His Sharingan spun as he watched Orochimaru's every movement, searching for the smallest opening.
There had to be one.
No one was perfect.
Not even a Sannin.
Orochimaru stood still, almost inviting him to try.
That alone told Sasuke everything.
He knew Sasuke was planning something.
He wanted to see it.
Fine.
Then Sasuke would show him.
Sasuke threw three shuriken high into the air, then another three low, all tied with wire. At the same time, he dashed forward, only to vanish in a burst of smoke as a fire clone took his place.
Orochimaru watched the clone approach with clear amusement.
"Again?"
The clone exploded.
Orochimaru stepped through the flames before they could fully expand, already moving toward the real Sasuke, who had circled around behind him.
Too easy.
Sasuke had expected that.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"
Several small fireballs flew not at Orochimaru, but toward the wires already stretched through the air. Flames raced along them, creating a burning net that closed around Orochimaru from three different angles.
At the same time, Naruto moved.
Not with a clone.
Not with chakra.
Just his own body.
He grabbed a fallen kunai and rushed Orochimaru from the side, teeth gritted, eyes full of stubborn fury.
It was reckless.
It was stupid.
It was exactly what Sasuke needed.
Orochimaru's attention flicked toward Naruto for a fraction of a second.
Sasuke used it.
He pulled the wires.
The burning net snapped tight around Orochimaru's body, and Sasuke appeared above him, kunai in both hands, falling directly toward his eyes.
This time, Sasuke didn't aim to wound.
He aimed to blind.
For one single breath, everything lined up.
The wires held.
The flames burned.
Naruto came from the side.
Sasuke came from above.
And Orochimaru smiled.
His body folded.
There was no other word for it.
He bent backward in a way that ignored bones entirely, slipping through the wires before they could cut deep. One arm stretched out and caught Naruto by the face, slamming him into the tree trunk hard enough to crack bark.
His other hand rose and caught Sasuke's wrist.
Sasuke's kunai stopped less than an inch from Orochimaru's eye.
So close.
He had been so close.
Orochimaru's fingers tightened.
Sasuke felt something in his wrist strain.
"Excellent," Orochimaru whispered.
Then he slammed Sasuke into the branch beneath them.
Pain burst through Sasuke's back.
He tried to roll with it, tried to kick, tried to twist his trapped arm free, but Orochimaru was already on top of him. Snakes poured from his sleeves, wrapping around Sasuke's legs, waist, and free arm, pinning him down completely.
Sasuke's chakra flared.
It did nothing.
The snakes tightened.
His ribs creaked.
Naruto groaned from where he had fallen, one hand clawing uselessly at the dirt as he tried to get back up.
Sakura remained unconscious below, hidden behind a tree where Naruto had left her.
Useless.
No.
Not useless.
Irrelevant.
Against someone like this, all of them were irrelevant.
Orochimaru leaned over Sasuke, his golden eyes shining with something that looked almost like joy.
"That was wonderful. You understood that you could not win, so you aimed for my eyes. Correct. Ruthless. Practical."
Sasuke glared up at him.
"Then why am I still alive?"
"Because I want you alive."
"Why?"
Orochimaru's smile became softer, which made it more disgusting.
"Because I alone see your true potential, and I want to help you. Help you achieve greatness. I want to see you take Itachi's head, see you become greater than him, see you become the greatest Uchiha to ever live."
Sasuke sneered.
"And what do you get out of it?"
"Nothing you need to worry about right now," Orochimaru said, his voice soft, almost gentle.
Sasuke almost laughed.
It came out as a breathless, pained sound.
"Then it isn't nothing," he said. "You want something from me. Something worth more than the power you're offering."
Orochimaru's smile widened.
"How cautious. How suspicious. How very Uchiha of you."
"Answer me."
"No."
The reply was simple.
Almost amused.
Sasuke's fingers twitched, trying to reach another kunai, another wire, anything, but the snakes holding him tightened again, forcing the air from his lungs.
Orochimaru leaned closer.
"You are not ready to bargain with me, Sasuke-kun. Not yet. Right now, you are a child who has mistaken talent for strength."
Sasuke's Sharingan spun, but the hatred in his eyes did nothing.
"You know Itachi is stronger than you," Orochimaru whispered. "You know it, even if you hate admitting it. He killed your clan. He defeated everyone you loved. He left you alive, and for years, all you have done is chase his shadow."
"Shut up."
"And yet, after all this time, after all your training, after all your hatred, could you touch him?"
"Shut up."
"If Itachi stood before you now, would you even make him bleed?"
Sasuke's chakra flared.
For a moment, the snakes around him shifted, and Orochimaru's eyes gleamed with delight.
There it was.
The anger.
The wound.
The thing he wanted to dig his fingers into.
Sasuke knew that. He knew Orochimaru was baiting him, knew every word was chosen to cut, to tempt, to poison.
It worked anyway.
Because Itachi was the one thing Sasuke could never ignore.
"You're strong," Orochimaru continued. "Far stronger than most children your age. Better trained too. Someone has sharpened you well. But that only makes the truth more cruel. Even like this, even with those eyes, even with all that hatred, you are still nowhere near enough."
Sasuke clenched his teeth so hard his jaw hurt.
"Konoha will never give you what you need," Orochimaru said. "They will train you just enough to be useful. They will parade you around as the last loyal Uchiha. They will tell you to be patient. To trust them. To wait. And while you wait, Itachi will remain beyond your reach."
Sasuke did not answer.
Because that was the worst part.
Some of it sounded true.
Not all of it. Not enough to trust him. Never enough to trust him.
But enough that he couldn't simply dismiss it.
Orochimaru saw that too.
Of course he did.
"You understand," he said.
"No," Sasuke forced out. "I understand you are trying to use me."
Orochimaru laughed softly.
"Naturally."
That answer made Sasuke pause.
Orochimaru's smile became sharper.
"Did you expect me to deny it? Everyone uses everyone, Sasuke-kun. Konoha uses you. Your clan used you. Itachi used you, left you alive as a monument to his own cruelty. Even your hatred uses you, driving you forward while devouring everything else."
His face came closer, close enough that Sasuke could see his own reflection in those golden eyes.
"The only difference is that I am honest."
"Honest?" Sasuke spat. "You wear another person's face."
Orochimaru's smile widened.
"And yet I have lied to you less than your village has."
For half a second, Sasuke had no answer.
Then Naruto moved.
With a hoarse shout, he threw himself at Orochimaru again, one hand gripping a kunai, the other pressed against his stomach as if holding himself together through sheer stubbornness.
There was no clone.
No trick.
No chakra.
Just Naruto, angry and half-broken, refusing to stay down.
Orochimaru's expression barely shifted.
He caught Naruto by the wrist and twisted.
Naruto cried out as the kunai fell from his fingers. Before he could do anything else, Orochimaru struck him once more in the stomach, right over the sealing formula he had placed there earlier.
Naruto's eyes went wide.
Then he dropped.
"Naruto!" Sasuke shouted.
Naruto hit the ground and tried to push himself up, but his arms shook beneath him. His chakra, already twisted and unstable, sputtered uselessly.
Orochimaru looked down at him with mild interest.
"Persistent, but ignorant. That is a dangerous combination."
"You bastard..." Naruto rasped.
"Rest," Orochimaru said. "You are not the one I came for."
That dismissal enraged Naruto more than any insult could have, but he couldn't move.
Sasuke tried again to break free.
The snakes tightened until pain flared through his ribs.
Orochimaru turned back to him.
"Now then, where were we?"
Sasuke glared up at him, breathing hard.
"Go to hell."
"I have been to worse places."
Orochimaru's neck began to stretch.
Sasuke's eyes widened.
He saw it.
With the Sharingan, he saw everything. The movement of the muscles, the gathering chakra, the way Orochimaru's mouth opened too wide, the fangs gleaming with something that was not ordinary venom.
He saw it all.
And he could not move.
That was the most terrifying part.
Not the fangs.
Not the pain he knew was coming.
But the fact that his eyes were good enough to understand exactly how helpless he was.
The fangs sank into his neck.
For a single heartbeat, there was only pressure.
Then the world shattered.
Pain ripped through him, white-hot and black-cold, burning through his chakra pathways as if something alive had forced itself inside his body. Sasuke screamed before he could stop himself, his back arching against the branch as black markings spread from the bite.
They crawled across his skin like ink spilled into water.
His Sharingan flickered.
His chakra twisted violently, fighting against whatever Orochimaru had planted inside him, but the foreign power dug deeper, sinking into him, rooting itself in his flesh.
And beneath the pain, there was a whisper.
Power.
It wasn't a word, not truly.
It was a feeling.
A promise.
The strength to stand. The strength to kill. The strength to burn away every wall between himself and Itachi.
For one terrible moment, Sasuke wanted it.
Then he remembered a cold voice from the Uchiha compound.
Power offered freely is always a chain.
Sasuke bit down on his own tongue until blood filled his mouth.
The whisper did not vanish.
But it recoiled, pushed back beneath pain and hatred and sheer refusal.
Orochimaru pulled away slowly, watching him with open delight.
"Wonderful," he said. "You resisted it."
The snakes released him.
Sasuke fell.
And darkness claimed him.
(End of chapter)
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