Minato smiled. "I think we've got time. Now, your mother was a lot like you..."
Naruto was flying. He had to be. The wind sliding over his body told him he wasn't connected to the earth. And his skin wasn't hot; was it night? Wasn't he by a fire before? And in a stone room?
His eyes opened, and at the same moment, he felt his body crunch together like a spring. The warm, iron, coil-like appendage around his torso squeezed the air from him, and then he was flying again, watching ebony shades of earth shrink below him. Armored heels of a deep red kicked out and propelled him like a rocket.
The earth was dark, it was cold, and they were moving very fast. They were running from someone or something. And that just wasn't his style!
"Oi! Bigfoot! Slow down a second! What's going on out here?!" He shouted, but the stratospheric wind they were spearing into ate his words like the buzz of a fly in a maelstrom. Naruto then tried his preferred method of communicating: he balled up a fist and slammed it into crimson armor plates, into what must've been the middle of Han's back. The plates crumpled under the force, and the strike sent the two ninja into a forced plummet.
Han absorbed most of the crash damage; dirt slipped into every crevice of his armor as he slid to a stop with Naruto on his back, riding the iron giant into the ground.
A groan escaped Han like the release valve of a stopped train. "Please Kami tell me I'm dead and that I can rest until the end of time."
"What, you tired or something?" Naruto asked. It was an obvious question, and he scratched his head when Han didn't answer it. He didn't even move in response. "What happened to the cave thing? And the fire? I'm kind of chilly out here!" His lack of clothing was never more obvious.
Han didn't stir but offered a response. "Akatsuki."
"What?! They showed up?! How?! Did you fight them off? I bet you smoked 'em!"
Han stirred and Naruto tipped off his back. "Two to one, Uzumaki. Know when you're outmatched; you'll live longer," the giant told him. Han stood tall and stretched. His bones popped and clicked.
In the stillness of the night, only water could be heard. It crept over the rocks of the riverbed and soaked the earth until the ground was soft and cool beneath their feet. Naruto felt the air around them shift and become heavy. They were being hunted; this was serious.
"We're going to get back-up, right? So we can smash those coat-wearing weirdos?" Naruto asked. His body hummed with energy; the balls of his feet felt like they were vibrating. 'I'll show them to mess with Konoha!'
"Unlike you, I have not had a nap yet," Han noted. "And we have no backup. It's... just us, Uzumaki."
"But my friends could hel-"
Han shook his head. "You'd only be putting them in danger. They want us, Uzumaki. For the same reason I will not risk my village and kin, you should not risk yours."
"Yeah but, what? No! With us and our friends, we should crush them! Right?! Pervy Sage is strong, Kakashi-sensei is strong! And you have to know someone strong too, right?"
"You're forgetting the world you live in, boy," Han said. He looked to curb Naruto's energy into thoughtfulness. "Our villages will never work together. Have you forgotten everything I've told you? All that we've done to each other, it's too hateful a history to overcome."
Naruto balled his fists. "I think that's bullshit! We became friends!"
"You think we're friends?" It was a genuine, quiet question. The air around them cooled, but still sat with weight.
"Yeah. I do. I was knocked out, but you could have left me back there and bought yourself some time. And you didn't. That makes us friends."
The water kept flowing. Han shook himself from the boy's rousing speech. "You trust too easily, Uzumaki." He turned from the boy and started his trek to the sea, following the river. They'd find a boat, sail somewhere far off, maybe Tetsu no Kuni.
They would have, if Naruto hadn't jumped clear over the red giant and blocked his path. In the light of the moon, the boy Han saved earlier looked different. His limbs had lengthened noticeably, and the cables of muscle on his chest that ran through his core and thighs and connected to his knees looked tight and ready for damage. He was still a boy, but the softness of his face and body had calloused into a young adult.
"My name is Naruto!" he yelled. "And we can fight them! I have the Kyuubi no Kitsune in my stomach! I have a whole village behind me!"
Han narrowed his eyes. "A village without a Kage and in desperate need of repair. How did they even get to you in the first place?"
"We got ambushed by Itachi and the shark guy. But in a straight up fight, I bet Jiraiya could take them! And then there's Kakashi-sensei, and Sasuke, and-"
"There's no such thing as a straight up fight, we're shinobi." Han considered himself a patient man but arguing with a child was more stressful than he remembered. "And if they could take Jiraiya of the Sannin out, numbers or not, I don't know a soul with more legend to their name alive who could stop them. Besides the Tsuchikage, of course. But he'd behead you just for the color of your hair."
Naruto gulped. "You couldn't, uh, talk with him before he does that?"
Han sighed and couldn't help but crack the smallest of grins, hidden by his mask. "I could but telling him you're a Biju container like myself might make things even worse for you. Torture. Forced Biju extraction. Probably parade your limp body in the streets."
"Was the war really that bad?" Naruto's deep blue eyes stayed locked with Han's.
"It really was," Han replied. He craned his head to the sky. Clouds gathered and cut the moonlight drastically.
Things were looking dark. "Being frank, Naruto, I don't know what we should do. I don't want to hurt Iwagakure by fleeing back there and having these hounds follow me. I'm sure you feel the same about Konoha."
Naruto nodded. "Yeah. I just don't get why we can't come together and crush them!"
"Walk with me, Naruto," Han commanded. The boy fell in stride with the red giant, and they traced the river, treading down its soft bank and listening to the water rumble by.
He started again. "Because no matter how big the threat, there are people on both sides that would die before joining forces. Believe me, I've seen the iron mind my countrymen possess. But we're different. We share something they don't, Naruto. We're Jinchūriki. We house Bijū, things that could wipe out entire armies with a blast of power."
Naruto nodded. He knew that; All the pictures on the walls of the Hokage's office were before Konoha had been rebuilt; it was a completely different place, aside from the forest that surrounded it.
"And people are scared of that power," Naruto said quietly.
"Yes," Han answered. He could see Naruto coming around. "People are afraid of what they don't understand. What they don't know. I don't know how Konoha raised you, but my life has been filled with violence since I could walk. I've lived a life where I've been used to defend home and country as a sword. And despite that, I still love my home. Do you love yours?"
Again, Naruto nodded. "I do. I love it more than anything in the world. I want to be Hokage one day."
"A noble goal," Han said. "But until you do that, there are going to be people that just cannot fathom what we have. It is not their fault, and it is not ours. It is just the world. And that is why we cannot go home. Either of us. Do you understand? We're to protect them by disappearing, by never being caught."
"But what if we do get caught? Wouldn't that just make things worse?"
"Much worse. Which is why we can't be caught. Under no circumstances do we let ourselves be taken alive."
"That means-"
"Death is our only escape until the Akatsuki are gone."
"But how do we get rid of them?! I have to go home at some point, to become Hokage! I can't just be traveling the world forever!" Naruto's voice cut through the quiet night like steel through wool.
"I see our issue clearly," Han said. "I can hold my own against them, but you are still much too young and inexperienced. You'll have to learn quickly if you want to survive."
"Learn? Like, you're going to teach me?!" Naruto leapt. He flipped over the river and shot around like a loose pinball. "I'm gonna get super strong and beat those weirdos! Then I'll return to Konoha and be a hero! Yeah!"
It was a jovial scene. Han wished it could have lasted longer, but time, ever their reaper, was not on their side.
"I'll have to teach you something. I told myself to protect you until we were out of trouble. But currently, we're in a ton of it. Now, I am unfamiliar with this territory; are you handy with a map?"
"Not in the slightest!" Naruto was still beaming.
'Starting off strong, I see,' Han sighed. "Can you read the stars?"
"The stars? Are you crazy? They're just lights! How can you read the lights?!"
"This is not going to end well," Han muttered.
Naruto had already picked a direction to run in, and coincidentally, based on the North Star, it happened to be the right one. Beginner's luck, Han supposed. He hoped it stuck with them a while longer.
The Next Morning
The sun beamed onto the destroyed granite outcropping and illuminated a blackened room of rock and ash.
Typical Konoha ANBU evidence destruction protocol, Kakuzu noted: fire jutsu plus a bit of oil, probably toad oil. They couldn't have been half a day back from the Konoha ninja, which meant they were anywhere from a full day to three full days back from the Kyuubi container.
'All because of Hidan's fucking rituals.'
"Kakuzu! We missed the heathens!" A voice rang from the hole of soot. Hidan leapt from the mouth of the destroyed stone and stood blackened from the smoldered ruins. "I told you we didn't sacrifice enough to Lord Jashin, but you didn't listen!"
"Shut up," Kakuzu's rough voice commanded. "And go clean yourself off. You look like a grim reaper for clowns and geisha."
Hidan's following religious blustering blew past Kakuzu like the breeze. He paid it no mind.
What to do? Chase the container or chase the bounty? Better to call Pain and not misstep this juncture. With a swift leap, he had put a considerable distance between himself and Hidan. He sat for a moment and breathed. Privacy had become increasingly rare after he'd been partnered with that scythe-wielding psychopath. Then, the hologram sparked to life in his tanned palm. Two purple eyes stared back, lifeless.
"Kakuzu," the smooth voice spoke. "How is your hunt going?"
"Leader, the hideout is dust. Konoha got here before we did. My Earth mask tells me some of the ashes belong to organic beings, humans. And some of it belongs to snakes. Lots of snakes."
"Hm," Pain mulls. "Then we missed our window. Either Konoha has taken the boy back with them, or he's died. He's no longer our concern. We'll wait until he or the beast resurfaces and then plan their capture. He must be taken last, anyway."
"But Leader, wasn't that the point of Hidan and I coming here?" Kakuzu was miffed. The boy was one of the nine keys they needed, and Pain was just letting him go? What the fuck?
"There are other things that need to be accomplished," Pain monotoned. "Namely, the retrieval of Orochimaru's sealing ring. And when you take it from his corpse, feel free to collect the bounty. We cannot have him meddling in our affairs and sharing our secrets."
And that was all he needed to hear. Kakuzu nodded firmly. Pain stared back, and the call fizzled to nothing. Time to go make some money, then.
'It seems the fox hunt has turned into a snake hunt.'
"Hidan!" Kakuzu yelled. "We've money to collect!" A terrible, awful, beautiful feeling enveloped him. He smiled as Hidan turned in his direction. "And a sacrifice to make!"
Later that day, In Tanzaku Gai
This is where they would wait for Orochimaru, where they would plan their vengeance. Tension ran high no matter where the ninja went in the space. It was oppressive and heavy. Every breath was labored. No one had spoken since they'd found Naruto's remains.
Their meek hotel bedrooms were separated by a wooden sliding door that cut the two rooms down the center. Sasuke and Shizune in one, Tsunade and Jiraiya in the other. Despite renting out the entire hotel just for their group, the ninja thought it best to sleep adjacently. The ANBU ran a constant, rotating patrol around the compound.
But as Tsunade sat on her bed and Jiraiya stood at the window that held an empty courtyard, all she could see was a side profile of his poor, aging face. This one, this last apprentice, this was the one, she realized. Naruto had been Jiraiya's last true hope. Without him, there was no one left to carry the weight of the future. No one left for the prophecy, for Minato's legacy, not even for the Toad Sage Contract. It was a brutal truth to face; Jiraiya's entire life had been ruined.
"Jiraiya-" Tsunade started.
"I think Orochimaru used the Akatsuki to get Naruto, to capture the Kyuubi. My previous information said he'd separated from the group, but it could've been misinformation, to throw me from his trail," Jiraiya pondered. His voice was a whisper. "How did I not see his involvement in this?"
Tsunade nodded. "He's slippery like that. Do you think he has the Kyuubi?"
A gust of air ruffled Jiraiya's hair and unnerved Tsunade. That would be a catastrophe of unforeseen circumstances. "No, Minato's seal was designed to kill it if it was ever removed."
Tsunade nodded again. "So, Konoha should be safe, for now, at least." She shuddered to think of another Kyuubi rampage.
"Yeah. But if anyone could figure out that seal, it'd be him. We've got to be sure he doesn't have access to it or any of its chakra."
"This isn't going to be easy, Jiraiya. Physically or mentally," she warned. Jiraiya, ever the boaster, didn't so much as nod. It scared her to see him this quiet so far away from combat. Even in the days following their battle with Hanzō, he'd joked and challenged Orochimaru to several games of chess, purely to piss Orochimaru off by spilling the pieces off the board at random times. And they should have died then. They should have lost everything.
Jiraiya turned to her. She'd seen more emotion in corpses.
"Before today," he said, "I was still ready to forgive him. Even after he killed sensei, I wanted to talk to him and figure everything out. But now? Now there's nothing I wouldn't do to douse him in oil and burn him to death."
"When you get your chance, don't miss," she told him. "And be ready to live with killing him." She gave him one last look and went to speak to Shizune in the next room, her hand on the sliding door when Jiraiya spoke next.
"One of us won't be walking away this time," he claimed. "Make sure you can live with that."
Tsunade pulled the door open and slid it shut behind her. In the darkness of the small hallway, her tears started coming. What the fuck had their world become? And how much of it was her fault?
'Both of us can't feel sorry for ourselves just yet,' she told herself, wiping the tears from her face and steeling her nerves. 'Got to toughen up. The worst is yet to come.'
It was clear now. They knew what they had to do. They had to make three become two. They had to atone for their mistakes.
They had to kill Orochimaru of the Sannin.
Several Days Later
A deafening roar piqued his interest.
In a land of plains with silent rivers that ran like veins, such violent noise felt foreign. It sounded like a million buckets of water being poured all at once, all the time. A continuous crashing cacophony. Han was suspicious but pressed forward anyway.
"A waterfall!" Naruto exclaimed.
He spoke the truth. Crystalline water rushed to pour over the rock below, fighting itself to hurry down. Out before them lay the entire country with its rolling plains and deep, lush greenery. The plateau they had been traveling on was sparse because of the elevation, but it seemed they'd crested a mountain range by accident. From their vantage point, Han could see two distinct human settlements, scabs of earth and smoke among the trees. It was the first sign of life they'd seen since the Akatsuki. More importantly, past them, he could see the ocean and its impossible length.
To each of the shinobi's sides stood the crags of jutting rock. Han felt a familiarity with the protruding stone and laid his hand against it for a moment.
And then he felt the vibration of dynamite, the rumble of breaking rock, and the scent of the black powder burning into the air. It was close; Within a mile.
"Naruto, we-" His voice faltered just as their footing gave way. The earth beneath them fissured and down the mountain they went in a violent tumble of rock and dust and gunpowder. Han managed to right himself with chakra and slid down the steep drop, but he could not spot Naruto among the chaos.
Han leapt from the landslide and landed at the foot of the mountain. He quickly faced the oncoming rubble and summoned an earth wall, damming the boulders and preventing them from rolling into the foliage beyond him. The rock settled neatly behind it.
Even before the dust settled, he heard voices. Dim and rural. Confused. Worried. Han sprung to the forest to spy.
A group of men in tattered clothing and crisped skin sat around shards of the mountain they'd just demolished. They poked and prodded at an appendage that jutted lifelessly from the rubble.
"Is he dead?" One of them asked. He shook where he stood.
"I think so," another whispered, "he's not moving." Straw hats were taken off in respect.
A balding man cursed and spat his tobacco. "I thought you said the mountain was clear, Karashi!"
"It was!" A boy, no older than nineteen, fired back.
"I knew you didn't have what it took to be a miner. Now someone's dead because of you!" The bald man spat his entire wad of tobacco out and began to walk away, letting the dead rest.
The boy blustered. His older counterparts did nothing to comfort him. Han could tell they had no idea what to do. Awkward silence reigned and some men resorted to kicking rocks and ambling back the way they'd come, down a worn path through the woods. They wanted no part in this catastrophe.
"Should we give him a funeral?" The boy, Karashi, asked. "Maybe if we tell Raiga, he'll bury him instead of someone else?"
"Raiga likes his funerals a little more... lively," the first man said. He shook like a reed in a cold wind. "Best to make it seem like he was never here. No telling what he'll do. He's too unpredictable."
The bald man turned back to Karashi. "Go find a shovel and get rid of the body." Without another glance, he stepped back down the path. "And don't come back until it's done, or I'll ship you back to your grandmother!"
"You can't do that! I work for Raiga now! You're supposed to respect me!" Karashi cried his eyes out. He cried until twin streams ran from beneath him.
'As good a time as any,' Han mused. "Hello there, young man," the giant said as he stepped clear of the brush.
"Who are you?" Karashi wiped his eyes. He cowered from Han's long shadow that stretched toward him with a startling blackness to it.
"Han of Iwagakure. I'm a shinobi, and I believe you have my ward there," Han said, pointing to the rubble, "in your custody."
Karashi trembled. "I'm sorry, I don't know what happened or where he came from or- or- or what, but he's dead. It wasn't me, though! I didn't set off the dynamite I swear, that was Yujiro!" The way Karashi shook made it plain he expected Han to be upset. Instead, Han walked over to the rubble and began lifting the rocks and tossing them aside. He fished Naruto's body from the remaining stones and tossed the boy over his shoulder.
"He's not dead," Han said plainly, "But he will be a bit sore tomorrow. Is there a place we could stay in the meantime that is... private?" He let the boy stew on his final word, hoping he'd get the hint.
Karashi stared for a moment, flabbergasted at Han's strength, and relieved that the boy was somehow alive. Then a smile popped on his face. "I know a place!" He seemed to realize it as he said it, "My grandmother has extra rooms in her home. It's just through the hills, this way, follow me!"
And so Han did, very careful to keep Karashi at a safe distance from himself. Something about the boy was wrong. He did not seem trustworthy, and it only took one betrayal for a ninja to end up dead.
They made small talk, exchanged names and useless pleasantries, and Han listened as Karashi rattled on about the village, the Katabami Gold Mine, and its new leader, Raiga.
A Few Days Later...
Dark Clouds. Black earth. Nothing else for eternity. Dirt like fresh sod, sinking beneath his boots. A bell chimes in the distance.
"The boy," a terrible voice tells him, "He's the difference. He can change it all."
"Change what?" Han demands.
The clouds begin to encircle him, twisting into swords and scythes and spears, ever rotating around his cold body. Shields and senbon, kusarigama and kunai.
"Keep him close. Keep him from home. Let him run wild and grow. Let his power take shape." The weapons dissolve into a dark powder that reforms into sprinting foxes with terrible anthropomorphology, their bent spines an unnatural length and their arms heavy with muscle. They continue to encircle, to entrap.
"And what if he can't control it? What if I can't control him?" Han's question is desperate, because the answer is not helpful.
"Then we all die in the moonlight of a new world!" A giant crow with wings that shimmer like steel barks at Han from the sky. The foxes dissolve but the black powder remains, torrenting about. The crow is not flying but levitating, bundled within itself tightly. Even its eyes are closed, as if it, too, is weathering the storm.
And its parting words before it is swallowed by the eerie dust: "Run, fight, kill, and run again. This is what I ask of you. This is your purpose."
It was the same dream- or nightmare, really, every night. As it stood, Han's vision replayed itself, taped and then rewinded by some dark force for the ensuing evening.
The world around him had yet to wake, but his dream finished early today; The moon still hung on its string as he walked the forest grounds around the shop Karashi had brought them to. It was situated on the only road leading to the Katabami Gold Mine, which asserted it as a valuable chokepoint, should he need it.
Speaking of Karashi, his mother was an exceptional woman in both heart and cooking. She nursed Naruto back to full health bit by bit with bowls of spicy curry that, frankly, Han had trouble stomaching. Sanshō was an angel. Her son, however, was a weasel. And that was putting it nicely.
The boy's clothing was obviously a gift from the new regime in charge of the mine, with its metal guards concealed by cloth and a dark, intimidating chestplate. And several times he swore to Sanshō that he was not involved despite trying to sneak back to the village, as if to report in.
'But I was just patrolling the woods, that's all!' Han had caught him both nights previous and sent him home.
But Karashi was not the problem; No, the boy was much too weak to pose a threat. The problem was Raiga. From Karashi's telling, the ex-swordsman had taken over through fear and power. They called him Raiden because of his mastery over thunder and lightning, not understanding the difference between a jutsu and nature, between a man and legend. Han's mission was still to reallocate the gold mine to the people, and he planned to uphold this mission. But how many had Raiga gotten his claws into, how many saw they could rule with fear?
'Cut the head from the snake and the body will die,' he thought. A stern talking to over Raiga's corpse should send enough of a message. Karashi had said Raiga liked funerals; the iron giant would provide one, free of charge, for that dictator.
A beautiful bolt of lightning tore the sky in half some miles away, in the direction of the village. Its angles were much too uniform to be of nature; Nature was a messy woman in a cluttered workshop, not a painter slashing color across the page.
The flash of light helped Han see things he hadn't before.
A flock of indiscernible birds, dark and sleek in the clouds, moved together. There could've been a thousand of the red-eyed devils gliding across the sky with ebony wings as their sails.
They were staring back at him. He swore they were.
A Few Days Later, Waiting for Orochimaru…
Tsunade sat kneeling in front of the temple, her eyes closed. The sun fell softly on her back in the outdoor shrine. This was the place he'd said to meet- an ancient, abandoned monastery, older than even her own grandparents, Hashirama and Mito. The giant bald statue of a deity stood before her, hands outstretched, welcoming all to come. Behind it laid a bamboo enclosure, and a thick, beautiful Hi no Kuni forest.
Its worn features reflected her own. But she had rambled this country living hard and fast, and he'd simply stood still. What did that say about power, about responsibility? Did she really want to become Hokage? A small part of her yearned to help, the same part that made her crave medicine and its application. A larger part saw the logic: there were no other candidates. No one else carried the combination of power and prestige she'd tried to throw away all these years.
A Sannin, a Senju, a woman. 'A Kage,' she thought. 'But first, Orochimaru.'
She stood. At her full height, she came to the statue's waist, the bottom of its long arms right at her scalp. She watched a snake crawl through a hole in the concrete folds of the statue's robe.
"I didn't take you for religious, Tsunade," a nasty voice behind her whispered. "Personally, I find the sciences to be more fulfilling."
She didn't move. Her eyes stayed trained on the snake. "You're the one that told me to meet you here. Now, let's get on with it. I can only sneak away from Shizune for so long before she starts asking questions."
He tisked. "So impatient, but I do appreciate your enthusiasm to heal my arms. Kabuto," he called, "come out and make sure she doesn't kill me."
The weasel named Kabuto stepped from behind the statue. The snake sprung from the ground and coiled around his right arm, attaching like a pet would. "If she tries anything, I'll let this little guy give her a dose poisonous enough to kill her and her family tree."
Orochimaru sighed. "So theatrical. Come, Tsunade, so you can see Dan and Nawaki again."
'He doesn't have the right to say their names,' she burned, but she complied. She pivoted, a literal snake at her back and a figurative one at her front. He looked much worse than she expected him to. He hadn't showered in days and his arms were a deep purple, almost black. Even his clothing looked much too worn for his gaunt body.
"It shouldn't take too long if it's just your arms. The nerve damage will be the trickiest part," she told him.
"Oh yes, I am aware," Orochimaru replied. His slight smile became deep. "You think I haven't done my own procedures, waiting for you? You really don't know me at all, princess."
She gave him a dirty look, but stepped forward anyway. Kabuto's snake let its tongue flick in the silence.
"If only we had Jiraiya here, we could have tea and recount our youth," the snake Sannin mocked. He chuckled, knowing the more he spoke, the more Tsunade hated him. "But killing Sarutobi may have been the final straw for him. He was never much of a tea drinker, anyway."
"Stop talking. I need to focus if you ever want to hold something heavier than a teacup again," she barked. "And as soon as you can, let me see them."
Orochimaru smiled and strained as he attempted to lift his arms to her, as if trying to recreate the statue at her back. "That is the deal, Tsunade."
The emerald glow came alive in her arms. She molded the energy, feeling the life in her palms and fingertips, letting it course through her. She brought this power to Orochimaru's shaking, dead limbs, and let it enter him. She fixed collapsed veins, restored soft tissue with fresh blood, rebuilt bones and pulled their shards from flesh.
And then she twitched her ring finger ever so slightly, sending a torrent of chakra to a blood vessel deep in Orochimaru's shoulder.
Kabuto and his snake were on her in an instant. She'd turned in time to grab the snake's neck, but could not avoid Kabuto's chakra scalpel piercing her oblique before she open-palm shoved him through the thin bamboo wall of the monastery.
Orochimaru had tried to leap away, but his jump was severely shortened because he couldn't breathe- he was having a heart attack.
Jiraiya and Shizune appeared, Jiraiya facing Orochimaru's shriveling form, Shizune immediately coming to Tsunade's aid and healing her cut musculature.
Tsunade squeezed the head off the snake in a squirt of blood and threw it at Orochimaru. He wheezed in pain as his chest grew tighter and tighter with each breath. "I was going to let Dan and Nawaki kill you," he moaned, "but now I'll do it myself!"
Kabuto catapulted himself back through the bamboo hole and sent a string of senbon at Tsunade. Shizune experty blocked and parried them away, but the ladies had to roll away from their position because Kusanagi came slicing through, wielded by Orochimaru's extended tongue.
Tsunade righted herself under the statue and ripped a concrete arm away. She planted her feet and swung at the appendage. She missed- Orochimaru withdrew it quickly- but he let Kusanagi go in the process, which Kabuto promptly grabbed mid-air, never breaking his stride to Jiraiya.
He stabbed forward and let the sword extend. Jiraiya ducked the poisoned blade and dove toward Orochimaru, intending to block Kabuto from the ex-Sannin. Kabuto swung the sword toward Jiraiya; All he needed was one little cut.
But Jiraiya was fast. He ducked again as the blade cut the tip of his ponytail, its edge razor sharp. Jiraiya went to close the gap between him and the young scientist, but Orochimaru's tongue had wrapped around his ankle and lifted and slammed him into the earth.
The snake wasn't dead yet. Kabuto withdrew Kusanagi.
Orochimaru managed to pick himself up enough to jump back to Kabuto's position before Jiraiya rose, unfazed. Tsunade and Shizune appeared at his sides.
As Kabuto began working on fixing his heart, Orochimaru could not help but laugh. "I guess this is a reunion after all! Shizune, get the tea!" He spat blood as he kept laughing. Kabuto told him to take more shallow breaths, but he paid the boy no mind. He wouldn't die. Not today. One unhinged jaw later and Kusanagi was back where it belonged, in his gullet.
"No tea, Orochimaru," Jiraiya spoke. He was cold, serious. "You killed sensei. You killed Naruto. I'm done trying to save you. You took too much this time."
Orochimaru sighed. "I love taking credit for my accomplishments, but what are you talking about, you old fool? You sound as ridiculous as Sarutobi did! That village must be making you senile. What use would I have with the blonde one? He is nothing, trash compared to Itachi's brother. Speaking of poor little Sasuke, where is he? I can feel him."
"We're about to kill you and you're worried about an Uchiha? You really are obsessed, you sick fuck!" Tsunade yelled. She stomped the earth until it jutted up in a massive pile, then grabbed the exposed earth and hurled it.
Orochimaru and Kabuto simply sidestepped the show of anger. Orochimaru's eyes got thin. "You're slow, Tsunade. Out of practice, yes?"
"I'll still bury you," she warned. " I forced enough blood into your heart that it swelled like a water balloon. It doesn't matter how good that kid is, It'll take you weeks to recover."
More blood fought its way from Orochimaru's mouth. She was right.
"It is a shame that you couldn't honor our agreement, Tsunade. But if I am not being healed today, then I have lost interest in you. Kabuto, we are leaving." And they turned and began to walk away. The forest's edge was a mere fifty yards.
Jiraiya phased into sight and cut off their escape. "I told you Orochimaru, not this time." Four ANBU appeared in a shunshin behind him. They calmly set a perimeter line around the snake Sannin, barring his path. Jiraiya crossed his arms.
"Jiraiya," Orochimaru's voice was dry and impatient, "quit this nonsense. You're going to make me angry."
"That'd make two of us!" he shot back. "ANBU, take him! We only need his head," Jiraiya reminded them. His blood was colder than ice, face harder than stone.
The four masked ninja carpet forward and brandished their weapons. Tsunade and Shizune also pressed forward, leaving no chance of escape.
Everyone braced as Kabuto slammed a tag on the ground. It exploded upward in a massive ball of fire, like a flare. Everyone stopped their advance for a moment to see its effects, but the ball fizzled to death as it descended back to earth.
"Losing some of your cunning, Rochi?" Tsunade couldn't resist. She was going to enjoy breaking that jaw of his.
"Never," he snarled back. And that terrible cheshire grin of his came back even as blood drizzled from the corner of his lips. "You have bigger things to worry about than me."
Dozens of dark, terrible figures came sprinting from all directions. They broke the treeline with incredible speed. Some even bowled through trees, uprooting them completely and tossing them aside. Their arms were claws, or their legs were misshapen, or they had no faces. True monsters. They had holes in their bodies like vents that radiated with heat and power. And they screamed.
"Ambush!" The ANBU yelled.
They'd lost them in the fray. When the first ANBU went down, Jiraiya knew these creatures, whatever they were, were very powerful and very loyal to Orochimaru. They attacked with extreme violence, but seemed to communicate enough to form a funnel for Orochimaru to escape through. Jiraiya hacked and slashed and maimed and killed, but they never stopped fighting until they'd been blown to pieces or decapitated.
Jiraiya tried to catch the snake in his Swamp of the Underworld technique, but he and Kabuto crawled through the treeline as Jiraiya's jutsu hit its limit. It made killing the rest of the creatures more manageable, but they'd still lost three of the ANBU. The marks on their necks reminded him of Sasuke's.
"Should we track him?" Tsunade asked, breathless. She looked exhausted and dirty from fighting. Blood was smeared on her torso and hands, but Jiraiya saw a blot of beautiful, blond light against the mud and blood he'd turned the temple into.
"We can try, but I doubt we'll find anything. You know how he is when someone's on him. He vanishes," Jiraiya ended. He didn't want to talk anymore today. He felt empty inside, like a cold fire had been burning and burning and burning away his insides. His anger was sliding into the ashes of sadness.
Tsunade put a soft hand on him. "We'll get him, Jiraiya. I'll make it my first priority when I'm sworn in. Get your people to find him, and I'll do the rest from the Kage chair."
Jiraiya turned to her, almost confused. "You'd do that, Tsunade?" She circled around him and stared straight into his eyes, their height difference quite apparent.
"He shouldn't have talked about Dan and Nawaki the way he did. He knows what they meant to me. If he's willing to kill the man that loved him like a son and taunt me with my dead family, he's dead to me." She paused. "He's been dead to me, but now that I'm Hokage, I need to bring justice against the man that orchestrated the attack on Konoha. I'm only doing my job, Jiraiya."
"Yeah," Jiraiya answered back. It didn't make him feel like less of a failure, but seeing Tsunade so determined… Maybe Naruto hadn't died for nothing. Maybe the Will of Fire was still burning.
He just knew it was a little dimmer in his own heart, and it would stay that way until he held Orochimaru's head in his hands. "Let's go get Sasuke. He's still in danger with Orochimaru crawling around."
Kabuto took lazy strides along the trail, tailing Orochimaru like the good lackey he was.
'Like the good lackey he wants me to think he is,' Orochimaru thought. He'd long known about the boy's ambitions; It was a quality he admired, but was cautious of. Orochimaru thought himself prideful, for good reason, but he'd seen firsthand what the disillusionment of one's own power does to a man.
His skirmish with Hanzo was a good battle, but a greater lesson in humility. When they fought, Hanzo was a God. He couldn't be touched. But after years of squirreling himself away from Pain, he'd withered. Even his beloved kusarigama had rusted, he'd heard; Kakuzu had it in a scroll in his room. He was waiting for the right bidder, of course.
If such a great shinobi could be bested by time and fear, then what was to come of him?
And that is why he was becoming more than a man. The Sharingan would help him do that.
But first, he had to survive this next encounter. "Kabuto, stop. Some associates of mine are coming." Orochimaru's tone was sharp, almost tense. This could end poorly.
"Associates? You don't have those," Kabuto drawled. "You only have subjects and enemies."
"Call them whatever you wish- they're here."
And true to form, two cloaked figures descended from the trees. He recognized them before they landed: the Zombie Duo, the Undead Demons. Hidan had landed with his scythe drawn. Kakuzu with his tightly drawn, infamous cloak of red clouds. Typical.
Kakuzu remained stoic. Orochimaru was fond of the man; He'd acquired many rare artifacts for the Snake Sannin, for a price, of course. Hidan, however, he detested.
"Orochimaru," Kakuzu said.
"What brings me the great pleasure of entertaining you two this evening? Just in the neighborhood?" Orochimaru knew to keep his distance from Hidan. He'd seen what that terrible jutsu of his could do. It was a soul binding technique, which meant it could actually hurt him, like how Sarutobi had taken his arms in their battle.
"I heard you killed the Sandaime. Thank you," Kakuzu monotoned. His hatred for Konoha was still deep then, Orochimaru deduced. "Because of that, I won't immediately kill you. Instead, I'll ask nicely for the Akatsuki ring in your possession. And then I'll be turning your head in for the reward."
"How about the ring for some information?" Orochimaru crooned. "Besides, Kakuzu, I run a village full of missing ninja. I'll send you a bag of heads." Cue his nasty grin.
Kakuzu made no indication of acceptance, but his lack of response was satisfactory for Orochimaru.
"But Kakuzu, he's here now! He won't even send you anything, anyway!" Hidan whined.
"He will," Kakuzu said. "Stop talking, Hidan. The grown ups are discussing business."
Hidan gritted his teeth. "Lord Jashin doesn't even want him, anyway. His soul is fragmented."
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow, but saw no need to reply. The ravings of a madman will be what they will be. He spit the Akatsuki ring from his mouth, which Kakuzu caught with a tendril and not a hand.
"And the information?" Kakuzu asked.
"The boy you're after, the Uzumaki. Why do they think I killed him? Whose plan am I being used in? I don't like being used, Kakuzu."
"You do the using," Kabuto chimed in dryly. "And you're a master at it, Lord Orochimaru. Look at the invasion of Konoha as an example. "
"An invasion that failed," Kakuzu interrupted. "I do not know, Orochimaru. When we got to the hideout, we did not find much of anything left. Hidan said he could taste you in the air, but everything had been burned to a crisp. Toad oil."
"Toad oil? That has to be Jiraiya, then. He's around. I'd be careful if I were you two. He's awfully upset about the boy. They think I killed him!" The snake Sannin chuckled. "As if I hadn't done enough."
"We were sent only to track him down. Well, to track him down and kill you."
"But?" Orochimaru smirked.
"But," Kakuzu said with his slow, heavy voice, "I am making an executive business decision on behalf of the Akatsuki, as its treasurer. Deliver the heads to me and stay away from the Akatsuki's machinations."
He smiled. "Deal. And to think, Konoha framed me for the death of an orphan. You must've been right all along, Kakuzu! What a wicked place!"
Kakuzu grunted. "If the heads aren't delivered to me in a week, I will assume you have reneged on our deal, and I will then come to collect your bounty."
Orochimaru nodded. Kabuto scoffed. "Like you'd be able to find him."
"We know more than you think, boy," Hidan growled.
Kabuto pushed his glasses up. "I doubt it. You know, statistically, the least intelligent people are often religious zealots-"
Hidan extended his scythe and swung as he screamed to his god for power. He hit nothing but the smoke of a shunshin.
A/N: I have no excuses anymore.