Orochimaru and Moriyue were naturally just putting on an act. Although Moriyue had always been wary of Orochimaru, they had an agreement in place. Agreements had always been the cheapest things, but Orochimaru had indeed helped Moriyue quite a bit according to their deal.
Moriyue naturally had to make his stance clear. Orochimaru had come this time for no reason other than one thing—Itachi Uchiha's eyes.
Although Orochimaru had obtained the body of Second Pillar that he had long coveted, that body had sacrificed too much for revenge, including its eyesight.
To be honest, if it had been anyone else, impaired vision would not have been much of a problem. Orochimaru alone could perform far more precise eye surgery.
But that only applied to ordinary shinobi. Vision problems came in many forms. Some were simply caused by overusing the eyes, while others resulted from external damage to the eyeball. Different causes required different treatments.
Unfortunately, Sasuke's eye problems were not as simple as overuse. This was the fate of the Uchiha Clan. Without transplanting the Sharingan of a biological brother, their Sharingan would ultimately meet only one end—blindness.
But Orochimaru found that deeply unreasonable. How were Uchiha Clan members without brothers supposed to avoid the fate of blindness? Did the existence of the Sharingan really impose brothers as a prerequisite? That made little sense.
Still, Orochimaru had later found a way to prevent his own eyes from going blind: the First Hokage's cells. Yet he still felt that Itachi's eyes were better. Besides, they were spoils he had painstakingly schemed to obtain. Having them so easily taken away by someone else left a very bad taste in his mouth.
The group ran out of Cloud Shinobi territory. Once Orochimaru saw that they had more or less left Kumogakure's range, he