Seeing the Eight-Headed Serpent in the distance—comparable in size to the enormous Susanoo, and even a little larger—Third murmured, "He actually learned this technique!"
Fourth was also stunned. "Is that... the Eight Branches Technique?"
As a Forbidden Jutsu recorded by Konoha, the Hokage were all familiar with the Eight Branches Technique. For that very reason, they knew better than anyone how difficult it was to master.
The Eight Branches Technique simply wasn't something a normal person could learn.
Setting aside the immense amount of Chakra needed to master the technique, just splitting one's will into eight parts and placing each one inside a different head of the Eight-Headed Serpent was an insurmountable challenge for most people.
It wasn't that no one in the village had tried to learn the Eight Branches Technique. But they either failed or suffered a mental breakdown and went insane.
So the village had classified the Eight Branches Technique as a Forbidden Jutsu and strictly forbidden ordinary shinobi from learning it.
On the battlefield,
the two colossal creatures faced off.
On one side was a huge white serpent, its eight heads swaying. On the other was a red, armored Susanoo upper body.
Orochimaru knew that to fight the Uchiha Clan's Susanoo, he had to transform into a monster of comparable size.
What's more, as long as even one of the Eight-Headed Serpent's heads remained alive, it could revive endlessly. That meant it could hold its own even against Amaterasu. And because it had eight heads and eight separate consciousnesses, genjutsu wouldn't work on it unless all eight heads were caught in the illusion at the same time.
Having studied the Mangekyō Sharingan, Orochimaru knew just how precious its Dojutsu was. If he could drag Itachi into a battle of Dojutsu, he would win!
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.