A few minutes earlier, deep in the forest, branches sliced the wan moonlight. The glow of lava and fire behind him threw warped, wavering shadows across the ground.
Orochimaru's silhouette streaked through the trees like a specter, golden slit-pupils flashing with a cold, urgent light in the dark.
"To end up fleeing from a Konoha kid… heh. How disgraceful." He muttered to himself, voice low and rasping with that familiar serpent's edge.
Buying time, he wove signs without hesitation—Shadow Clone Technique!
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop—
Dozens of white puffs bloomed. In an instant, dozens of identical, hard-eyed Orochimaru split out behind him like a nest of serpents and bolted in all directions—many even sprinting the opposite way from the real body.
Each clone worked while running.
Some scattered poisoned senbon, stringing near-invisible steel-wire snares.
Some carved explosive seals onto trunks and boulders at high speed.
Some tore open scrolls and summoned hissing swarms of venomous snakes to coil along the routes ahead…
The forest became a giant, lethal trap, cold killing intent tucked into every corner.
Any ordinary shinobi who wandered in would be dead in short order—but all these traps, for Orochimaru, were only to slow Uchiha Chizumi down.
He knew they couldn't kill that one.
"Ten minutes… no, maybe eight!"
He licked his dry, cracked lips, lungs burning like fire.
"If I can open enough distance, he'll never catch me."
Even as he said it, frustration and humiliation surged.
He'd thought his multitude of contingencies would be enough to suppress, even capture, this "vessel" with terrifying potential.
But the power Chizumi showed had far outstripped his worst projections.
"Heh. I got careless… completely misread his growth curve…"
The familiar taste of defeat dragged him back to the day he coveted those "eyes" and was crushed.
The overwhelming force behind the Akatsuki leader's Rinnegan—how much it resembled this justice-obsessed brat closing in step by step.
Both wielded power that defied reason.
And both minds were…
Fanatical and extreme.
"Heh… and Akatsuki are planning to hunt him too. Let the dogs fight over the bone. Whoever wins, I'll be the fisherman reaping the spoils."
"Uchiha Chizumi's corpse will end up in my hands. The cost will be trivial."
"And if the brat wins by a fluke and leaves Akatsuki in tatters, that only loosens their grip on me. All to the good."
Either way—
He wouldn't lose.
He might be ragged now, but he still felt he'd come out on top—and he dared to assert that Chizumi's situation, sooner or later, would be even more miserable than his.
Just then—
Fweeeee—!
A needle-fine shriek ripped the air right at his back!
A kill-sense like an ice awl stabbed his spine.
His endlessly reworked body softening beyond human limits within a thousandth of a second—his torso bent backward bonelessly, his head snapping up at an inhuman angle—
A translucent wind blade skimmed past his nose and flying black hair with a ripping wail—
—and bit deep into the woods dozens of meters ahead.
Chack-chack-chack-chack!!!
Like a hot knife through butter, a score of ancient trees as thick as four men's arms locked together were sliced clean in half, the cuts smooth as mirrors.
Their top halves groaned and crashed down with tooth-aching sounds.
"Wind Cutter…?"
Cold sweat streamed down Orochimaru's back.
But the killing intent didn't ebb; it clung like a maggot to bone, lunging again from behind.
The air felt frozen by it.
He didn't hesitate. His wrist flicked; the Kusanagi was back in hand.
He didn't even fully turn—guided by beast instinct, he rammed chakra into the blade until Wind Release sheathed the edge in razor air.
A chill arc flashed through the dim forest.
Schk!
A muffled slice of steel through flesh. The Kusanagi drew a perfect line across the pursuer's neck, shaving half of Uchiha Chizumi's head away.
But the expected spray of blood never came.
The cut surface showed no bone, no muscle—only a viscous, red substance like volcanic magma, oozing and dripping.
Heat rolled off it, igniting grass at a touch; even the damp soil kindled to flames.
Orochimaru's pupils pinched to needles.
Sirens wailed in his head.
In the next heartbeat, a magma fist the size of a human head swelled in his vision—pure molten stone, hot enough to melt steel, roaring as it came.
The air warped; he watched the strands at his brow curl and blacken in an instant.
"Hss!"
A feral hiss tore from his throat as he ducked so hard it looked grotesque, barely slipping under the annihilating blow.
At the same time, his neck snapped back like rubber, then snapped forward at an angle no human skeleton allowed, striking like a viper past Chizumi's magma arm—
His fanged jaws clamped down on that seemingly vulnerable throat.
Sizzle—!!!
No give—only the screech of a branding iron on ice.
An unimaginable heat, enough to carbonize flesh in an instant, raced up his teeth and through his mouth.
There was no time to feel pain—his clamped jaw, inner cheeks, tongue, even the front of his throat went numb the instant they touched magma.
Nerves, killed on contact.
Tissue, charred outright.
He could only watch everything below his lips crumble and flake off like burnt charcoal.
But in that lightning-touch, his aim was achieved.
Black seals crawled like living ink from the bite on Chizumi's neck, surging out and racing over the magma body.
"Got you." Savage satisfaction flickered through him.
He yanked his half-ruined head back and, without a heartbeat's pause, slashed the Kusanagi—
Schk!
The blade opened his own throat cleanly.
Blood geysered and stained the dead leaves at his feet.
And from the spurting gash, a new, slime-slick head forced its way out.
Wet hair pasted to pallid skin, the newborn face bloodless. Orochimaru drew a deep, ragged breath—blood and sulfur thick in the scalding air.
"Hah… hah…"
He straightened slowly, a thread of fatigue in the motion.
Behind him, the empty sack of a decapitated husk slumped to the ground.
"Two sheds…"
"That took a lot."
He swept wet, bloody hair from his golden snake eyes and locked onto Chizumi—seemingly frozen by the curse mark.
"Heh… your speed and perception really are astonishing."
He was panting, but the chill in his voice remained. "To think the First and Second crumpled like that before you… even my clone-feints didn't stall you at all—you locked the real me instantly…"
"My technique's far from complete. I didn't even raise a tenth of the Hokage brothers' peak power. Otherwise… holding you for half an hour would've been trivial."
"Maybe even killing you."
He licked new lips. "But you got careless—"
The words cut off, as if gripped by an invisible hand at his throat.
His golden pupils drew to pinpoints in shock.
Before his eyes, the "cursed" Chizumi began to slump like a melting candle—magma body dripping away.
A portion of the magma, black seals writhing across it, peeled off like rejected filth.
It plopped to the ground with a hiss, a puddle of black-smoking, searing melt.
The reformed Chizumi stood smooth and new—no trace of a curse mark anywhere.
Elemental shedding?
He'd driven his Lava Release chakra to slough off the marked magma itself?
"Damn it!"
A storm broke in Orochimaru's chest. This Uchiha brat's mastery of his bloodline limits was beyond belief.
Physical strikes were useless. Even a curse-seal could be ripped away? What kind of joke was that?
Did he have a weakness at all?
Was overwhelming force the only answer?
Crisis sharpened his decision.
The Kusanagi's tip flicked like a viper's tongue and leveled at Chizumi.
Fsssh—
The blade shot forward as a silver streak, faster than sight, spearing straight through Chizumi's newly formed chest.
Magma poured again—no real damage.
It was a feint.
Orochimaru's hands had already finished a blurring chain of signs at his chest, his face gone dark.
"Ninja Art: Snake!"
The ground under Chizumi's feet bucked and swelled without warning!
With a deafening roar and a shower of earth and stone, a colossal maw packed with jagged fangs burst from below—big enough to gulp a house whole.
A stench-laden wind rolled out; thick drool hit the ground and sizzled.
The giant serpent snapped its jaws shut with lightning speed—
—swallowing Chizumi whole, dirt and rock and all.
Its belly bulged, the flesh stretching visibly. A sick gurgling rolled inside—the gush of hyper-corrosive stomach acid, desperate to dissolve its monstrous prey.
It lasted less than a second.
KA-BOOM!!!
A blast of lava ripped out from the center of the swollen belly; red-hot magma tore the tough hide apart like paper—
The massive summon exploded into charred chunks that rained down.
Through the spray of flame and smoke, Chizumi stood again, unscathed.
His eyes—cold as ten-thousand-year ice—pierced the drifting fumes and meat-scraps, nailing Orochimaru in place.
The killing intent in that gaze—
—had hardened to something almost solid.
Orochimaru jerked his eyes away on instinct, refusing to meet that stare even for a heartbeat.
He gripped the Kusanagi.
The tip trembled.
As Chizumi's heavy, oppressive steps squelched closer, magma pattering from him, Orochimaru backed up step by step.
Every footfall sank into mud slick with summoning-beast blood.
"Tch."
Sensing the tide turning, Orochimaru yanked several special scrolls from his robe and hurled them ahead.
They snapped open midair with a crackle.
He slammed his hands together.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Five huge plumes of smoke flashed, and five missiles—grim, bristling, metal gleaming, tails vomiting hot flame—materialized out of nowhere. A hobby project of his; tech at the very edge of what this world could do.
They tilted, locked on with a sharp tone—
—and screamed off like arrows toward Chizumi.
Rrrrrrrrrrrr—BOOM!!!
A chain of thunderous blasts swallowed the area in an instant. A blinding column of fire punched skyward; shockwaves like giant hammers flattened everything, ripping trees out by the roots.
Scalding gusts, shrapnel, and dirt rolled like a storm. Even Orochimaru, far off, had to raise an arm to shield his face, staggering back under the blast.
Smoke and flame swallowed the view.
"Heh… Uchiha Chizumi…"
Breathing hard, hair wild, his fresh clothes torn—Orochimaru had never looked more battered.
He stared into the heart of the destruction and rasped, a thin, nasty smile on his lips: "You thought I was your only enemy? In this world's shadows, there are hordes who want your head. Can you fend off the entire underworld? Akatsuki… they've set their sights on you."
Talking big while wasting no time, he bit deep into his thumb.
Blood welled.
He whipped out a summoning scroll, snapped it open, and pressed the bloody thumb dead-center.
"And besides… you can't keep me."
He tossed the scroll.
Clapped his hands.
"Ninja Art: Reverse Summoning!"
…
At that same moment, deep within Ryūchi Cave, the vast purple serpent lounging on its stone throne snapped open its cruel, cold eyes.
A contract tugged across space—it could feel Orochimaru calling.
But not for backup.
For rescue.
"Hss… Orochimaru?"
Manda's voice, low and greedy, rumbled straight into Orochimaru's skull like muffled thunder: "You want this lord to save your life? A hundred offerings won't cut it. You want me to pull you over… five hundred! Alive. Under thirty. Short a single one… and I'll swallow you whole."
"…How very… insatiable."
Orochimaru's eyelid twitched hard.
Five hundred robust live offerings—that would keep him busy for a long while.
Especially with his men slaughtered by Chizumi—he'd have to do it himself.
"Deal."
He ground it out between mental teeth.
…
In Ryūchi Cave, Manda hissed in satisfaction, then bit its own thick tongue.
Blood spattered like rain, landing precisely to paint a vast reverse-summoning array on the floor.
The cave's array linked to the distant scroll in Orochimaru's hands.
But just then—
Ffwip—
A golden chain, shrieking as it split the air, lanced straight toward Orochimaru.
His danger sense spiked—too late to dodge.
Thock!
The chain punched through his left shoulder like a red-hot needle through tofu. He grunted.
"This is…"
A chill beat in his chest.
"Uzumaki sealing…?!"
He tried to hack his shoulder off with the Kusanagi, but there was no time. He only got his hand up before a puff of white smoke swallowed him whole.
When the smoke blew away, there was nothing left.
Orochimaru was gone; the golden chain that pierced him was gone too.
What he didn't know… was that the other end of that chain—and Uchiha Chizumi with it—had vanished along with him.
…
Ryūchi Cave. The air was clammy and thick, stinking of millennia of shed skins and a faint natural miasma.
"Hah… huff…"
The cold, reeking air flooded Orochimaru's heaving chest like ice water.
He knelt on one knee atop Manda's cold stone dais, one hand clamped to his bleeding left shoulder, the other braced on the slick floor, gulping air without a thought for appearances.
Cold sweat mixed with blood and slid from his paper-white face, pattering on the slime-slick rock.
"Heh… finally shook that justice maniac…"
In his mouth, "justice brat" had become "justice maniac."
Relief washed through him like after a near-death fall. Nerves drawn taut to the breaking point slackened at last. He drank the foul air greedily—safety, for the moment.
"Heh…" He twisted up a tired, crooked smile. "Showed too many cards today… Next time won't be so 'easy.' Assuming he even survives Akatsuki's endless hunts."
His "easy" had cost him two sheds, a ton of chakra, countless clones and traps, and left a hole through his shoulder.
Anyone else would be dead already.
"Orochimaru."
A voice like rolling thunder—dripping with mockery and greed—slammed down from above. "Tch. Never thought I'd see you this pathetic—like a cur crawling back to its den."
Manda's huge purple head dipped, cold eyes spotlighting the tiny human on its dais.
"Remember: five hundred live offerings. Not one less. And they must—"
The words cut off.
Its massive head froze; its pupils knifed down to slits.
Something alien—reeking of annihilating heat—had barged into the range of its senses like a branding iron plunged into ice water.
Its gaze snapped past Orochimaru and locked on a point in the dark.
"Orochimaru!"
Manda's voice spiked, sharp with fury and wariness. "Who did you bring here? Who is this brat? How is he in Ryūchi Cave?!"
The shout speared Orochimaru's lax nerves.
Only then—
—did he realize the sulfur stench that should have faded when the reverse summoning completed hadn't faded at all. It clung to his nose like a parasite.
A chill lanced from his soles to his crown. He jerked his eyes to his torn shoulder.
The golden chain was still there.
The other end seemed to run…
He stared, disbelieving.
From the shadow, a figure stood like a demon god risen from hellfire, silent and unmoving. Red magma flowed and dripped across his skin; waves of heat steamed the damp air until it sizzled.
Through the thin smoke, those ice-cold eyes fixed on Orochimaru—
—and nailed him to the spot.
"…Uchiha Chizumi!"
Shock twisted Orochimaru's voice out of shape.
In the next second, the trick was clear to him.
The relieved, ugly smile died on his face.
His eyes flickered, calculating.
"You used some Uzumaki sealing to 'bind' your body to mine and fooled the reverse-summon's targeting. In other words, you hijacked my technique—made me bring you to Ryūchi Cave with me?"
"Correct."
Chizumi finally spoke—flat as ice, each word knocking on Orochimaru's soul. "Your reward is a quicker death."
The golden chain shattered; Chizumi raised a magma-slick arm. Killing intent poured out in a tide you could almost touch.
Orochimaru's face soured to pitch.
Being targeted by this justice-deranged maniac felt worse than a bite from the most venomous snake in the world.
He couldn't understand why the Third Hokage kept such a lunatic in the Konoha.
Wasn't Hiruzen afraid this Uchiha would turn on him?
He looked like the last person to show a Hokage any respect.
Suddenly—alarms screamed in his skull.
He kicked off the stone with speed beyond limits, legs exploding backward.
Tearing pain blazed in his shoulder; his movement was ragged, but he fled anyway.
At the same time, he shouted to Manda: "Manda! That's my enemy! Help me kill him and I'll deliver the five hundred offerings—no, a thousand! A thousand live offerings!"
Manda's eyes narrowed; its bloodlust lit at once.
Its tail snapped like a purple steel whip, howling through the cave with speed beyond sight—and lashed at… Orochimaru!
Crack!
The tail wrapped his waist with perfect precision. The huge force wrung a grunt from him—but yanked him clear of the spot just in time.
The instant he was pulled—
KA-BOOM!!!
The ground under Chizumi's feet erupted like a volcanic throat.
A flood of annihilating magma thundered forward, carrying heat and shockwaves that could burn the world clean.
Where the lava rolled, slick rock glazed to dark red glass in a blink; heaps of old shed-skin vanished to powder.
Even the ancient cave miasma ignited at once.
A stone-forest carpeted in moss and weird fungi transformed into a boiling hell of bubbles and black smoke in a heartbeat.
On the other side, Manda set Orochimaru safely atop its head.
Cold eyes pinned the newborn lava hell and the figure bathing at its heart.
Manda raised its huge front half high, casting a shadow over half the platform, looking down at the small intruder.
Its voice rolled like thunder, ends hissing with venom and cold intent. "Sss… ignorant brat! You dare defile Ryūchi Cave with ninjutsu?!"
Its tongue flicked dangerously; viridian venom beaded on its fangs.
Even without Orochimaru's "offerings,"
Manda was seething with rage.
"To wreck this sacred ground like that—this lord could swallow you whole and digest your bones, and the White Snake Sage wouldn't say a word!"
Chizumi lifted his head a fraction.
He looked up at the massive serpent.
"You… are a red name villain."
"Looks like I came to the right place," he said, voice flat.