Naruto x Digimon

Alive - Team Minato's Digidestined

Chapter 047.2

Originally Written: Thursday, March 30, 2023 735AM to 945AM

. . . . .

Kiisu returned with Jiraiya in ten minutes as he said. Jiraiya looked at them. He clenched his fists by his sides as he noticed Orochimaru. A deep scowl marred his face. "No…not him…"

"You can sit with him, but don't move him from the seal just yet." Rin kneeled next to Orochimaru, keeping watch of his health. Orochimaru was hooked up to a few machines to monitor his heart and breathing.

Jiriaya immediately stepped over and kneeled. He laid Orochimaru's head in his lap. He carded his fingers through his teammates' hair. "How bad?"

"It detected us, and made him throw up until he damaged his digestive system. Realized we weren't having any of that and decided to stop his heart once or twice." Rin almost sang. "Pain in the butt."

Jiriaya bowed his head, shoulders shaking.

Obito let her speak. She'd reveal all Jiraiya wanted to know better than he could.

They started around midnight. Orochimaru stirred around six in the morning. No one left the room the entire night. Orochimaru lifted a hand as though he was seeing himself for the first time in a very long time.

"Morning." Jiraiya murmured.

"Jiraiya…?" Orochimaru pushed Jiriaya's chest like he used to when they were younger and Jiriaya was being annoying. There was no strength to the shove. He couldn't exert any. He stared at his hand. Memories flowed through his mind. His breath caught in his throat, "...What have I…? What?"

"Know the feeling." Kiisu murmured. He was seated on the floor with his back to the wall next to Lunamon, reading a scroll. "It'll come back to you."

"I don't think I want it to…" He whispered, trembling. "What am I doing here?" His voice rasped, rattling his throat and chest.

"Know that feeling too."

Tears splattered against his cheeks. He looked up at Jiraiya.

"I'm so fucking blind." Jiraiya lips were twisted in a mix of a scowl and a frown. Tears streamed down his face. "I'm the fucking seal master. I should have fucking noticed!"

"None of that." Obito snapped. "You promised you wouldn't. Everyone here can do the 'Shoulda, would, coulda' and the 'What have I done?' drama thing later." Obito walked over to them. "Right now though, we need to get information, and he needs to rest."

Orochimaru looked at him, vaguely aware that he was the one who operated on Obito's legs, allowing him to stand again. "How are…?"

Obito knelt next to him and Jiraiya. "Do you remember why you came to Rin and I?"

He narrowed his eyes in confusion. "...A seal?"

"We couldn't remove yours, but we were able to contain it. Right now, we need a picture of your tongue, so we can take down who put it there." Rin said

"It's okay. We know. It won't hurt you now."

Orochimaru looked at him as though he grew a second head. He turned his head and looked at Rin. He shook his head.

"Don't look at us like that. You were born in Konoha. You wear her headband. You put your life on the line for her, even though no one told you that's what you were signing up for. You're one of her citizens. And I'm 'The People's Sharingan.' This is what I do." Obito grinned when Orochimaru looked at him. "If that doesn't work for you…" He rose back to standing, ran towards the nearest wall, ran up it a little and did a backflip off of it. He landed on his feet, turned around and held out his arms.

"I owe you more than words can say. I don't know why you did, but you gave me something I thought I'd never get back. So I'm getting you something you thought you never would have again either. Enjoy your freedom you bastard." He grinned.

Obito seemed to tower over him. At least it felt like he did. It reminded Orochimaru of the way Danzo would stand when meeting with him in private. The way his sensei Hiruzen Sarutobi would look at him, unsure whether to judge or to praise him. The heart monitor beeped faster as Orochimaru contemplated the entire situation he was currently in. Jiriaya placed a cool hand on his forehead. Orochimaru looked at him. Jiriaya nodded.

"He's just as bad as that angry Uzumaki child you ditched Tsunade and I to train in Ame, Jiraiya." Orochimaru commented.

Obito just beamed in response. When he was younger, he would have been heavily insulted. He would have focused on the word 'angry'. Now he knew better. He focused on the name 'Uzumaki'.

"I can see it." Jiraiya chuckled. "Psychotic just or psychotic dictator?"

Obito folded his arms and glared at them. "'Psychotic just' thank you very much."

"Ohh boy." Kiisu unrolled more of his scroll. "Hear it's real bad when an Uchiha leans into their crazy."

Rin laughed as Obito gave him the middle finger.

"I want to know who…?" Orochimaru started to ask. He trailed off as Obito shook his head. The deputy to the Chief of Shinobi Police was telling him he was involved in a large case that would take down a good chunk of Konoha as everyone knew it if they succeeded in the prosecution. And now he was telling him he wasn't allowed to ask any questions about it. What a disappointment.

Obito sat down next to him. "You're still a giant security risk."

Orochimaru looked at him. He studied everything from his face to his eyes. Obito wanted to tell him, but couldn't. That much he could work out. His mind raced. Eventually he nodded as if to convince himself. He asked Jiraiya to help him sit up. And Jiraiya did. He stuck out his tongue.

Obito took many pictures. He wished he could tell Orochimaru about Anko Mitarashi barging into his office, telling him all of these weird and insane and inane statements about her sensei Orochimaru acting strange. None of the things made sense to her until she sat down and spoke to Jiraiya about it. And how Anko only came to him, Obito, because people were talking about him like he was some underground, unsung hero who fixes people's problems like it was a passionate hobby of his.

He almost brushed it off, put all the notes he gathered into a storage scroll he'd eventually forget about. But then Nonou Yakushi stood in the middle of the office and declared that she was about to do something that would probably kill her, despite the twenty-four seven security detail surrounding Konoha's orphanage.

'But if there was anyone here who could remove this plague from Konoha, it's you and your team, Obito. I am tired of telling people 'this child has died or gone missing', when I know exactly where they went.' He watched her stick out her own tongue.

So when Kabuto sat in his office next, shaking like a leaf. Itachi Uchiha stood next to him with a blazing sharingan he was far too young to have. When Itachi's fists were clenched tightly, despite how badly he was shaking as he told Obito why Kabuto's headaches were getting worse and random and not better, and those headaches were why Kabuto had fallen unnaturally silent. When Obito realized that both Urushi and an older Uchiha friend they picked up named Shisui were both waiting outside to see what he would say or do…

Obito wished he could tell Orochimaru that he studied and personally redrew the seal on Kabuto's tongue on a sheet of blank paper repeatedly until he got it perfectly drawn. And he added it to the scroll that taunted him on his desk. And that afterward, he keyed said scroll to his blood and chakra like Jiraiya taught him, Kakashi and Rin through his cipher hidden within 'The Tale of a Gutsy Ninja'.

He desperately wished he could tell Orochimaru that when he was done, he contacted his contacts because one time was a fluke, twice was a coincidence, and three times was a very worrying trend. But he didn't, because they still had work to do.

. . . . .

A/N: It's my headcanon that the 'real' reason why Orochimaru shed his original body in canon, is because Danzo tricked him, put a seal like the one Sai had on him but worse, and had him take the fall for anything unsavory Danzo put into motion and got caught for. He couldn't get rid of the seal unless he shed his actual body, died or killed the 'unkillable' Danzo Shimura. He made a choice. He's just too prideful and too big of a natural jerk to admit such a thing to anyone else, among other things.