"Sensei… always so predictable."
Orochimaru's voice was a low hiss, almost a whisper. He slid backward with unnatural fluidity as Enma's adamantine staff whistled through the space where his head had been an instant before. The metal slammed against the roof tiles with a dull thud, kicking up a cloud of dust and broken ceramic.
Hiruzen didn't hesitate. He pivoted on his heels, using the momentum of the failed strike to launch a low sweep with the staff.
"And you, Orochimaru," he replied, his voice firm though his lungs burned with the effort, "continue to be a complete disappointment. All that power, all that potential…" He paused to dodge a kick from Orochimaru. "Wasted on this… obsession of yours."
The fight was a study in contrasts. Hiruzen moved with absolute precision, the product of many years on the battlefield; not a single movement was wasted. Every block with his monkey companion, transformed into a staff, was calculated to create an opening. He was a master conserving energy he no longer had in surplus.
Orochimaru, on the other hand, moved as if he had no bones. The blade of the Kusanagi sword, peeking from his mouth, was an extension of his own nature, patiently waiting for the slightest mistake to crush its prey.
"Obsession?" Orochimaru sneered, stretching his neck grotesquely to dodge a shower of shuriken Hiruzen threw with a flick of his wrist. "No, sensei. This is evolution. Something you, with your ridiculous attachment to that pathetic 'Will of Fire,' could never understand."
"The Will of Fire is what holds this village together. It's what gave you a home," Hiruzen growled, closing the distance and forcing Orochimaru back with a series of swift, precise strikes.
"That is your mistake," Orochimaru hissed as he blocked a blow with the Kusanagi. "You cling to the dying leaves of an old tree, while I seek the immortality of the snake that sheds its skin again and again."
The Kusanagi lunged forward, aimed straight for Hiruzen's heart. The Third Hokage spun his staff, intercepting the blade with a metallic CLANG that sent sparks flying. The force of the impact pushed him back a step, and a sharp pain shot through his old bones.
"Did you really think you could stop me alone?" Orochimaru asked, pressing his advantage with a superior smirk.
"I have never underestimated your cruelty, Orochimaru. But you have always underestimated the loyalty I inspire."
Just as Orochimaru prepared for a second attack, a sound cut through the air: the whistle of something heavy descending at incredible speed. Both master and student looked up out of pure instinct.
BOOM!
Tsunade landed with an impact that seemed to shake the entire stadium. The roof buckled beneath her feet, forming a crater of broken tiles around her. She stood tall and imposing, the midday sun glinting in her blonde hair. She brushed the dust from her shoulders with defiant calm and walked to stand beside Hiruzen, shoulder to shoulder.
Orochimaru's face, which had been twisted into a mask of superiority, contorted in a spasm of rage.
"Tsunade…" he hissed, his voice dripping with a mixture of mockery and contained fury. "Do you always have to be so dramatic? After your little show in the stands, have you come to watch our old master die up close?" His eyes narrowed, searching for a wound. "Or has coming home reminded you of Dan? Or your little brother?"
The verbal jab didn't have the desired effect. Tsunade simply cracked the knuckles of her right hand.
"I've come to take out the trash, Orochimaru," her voice was cold and level. "And it looks like today is collection day."
A small smile formed on Hiruzen's tired face. He looked at his student, the woman who was once the village's medical cornerstone.
"You've always been too rough, Tsunade," he said with a hint of affection.
"And you've always been too soft, sensei," she retorted, not taking her eyes off Orochimaru. "If you had listened to me years ago, we wouldn't be cleaning up this mess now."
"Perhaps you're right," Hiruzen admitted. "But it's never too late to correct a mistake."
"Save the compliments for later. First, we have to exterminate this pest."
The dynamic of the battlefield shifted in an instant. Orochimaru was no longer smiling. His stance became more defensive.
"Two against one! How brave!" he mocked, trying to regain psychological control of the fight. "The great Third Hokage needs his student to protect him. How pathetic!"
"Shut up and fight," Tsunade snapped.
The battle resumed, but now it was a storm of overwhelming power. Hiruzen, freed from the pressure of constant defense, went on the tactical offensive.
"Tsunade, to my left!"
He wove the hand seals at a dizzying speed.
"Katon: Karyū Endan!"
He spat out a massive stream of fire that took the shape of a dragon's head, which roared as it shot toward Orochimaru. He was forced to leap to the left to dodge the torrent of flames, the edge of his robe singeing. It was exactly what Hiruzen wanted: he had pushed him directly into Tsunade's attack zone.
She was already there, anticipating the move. Her fist, wreathed in an aura of bright green chakra, slammed into the roof right where Orochimaru was about to land.
The result was an explosion of tiles that created a ten-foot-wide crater and sent out a shockwave that knocked Orochimaru off-balance in mid-air.
For the first time, a look of genuine pressure appeared on his face. He twisted in the air, using one of his soft-body techniques to avoid falling into the hole, but before he could touch the ground, a shadow loomed over him. Hiruzen, seizing the opening created by Tsunade, brought Enma's staff down in a powerful descending strike.
Orochimaru barely had time to block with his Kusanagi, but the combined force of his two opponents was wearing him down. The metal shrieked under the pressure. Hiruzen's technical expertise controlled the flow of the battle, dictating positioning and limiting his options, while Tsunade's raw power turned every inch of the battlefield into a death trap. He was on the defensive, and he hated it.
"Doton: Doryūheki!" Hiruzen shouted, slamming his hands on the ground. A wall of rock and mud erupted between them and Orochimaru, giving them a second to breathe.
"He's still strong," Tsunade said, her knuckles bleeding slightly from the force of her own blows.
"But not invincible," Hiruzen replied. "His arrogance is his weakness. Attack him head-on, with force. I'll look for his blind spots."
The earthen wall exploded outward as dozens of giant snakes burst from Orochimaru's sleeves, shattering the barrier.
"Playtime is over!" he hissed from the other side.
Finding himself outmatched in a conventional taijutsu and ninjutsu battle, Orochimaru made a decision. After blocking a combination of a staff strike and a kick from Tsunade that made the air vibrate, he leaped back, creating a distance of over a hundred feet. He landed on the opposite end of the roof with a cold, calculating smile replacing his fury. He knew he couldn't win a battle of attrition against the two of them. Not like this.
It was time to play his trump card. The true reason for the invasion.
"You've been excellent opening acts," he said, his theatrical calm returning. "It was fun watching you work together again. It brings back so many memories…" His smile widened. "But it's time for the main event to begin. A little family reunion, so to speak."
His hands came together and began to move through a long, complex, and sinister sequence of seals, executed at a speed few eyes could follow. The air seemed to grow cold. An unnatural silence fell over the roof, and a dark, corrupt chakra began to swirl around him.
Hiruzen took a defensive stance. His eyes were fixed on the seals. He didn't need to follow every one; he recognized the nature of what Orochimaru was summoning.
"No…" he whispered, his voice trembling for the first time. "It can't be… that jutsu…"
"Oh, yes, sensei," Orochimaru confirmed, his eyes gleaming with sadistic delight at his former master's reaction. "You're wondering how I planned to defeat you, the so-called 'God of Shinobi.' The answer is simple: by using the gods who came before you!"
"You wouldn't dare, Orochimaru!" Hiruzen shouted, his voice thick with deep, personal anguish. "To defile the souls of the dead in such a way!"
He knew exactly what was coming: the forbidden jutsu created by the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju. Edo Tensei: Impure World Reincarnation.
The roof began to tremble. The dark chakra swirled around Orochimaru and, with a final seal, he slammed his palms against the surface.
"Kuchiyose: Edo Tensei!"
The surface of tile and wood cracked. Slowly, with a sound of shifting earth and splintering wood, two dark wooden coffins began to rise from the roof as if growing from it, while a third started to emerge behind them. They were sinister, anachronistic, and on their fronts, two kanji were painted in a crude, powerful script:
"First" (初). "Second" (二).
Hiruzen froze. It wasn't fear he felt, but a deep, paralyzing sorrow. To face his predecessors, the men he had admired and served, defiled and turned into soulless puppets… The idea was a blasphemy his shinobi heart could not bear.
"Sensei…" Tsunade whispered, seeing the hesitation on his face.
But while Hiruzen was trapped in horror, Tsunade saw something completely different. For an instant, she saw the kanji and felt a knot in her stomach.
Orochimaru smiled, expecting them to charge at him to try to interrupt the seals. A rookie mistake. The jutsu was already underway.
"NOT ON MY WATCH, YOU BASTARD!" Tsunade roared.
She completely ignored Orochimaru. Her target was the coffins. With a burst of speed that left a trail in the air, she charged forward. Hiruzen saw her intent and reacted on instinct.
"Don't interfere!" he yelled, lunging at Orochimaru to intercept him.
"Get out of the way, old man!" Orochimaru hissed, trying to dodge, but Hiruzen blocked him with Enma, locking his Kusanagi once more. "Your fight is with me."
While they struggled, Tsunade crossed the distance separating her from the emerging summons. With a cry that released years of frustration and contained power, she focused a massive amount of chakra into her right fist, so much that the air around it distorted.
And then, she struck.
The world seemed to fracture. The roof of the main pavilion, a structure that had stood for decades, exploded downward in a shower of wood, tile, and concrete. A massive crater, over thirty feet in diameter, formed in an instant, completely destabilizing the foundation on which the jutsu was manifesting.
The coffins, half-emerged, wobbled violently. Their connection to the ground was severed. With a groan of old wood, they tipped over and fell into the dark hole Tsunade had just created.
Orochimaru, still locked with Hiruzen, stared with wide eyes. His mind couldn't process the brutally simple solution she had employed.
But Tsunade wasn't finished. Without hesitation, she jumped into the crater after them. In the dim light, as the coffins fell, she landed on the one belonging to the Second Hokage. With a descending punch, she disintegrated it into a shower of sawdust and fine splinters, a cloud of wood dust floating in the air.
The jutsu, deprived of its physical vessels, collapsed. The dark chakra that had swirled on the roof dissipated with a final hiss. Orochimaru's ultimate weapon, his checkmate against the Third, had been, literally and casually, pulverized.
For a moment, a stunned silence fell over the shattered roof. Orochimaru shoved Hiruzen back, his raw strength born from pure disbelief. He stared at the crater, the remnants of wood dust floating lazily in the air. His usually arrogant face was dumbfounded. The expression slowly transformed, contorting into a mask of contained fury.
His master plan. His most powerful jutsu. His assured victory. Destroyed by the simplest, most brutal solution imaginable.
"My research! My masterpiece! You've reduced it to splinters!" he shrieked, his voice losing its hiss and becoming a high-pitched squawk. "You and your stupid brute force! Always the same! TSUNADEEEEEE!!"
The battle resumed, but it had changed. There were no more tricks or psychological games. Orochimaru's Kusanagi moved with desperate speed, every thrust aimed to kill. Hiruzen countered with a barrage of shuriken clones, creating a wall of spinning steel. Tsunade, climbing out of the crater, rejoined the fray; each of her blows forced Orochimaru to dodge and reposition, her punches reshaping the battlefield with every miss.
It was in the midst of this chaos, amid the clash of one of Hiruzen's earth jutsu and Orochimaru's summoned snakes, that a new sound cut through the stadium's roar.
It was a ROAR.
A deep, unnatural roar that vibrated in the air. It came from the forest, outside the village walls. Instinctively, the three of them paused for a fraction of a second. Their heads turned in unison toward the source of the sound.
The treetops, a kilometer away, shook violently. Then, they exploded outward in a shower of leaves and broken branches. And from that wound in the forest, a monstrous, grotesque form rose, silhouetted against the blue sky. It was the unstable summon, the abomination of twisted snake flesh and multiple heads screeching at the sky, a monument to a jutsu gone terribly wrong. Its size was colossal, rivaling the heads on the Hokage Rock.
All three recognized the threat instantly, but their interpretations were drastically different.
In Orochimaru's eyes, a glint of chaotic opportunity appeared. A distraction. A possible uncontrollable ally that could raze the village while he finished his work here.
In the eyes of Hiruzen and Tsunade, there was only one thing: the vision of an imminent catastrophe that could annihilate an entire district of Konoha in minutes.
The pause was broken. Orochimaru lunged forward, the Kusanagi aimed at Hiruzen's neck. The Third reacted in time, blocking the thrust with his staff, Enma. The two weapons locked, inches from his face.
Hiruzen's eyes met Tsunade's over Orochimaru's shoulder. He had made a decision.
"Tsunade…" he said, his voice strained with effort, sweat beading on his forehead.
She needed no more. Her eyes were already fixed on the beast writhing in the distance.
"I know," she replied, her voice grave. "I have to go. Anko and Ibiki are there, but they can't handle that alone." She could feel the chaotic power emanating from the creature even from this distance.
"Then go!" Hiruzen ordered, using a surge of chakra to push Orochimaru back a step. "Your duty is to the village! Protect the people!"
"But you!" she protested, taking a step toward them. "Alone against him…!"
"I've been Hokage for a long time!" Hiruzen interrupted, his voice ringing with the Kage's authority as he blocked another frantic attack from Orochimaru. "I can handle one rebellious brat! This is my responsibility! Now do your duty!"