
"Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Naruto placed his arms together in his signature Clone-Technique hand seal, flooding the room with his own duplicates that all rushed at Orochimaru together, looking to overwhelm him with sheer numbers. The ocean of orange and black blurs swallowed the Sennin who had been thrown off of his feet sufficiently enough for this vicious beatdown to faze him.
A giant, ground-colored boa with tiger-stripes on its backs emerged from the epicenter of the clone riot, throwing the army of Naruto clones off of Orochimaru and washing them all away with a swipe of its tail while a hiss of reverberating intensity and death-inducing stare of the colossal serpent held the back-row in place.
"Hit him now!" the back row of Naruto ordered one another in remarkable synchrony while the center one reared his hand back and the others assisted him in channeling together a supersized version of the Rasengan, furling with a far greater amount of chakra than the ordinary version, multiplying the ball's destructive potential in the process.
"Great Ball Rasengan!" Naruto grunted while the bunch of clones all banded together to shove and transport the grand spiraling chakra sphere to the enemy. Even when they drove it into the colossal boa and not Orochimaru himself, the expanding size and range of the jutsu's devastation encompassed the recovering Sennin too, swallowing him up in the destruction before…
Before the expanding blast began to diminish and weaken as something far more powerful pushed back at it, an aerial bubble of gravitational push so intense that it ground against the Great Ball Rasengan and came out on top, not only that, swallowed up all of the Naruto that carried the big ball this far and violently tossed them aside as a capricious child swatted at their toys.
"Almighty Push!" Orochimaru hissed with a tone of voice muzzled by strain. The mighty display of resistance against Naruto's adamant willpower had also reduced his own reptilian protector to nothingness but it was a cost that Orochimaru was more than willing to pay.
"Alright, that's down, now!" a single version of Naruto reared his hand back while two more clones appeared behind him when prompted. Whereas before the future Seventh required to create clones and set his Rasengan techniques up, his Clone Kata allowed him to manifest clones out of the blue in the middle of channeling the Rasengan for diversions and cleverly laid plans such as this one.
"As if…" Orochimaru hissed out as fingernails dyed black donning pale, white fingers emerged from his jaw and clutched at both sides of it, dislocating it promptly and sending a newly reborn version of the Sennin while the old and injured one was left to slump behind as a useless shedding.
"As if, you know!" Naruto repeated Orochimaru's mockery while a clone poofed from his right and wrapped its arms around Naruto's forearm, dragging and spinning the young man around and lobbing him upward with enough strength to move Naruto up to the ceiling and help him kick-off of it, repurposing all of his momentum and strength into a plunging dive while aiming the Rasengan in his hand right at the face of the regenerated version of Orochimaru.
"Rasengan!" Naruto roared out while the detonating sphere of concentrated chakra in his arm expanded, grinding Orochimaru's bones from the inside while contorting his neck and spine in grotesque looking manners and sending him crashing down like a vertical propeller, head-first into the ground.
"I sure feel glad to have decked you real good this once…" Naruto huffed after landing on his own two feet, figuring that his opponent had survived this vicious exchange of techniques and a clash of wits. Cold and calculated intelligence against willpower and unpredictability of unconventional thinking. "Chakra absorption, that repelling thing… So many things I had to consider, it sure is good that you're just using somebody else's tricks. Tricks of somebody I've already beaten, you know."
Orochimaru's dangling feet turned into a singular, prolonged tail and continued to wriggle the Sennin underground. Naruto prepared for the incoming attack but Orochimaru burst head-first and cracked his neck a pair of times. His crooked stance suggested that the hit he took still rung around his spine too. Twisting and breaking it in the angles that Orochimaru did it would have broken any normal human being though the body modifications that this one went through bypassed all such limitations.
"Maybe I should have kept all of the Rinnegan's jutsu to myself. Then I might have been able to at least try and react in time. Though it takes a lot of guts to attack me with a jutsu that the Fourth had created and Jiraiya taught you and talk to me about unoriginality…" Orochimaru chuckled to himself showing confidence in his ability to keep fighting that Naruto didn't entirely like. "Very well, boy, I'd say that I am impressed by your troublesome abilities, there seems to be more ramen in the sink now than I'm capable of flushing down. Oh well… I still have some paths to take."
Naruto took a wild dash sideways, avoiding a storm of ivory missiles raining at him from behind, lacking explosive power but packing more than enough weight and swiftness to serve as an adequate kinetic missile barrage. With a bewildered stare, the future Seventh turned behind him and stared at a rushing blur of mad silver that he could only narrowly avoid while the bodies of Sound Four, Kimimaro and the Sound Genin, all scanning the world around them through the ripple pattern of the Rinnegan, blitzed into formation around Orochimaru.
"I honored Pain's flair for the theatrics. He employed the Six Paths but I always felt more affectionate for the myth of the Yamata-no-Orochi myself so I made sure that the Dragon God sprouts eight heads instead…" Orochimaru spread his arms, displaying his obedient pawns lined up in front of him, all having surrendered their life to bring Orochimaru's insatiable dream of becoming a living Yamata no Orochi to life.