The rooftop was quieter than it should have been.
Orochimaru had just stepped back from that mock embrace, kunai sliding across his tongue with theatrical ease, and for a brief second, Hiruzen felt only bitterness, anger, and the heaviness of age.
Then he finally opened his sensory perception.
Rusty, dulled, but still functional enough to taste power.
And what washed over him made his pupils contract like a dying flame.
This was not the Orochimaru he remembered.
Not the prodigy he'd once taught.
Not even the criminal that some reports described.
This presence… was wrong.
He felt the force of it in the bones of his hands.
Pressure like a coiled serpent made of pure chakra.
Dense. Refined. Predatory.
Stronger than he expected by far.
Stronger than any intelligence briefing had hinted.
Perhaps even two entire tiers above him.
Sweat rolled down his temple in quiet betrayal as he stared into Orochimaru's yellow eyes.
This is bad, he thought. Very, very bad.
In the original plan he'd constructed in his mind, once they learned that Orochimaru was sneaking around Konoha in recent weeks, he was going to die dramatically, sealing Orochimaru with himself, a noble sacrifice for the village. The kind future generations would praise endlessly.
The kind that would drown out… every stain he'd left behind.
He had imagined a clean, heroic death.
But looking at Orochimaru now, at the easy confidence in his posture, at the sheer disparity between them…
He suddenly realized the truth.
If he died like this, it wouldn't be heroic.
It would be pathetic.
A joke told by vultures.
After all, Hiruzen loved power more than anyone cared to admit.
If he didn't, he wouldn't still be clinging to the Hokage seat at his age like a fossil welded to the throne.
The only thing he ever found acceptable was the idea of trading his last few years for eternal glory.
But that option was slipping out of reach now.
Of course, if they'd anticipated this scale of invasion, the Chūnin Exams wouldn't still be running.
But that was another matter entirely.
His gaze flicked sharply to the violet barrier surrounding the rooftop, the Four Violet Flames Formation the "Kazekage's guards" had secretly erected.
And through the shimmering wall, he saw shadows, his Anbu, gathering.
He angled his hands behind his back and made a sequence of tight, urgent signs.
Reinforcements.
All available units.
Break the barrier at once.
He needed an opening.
Any opening.
Orochimaru wouldn't kill him instantly.
He felt like he understood his current crooked thought process a bit.
He would play.
Toy with him.
Drag it out.
That would be Hiruzen's chance to slip away, regroup, and salvage a scrap of dignity from this disaster.
Guy is here today, he thought, pulse hammering.
If he can access that…
If he can reach the Seventh or even Eighth Gate…
He might, might, force Orochimaru back.
It was the thinnest hope imaginable, but hope nonetheless.
Across from him, Orochimaru watched with the relaxed delight of a predator that had already sunk its fangs in.
He could read every twitch in Hiruzen's face, every forced swallow, every inch of paling skin.
The sight amused him.
He tilted his head just slightly, snake-like, lips curling.
Watching Hiruzen Sarutobi unravel was entertainment on its own.
The flustered panic. The shaken pride.
The old man's dawning realization that he wasn't facing a misguided student anymore.
He was facing something much worse.
Something that had outgrown him completely.
And Orochimaru savored that look like a rare delicacy.
So, he let the silence stretch, letting Hiruzen choke on it.
Then he spoke, voice soft enough to sound almost courteous.
"Sensei… you look unwell."
Hiruzen's jaw tightened.
Orochimaru stepped forward one unhurried pace, studying him as if examining a relic that had finally begun to crack.
"Is it the heat?" he asked lightly. "Or did you finally notice how wide the gap between us has become?"
Hiruzen didn't answer. Couldn't. His throat had gone dry.
Orochimaru's smile thinned into something colder.
"You were planning something dramatic, weren't you? One last, noble self-sacrifice, perhaps?"
A faint chuckle escaped him. "You always loved theatrics. But this isn't the story you imagined."
Hiruzen's fingers twitched behind his back, his earlier signals echoing through the minds of the Anbu outside again. Break the barrier. Now.
Orochimaru's eyes flicked lazily toward the edge of the flames.
"Ah… calling for help already?"
His tone never rose, but the mockery landed sharply.
Hiruzen swallowed.
Orochimaru leaned in just slightly, as if sharing a private joke.
"Sensei, if the barrier could break so easily… do you think I would have chosen this stage?"
A shard of dread crawled up Hiruzen's spine.
Orochimaru's amusement deepened at the sight.
"You see… while you were busy clinging to your title, I was busy evolving."
His voice softened again, almost fond.
"And now, even your death would struggle to matter."
Hiruzen's breath hitched.
Humiliation. Rage. Fear.
All tangled into one bitter knot.
Orochimaru tilted his head once more, eyes gleaming with quiet hunger.
"Try to endure a little longer, Sensei. I want to see just how long your pride can keep your legs from shaking."
The Anbu outside exchanged quick, uneasy glances through their masks.
This wasn't how their supposedly unshakable, pillar-of-the-village Hokage was supposed to look.
Pillars weren't meant to wobble.
This was Orochimaru, S-rank traitor, one of the legendary Sannin.
But standing across from him was still Hiruzen Sarutobi.
The Professor.
The so-called God of Shinobi of his era.
Yet the chakra trembling off him wasn't battle readiness.
It was fear.
A cold, unfamiliar fear.
What… happened up there?
They couldn't understand it, but they didn't have time to dwell.
Their duty wasn't to question, only to act.
And so they scattered in a blur, racing across rooftops and corridors, signaling every available shinobi to converge on the barrier.
Whatever was unfolding on that rooftop, they needed reinforcements.
Immediately.
Before the unthinkable happened.
Hiruzen felt the weird stares even through the barrier.
The disbelief.
The confusion.
Humiliation burned hotter than fear.
He grit his teeth hard enough to ache, forcing the tremor out of his voice, dragging up whatever remained of the man he used to be.
And finally, he bellowed out something halfway between sanctimony and defiance.
"Orochimaru… even now, you disgrace this village with your madness. I will stop you here!"
It rang hollow, but it was sound enough to cling to.
He pushed off the tiles, leaping back.
His trembling fingers tore off the white Hokage cloak and sent it drifting aside, revealing the dark battle garb beneath as he snapped his hands into the first seals.
A puff of smoke exploded beside him.
"Enma!" Hiruzen barked.
The old monkey king materialized, bewildered for a heartbeat before Hiruzen's panic poured through their link.
"Battle mode," Hiruzen hissed.
Enma grimaced but obliged, shifting into the adamantine staff just as Orochimaru's chakra surged again, cold, coiling, suffocating.
The pressure hit Hiruzen like a wall.
For a moment, his knees nearly buckled.
This wasn't a gap.
This was an abyss.
But there was no more time to think, no more time to posture.
If he hesitated now, he would crumble before even attempting dignity.
So he lunged forward first, swinging the staff in a desperate, decisive arc, the official start of his doomed clash.
Orochimaru, meanwhile, didn't even bother reaching for Edo Tensei.
Why would he?
This version of Hiruzen wasn't worth the theatrics.
Instead, Orochimaru played with him.
Effortless taijutsu.
Fluid, twisting kenjutsu.
Snake-limb feints that bent and coiled like nightmares.
Bursts of elemental ninjutsu flicked out with idle precision.
Summoned serpents snapping at Hiruzen's heels.
He fought like a man dissecting a problem, not facing an opponent.
Hiruzen, on the other hand, was being peeled apart piece by piece.
Enma's hardened staff cracked under the pressure of each clash.Shadow clones burst apart the moment they met Orochimaru's steel.
His few remaining combination jutsu bought him seconds, not ground.
Even the Fūma Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique, once a clever trump card, barely earned a blink.
Blood gathered under Hiruzen's tongue.
His breath turned ragged. Every step looked heavier than the last.
And the worst part was the creeping realization spreading through his mind:
The Reaper Death Seal wouldn't work.
Not on this version of Orochimaru.
So instead of searching for a moment of noble sacrifice…
Hiruzen found himself desperately waiting for rescue from the beginning.
For anyone.
For someone to break through the barrier and pull him out of this living hell.
He already knew what he would tell the village afterward, if he survived.
That the "Kazekage-dono," still labeled as such in his own internal narrative, at that time, still sitting close to him, must have slipped him somehow some kind of invisible poison before the fight even began, right before revealing himself as Orochimaru.
It would neatly explain his current, humiliating weakness.
Anything to mask the truth of this one-sided beating.
Because the truth was simple.
This wasn't a fierce duel between legends.
It was Orochimaru dismantling him at his leisure.
Meanwhile, Konoha's forces finally surged back into motion and gradually seized the initiative around the shattered stadium.
Anbu regrouped, Jonin barked orders, and the strongest still conscious and available began converging on the rooftop where the Hokage was trapped.
Kakashi and Guy arrived at the same time, landing beside a cluster of shaken Anbu who immediately rushed them.