Shisui found himself racing toward training ground 44, his Yamanaka helper long since gone to complete his side of the mission. Houses blurred by the young shinobi, thoughts blitzing through his addled mind. To take the lives of not just the chunin hopefuls, but also their instructors and the proctors. It'd be unheard of as an order from the third, yet he had been made witness to the pools of blood that used to be surviving members of the council. And somehow, through it all, the Uchiha clan was still to be killed. A long sigh tore through his throat.
'At least it won't just be my clan,' he thought.
Those words were haunting, though. Every major clan in the village was now at the lack of mercy imparted by an aged Hokage. Shisui still didn't know if it was sensibility in the older man, or senility, but he wasn't going to question it. He knew deep down, if it came to a fight between himself and Danzo, he'd lose… and rather quickly, at that. A non-comforting thought, to be honest. Danzo kept his old age ripe and ready by using the powers of his fallen enemies, yet the third Hokage dealt with Danzo faster than Danzo could off himself, Shisui.
Truly, the third was a demon of his craft. All the power of the five main elements, plus their fusions into created bloodline limits. There wasn't a single thing a leaf nin could do against his Kage, and the thought forced a shiver down Shisui's spine.
'An absolute saint to his friends, yet what may as well be the Shinigami to his enemies,' Shisui spoke internally. 'Kami help us when the man truly snaps.'
Yet with those singular thoughts racing through the young man's mind, he soon found himself standing before the gates of the forest. Dark and ominous, full of century old trees and rather cannibalistic animals and insects, he couldn't help the shudder raising the hairs on his arms. To secure the area in the forest, kill the people inside, and turn it into a haven for young clan children, plus some potential civilian ninja kids. Hundreds, yet to be taken in the night and brought here by one man. An absolute travesty for the village, but he wasn't one to question orders, especially not from a man who could fold him in half without issue.
"And I'm not one to try being the first alive human pretzel," he mumbled.
With those parting words, he entered the dark forest by jumping over the barbed wire fence and landed in the first tree he saw.
[In the center Tower; Two Minutes after Shisui entered the forest]
"The second match between Setsuna Uchiha and Kuro Aburame, begin!"
Setsuna Uchiha, a rather short girl for her age, leapt at her opponent. Kuro Aburame, the prodigy of the clan outside his older brother, Torune. The second to use beetles toxic enough to burn holes through skin, yet his were a deep red. Cursed by the power of the Kyubi itself during the attack on the leaf, Kuro Aburame quickly became the most powerful child of his clan. Even being stronger than most of the adults, Kuro was recommended to take the genin exams four years early and graduated in the span of two months. Only being the age of six, the child had already faced down enemy nin, and even killed a nuke-nin who left their village as a jonin.
Born with a deep scarlet hair and burned skin, the boy was ruined by the potent Biju chakra that poisoned his mother. His eyes were a solid black, his vison all but gone after his birth. He could only see black figures in a white world, yet he used the pain he was brought to this world in as intimidation. However, through all of this, he still couldn't underestimate his opponent.
Setsuna Uchiha was the first of the clan to awaken the mangekyo at the age of eight. Born the daughter of a civilian and Uchiha Tekka, she was a bastard child. Ruined by her father's hubris to impregnate a random woman while on a mission, she was the least liked member of the clan outside her father. And somehow, he was still one of the most respected members. Why, because he killed her mother in front of her. Her most loved person, the best she ever knew in her life, cut down before her. Her mangekyo awakened then, but she wasn't strong enough to kill her father in revenge. She was still too weak, yet the arrival of her bloodline had her trained to near death by her father every day. She suffered repeatedly.
But those were thoughts for another day as she launched herself at her opponent. She led with a feint, a right hook to bleed into a swivel to the right and a kick toward the chest of Kuro. Not that her attack mattered. The boy simply dodged backward. She grit her teeth and tried to follow, but a cloud of red chakra overwhelmed her. It tried eating at her skin, to sear through her and melt her bones, but she used the first mangekyo ability she trained. A black fire coat of armor erupted outside her body and ate through the red chakra mist. The flames of Amaterasu, yet they couldn't move further than above her skin. Armor of the hottest, unrelenting flames in existence.
It made her near impossible to be hit by standard chakra attacks, and Kuro only huffed in annoyance. His empty eyes tracked Setsuna perfectly, relishing his own ability. He simply raised his right arm, cloaked by a coat of dark blue. His hands couldn't be seen, yet a swarm of crimson beetles tore through the air and rushed towards Setsuna. She stood still and let the beetles overwhelm her senses, yet none could even touch her. Even the mist they released had no effect, but she missed the smile on Kuro's face because of her apparent arrogance.
"Underestimating me," a cold voice whispered throughout the room, "Is a death sentence."
Before the other people in the room could begin to comprehend the sentence, the beetles around Setsuna began to envelope themselves in small spheres of dark purple. The boy's small grin only widened by an imperceptible amount, before he whispered a word no one could hear.
A deafening explosion tore through the earth and ripped the floor of the exam room apart. The crimson bugs had turned into mini-bijudamas, a move only the jonin could fathom because it reminded them of that day. Winds tore through the foundation of the building, yet it held firm against the onslaught. Through it all, no one heard the scream of agony that ripped through Setsuna's mouth as her armor of hell's flames did little to block the explosion.
As the smoke cleared, the girl was left standing in a rather large crater reaching the bottom of the walls. Her armor was nowhere to be seen and her skin was a dark red from the burns. Both of her eyes were closed, and she was breathing heavily as blood leaked from her mouth. She began to fall forward, her solid black shirt falling from her body before she hit the ground, if that is what reality saw. To everyone's disbelief, the girl simply vanished from sight as if she never existed. Their surprise turned into confusion as they heard a grunt of pain and a choked exclamation as she was seen ramming a black fire coated punch into the stomach of her opponent.
Kuro was blasted off his feet and flew without wings. His short flight ended when he impacted the side wall and nearly went through it. He found himself embedded in the wall as bloody coughs escaped his mouth. He could feel the impact in his bones as his beetles tried mending the damage. He was startled from his pain as Setsuna appeared before his body again and grabbed him by the face before pulling him free. With reckless ease, she tossed him toward the center of the arena and vanished again. Kuro was prepared this time, though, as the beetles under his skin became a sort of mech suit around his body. They slowly began combining into what looked like a wild fox with nine waving tails behind it.
The adults in the audience began whispering amongst themselves at the new development, but they never could've expected what happened next. Those mini-bijudamas he used previously began forming again, but they were building into a much larger sphere. As his opponent appeared before him, he launched the attack at her, but she was more than prepared this time. She caught the attack between two flaming palms and began trying to shrink it. All the while, her flames of Amaterasu began covering the sphere and combining with it. The dark purple slowly became a cool midnight with what seemed to be stars circling the inside.
Kuro could look on in horror as his own attack, the strongest he had, was shrinking and becoming something of a nightmare. Even the jonin in attendance couldn't believe their eyes.
Unbeknownst to them, this was Setsuna's third mangekyo ability when she combined the first two. The first being the fires of Amaterasu, but the second being a more powerful variant of Izanagi. She could negate all damage to herself by using her right eye's ability, Benzaiten. She could negate all damage done to her person and teleport to a new spot away from the place where she was last injured, but that's what she told everyone around her. In truth, the ability could understand what she was attacked with, copy the ability itself, then negate the damage and teleport her away subconsciously. Typically, it would place her right next to the individual she was hurt by.
And now she was combining the two powers into her third ability. Most Uchiha would get the Susano'o, but Setsuna wasn't so lucky. Instead, she got the ability to turn attacks into her own by fusing her powers with them. Hachiman, the ability to overwrite attacks and make them more powerful. As the bijudama shrunk until it was able to be held afloat over Setsuna's left hand, she used the pain from the assault to teleport before Kuro. Using his horror-stricken face as her only opportunity, she slammed the attack into his abdomen.
No one could foresee the coming intensity of the explosion. All the attendees were taken away by their jonin instructors and disappeared from the room. The second level above the arena was obliterated in the growing damage as the center of the tower evaporated. If anyone was left, they would have died instantly under the display of strength. Molten stone rained down from the incinerated ceiling, yet nothing could be said of Kuro or Setsuna as the blinding flash of white had yet to dissipate.
Instead, it kept growing. The walls followed the destruction of the building and collapsed outward. A scent of burning ozone was left in its wake as the tower itself seemed to crumble away during the blast. As the explosion finally ceased, nothing remained of the building. Soon, the attendees reappeared on the grounds where the building was last seen, and once the greyish smoke gave way, they all saw something strange. Only Setsuna remained standing in the middle of all the damage, but she was barely conscious. Her eyes were bleeding profusely, and her skin was flaking off. She almost looked dead, but that's where everyone stopped looking. Her clothes had seemingly survived yet were in tatters.
The jonin proctor walked over to her and was about to announce her as the victor as it looked like Kuro was erased from life, but his musings were halted. Kuro, the thought to be killed chunin hopeful, came falling from the sky and landed on his feet. He wasn't damaged in the slightest and only smirked as Setsuna fell backward, out cold. He looked at the proctor, waiting to be announced the victor, but before the man could raise his hand to announce it, cruel laughter enveloped all the people there.
The proctor, one Shiranui Genma, began looking for the source of the all too familiar voice. It made his skin crawl, as if he felt a tongue of sandpaper glide across his ears. The senbon in his mouth was slowly starting to deform under his intensity as he searched for the source of the laughter. He finally looked up toward a tree he hadn't yet seen, but that turned out to be a mistake. A firm, white hand planted itself against his stomach, and before he could look to see the person it belonged to, he was blasted backward by a high pressure of wind. He could barely feel his insides churn from the force as he tore through a few trees, then came to a stop under a canopy a mile away.
He coughed out a glob of blood and raised his right hand to feel around his chest for any damage, but his actions were cut short. With little time to react, he saw a giant snake striking down from above. He rolled to his feet and jumped away, but he couldn't stop the wince of pain. The snake penetrated the ground he was laying on, and as he turned to face it, another snake came surging from beneath to swallow him whole.
He released a quick wind jutsu from his pores and shredded the mouth of the reptile, then jumped away as its body slammed to the ground. He tried to release a breath, but a monumental wave of more snakes came surging from his right. He released a curse and began waving through a few hand signs.
Soon, he summoned a sea of senbon to meet the approaching snakes. Millions of snakes were pierced by the torrent of metal pins, yet he forgot to consider one thing. Though the snakes were summoned, they weren't poofing away. He muttered another curse as the tsunami of snakes buried him under their thousands of tons of weight. He tried clawing his way to stand atop them all, but he found himself listening to a hissing sound outside the sound of the snakes themselves. His brown eyes widened in alarm when every reptile around his person began to glow a bright white. Before he could react, they exploded. He felt the heat begin to burn through his body as he screamed in pain, but it was all for naught. The explosion didn't last long, but it did annihilate an entire square mile of the surrounding forest.
As he fell to the ground in a bloody heap, he could only look up to see the man who attacked him. Orochimaru of the Sennin slowly approached his dying person, a slow clap emanating from his scaly hands. An amused smirk played on the man's lips as his disgusting laughter ripped into Genma's ears. And as he slowly walked closer, Genma played to his arrogance.
He began weaving signs underneath his body, away from the snake-like eyes of his foe. Then, under his final breath, he let the jutsu descend upon his killer. Orochimaru looked up when he felt a shadow loom over his body, and he released a rather unfortunate laugh to Genma's last stand. He didn't even bother bringing out his big shields as he summoned one Rashamon to take the attack head on. Little did he know, it wasn't close to being enough. As he took his eyes off the falling dragon of pure senbon needles in the shape of a small dragon, Gemna, in his final second, laughed out a coup de grace of blood and spit.
Orochimaru didn't react, but he did feel his summoned gate get destroyed by the impact of the dragon. As he turned to look up again, he was swallowed instead. The metal of the needles stabbed through his body as they dug through the earth and took Orochimaru with it. It dug its way down the earth, making a beeline as far as its available charka would allow it. By the time it reached a mile down, Orochimaru wasn't prepared for the fallout of the chakra being used up. He was vastly ill prepared to have his skin get eviscerated by an explosion of billions of tiny needles. Even the earth a mile down couldn't withstand the power as chunks began erupting upwards in a volcano of metal. His own body was torn to pieces as he was carried to the surface and tore the world apart.
His explosion of snakes couldn't even come close to the damage as the same square mile of area was ripped asunder under the metal. And Orochimaru found himself littering the area in chunks of human life. Yet little did it matter in the end, as his real body morphed together from the remains of his snakes.
He could only smile knowingly at the result and think back on what his ex-sensei had told him.
[Two years ago; Hokage's Office]
He was standing before his sensei, looking down on random sheets of paper holding the names of chunin he could take on as an apprentice.
"You should take Shiranui Genma," Hiruzen said.
Orochimaru only hummed in response, then picked up the man's ninja sheet to review.
"He's the most powerful and most gifted in this selection," he continued, but still, Orochimaru still didn't respond, and it started to irk the aged kage. Here he was, trying to help his student find someone to impart his skills to, and he just wasn't bothering to reply. It was vexing.
Finally, his student opened his mouth to talk, but his attention was drawn to someone else.
"I pick the girl."
Hiruzen felt his jaw go slack. Not because Orochimaru picked someone different than him, but because he seriously thought his student was gay. To be fair, he did often skip on communication with female ninja. Perhaps he was misogynistic, but could you blame Hiruzen? Often, Hiruzen saw his student licking his lips when he saw a guy. Sure, he didn't know why he did, but Orochimaru acted much the same to men as Jiraiya did to women. Hiruzen himself didn't understand the desire of man on man, but he wouldn't keep his student from finding the one.
"May I ask why," the aged man replied.
His student seemed to contemplate his answer, but he picked up the paper with the girl's info. Anko Mitarashi. Horribly innocent and woefully inept at the ninja arts. A perfect candidate for his experiments, but he wasn't going to tell his sensei that. The other three boys were just too much. They wouldn't understand his need to understand the human body and how much it takes to change it. The girl, though, the girl would be perfect because she would follow and wouldn't question.
So Orochimaru replied, "The girl is perfect because she hasn't set herself up in a specific area, which means I can teach her what I want."
The Hokage seemed to accept this response, but he still wanted to know why Orochimaru couldn't do the same with the other three. He gave his student a look, and Orochimaru played along. Not like he had anything else to do.
"Genma Shiranui. His techniques don't follow the same path as my own. I have focused too much on transformation techniques and his abilities with metal need a sharper hand."
Hiruzen just nodded along and waved to him to continue.
"Raido Namiashi focuses too much on space-time ninjutsu. I have no interest in playing with that. The fourth..." Orochimaru spat that one out. He was still annoyed that the fourth was chosen over himself and look where the man was now. Hiruzen didn't even seem bothered by his student's dislike of Minato. Everyone knew Orochimaru hated the man, but even Orochimaru knew the man was more powerful than himself. "The fourth taught the three of them. They needed fine-tuned teachings, and they got it. Nothing needs to be said about Iwashi Tatami. His skill is high, but his durability is weak. He wouldn't last a second being taught by me. So, I choose the girl."
Hiruzen just hummed his approval at his student's words. He knew the young man was right, but he still chose to pull a fast one on him. An innocent joke.
"So, you're not gay?"
Orochimaru just released a steady breath and turned around. Before he could exit, he gave his parting words.
"Make sure the girl is ready by 0900 sharp tomorrow. I despise lateness."
Hiruzen just smirked.
[Present time]
He stood above the downed form of the person he could have chosen as an apprentice. Maybe he would have lasted longer than the Anko child. She did die on her first mission out of the village.
Orochimaru turned away from the dead jonin and began his walk back to what remained of the tower in the middle of the forest, but his meaningful steps were halted by a shift in the atmosphere. A simple kunai landed just before him, yet it wasn't what caused him to stop. He felt his vision begin to blur and he soon found himself disoriented. As if right and left became opposites, he found himself looking down at the sky and up at the ground. He just couldn't make heads or tails of the situation, so he closed his eyes to try and alleviate his sight, but he started to hear sounds opposite of what they should be like. High pitch birds became low pitch, and striking metal became sonic booms, yet those same explosions of sound became ear piercing shrieks.
He doubled over in agony as his ears began to bleed. Then the soft, sweet smell of the plants around his person started to waft the scent of month-old rotten cadavers. Nausea began to throb in his mind as he held back the need to vomit everywhere. He tried bringing his hands to halt what could have been a genjutsu, but he found them missing from his arms. He brought his gaze upward to find the source, but he felt something sharp glance across his eyes and steal his vision. He let out a hiss of pain, but it didn't end there. His mind lost the ability to feel, as if his nerves were ripped out from beneath his skin.
He soon found his ability to even breathe get cauterized by the sudden weight of reality quadrupling around himself. As if Kami was slowly squeezing him into a horrible human pancake, he tried using his snake substitution jutsu to escape, but he found himself unable to even move from his current slouched position. As he struggled to look up again, something heavy and metallic feeling slammed onto the back of his head, forcing him to not only look down, but to also taste the earth as his face met it in a rather forced kiss.
Only once had he ever felt so helpless, but he would persevere. Whoever his assailant was, they'd meet a most unpleasant end for this humiliation. He began to flex his power and found the things holding him down currently breaking under his chakra pressure. As he slowly lifted himself from the ground, snakes bled from the stumps where his hands were and became new hands. He felt his skull repair itself as he stood to his full height and gazed upon a backpedaling man.
"You made a grave mistake, child," Orochimaru said through gnashing teeth.
His voice carried a stupendous weight as even the trees around his person tasted the very threat his aura created. He was in no mood to be merciful now. Without even bothering to identify the man before him, he blitzed ahead. Intending to take the man's head off, he wasn't prepared for another kunai to piece the ground in front of himself, nor was he ready to see the world upend itself. He cursed his forward thinking as reality once again twisted itself into a pretzel, but this time he felt weightless. Like gravity ceased to exist, he found his feet leaving the ground as he floated upward.
Thinking back on it, perhaps he should have identified the man. Perhaps it would have helped in this situation. His weightlessness shifted into a feeling of horror as a small blackhole formed inside his stomach. He started to implode, watching as his skin furled in on itself and was sucked into the inky black void. He grit his teeth and flared his chakra again. The void collapsed and he regenerated his insides before falling to the ground.
"Space time ninjutsu," Orochimaru spoke. "You must be Raido."
Said target of his speech barely twitched at the mention of his name before he teleported to the kunai below Orochimaru and slammed his palms into the man's knees. He felt himself fall forward as the bottom half of his legs inverted. He then felt the world shift again as his upper body was torn from his lower. The fear in his eyes could be seen for miles around as Raido held both halves of him and set them on fire with a burst of fire chakra. Said fire burned blue on his hands and turned Orochimaru's halves to ash in mere seconds.
Thinking the battle over, Raido began his rush to see if Genma survived, but he felt a long blade tear through his heart as another Orochimaru stood behind him, the sword of Kusanagi held stiffly. Raido released a cold rush of blood from his mouth as he spoke.
"But… but how? I felt you die."
Orochimaru just chuckled and slowly ran the blade upward, bifurcating Raido and watching as his upper body fell both left and right, but still attached to his lower. He then kicked the body forward and turned around. Two down. His count ended horrifically when he felt every cell in his body split. He could feel the pain of knives tracing down his skin and split the organ before turning his inner organs into a charcuterie board of bone and blood.
He couldn't fathom the power of the jutsu tearing apart his insides, let alone begin to understand where it came from. He just stood in disbelief as his eyes mist over in death. He only saw a man in regular leaf jonin attire with a brown-haired goatee run past him toward the dead Raido. As he began falling forward in death, he again reformed from pieces of snake around his person. Another couple deaths and he might not live to escape the hellhole around him.
It did seem the jonin crouching above his dead comrade hadn't noticed his return to life, so he ran forward, well beyond the speed of lightning, and flashed into existence behind him. Unfortunately, he was still too slow. Once again, he found himself in excruciating pain and under the same knife-slicing discomfort as before. Before he could utter a sound, he heard the jutsu name and then realized who he was against.
"Wind release: Meal of Kami."
"You…" Orochimaru started, but blood pulled inside his mouth, and he spat it at the crouching jonin before continuing. "You… Iwashi Tatami."
The revealed Iwashi didn't bother replying as he spoke another jutsu.
"Fire release: Kami's Furnace."
Orochimaru felt it then. An invisible fire under his skin began to burn him, but he couldn't see it. He couldn't even hear as the flames licked his body and turned his skin grey. He couldn't fathom the ability as he felt himself dying without taking damage. He just opened his mouth in a silent scream as Iwashi explained the technique, but only because he believed Orochimaru would die after.
"Kami's Furnace… it burns your soul away," he paused while staring at his dead friend and the pieces of his other. "It decays your mind and tears your soul away from the land of the dead. It makes it so you can never exist again."
Orochimaru's eyes widened in alarm, but it was too late. With a final exhale, he died on his feet, looking down upon the crouched man. As Iwashi stood up to gaze down at the dead missing nin, his eyes alerted him to a rapidly approaching snake, but he couldn't track it this time. It had to be five times the speed of lightning and he could only brace for impact. As soon as the snake neared him, the man he killed burst from its mouth and reared back a punch aimed at his midsection.
He could only look in sheer shock as the fist plowed into his stomach and bent him around the arm itself. A burst of blood tore itself from his throat as he bit back a scream, feeling his organs by his stomach burst apart. The attack didn't stop there, though, as he was launched backward through the empty clearing before tearing through century old tree trunks and toppling them over. One, two, then five and ten trees, the man felt his body take an extreme amount of damage as his skin and bones were broken apart. But he wasn't a leaf ninja for nothing as he felt himself slide to a half and he stood up, albeit slowly. He coughed again to clear his throat and begin a new jutsu, but he was halted immediately when Orochimaru appeared before him and knifed his right arm downward on Iwashi's left shoulder.
The impact was intense, and he felt more than heard himself scream in pure pain and his left arm and shoulder were ripped from his body by the sharp impact. He held firm, though, and completed his last set of hand signs with his right hand.
"Thunder release: Kami's Final Command," he managed to spit out, but only just.
He felt the life leave his eyes as Orochimaru stared him down, then grabbed him by the head and lifted upward in brutal fashion, tearing his head away from his neck. But he died smiling as he heard the sonic roar of thunder above the two of them. Orochimaru was distracted, however, since he had to revive himself again. He was running low on his revival ability and had to end it soon before going after those Sharingan eyes. His distraction ended abruptly when he felt the sky ram upon his body with thunderous force. The forest shook and the earth groaned around him as he died in just half a second.
Like the atmosphere was annoyed by his living, he flatlined under the strain and didn't have enough time to revive himself. An impact slammed into the earth and left a five-hundred-foot-wide imprint of a fist on the earth. Kami's Final Command, a jutsu that brought a god's divine wrath upon its foe. The figurative hand of Kami using the thunder after a burst of lightning, yet it was so much more. It was pure divinity and sound. It was beauty incarnate as the world shuddered under Kami's hot breath and cruel voice. And though you were killed instantly by the jutsu, you felt ten years' worth of the worst pain imaginable as it hits you.
Orochimaru, though, substituted with Raido's broken and discarded body at the last second, but he didn't get out scot-free. Even if you escaped, if you were the intended target, the pain never left your body. In just that half second, he felt all of it and he was trapped in a state of shock and inner torment. And in his stasis, he died and revived three more times. Even as the weakest member of the Hokage's guard, it didn't mean he was weak. He was just slower than the other two, and way less durable. It also took him too much time to set up his jutsu because he had to speak them and do every hand-seal. Genma only had to do a couple, and Raido didn't have to do any.
Yet they all died at the hands of Orochimaru, and as the man revived again, now with only a few dozen lives to burn, he was panting, and more than sixty percent depleted of chakra. But it was over, and he was more than happy about it.
He started to run toward the center again and picked up his fallen sword. It took all of five seconds for him to make it back and only ten minutes of fighting the three jonin, but he was there… in an empty clearing. Or what he thought was empty. He simply muttered a smooth 'kai' under his breath to release the weak genjutsu and found himself staring at what would be multiple jonin, but only sees two kids. The Uchiha girl he was after, but also a boy shielding her from him. The other kids and adults were dead around the boy.
Orochimaru just stared at the boy in front of himself. He wasn't moving away, nor did he seem scared of his oppressive aura. Even down more than half of his reserves, Orochimaru was far from weak. And he was now tired of holding back to keep people from rushing toward the forest itself. Little did he know, though, that his ex-sensei sealed the perimeter and made it so no one could feel anything from the forest.
The boy, whose files had his name as Kuro, Orochimaru remembered, simply gazed at the missing nin without fear.
"Ah, that's right," Orochimaru began. "You're the blind child."
Said child didn't bat an eye. In fact, he didn't care at all. He just simply replied.
"Yes, and now I don't have to hold back."
Orochimaru just laughed. A real laugh. An unnerving laugh, but it didn't even faze the child. He just shrugged it off and started gathering chakra around himself.
Orochimaru just tilted an eyebrow his way and waited to see what would happen. He didn't expect the sudden rise in power to exceed his remaining reserves, nor the absolute certain death the new swarm of dark purple beetles erupting from every cell of nature created. He could only laugh nervously as they all converged on the boy and covered him from head to toe. He just stared on as where the boy once stood became a towering rhino beetle of ugly dark purple radiating enough power to wilt the nature around himself.
Orochimaru decided then to match the towering insect and summon something of his own to match its size. His boss snake Manda, the Biju devouring snake. He didn't even bother waiting for the beetle to attack before motioning Manda forward. At least he would have if the beetle was still in front of him and not behind him, and if the afterimage it created didn't explode with the power of a true bijudama. Orochimaru could only brace for the light by sinking into Manda's flesh. The poor snake, however, tried to sink into the ground to escape the blast radius. It managed to, of course, but the ground it was hiding in ceased to exist as it was atomized. Manda didn't have time to blink before he was killed, but Orochimaru flashed onto the bottom of the crater from his summons' dimension.
He looked on in awe at the absolute devastation caused by the giant beetle, but he didn't have time to react as another beetle bijudama flew his way. The man ran his right palm along his blood, which he upchucked, and painted seals along its surface. Already, the Kusanagi could cut through everything without stopping, but it could now absorb power and turn that power into chakra Orochimaru could use, much like one of the old seven swordsman.
With casual ease, Orochimaru cut through the approaching sphere of malicious chakra and absorbed it into his body. It only filled an empty twenty percent, so he knew he could win against the child. What he wasn't anticipating was the beetle vanishing in a puff of smoke and the child, once inside, tearing his arm holding his sword off and tossing it away. Orochimaru just blinked at the turn of events and turned towards the child, but his current musings were cut too short. The girl who used to be in the crater was now standing before him, black flames wreathing her body in an ominous show of prodigious talent.
'Oh,' Orochimaru thought. 'That's where the power of the beetle bijudama went.'
He was interrupted by a flaming fist grazing his cheek as he dodged, but his cheek melted all the way to the bone anyway. He grit his teeth in annoyance and regenerated his lost arm.
"You two are starting to annoy me," he said.
To his eternal displeasure, neither child said a word in response. They just continued staring at him. One could launch bijudamas and the other could negate and absorb attacks. He felt a horrible sensation run down his mind as he considered the two brats. On one hand, their abilities would make fine hosts to his newly made jutsu, but on the other hand, they would probably have to die.
His thoughts were again ruined when a dark purple beetle landed on his arm and exploded, rending it useless and hanging limp by his side. The arm he just regrew… gone again. He just clicked his tongue and readied himself in a stance.
The two demon brats charged him with full malicious intent, but he was prepared. The girl ducked under his halfhearted swing and rammed a fire fist onto the left side of his chest. He felt the bones shift and cave in, but he grunted through the pain and watched as the boy sent a black beetle hurtling towards him. He laughed through a small bit of pain and dragged the girl into the path of the beetle, but the boy prepared for that. The beetle abruptly vanished and appeared behind Orochimaru. He just jumped over the oncoming insect, but he wasn't fast enough to dodge it completely. His legs were ripped from his pelvis as blood pooled upon the girl. The blood turned into snakes, though, and those same snakes extended in length and began tightening around her. They somehow persisted through the fires of Amaterasu, and she let out a shriek of pain as she felt her bones begin to bend, but her pain activated her eyes, and she teleported above Orochimaru's currently suspended body.
He noticed with displeasure that she appeared to be fine, but more blackened blood was pouring from her eyes. She was also struggling to keep track of his body, it seemed, as she missed her next punch wide and soared downward. The connection with her fist on the ground resulted in a Tsunade-esque impact as dirt and rocks blew upward. Orochimaru just twisted around, ready to kill the girl, but the boy intercepted his next attack by catching him in a fist of black beetles. Orochimaru still didn't know what these ones could do, so he substituted himself with a log. Not a moment too soon as the log was instantly turned to ash in the hold.
Landing in a heap away from the children, he reevaluated his current strategy. Though it seemed the girl was getting tired again, the boy was still standing with no signs of wear. He sheathed his Kusanagi and began to pull a new sword from his mouth. The Myoho Muramasa, a mythical blade rivaling his last. Though it couldn't cut, it could block every attack and reflect the damage on the sender by twice the amount they used. Orochimaru felt he might need this one. To his surprise, the boy finally reacted to something. He began to step back as if he felt the intent of the blade, and now Orochimaru had to wonder if the boy could take one of his own attacks head on. He tested that question quickly when he blitzed the startled child and swung at him. A dark purple beetle exploded against the blade, this one the size of his head. Orochimaru just grinned wickedly and sliced down at the child.
The boy tried to move away, but it seemed like the blade was controlling Orochimaru, as the man predicted his movements with a perfect counter. It couldn't cut, but that didn't mean it wouldn't hurt. As he felt the blade press against his right arm, an explosion overtook him, and he was sent careening through a few dozen trees. Orochimaru then felt a hot rush of air behind him and let the sword take hold. With the ease of a snake, he slid around the approaching girl and rammed the tip of the blade into her spine. It wasn't a piercing blow, but the force behind it sent the girl sprawling through the air to land in a heap next to the boy struggling to stand.
He saw the girl lean toward the boy and start whispering to him. Though Orochimaru could predict what people said by reading their lips, they had a pretty good idea by having the boy block his view with a few more black beetles. Finally, the girl stood up and he saw the black beetles begin to envelop her person. He knew firsthand what those bugs could do, so he could only watch on curiously, waiting to see what would transpire. He was pleasantly surprised when those beetles began feeding the flames of the girl to the point the black fire seemed to disappear from his sight. He didn't understand at first what that meant, but he could feel the heat even more now than he could before.
He saw the boy collapse under his own weight and was about to attack him, but the girl was in front of him with a blank look in her eyes and her fist drawn back again. Her eyes, though, seemed to have changed drastically. The black lines of the mangekyo were replaced with white, as if they followed the same change as the fire around her. He also felt the skin around his face melt even further. As he began to move back to get out of the girl's range, he barely caught the flash of her power and burst of speed from her fist. Muramasa reacted for him, however, and planted itself between the two.
He could only look on in astonishment as cracks formed on the blade before her hand broke through. He wasn't about to be hit, however. A detonation of white blinded the girl and himself, the sudden explosion coming the reflected power of his ex-sword. Orochimaru found his body reduced to ash immediately as the girl was sent the way she came, but the boy caught her. They both still ended up tumbling backwards for their troubles. The dark purple beetles shielding him did a lot to negate the invisible flames, but he still found himself burned.
As they both settled into a laying position, the boy quickly got up, though slowly and painfully, and pulled the girl up. He had to get her away, but then her body lit up again subconsciously with black fire and he quickly released his hold on her. Her eyes opened, but she could barely see.
"Come on, Setsuna," the boy grunted out through drops of blood staining his teeth, "We have to leave before he comes back."
Setsuna just stares toward him, barely able to see him through the blur of blindness fading her vision.
"Ku…" She doubled over and puked out a large amount of blood and whatever else her stomach had in it. "Kuro," she managed to spit out.
"I'm here, Setsuna. We need to leave."
As he pulled her upward again, through her active fire armor, they both heard a cruel laugh tear itself through their daze and skin them alive with nightmares through just illusions made by the killing intent.
"Well, children, it's been fun playing," he said. "I'm afraid I have to stop holding back now."
They tried to respond, but they were unprepared by having Orochimaru appear before them. They were just too tired to react. Not once did Orochimaru expect his recent leaf adventure to turn out this way, but in the end, it didn't matter. His fingertips ignited in the glow of an all too familiar kinjutsu as he grabbed both of their faces and lifted upward.
"Five Element Seal."
His tone was bored, as if this event was a typical Monday affair. He received a great amount of satisfaction as the children both screamed in anguish as their chakra was destabilized and sealed off. The boy's cloak of bugs fell lifelessly to the ground and his full black eyes became normal black irises surrounded by white sclera. His body went limp in his hold the same time as the girl's mangekyo disappeared and was replaced by the same color eyes as the boy. Black blood even poured from them as the flames died and she went limp, too.
Through it all, Orochimaru released the boy and started reaching for the girl's eyes. He didn't even want her body as a host anymore. He was tired from the day and just wanted to leave, so he began trying to take her eyes. He was about to take her right eye fully before a small tanto tore through his arms and separated him from the girl.
His eyes widened in rage, and he turned toward the suspect. One Shisui Uchiha had arrived in time to save his target.
"You…" Orochimaru began, but he was stopped from continuing by an annoyingly cheerful reply.
"Me!"
"Uchiha Shisui. I don't have time to deal with you."
"That's too bad, as I have a role to finish."
Orochimaru scoffed in return.
"I won't be here for you to finish that role. I've already gone."
Yet Shisui didn't take the words at heart. He'd already overlayed twenty-five genjutsu on Orochimaru's eyes, halting the man from leaving. However, Orochimaru saw himself dying repeatedly in the illusions and his anger was steadily rising, and so was his power. As the last illusion faded away, he saw Shisui had already taken the children further into the forest and returned to fight.
Orochimaru, already exhausted mentally from the last few fights, had had enough. He was done with the tree and its nuisance leaves. His power exploded malevolent purple chakra from his body as his skin began to turn into scales. He was becoming one with nature as his legs transformed into the tail of a snake. Horns grew from his forehead as his eyes took on the pigment of a snakes.
Shisui began to understand the plight he was in when he couldn't sense the man in front of himself. He just vanished completely.
Orochimaru opened his mouth, then, and a chill waterfalled down Shisui's spine.
"I'm done with this village. You're all going to die now!"
Shisui had little time to respond as the snake man blitzed to his side and unleashed an unholy haymaker across his face, but he dodged deftly backward. Somehow, though, he was still hit by an unseen force as he was sent hurtling backward and through a few tree branches. He righted himself in the air and flew through several hand-seals.
"Fire release: Serpent of Hell!"
A deep orange serpent of flames was breathed to life from Shisui's mouth and descended on the snake form of Orochimaru, yet the man just burst through the flame and stopped above Shisui's form. As his serpent of fire incinerated the forest beneath the two, Orochimaru slammed his hands, balled into one fist, over Shisui's back. The younger man was sent downward at blinding speeds as he cratered the forest floor and blew the flames away from the resulting winds. He didn't even have time to gather his wits as his sharingan told him to move and move now. As soon as he sent himself flipping to the side, the snake man slammed tail first into the ground and added a new crater to the bottom of the crater Shisui's body made.
Shisui felt a bead of sweat form on his forehead as he took in the man. He still couldn't sense his power, yet it didn't stop him from attacking. Ninja wire came to life around the snake and bound him to the one in Shisui's left hand. He then formed two hand signs and sent black lightning down the wire before lighting his opponent up. Unfortunately, Orochimaru didn't even howl in pain. He just stood there, smirk dancing playfully on his lips as he shrugged off the attack. Shisui felt cold under the imposing look, and he let the wires go when he felt them pull against him.
Not a moment too soon as Orochimaru was there in front of the place he was, fists outstretched as a gust of wind sent armageddon through the forest and destroyed trees and the ground as far as his eyes could see. It even parted some of the clouds overhead. He just couldn't believe the power output. It was unheard of, and he wasn't given time to comprehend it as he had to dodge another assault on his person. He barely had time to blink as even his three tomoe eyes nearly failed to track the movement. He dodged to the left as another gauge was ripped through the sky and ground, then jumped over a sweeping tail that uprooted even more trees, then had to teleport away when an ungodly wind slammed down from above and rent the ground asunder. He appeared again behind Orochimaru and swung with his recently reacquired tanto, but he was blocked when his tanto couldn't even pierce Orochimaru's skin. The man just took it head on to prove a point.
Shisui just jumped back and prepared to go all out, but he was interrupted by a kick to the side of his chest.
'A kick?' He questioned. 'When did he transform again?'
He was answered at the same time as Orochimaru's left foot began to press onto Shisui's ribs. The man felt his bones creak and groan under the pressure before he was blasted away at supersonic speed.
"You could see my movements with the tail. You can't see them now."
Of course, Shisui heard none of it as the sounds of tree trunks being shattered was all he heard and felt. He was in agony after the third as he slid to a halt, but not before impacting and going through the ground, then outside the ground again. He lay there in pain, questions rattling through his brain while he subconsciously activated his mangekyo and prepared for a new fight. Orochimaru appeared before his prone body and prepared to slam his feet down, but he was blasted backwards by the sudden appearance of an orange skeleton of chakra bigger than Manda. He just stared in wonder at it as sinew began weaving around the bones until it became more humanoid, then grew plated armor around itself. Orochimaru's snake-like eyes stared into the four-pointed stars of Shisui's as he finally understood the power-up. The Susuno'o, an ability most Uchiha didn't possess, even with their own mangekyo.
Orochimaru licked his scaled lips as he held the thing before him. He knew his own fight had just gotten harder. Not only had the brat seen him coming, but he'd also reacted to it. He just held his gaze firmly on the boy before him, ready to pounce at a moment's notice. A moment's notice he didn't have, though. Unbeknownst to him, Shisui activated his third mangekyo ability, something no one knew he had. Ama-no-Uzume. The power to make someone believe one thing is happening whilst something else is happening. Orochimaru had no time to think as he was skewered from behind. His yellow eyes widened in shock as blood spewed from his mouth. He was ready for any attack, and he hadn't sensed anything coming, but he was still hit. However, his own subconscious ability activated, and his body morphed around the blade as he slid off, no damage to be seen on his person. Shisui's own eyes held all of this, but he didn't hesitate to continue his attacks.
More and more, Orochimaru's body was stabbed, but he still slid off the attacks as he ran toward the towering suit of armor around his opponent. Shisui just blew off the approach until Orochimaru sank below the ground in his advance. The younger man didn't have time to react as his opponent appeared behind him, inside his spectral shield, and beheaded him. It was not to be, however, as Orochimaru found himself once again run through by no less than fifty thin spectral swords. And in this instance, he was back to the spot he was previously at as he looked at the spectral armor. Thinking quickly, he summoned multiple clones of himself to attack the boy, but he watched as they all died as soon as they were summoned.
Instead, Orochimaru began preparing for his strongest sage jutsu, something no one could prepare for. He summoned hundreds more clones and had them change the properties of the environment around the two. Just as Shisui killed them all, he was unprepared for the ground to merge into one giant snake ready to swallow him whole. He tried in vain to use his ability to kill the snake, but he couldn't kill an unalive animated object. His Susano'o found itself in the belly of the earth and he began assaulting it more and more. Even as his vision blurred and his power wavered, even as his eyes bled and his chakra rapidly depleted, he pushed on until the earth around him crumbled and he fell to his knees in exhaustion, left hand covering his left eye, but Susano'o still up. However, it was only its skeletal form now.
Orochimaru smiled as his justu was finished, and he sent it toward Shisui. A sound-based attack, that couldn't be tracked, tore through Shisui's chakra armor and discombobulated the man. He screamed in pain as his armor wavered, then dissipated. It was all Orochimaru needed as he burst forward, intending to kill the man. He found his path blocked by someone with a half-dark blue mask covering the top of his head and hands of a slight purple aimed at his face. Orochimaru, surprised by the presence even through his precognition, couldn't halt his momentum as the hands of the man grabbed his face and began decaying his skin with the help of purple beetles flowing from his hands. He didn't stop his assault, though, as he grabbed both shoulders of the man and pulled apart as hard as he could.
He received only a small grunt in response as he ripped the man in half and carried on toward his foe. Shisui could only look up as Torune was quickly ended and Orochimaru took shape before him. He could only smile softly as Orochimaru's hand tore through his neck and lifted him above the ground, then tossed him aside as his sage mode ended. Orochimaru finally released a heavy sigh, but his tiring affair was cruelly interrupted again as a shout rang through the air.
"SHISUI!"
Orochimaru barely had time to turn before he was unceremoniously launched through the air by a blur of black. He landed roughly a few hundred yards away and struggled to stand up amidst his own exhaustion. Another Uchiha landed next to the dying form of Uchiha Shisui. The new arrival had one line of stress down each cheek from the bridge of his nose to the end of his eyes on either side. He was currently crying as he beheld the form of his dying friend, but Orochimaru was too distracted by trying to recover from his near depleted reserves. So, he stood back and started gathering more natural energy to finally finish off his seemingly last opponent.
Itachi crouched above his friend and began to pick him up, but Shisui stopped him. He held his hands up and kept Itachi's at bay.
"It's okay, Itachi. It's okay."
But Itachi wasn't listening. His eyes were closed as blood slowly started to leak from them. So Shisui continued.
"It's alright, Itachi. I weakened…" He coughed out an egregious amount of blood, but he kept on through a smile. "I weakened him for you. You can do it, brother."
Itachi finally looked at him in surprise.
"It's up to you now, Itachi. You can do it."
But Itachi was having none of it. He just forced Shisui's arms down and cradled him, red tears pooling on Shisui's chest, mixing with the dying boy's own.
"I can't, Shisui," he muttered. "Not without you. Not without you."
Shisui just smiled through the pain and replied even as he felt his life leaving him.
"You can do it, Itachi. I believe in you."
Itachi just shook his head, bloody tears flinging left and right.
"I can't be alone, Shisui. I can't lose you."
"You won't be alone, Itachi. You still have Sasuke," Shisui choked out. He could feel his eyes slowly closing, so he brought a hand up shakily and made Itachi look at him.
"Kotoamatsukami."
Itachi's eyes widened as he blurt out, "Tsukuyomi."
A few seconds go by as the two stare into one another's eyes, and it gives Orochimaru more than enough time to add twenty percent to his near empty chakra reserves. Before he can even attempt to attack Itachi, the boy slowly releases his friend and stands up.
"I will, Shisui. I will."
Orochimaru, not one to be left out of a conversation, replies.
"You will what? Die like the rest of them?"
He laughs cruelly as he beholds Itachi's charcoal eyes, but his laughter ends when those eyes become a three-pointed fuma shuriken. Instead, he falls back and marvels at the will to carry on the fight the young child has. He'd already lost most of the people around him, and he seemed broken when he arrived at the end of the battle. Yet now he stood firm, blood streaks flowing from his eyes. Then, to Orochimaru's growing nervousness, those same eyes evolve again. The three-pointed shuriken design becomes hollow instead of all black. He can feel the power radiating from the gaze as he takes a step back in what feels like fear. He then softly scolds himself because, no matter what, the person in front of him is still a kid.
Yet he hesitates to attack. The absolute resolve to win pushes him backward as his gaze can't seem to leave the child's. Instead, he steels his own resolve and jumps forward to attack the boy. He gets within his reach and aims a wind coated hand at his jugular, but his attack is bat aside as the boy stabs two fingers onto his stomach. Orochimaru nearly laughs at the weak attack until he hears the boy mutter.
"Amaterasu: Pierce."
Orochimaru's eyes widen until only yellow pupils can be seen. The attack fires off a long line of black fire from Itachi's fingertips that lights up the world with the flame. Just one thin line that travels diagonally through the air and through the sky above for many miles, then stops on the barrier fifty miles away. Orochimaru doubles over the two fingers and ejects spittle and blood from his mouth, then he tries to backpedal from the boy again. Before he can even move, Itachi stabs two more fingers downward onto Orochimaru's right shoulder and again mutters.
"Amaterasu: Slow Pierce."
Orochimaru has no time to think before a long line of flames burns slowly down his shoulder and through his body. He can only scream as his sage mode disappears through the agony. He can feel the fire torch his insides as it travels through his lung, liver, colon, appendix, and finally begin its trek down his femur. Ash was left in its wake inside his body as he could only silently scream from the pain. Down it went until it began piercing through the earth itself for a few hundred miles. It was only as thick as a senbon, but it mattered little when it incinerated everything in front of it, or below. Orochimaru finally felt the flames leave his body, but he couldn't move. He was lucky to even be alive, but it wasn't going to be for long.
He gazed into the eyes of the child before him, then finally spoke something he never dreamt of before.
"Finish it."
His voice came out hoarse and broken. He felt dead long before he ever met Kami itself, and his will to survive had long since been burnt away. He just couldn't live anymore through the pain and fights he'd had.
"Please, finish it," he muttered softly.
Itachi just snapped the fingers on his right hand, and Orochimaru felt nothing as his entire body lit up in the black flames. Unfortunately, Itachi wasn't feeling merciful. Orochimaru knew it then, even if he was at full power, he'd have stood no chance against the child. He just closed his eyes and let the flames burn his body away. He still heard another two pairs of feet land beside him and heard the voices confer with one another, but his soul was long gone by then. He just couldn't bother to live anymore. Orochimaru of the Sennin, the man who became the strongest of the third Hokage's students, passed away to the hell fire of a thirteen-year-old child.
Itachi looked up as Kinoe and Kakashi landed beside himself. They both looked at the dead form of Shisui, and then toward Itachi. They understood, more than anyone, what losing family was like. They just assisted in burying the boy as Kinoe rebuilt the center tower with his wood release.
Once it was done, Kinoe tracked down the two wayward children just in time for Fuu to appear beside the three, clearly exhausted and doubled over to gasp in a few breaths.
He then gathered his wits and spoke four haunting words, "We have a problem."
