Snakes and Foxes

Last time on Cloud Gamer

"Child, why are you here?" His voice is laced with intrigue but the bloodlust pouring off of him creates a fog I can barely hear through. My heart is pounding in my chest as he takes a step forward; I can barely register his mouth opening and closing as static fills my ears.

Before it suddenly all stops.

Chapter 53!

The appearance of the quest screen brings control back to my body; the suffocating feeling in the air slightly lighter than before as I 'accept'. With my heart thumping in my chest, I slowly shift my right foot back as I get into a taijutsu stance. "Oh?" Orochimaru's scarily long tongue slithers from the side of his mouth as a smile forms on his face. "A child, like you, threatening me?" The pressure on my body doubles and my legs feel like they're made of gelatin. He doesn't even bother running towards me, instead slowly stalking forward, "just your appearance here is enough reason for me not to hold back."

I take in a shaky breath, focusing on the cold air rolling down my throat as a bead of sweat drips down my chin; he's close now, barely a meter away. My body refuses to move as his arm stretches around my neck, hand reaching for my chin with fingers attaching to my cheeks like a vice grip. "Look at you, scared still." Each word he utters holds a mixture of maniacal glee and intrigue. He steps closer, straight into my guard yet I can't do anything about it, "I'll make this quick." His breath is like a searing flame against my skin while his fingers dig into my face.

Unlike in my own seal, I can't access Kurama's chakra, nor can I rely on the system's corporeal form to guide me, I'm alone. My body flexes defiantly as Orochimaru prepares to snap my neck, and suddenly, reality shatters.

Feeling comes back to my body and I can think straight again; my heartbeat doesn't drum in my ears and the static is gone. Without a moment's hesitation, I reach into my inventory and grab my sword, slicing off Orochimaru's arm before he can unwind it from around my neck. The appendage slowly unfurls from my neck and falls to the invisible ground, not a sound following it. "Who's the one making threats now?" A shaky breath racks my body as I wipe sweat away from my chin with a smirk. "I thought genjutsu would be below someone like you." I flick my sword to the side to get rid of the purple blood coating it before holding it with both hands.

Orochimaru's smile drops, a frown forming on his face as he stretches his stump of an arm back to allow it to regrow. "It's a beautiful art, child. Do not underestimate it." His fresh arm reaches in front of his mouth as he looks up, a grotesque bulge forming in his throat. "As is kenjutsu." His voice still manages to permeate the air even while a sword is being regurgitated from his throat.

I can feel my nose wrinkling with disgust as he whips the spit off of his legendary blade, the Sword of Kusanagi. It's a pristine white blade with a U-shaped guard decorated in a forest green scale texture. A turquoise colored gem sets in the middle of the guard, reaching up to the start of the blade; on the other end, it stops far before the bandage covered guard and hilt. "A beautiful tool, is it not?" Orochimaru traces a finger along the side of the blade, holding it up for me to see.

"It is." I say, bringing my sword to my side as I settle into a stance. "I'm looking forward to wielding it after I kill your main body." The clone in front of me brings the sword to its side.

A chuckle escapes its throat, "you dream big, boy. But you must live through this before you can even hope to face the real me." Killing intent pours off of its body in droves, like an unrelenting flood. It passes over my body, and I feel like I'm drowning, but it isn't something that's impossible to push through.

"Dream big? No, I'm just confident in my abilities." Chakra enters the blade in my right hand and it begins to hum with a bright blue glow. My left hand wraps around the handle under my right, and I move before Orochimaru can breathe.

My feet slap against the ground with heavy thuds, one after the other, and I can't help but wonder why my feet make a sound but the arm doesn't. Orochimaru pushes his sword towards mine, locking our blades before I can fully swing down. With his free hand, he reaches for my shirt; I lean backwards to evade the swipe and bring my blade back before swinging again.

Orochimaru matches the strike, slashing from the side and knocking my blade away. I use the momentum to twirl around and kick him in the side, but he catches my heel and pushes it away before slashing downwards. My blade clashes against his, sparks flying and the sound of steel against steel ringing in my ears. He pushes more pressure onto me, and I release one hand from my blade and slide to the side, letting his tool hit the invisible floor with a loud twang; my fist buries itself into the side of his face, blue flashes of light sparking around the knuckles.

The clone slides backwards, righting its posture before wiping the scuff marks from its cheek. It readies its sword with one hand, the other flying through hand seals; rat, dog, monkey, far too fast for me to keep up with. I pour more chakra into my blade swipe at the air, sending a flying slash of energy towards the shard.

He jumps backwards in response, continuing to make seals with one hand before he suddenly spits a hurricane of wind towards me. I raise my blade again and swipe down, bisecting the invisible attack and raising my blade again. I can barely react to the legendary sword being thrown at me like a spear, narrowly deflecting it away from my heart and into my leg.

The blade tears open my right thigh, forcing me to one knee to survey the injury. I can hear Orochimaru chuckling, and it's only instinct that allows me to dodge the follow up attack coming from the flying sword. My head snaps to the side as the blade flies past my neck and back into Orochimaru's hand. "Foolish child, you could never hope to stand before the real me if this is all you have to offer." My left hand flies to my thigh with a green glow, causing the once torn muscle fibers to wrap and stretch together before my very eyes. "My genjutsu took a lot out of you…" His golden eyes glow for a single moment before he hums in glee, "with less than half of your chakra reserves, what could you hope to do?"

"Hope? I don't hope for anything." I spit, rising to my fight again and swiping my blade towards him, "I know I'll kill you." Orochimaru shrugs with a chuckle before holding out his non sword hand.

Wordlessly, dozens of snakes fly from the depths of his robe sleeve, flying towards me at high speeds. I grit my teeth and swipe, bisecting the first one before leaping away and cutting up two more that dare to give chase. My sword disappears from my hand as I return it to the inventory, using my now free limbs to weave hand signs at great speeds.

By the time the snakes reach my side, 6 golden chains are there to skewer them, each one tearing them apart like paper mache. I glance up at the sannin across from me, and a dangerous glint has formed in his eyes. "What?"

Orochimaru smiles devilishly as he holds his sword towards me, the end of the blade aimed towards my heart. I move before it can fully extend, ducking around it and racing towards where the clone is standing; my sword returns to my hand as I reach him. The clone raises its hand, blocking one of my chains with the guard of his sword, the blade bending and retracting back to its normal size in time for the snake to deflect another chain and plant his foot on another. He swipes towards my throat with ferocious intensity, but one of my chains blocks his blade and wraps around it with a tight grip, giving me an opening to attack.

My blade almost reaches the side of his torso while my final unoccupied chain is poised to skewer the side of the sannin's head before he thrusts his knee into the flat of my blade, causing it to knock my chain off course and miss him entirely. He chuckles with glee before slamming his fist into my sternum, forcing me into a roll in a vain attempt to stop my momentum.

I barely get back to my feet before he's there with a foot aimed for my chin. My head flicks backwards instinctively while 3 of my chains shoot towards his torso; he sidesteps one, deflects another with his sword before catching the final one with his hand and tugging it towards him. My torso lurches towards him before his knee slams into my throat, throwing me backwards with so much intensity I begin to see stars.

Before I can recover from the attack, several snakes wrap around the rest of my chains, hoisting me in the air and allowing Orochimaru a perfect opportunity to attack me. His blade shoots forward, and I barely have enough time to open my inventory to swallow the blade before it skewers me.

My chains evaporate in an instant, and I take advantage of his surprise and my clearing vision by spinning around mid-air and opening my inventory back up to shoot his own blade towards him, snatching my own at the same time. Orochimaru quickly catches his sword, allowing the blade to slice deeply into his palm before I fall to the ground and launch a kick towards his legs. He quickly jumps backwards before reaching into his robe and grabbing a kunai; I give him a quizzical glance before he drops the Sword of Kusanagi and slices off his own hand with the newly procured tool. It quickly regenerates into a fleshy mound before sprouting five brand new fingers, which he uses to pick his blade back up.

"Because of the adrenaline in your body, I'm not sure you've noticed…" He swipes his blade through the air to get rid of his own blood staining it. "The Sword of Kusanagi injects poison into all those who are cut by it. I'm sure it's circulated through your system." As if on cue, I feel a river of blood part my lips, the crimson life fluid spraying across the invisible ground; next comes the tears, not salty as they should be, but copper tasting as blood seeps through every orifice on my face. "It was foolish to heal your injury, maybe you would've lived longer if you bled out instead." The look on his face isn't smug, nor is it filled with pity or any other emotion; it's just blank. "Tell me boy, what is your name?"

I vomit up another glob of blood, watching it pool around my knees. My teeth clench together as a grin settles on my face, "Shin. Shin Chinoike." Orochimaru's form stills as he suddenly whips around to face me. He barely dodges the 3 tendrils of blood launching towards him from my feet.

"You…" He growls. "You tricked me! You let me hit you!" A single bead of sweat runs down the side of his face as he grips tightly onto his legendary blade.

I scoff in response and stand to my feet, suppressing the pain in my body as the poison attacks my organs. "No, no I didn't." I sigh, stamping my foot onto the ground and infusing all of the blood around me with my chakra. "But I did tell you I'd kill you." Dozens of tendrils shoot towards Orochimaru at mach speeds; he deflects two, but one stabs through his sword arm while another stabs into his foot. The tendril stuck into his foot has its head shifted into a hook like form and tears away at his flesh.

Orochimaru howls in pain as his right foot is split in half, but has just enough willpower to ignore the pain and jump backwards, evading a large majority of the attacks before he falls over and one skewers him through the stomach. "Y-You don't have enough chakra to do that body replacement bullshit." I point out, remembering the attack that made Orochimaru near invulnerable from the anime. The shard growls in response while I begin to walk forward. "And I don't have enough chakra to purge this shit from my system. So come on, Orochimaru, let's end this." I reach into the air, and the blood caking my clothes slowly tears away from the fabric in the form of hundreds of droplets. They rotate and fly around my body until coalescing into a deep crimson blade, the handle fitting perfectly into my hand. "Your blade and mine, your will and mine."

"My will?" Orochimaru scoffs, slipping off the blood tendril with a loud squelch. "Don't be so dramatic Shin, you're merely fighting a fraction of my power."

'Observe'

Orochimaru (15%)

[Status: Greatly Injured]

Active title(s): Prodigy, Scientist

(35% to exp gain from all sources, Wisdom + 30)

Level: 176

Health: 3,978/47,360

Stamina: 2,896/55,000

Chakra: 1,697/150,000

Strength: 48

Vitality: 4

Chakra: 39

Luck: 27

Wisdom: 16 (46 with bonuses)

Charisma: 9

Points remaining: 0

'So his physical strength is the same as normal, but his vitality and chakra have been greatly reduced.' I sigh mentally and hold my blade out with one hand, standing side on as Orochimaru runs forward at a far slower speed than before. I meet him at a fraction of my own maximum, but not by choice.

Our blades meet in the middle with a loud crack; Orochimaru reels back, almost falling over as he pivots. I reach forward and quickly slash towards him, but the shard leans backwards to avoid the attack and brings up his foot for a crescent kick. I shove my forearm in the way of his shin and stab downwards, only for the clone to slither between my legs. His foot wraps around my body before I grab onto his foot and infuse my chakra into his blood, creating a spear of blood that sticks back into his leg.

The clone ries out in pain before pushing his chakra back into his leg to break my control; it gives me enough time to break the hold and twirl around with my blade, landing a shallow slash on his stomach. Orochimaru reels back in pain before flicking his sword towards me; I lock my blade with his, but the man instantly reels back and slashes again. I deflect the attack, stepping into his guard and stabbing towards his throat, only for his empty fist to meet my chin in an uppercut. My blade still manages to land a blow, slicing up his pale white face and through his eye. He growls in pain before I slam my forehead into his nose, the loud crack telling me it landed.

He reels back and my blood blade falls apart as my control falters. Orochimaru's empty hand flexes into a sign and my eyes widen. "Fire style…" His chest expands to unreal degrees and I reach my hand out for my own hand sign.

"Blood style: Jaw clamp!" Using the blood from his own nose, I clamp his jaw shut using an intricate array of crimson strings. Orochimaru's eyes widened as the fireball he was planning to release glowed in his throat. It doesn't take long for the pressure to be too much for his throat to handle as the glow brightens to blinding degrees.

Then he explodes.

The force of the explosion knocks me off my feet, giving me just barely enough time to see the clone's head roll through the air before I hit the ground. His body collapses over my legs, and I'm quick to kick it off and begin taking deep breaths. My head tilts to the side, and I can see Orochimaru's face staring at me in shock; the bottom part of his head is gone, leaving only half a row of shattered teeth attached to his charred top lip. "It was when I headbutted you." I announce. "Instead of reinforcing my bones with chakra, I made a screen of it on my head so I could infuse my chakra into your blood; your head is tough as hell, by the way." The clone rolls its eyes before they begin to flutter. "I won't be weak for long." It dissolves into a pile of white flesh before I feel the body at my feet meet a similar fate.

I feel the 'floor' under me tear away at itself, cracking into millions of shards that dissolve into the cool aether. My hands barely make their way in front of me so I can initiate my technique. "Medical ninjutsu…" The world falls apart around me and I can feel my body being dragged towards the opening I came through. "Limbo zone." Sho's technique, the one he made. It was one that took two dozen weeks to learn, and I was just barely scratching the surface. It ate up chakra like nobody's business, and could barely cover my entire body without fizzling into the air; which was to be expected by a medical space time ninjutsu.

Limbo zone works by stopping the flow of time in an area around the user (which includes their body); their injuries don't get any worse, but they also don't get any better. The only real positive of the technique is that it buys a few minutes of time for the user while they get medical attention; besides that it's just a chakra sink. Due to space time ninjutsu generally being incredibly unstable, it still allows the user to move their body and for blood to flow within. This means I'm no longer bleeding out, but the poison tearing its way through me is still chugging along.

It feels like an eternity before I return to my own body; blood spurts from both my eyes and ears the instant I do. I distantly hear Anko scream in fright before I hold up a shaky thumbs up and lean backwards, huffing loudly.

'This is going to be risky. So, so fucking risky.' My own chakra flows through my body, filling every ounce of my being with brimming life energy. 'Blood style…' My own mind screams at me that this is the most stupid thing anyone has ever done in history. Before I can even reconsider, I reach into my inventory and grab a bottle of blood pills. 'Purge.'

*Splash*

I can hear Anko violently sobbing as Guy and Kakashi's chakra signatures near. Liters of my own purple blood flow from my mouth, seeping into the dirt like midnight colored fertilizer; the flood continues for several more moments before I get light headed and flick off the cap to the pill bottle. A select few of the brown colored pills miss my mouth as I flick the top of the bottle towards my face, depositing 4 normal doses of the drug into my gullet.

"You idiot!" Kurama's voice echoed in my head and I began to feel a violent, bubbling force penetrating my skin. "You're lucky I'm here, otherwise you would've been dead no matter how many shit pills you ate!"

'So I'm guessing that means I'm going to live?' A wet chuckle escaped my throat, followed by another glob of tainted blood. 'Guess I didn't get all of it.'

"It'll be gone by sundown, just rest. Please."

'Oh what's this? Going all soft on–' I was unconscious before I could finish the response.