Twenty Minutes Later, Alvarcus's and Sasuke's Hotel Room
"Next time I'm making sure she brings back a shirt with long sleeves." I grumble to myself as I step into my hotel room. "Well, I suppose it kind of worked out. People focused so much on my arms that they didn't bother to look at my face."
Murasakino brought me a simple pair of black civilian pants and a brown t-shirt. It is the epitome of bland and is exactly what I asked for. Except it exposed my scarred arms to the world.
"Hope tou-san doesn't care that I used his face. I'm sure he wouldn't. It's not like he can yell at me if he did. Wow, you're just a bucket full of sunshine right now Alvarcus." I turn my steely gaze onto the two hammocks in the room, more specifically the one that's the farthest away from the door. "Anyways, now for business."
It's the one that reminds me of Tayuya.
It's there that I truly let my guard down around her. That damn hammock is a symbol of me letting myself get played. It's a symbol of my defeat. I did the one thing I knew I should never do, I let an attachment form. I let her get close to me. I should have known that Orochimaru was behind it.
I didn't even see it. It completely blindsided me.
It makes me wonder what else he'll try. He killed my family and Sakura to obtain me. He ordered Tayuya to seduce me to keep me. What's next? What will he think of? How will he attempt to pin me down, to cement my loyalty to him further? Even now he knows that my presence here hangs solely on Sasuke being at Otogakure so he has to be thinking of some absurd and insane plan to make me want to stay once Sasuke's gone.
"Never again." I lash out with a fire whip and cleave the hammock in two. Each half is slowly being consumed by flames. "Right now, right here I vow to never fall for his games again. I have no friends in Sound. I have no allies. Only enemies are there, I'm hiding in a den of wolves."
Half of the hammock is up in flames.
"But I am not a meek sheep. I will not lie down and wait for my defeat to come. I will better myself, I will stand equally with Orochimaru and laugh as he's the one who lies broken and defeated at my feet."
The hammock is fully consumed and the flame fades into nothing without a fuel source to keep it sustained.
"Goodbye Tayuya. I thank you for the harsh lesson in life and I want you to know that I will not be making that mistake again."
...
Orochimaru's Hotel
"How was the outing?" Orochimaru asks as I climb in through the same window I left by. "Successful I assume?"
"It was." I toss Sasuke a scroll. "I took the liberty of getting our stuff since I was at our hotel anyways. That scroll has all of yours in it. Fair warning, I just threw everything into a big pile so be careful when you open it."
"Thank you for the warning." Sasuke suspiciously eyes his scroll. "If my things explode out of this when I unseal it I'm going to hurt you."
"Huh." I pause for a moment. "I wonder if I can do that? Like rig up a shrapnel explosion that activates once it's unsealed."
"It could be done with a few seals." Orochimaru says. He's in his scientist mode, there's a mad glint to his eyes. "A two stage seal, an explosive and a storage. The storage would hold the shrapnel and the explosion would generate a concussive force to fling the shrapnel. It's possible to intertwine them together so that it's a seal array instead of two separate seals. Upon activation it would unseal the shrapnel an instant before the explosion. By making it into an array it would only be one activation instead of two instances of activation."
Holy shit. I just gave Orochimaru an idea to make a grenade. That was a huge fuck up.
Orochimaru sighs. "Too bad it's unrealistic to mass produce seals. Imagine my shinobi running around with a weapon like that! Making enough explosive seals is difficult enough the way it is. There are just so few competent seal users in the world."
I could totally do that. It would be so easy for me to mass produce seals. I could just hold something crazy like fifty brushes with my chakra strings and then move them all in unison. Ta-da, fifty explosive tags. Plus let's be realistic, I use way more than fifty strings all the time. I could probably make a hundred or more all in one go.
No one can ever know that. I would be hunted down by every damn village in existence. Who wouldn't want someone capable of making insane amounts of any seal they know? I would skyrocket up the totem pole of valuable assets to kidnap and force to work for you. Hell I bet even Danzo would change his standing order to kill me to capture just on that one fact alone.
"Alvarcus? You there?" Sasuke asks me with just a tinge of concern.
"Hm? Oh yes, I just got lost in thought." I rub my chin idly and look wistfully off into the distance. "I was picturing me using that seal in varying ridiculous ways but then I realized something very important."
"And that would be?" Orochimaru presses me for an answer. "It's just so interesting to see your mind at work!"
"It would be a bit redundant. I mean I can already make copious amounts of practically any element I want, including fire. Why waste time with a seal when I could just... oh I don't know... send a fire dragon screaming at my enemies?"
"So... you don't want to learn seals to set off insane chain explosions?" Sasuke asks with hope in his eyes.
"Nope. That was never my goal for learning seals." I easily supply an answer to that. "I like fire, not explosions. Well, I do like explosions but fire is so much better. I suppose I could go for a happy medium and make a fire bomb. A fire explosion! Now that's an idea!"
"Again it would be impractical." Orochimaru crushes that dream before it can really take off. "Out of curiosity, if you didn't want to learn seals to blow things up, what did you want to learn them for? I assumed you were going to focus more on that part of the art."
"Really? Why?" I ask.
Both Sasuke and Orochimaru blandly stare at me.
"Okay, point made. I would have a field day with a crap ton of explosive tags." I can totally make that happen too. Perhaps I should one day. Maybe I could use it as a source of income? Make a bunch then have Shirokumo ship them to vendors for me? Can he do that? "Back on topic now. So you both thought I wanted to make stuff go boom. Well I hate to disappoint but that's very far off from what I want to do with seals."
"Yes?" Orochimaru eagerly prods me to continue. "Why seals if not to enhance your combat potential? There is no way you'll be able to use seals in combat without decades of training, it's something that even Jiraya rarely does. Even The Fourth Hokage cheated a bit when placing his Hirashin markers. It's much easier to place a seal you already know how to make and the Fourth was intimately familiar with that one in particular. He devoted most of his life to creating it."
"You're both going to think I'm crazy, but I want the Sword of Totsuka."
"Impossible." Orochimaru immediately cuts in. "I've searched for even the faintest whisper of that legendary blade for most of my life. I've heard nothing about it in all that time. No rumors. No whisper. No trace."
"Kinda figured that." I sheepishly rub the back of my neck. "So if I can't find it, I figure I'll just make it myself. I mean all of the Legendary Weapons of the world had to have come from somewhere, right? So that means someone made it. If they can do it then why can't I? So that's why I want to study seals, the main function of the Sword of Totsuka is sealing away the entities it cuts in a drunken genjutsu induced stupor. That being said I have no idea how to even go about doing that... so I turned to the basics. Gotta start somewhere and storage seals are as simple as it's going to get."
"Yep." Sasuke says in exasperation. "You're right, I do think you're crazy. You want to recreate a legendary sword that hasn't been seen in lifetimes?"
I don't know about that. I'm pretty sure Itachi has seen it, since he owns it right now.
Speaking of Itachi, I bet you're wondering why I don't just take it off of him when he dies. Well for starters I need to start looking into saving him – I think he had a lung disease. Or was it stomach? Some major organ I know that much – because he'd be a great ally. Plus there's the whole 'how the hell do I get a weapon that Itachi Uchiha's Susanoo of all things is holding?' That's not even the biggest reason. If by some miracle that cannon isn't shot to hell then Itachi will end up facing off against an Edo Tensi of Nagato that he beat by sealing him away with the Sword of Totsuka.
Now picture this, Itachi goes to pull out the sword and it's not there. Then Nagato of all people will be free to rampage over all of the Allied Shinobi Forces or whatever they're going to be called. I really don't want that to happen, so Itachi needs to keep the sword.
But when – if! If the Fourth Shinobi War happens then I need an easy way to seal away a lot of Edo Tensi bodies. Well, the Sword of Totsuka would be amazingly convenient to have in that situation. I could run around and with one slash the Edo Tensi is sealed away.
So I'm going to try and make one. Or at least something like it. That's why I'm starting it so early, while I still have two and a half years to use Orochimaru because as much as I hate to admit it, I'm going to need his help with this.
"Brilliant." Orochimaru grins in science fueled lunacy. "Absolutely brilliant! You want to make it! How have I never considered doing so myself? I've always wanted to acquire the original blade but to make one? Simply brilliant! You truly are my child!"
...
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