Orochimaru

The air in the center of the forest was as thick as congealed blood.

Bzzzz—

The roar of the Chainsword was the only sound in that dead silence, like an ancient beast awakened from slumber, growling low.

"Sasuke, stay alert." Naruto's command shattered the stillness.

"Sakura, fall back."

There was not a trace of emotion in his voice. His orders branded themselves into their minds, instantly suppressing their fear. Sasuke's Sharingan spun sharply as his body automatically shifted into a combat stance. Sakura gritted her teeth and forced herself to retreat to a safe distance.

A hoarse laugh, like scales scraping together, came from the dense canopy above.

"Hehehehe... What interesting eyes."

A ninja dressed in Kusagakure attire slowly emerged. Before their eyes, her face twisted and stretched like melting wax, eventually becoming a pale, eerie visage.

A long tongue slid out and greedily licked across his lips.

Orochimaru.

He stuffed the Heaven Scroll into his mouth. His throat wriggled, and he forcibly swallowed it whole.

The gesture was so inhumanly grotesque that Sakura's stomach churned, and she nearly vomited.

Sasuke's body went taut. He could feel every muscle fiber trembling. That evil presence filled him with instinctive fear.

Orochimaru did not look at Sakura, nor did he look at Naruto. All his attention was fixed on Sasuke, with the fervor and possessiveness of a connoisseur beholding a flawless work of art.

"I found you, Sasuke-kun." His voice hissed like a serpent's tongue. "Such a perfect vessel."

Sasuke's heart pounded wildly. Fear, anger, and a faint, suppressed excitement.

Just as Orochimaru reached out toward Sasuke.

Naruto moved.

He did not use the Body Flicker Technique. He merely took one solid step forward, like an impassable wall, placing himself in front of Sasuke.

He held the roaring Chainsword across his chest, its tip aimed directly at Orochimaru.

"Stay away from my soldier."

Naruto's tone was flat, yet it carried an unquestionable authority.

Soldier?

Sasuke's pupils contracted. He disliked being protected like this, yet absurdly, Naruto standing before him gave him a faint... sense of security.

Orochimaru stopped. His greedy eyes finally shifted away from Sasuke, studying Naruto and the unheard-of weapon in his hands with interest.

"Soldier? Hehe, an interesting way to put it." Orochimaru smiled. "And this weapon... You, too, are full of secrets, Naruto-kun."

"An heretic like you has no right to ask questions." Naruto tightened both hands around the hilt and lowered his body slightly into a standard assault stance.

"Heretic?" The smile on Orochimaru's face widened, delighted as though he had discovered a novel toy. "What an interesting word. Let me see just how capable you are!"

He formed hand seals.

"Summoning Jutsu!"

Boom!

A massive cloud of smoke erupted, and a giant snake with scales thicker than armor appeared from nowhere. A foul gale rushed at them. The snake raised its head, its lantern-like eyes fixed on Naruto. It opened its bloody maw and bit down viciously!

"Naruto!" Sakura's cry was torn apart by the wind.

Sasuke's Sharingan spun frantically, trying to decipher this attack beyond all reason, but he only felt powerless. Before such a colossal creature, any taijutsu or ninjutsu seemed pitifully small.

Yet Naruto did not dodge. He did not even take a step back.

Facing that looming shadow of death, his arms swelled with muscle as he raised the Chainsword high over his head.

With a low roar.

He brought it down in an utterly straightforward vertical slash!

Bzzzzzzzzz—!

The Chainsword's roar reached its peak. The blade, infused with wind-nature chakra, and its rapidly spinning electric saw teeth became a silver bolt of lightning that tore through everything.

Splat—!

There was no earth-shattering collision.

The instant the Chainsword touched the giant snake's head, it was like a red-hot knife cutting through butter. Hard scales, thick skull, writhing flesh... everything was crushed, shredded, and churned into an indistinct slurry of blood and meat beneath those savage teeth.

The blade cut all the way through.

The roaring weapon tore from the giant snake's head all the way down to its tail.

Time seemed to freeze for a second.

Then the enormous snake split neatly down the middle, becoming two twitching slabs of ruined flesh that crashed to the ground.

Foul blood and chunks of organs splattered everywhere like a violent rainstorm.

Sasuke and Sakura stood rooted in place, their faces covered in warm liquid, completely unaware of it.

Their minds were blank as they numbly watched a slaughter.

Naruto stood amid the rain of blood. The high-speed rotation of his Chainsword had already flung away every trace of filth.

He slowly pointed the blade at the completely unharmed Orochimaru.

"A rotten soul, a fallen will, pure evil." Naruto's expression was more solemn than ever. "Your very existence is Pollution, like a... Chaos God from the Warp!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

The smile finally vanished from Orochimaru's face. He needed to get a little more serious.

"Hidden Shadow Snake Hands!"

Dozens of black venomous snakes shot from his sleeves like living whips, coiling toward Naruto from every direction.

Naruto did not retreat.

The Chainsword in his hand became a silver storm.

There was not a single unnecessary movement. Every slash and every block struck precisely at the snakes' most vulnerable points.

There were no flashy techniques, only pure efficiency born for killing.

Splat! Splat! Splat!

Severed snake corpses rained down, but not one came within half a meter of Naruto.

Sasuke's heart hammered in his chest.

Orochimaru's attacks were bizarre and lethal, but Naruto's response was even more terrifying.

It was pure destruction, utterly stripped of beauty and variation.

Orochimaru sneered, his boneless body gliding across the ground as he instantly closed the distance.

His speed was beyond imagination.

"Your weapon truly is interesting, but battles between ninja aren't just about whose tool is sharper!"

He opened his mouth, and the tip of a sword emerged from within, stabbing straight for Naruto's heart.

Naruto twisted aside. The blade grazed his ribs and collided with the Chainsword, throwing up a spray of sparks.

At the same time, the Chainsword swept horizontally toward Orochimaru's neck.

Orochimaru's neck stretched backward at an impossible angle like rubber, narrowly evading the fatal strike.

The two separated in an instant and faced each other again.

"Fast reactions." Orochimaru licked his lips, admiration and greed intertwined in his gaze. "Your body is interesting as well."

Naruto did not respond.

Poof! Poof! Poof!

Three Shadow Clones identical to him appeared at his side, each wielding a slightly translucent Chainsword formed from chakra.

"Tactical squad, Mode Two. Execute the Purification Protocol."

At the original's command, all four "Narutos" moved at once.

They did not fight individually. Instead, they formed a standard diamond assault formation and charged Orochimaru from four directions in flawless coordination.

Orochimaru's expression finally changed.

He was not facing four separate ninja, but a killing machine with seamless coordination.

No matter which way he moved, he would face attacks from at least two directions at once.

Every escape route had been completely sealed.

"Interesting! Too interesting!"

He laughed madly and formed hand seals again.

But Naruto's attack had already arrived.

From the front came the original's powerful downward chop.

From the left came a Shadow Clone's tricky horizontal sweep, cutting off his retreat.

From the right, another Shadow Clone charged low across the ground, targeting his legs.

Behind him, the fourth Shadow Clone had already leaped high into the air, ready to launch a deadly aerial strike.

It was a guaranteed kill.

Boom!

The raging Chainswords struck their target simultaneously, carving several deep trenches into the ground.

The "Orochimaru" trapped in the middle was instantly torn to pieces.

But those fragments did not turn into flesh and blood. They became scattered clumps of dirt in midair.

An Earth Clone?

Sasuke's Sharingan caught the anomaly.

"Over here."

A teasing voice came from behind a large tree some distance away.

The real Orochimaru stood there without a scratch, though his expression was far graver than before.

As he looked at Naruto, there was no longer the delight of someone examining a toy in his eyes. Instead, they held a complicated mixture of confusion, wariness, and intense curiosity.

"You aren't a ninja."

Orochimaru spoke each word slowly, as though stating a fact.

"Your fighting style, your killing intent, that so-called 'tactics' of yours... none of it belongs to this world."

"What exactly are you?"