Orochimaru hadn't expected to find himself on the run again.
Huff— huff—
The air was as scalding as a red-hot blade; every breath seared his lungs.
The reek of sulfur was so thick it felt gelatinous, turning his stomach and doubling the world before his eyes. A splitting headache and a haze that tugged at his consciousness clung to him like a shadow.
Sulfur poisoning.
He diagnosed his own symptoms at once.
Get out—only one thought remained. His battered figure flickered and vaulted across the cracked, heat-blasted ground where magma raged. Behind him, explosions boomed and rolled without end, as if a colossal hammer were smashing the earth to pieces.
Shockwaves of blistering heat burst at his back like a hunter's snare, and the gusts that followed burned his skin raw.
He didn't need to look to know it: the human-experiment complex that had cost him years of work had become a graveyard of molten metal and volcanic poison flames.
Priceless instruments, years of forbidden research…
All of it—gone up in smoke.
Fortunately, he'd planned for this. The moment he learned someone had infiltrated the base, he'd moved his precious "vessels" in advance.
He'd summoned snakes from Ryūchi Cave to carry them off.
At that speed, they should have gotten far away.
They shouldn't be caught by lava bombs falling out of the sky.
After who knew how long, the heat on his back eased a little. Orochimaru stopped, drew a few lungfuls of fresh air, then turned with an ugly look.
His golden slit pupils reflected a vision of hell.
Everywhere he looked was a shock.
The ground ahead was littered with drifts of congealed lava; the black smoke smeared into the dark-red clouds above; hot gusts whipped up ash into a gray-black pall. At the horizon of his vision, a land sluicing with annihilating magma tangled into an endless inferno.
The entire stretch of land was pocked with pits churning with fire and lava, rotting craters that riddled the earth.
Flames tens of meters high lit Orochimaru's face in orange-red; beneath them, magma crawled forward with steady purpose, swallowing every remnant. The heat warped the air.
"This jutsu…"
His throat felt dry. "Heh… One strike like that, and all of Konoha would drown in fire. No wonder the old man treats me and Uchiha Chizumi differently…"
At last he understood the Third's "double standard" between "an extreme Orochimaru" and "an extreme Uchiha Chizumi."
In Hiruzen's place, he would have done the same.
Uchiha Chizumi was a tailed beast in human form. Everyone in the shinobi world had underestimated him—including the Akatsuki fools who thought of assassinating him.
Thump!
Thump!
Thump!
The sudden sounds made Orochimaru's face tighten. When he glanced back, trees were bursting out of the ground one after another, their countless thick boughs snaking toward him. Every branch bristled with poisonous barbs.
He nearly forgot—Chizumi possessed Wood Release, too.
"Summoning Jutsu—"
With a thunderclap of white smoke, a serpent the size of a hill, hide layered in horn-hard scales, coiled into a living bulwark in front of him.
Shrrrrrrk—!
Barbed vines sluiced over the serpent in an instant. Scales rasped against poisoned spikes until sparks spat from the grinding.
The great snake shrieked; plates of scale popped and flew under the strangling force.
Orochimaru didn't spare it a glance. He snapped his head the other way, golden pupils—sharp as ever—pinning a figure in the distance.
Not far from the roiling lava sea, a man was walking toward him, step by deliberate step, treading a torrent of molten rock that seemed to bow beneath his feet, splitting fire and smoke as he came.
Where he passed, the magma seethed even more violently, rolling in a writhing river of fire.
"…He even knows which way I fled? Maybe it's my imagination, but it feels like he can see me from very far away."
Orochimaru's eyelids twitched.
As he watched Uchiha Chizumi draw nearer, he suddenly froze.
Chizumi's eyes were no longer the eerie scarlet of a Mangekyō Sharingan, but the pure white Byakugan of the Hyūga—he was very likely tracking Orochimaru through the smoke with those very eyes!
No…
Isn't he an Uchiha?
How could he have a Byakugan?
Don't tell me one of his parents was Hyūga. Has Konoha really grown so "open" that Uchiha and Hyūga can intermarry?
Orochimaru couldn't make sense of it.
"His fourth kekkei genkai…" He muttered, mouth going dry. The "monsters" he had once crafted might not be as monstrous as Uchiha Chizumi.
One kekkei genkai could make you an elite jōnin of Konoha.
Chizumi had revealed four—just like that.
He wasn't the "two-bloodline prodigy" people whispered about.
He was a four-bloodline monster.
Suddenly—
The figure a hundred meters away blurred, and a heatwave that made space itself shudder slammed into Orochimaru's face.
In the next heartbeat, a giant fist of magma—boiling and compressed to the limit—blinked into existence before him.
It was so fast his thoughts lagged behind.
He barely got the Kusanagi Sword horizontal on instinct, ramming chakra into the blade; Wind Release keened along the edge—
BOOM!!!
A world-rattling spiral of sound and force—like a tailed beast's claw—crashed down on the Kusanagi.
Unstoppable.
Gah—!
Blood, hot as fire, burst from Orochimaru's mouth. His viscera felt like they'd been shaken to pulp. He bowed like a stricken ram and was hurled backward—
—slamming into the massive summoning serpent behind him.
Even the hill-sized snake was knocked flying dozens of meters by the carried force, smashing down a stand of trees with a pained screech.
Orochimaru's body hit the ground like limp clay.
He bounced twice like a broken doll.
He propped himself up, bones rasping and clicking out of place with tooth-aching friction—yet none of them actually snapped. His body had softened and bled off force the instant of impact.
He barely looked human anymore.
He looked like a man-shaped snake.
"Heh… Uchiha Chizumi… your 'surprises' just don't stop, do they…"
He wiped the blood from his lips.
"I meant to save this for the old man… but since your power exceeds expectations, I'll test it on you first."
He stood—ragged, hair wild; a passerby might have mistaken him for a beggar.
"Summoning Jutsu—"
Orochimaru straightened, formed four signs, then slammed his palms together.
"Edo Tensei!!!"
Thump!
Thump!
Thump!
A soul-freezing chill of chakra erupted from beneath his feet; ink-black seals crawled across the ground like living things, weaving wildly.
The earth groaned under the strain; cracks spiderwebbed outward; three coffins stinking of the Pure Land's soil tore up from below as if wrenched free by an invisible hand.
Their heavy lids slammed inward, kicking up dust.
Orochimaru unhinged his jaw to an inhuman span, and three snow-white snakes slid out of his throat, each fang clamped around a talisman scribbled with Edo seals.
The white snakes shot like arrows, plunging into the mouths of the three empty shells lying in their coffins, eyes closed and waiting to be "born."
And then the three opened their eyes.
"Ah…"
The black-haired man glanced about in mild puzzlement, then, sensing the odd state of his body, sighed and addressed the silver-haired man beside him.
"I told you not to study these strange arts."
The silver-haired man flicked a look over his shoulder at Orochimaru. "So you can perform Edo Tensei. A Konoha shinobi, are you? Remarkable for someone so young."
"Heh…"
Orochimaru's mouth curled. "Regrettably, I was a Konoha shinobi—once. But one day… Konoha cast me aside."
"I see…" The Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama, nodded thoughtfully, then let his gaze fall on Uchiha Chizumi.
Chizumi's Police Force garb bore the unmistakable Uchiha fan. Tobirama saw it at a glance.
He narrowed his eyes. "A Konoha missing-nin using Edo Tensei against an Uchiha who reeks of malice—you youngsters truly confound me."
Orochimaru's smile turned thin. He looked to the third who'd stepped from his coffin. "The First and Second have spoken. Danzō-sama—faced with the man who killed you, have you nothing to say?"
That's right.
The third coffin did not hold the Fourth Hokage, but Shimura Danzō—already slain by Absolute Justice.
Orochimaru had transplanted Sharingan and Hashirama cells for Danzō.
He possessed some of Danzō's tissue.
And that tissue was the key to summoning him with Edo Tensei.
But Orochimaru immediately sensed something was wrong.
Danzō's Edo body was shaking like a leaf in a gale.
His eyes snapped open—eyes that should have been empty in an Edo shell—now brimming with an indescribable agony and terror straight from the soul.
"Uhh—ah—AAAAGH—!!!"
A flaying scream, inhuman in its despair, tore out of Shimura Danzō.
He clamped both hands to his skull; his features twisted into a mask of horror. His Edo body looked on the verge of coming apart.
He collapsed, curling and rolling on the ground in torment—
As if suffering a torture that ripped at the soul itself.
" …?!"
Orochimaru blinked, dumbfounded.
The next instant chilled him to the marrow.
Fsssh—!
A strange flame kindled from nowhere on Danzō's Edo flesh. It raced over him in a breath, turning him into a blazing human torch.
His Edo body sizzled, crumbling to dust before the naked eye.
Yet Edo Tensei still held.
Dust… gathered again under the technique's power, knitting back together—Shimura Danzō had barely reformed when those eyes—endless pain and despair—opened once more.
"No—!!!"
An even more hopeless shriek rang out.
The fire of judgment rose again, and again—an unending, hair-raising loop of suffering.
Orochimaru stood stock-still.
Even he, who had seen so much, felt his mind stutter at the scene.
"Tobirama, what is…?"
The First Hokage, Senju Hashirama, glanced at Danzō in confusion. "He was one of yours, wasn't he?"
Tobirama frowned. "He is—both subordinate and student. But I've never seen this state. It's not an Edo Tensei backlash. That only strikes the caster, not the dead."
"This condition…"
Before Tobirama could puzzle it out, Chizumi's flat voice cut in: "The Mangekyō's Judgment and Retribution will 'hunt' every evildoer forever. In life or in death, in the shinobi world or the Pure Land, unending pain follows them."
Orochimaru understood at once. "So—that's it. Shimura Danzō died under your Mangekyō. Heh. I miscalculated…"
He recalled the masked man's intel from the Akatsuki meeting—about Chizumi's eyes.
It seemed the intel had been correct. Danzō was a fine example.
Just listening to Danzō's screams, just watching him loop in endless agony, made a chill creep up Orochimaru's spine.
Pain that follows the soul…
Damn it.
It really does counter me.
Cold sweat trickled down his back.
"Mangekyō Sharingan?!" Tobirama's sharp eyes narrowed to slits. He fixed on Chizumi, killing intent flaring. "So you awakened the Uchiha's most extreme eyes? Evil-born Uchiha brat—how many dear friends did you kill to open those—hmm? Your eyes…"
Tobirama started. "Those are Byakugan."
"Don't underestimate him, Second." Orochimaru edged backward, talking on from behind Tobirama. "He holds four kekkei genkai—Lava Release, Wood Release, Sharingan, and Byakugan. I hear you despise the Uchiha."
"I've handed you the chance to snuff out the strongest Uchiha genius of this age."
"You should be thanking me."
As he spoke, the white snakes lodged in Hashirama and Tobirama triggered the seal they carried.
At once—
The light in the First and Second's eyes dulled into wooden emptiness. Killing intent replaced reason.
They became Edo puppets.
"Go, First and Second Hokage!" Orochimaru barked, ignoring Danzō's torment. The First clapped his hands.
"Hah—Wood Release!!!"
…
"Tch. So that 'great merchant Gato' was just that." At the same time, in a coastal town of the Land of Fire, a Police Force jōnin dangled a head frozen in terror from his hand.
The air reeked of blood. Bodyguards and samurai lay strewn about—some hacked to death, others bristling with kunai and shuriken.
Anyone who saw the severed head would be shocked—it was Gato, the tycoon.
Yes.
After splitting from Uchiha Chizumi, the three quickly found Gato's confidants and pried Gato's whereabouts from them.
What came next was simple. The three Uchiha jōnin didn't bother with fancy tricks.
They stormed straight in. After cutting down over a hundred bodyguards who had colluded with the "great merchant,"
they took Gato's head with one clean stroke.
"For someone this weak, he sure lived a long time," one jōnin said, glancing at the head. "He had a protector up high—maybe a noble of some shinobi nation, maybe even a daimyo."
The one holding the head said, "Exactly why I'm taking it back to Konoha. Whoever sheltered him knew what he did."
"If you knowingly shield a villain like Gato, you're a villain too. Uproot them all—down to the last root."
"That's what justice demands."
The third jōnin slid his freshly wiped blade into its sheath. "Before we head back to the Konoha, should we regroup with Uchiha Chizumi-sama?"
The other two blinked.
"…'-sama'?" they echoed, surprised at the honorific.
"If we've chosen to believe in Justice, and to follow his Absolute Justice, shouldn't we call him Chizumi-sama? We called Uchiha Fugaku 'Fugaku-sama,' didn't we?"
…
The earth wailed under the strain. The ground at Chizumi's feet crazed like a cracked eggshell; bottomless fissures flashed outward in all directions.
Then Wood Release surged.
Hundreds of gargantuan trees—trunks thicker than ancient pillars—shot skyward. They tore the air with a skin-crawling rip, carrying a mountain-crushing force as they pressed toward Chizumi from every side.
Facing the tidal wave of Wood Release, Chizumi's eyes did not ripple.
He formed no hand signs. He used the simplest, oldest way.
Raise the arm.
Gather power.
Punch.
His right arm flared like a boiling furnace core; dark-red magma oozed and surged from his skin. The limb swelled and warped before the naked eye.
The half-set magma sketched a brutal musculature, hardening into a colossal fist—ten meters across—radiating killing heat and ruin.
"Great Eruption!"
BOOM!!!
When the magma fist slammed into the onrushing Wood Release—
—it was like a volcano waking.
The impact roared to the heavens; a solid white ring of pressure swept the field; the nearest ground peeled up and pulverized.
Even the writhing, screaming Edo Danzō was flung like a rag by the force.
Blinding red light and blistering heat took command.
Szzzz—!!!
Like a hot knife through tallow, the fist hit the Wood Release and the stoutest trunks couldn't withstand the magma's heat. They blackened and carbonized with tooth-aching sizzles, then vaporized to steam.
Where the magma fist drove, it ploughed a boiling path straight through the strangling forest.
Flames, greedy as beasts, baked the air dry and warped within hundreds of meters; thin tongues of fire licked from cracks ripping the ground.
The smell of scorch and sulfur thickened.
Worse—
After a few seconds of lock, the swollen energy in the magma fist detonated. The whole thing blew like a volcano.
A hail of magma bombs—big and small—poured down like a doomsday meteor shower, laden with destructive force and murderous heat, straight at Senju Hashirama and Senju Tobirama.
Tobirama's eyes were arctic and blank.
His hands blurred and clapped.
"Water Release: Water Colliding Wave!"
A massive surge of water chakra exploded from him. From dry ground, torrents erupted.
Not merely gathering—but spinning at a speed beyond physics. In a flash, a super-giant spiral waterspout, dozens of meters high, heaved up.
It roared like a feral dragon and hurtled into the magma storm.
The swarm of lava bombs slammed into the spinning abyss.
Seething heat met cold water in instant annihilation.
Fsssh—!!!
Scalding white steam flooded the battlefield, thick enough to blind. The staccato crack of flashing vapor sounded like thousands of pressure cookers blowing at once.
Masked by the rising fog, a silver-white blur lunged out from behind the falls.
Tobirama ghosted up to Chizumi; a whipsaw kick tore the mist and scythed at Chizumi's jaw.
Chizumi tilted a fraction and caught Tobirama's right leg.
Sss—
The heat of magma simply vaporized the leg.
But in Edo form, and bound by Orochimaru's tags, Tobirama knew no pain. At point-blank range his hands flew through signs.
"Water Release: Water Bullets!"
Pop-pop-pop—water bullets hammered out of his mouth, dousing Chizumi's magma body, which cooled and clinked down into volcanic rock.
Tobirama chopped down at Chizumi's head and shattered it.
And then—
A whole and unharmed Chizumi appeared at Tobirama's back—the one he'd hit was only a Lava Release clone.
Chizumi's right arm, shaped into a magma hell-hound, was about to punch through Tobirama's spine when—
Hashirama barreled in and drove a fist into Chizumi's back.
The First's monstrous strength blew Chizumi's upper body apart—
—only for the shattered lava to reweave even faster.
Face blank, Chizumi turned and punched.
He was so fast that Edo Hashirama could only cross his arms and try to block.
The result spoke for itself.
Even an Edo body couldn't resist the magma's bite. The blow punched through Hashirama's torso. The lava arm ballooned and burst, tearing the First Hokage into chunks.
"Ninja Art—"
"Adamantine Sealing Bind!!!"
This wasn't the Second's seal—but Chizumi's.
Golden chains burst from his magma body.
Every chain lanced into the reforming Edo flesh, Uzumaki sealing art jamming the Edo Tensei matrix—and Orochimaru's control talismans in Hashirama's body.
Hashirama's reassembling form stabilized only in tatters, and his eyes flickered from blankness back to a dazed clarity.
Chizumi's hands didn't stop.
He clapped again; thick vines burst from him and lashed for the Second.
"Water Release: Water Severing Wave!!!"
Tobirama spat a razor-straight jet. In a blink it sliced the vines to ribbons—
—and a magma hound, born from Chizumi's right arm, lunged through and bit off Tobirama's head.
"Adamantine Sealing Lock."
Chizumi mirrored the seal, the golden chains splitting to bind Tobirama as well.
When the Second's head knitted back, his eyes, too, cleared.
"Ah… my apologies, young Uchiha," Hashirama said sheepishly, trying to scratch his head and finding his hand and head quite far apart.
"What's there to apologize for to an evil Uchiha brat?" Tobirama snorted.
Then he asked Chizumi, "Those who summoned us said you wield four kekkei genkai—one is even our Senju Wood Release. Uchiha brat, what's your name?!"
To his surprise, the Uchiha who didn't look the least bit "good" ignored him completely.
Chizumi formed a sign.
Tobirama felt the pull of the Pure Land snag him.
He understood immediately—this upstart, adept at sealing arts, could send Edo dead back to the Pure Land… if he could bind them like this.
As he sank into the Pure Land, only one thought crossed Tobirama's mind—rude Uchiha.
Chizumi didn't even watch the two Hokage vanish. His eyes shifted back into Byakugan, and he swept the area. Dozens of figures were fleeing in different directions.
The Byakugan let him pick out the real Orochimaru at once.
"You really can run, huh…"