The Snake in the Cave

There were no torches in the cave. Light came from fluorescent fungi on the walls and a few cold lamps encased in glass. The ground was damp, and tiny White Snakes covered the stone walls. They did not attack, only flicked their tongues and watched the newcomers.

Yamanaka Fūma was bound to a stone pillar in the center.

He was young and pale. A Black Ring Mark had spread across his chest to his collarbones. His gaze was unfocused, but he was still alive.

On the stone table beside the pillar lay the original copy of Kushina's Sealing Notes.

The red cover was well preserved, with the Uzumaki Clan crest on one corner.

A small jar beside it held a sample of Naruto's blood.

The first thing Naruto looked at when he entered the cave was not Yamanaka Fūma.

It was the notebook.

It had belonged to his mother.

Orochimaru stood behind the stone table.

He wore a light-colored robe. His face was pale, and his golden slit-pupiled eyes held a snake's fascination. When he saw Naruto in person, his eyes visibly brightened.

"Such perfect Chakra control."

His voice was hoarse, with an unpleasant, clinging quality.

"The Nine-Tails didn't run wild. It's as though you reshaped its power. Minato couldn't have done that. Neither could Kushina."

Jiraiya entered the cave, his expression cold.

"Orochimaru, put it down."

Orochimaru looked at him, his smile deepening.

"Jiraiya, you say the same thing every time."

Kakashi stood to one side, his Sharingan fixed on the snakes.

Shisui had not drawn his blade, but his Three Tomoe were already active.

Naruto walked toward the stone table.

Orochimaru rested a finger on the Sealing Notes.

"Not so fast. These contain sealing jutsu written in Kushina's own hand, along with some old secret arts of the Uzumaki Clan. You must want them badly."

Naruto stopped.

"What's your price?"

Orochimaru licked his lips.

"One drop of your blood."

Jiraiya snapped, "In your dreams!"

Orochimaru ignored him and kept his eyes on Naruto.

"Not that old blood in the jar. I want fresh blood. Blood from after the Nine-Tails accepted you as its master."

Naruto looked at him.

"You want to study me?"

"Of course."

Orochimaru smiled without a hint of shame.

"A Perfect Jinchuriki, the Uzumaki Constitution, Minato's talent for space-time techniques, Kushina's gift for sealing, and that change in you I can't begin to understand."

He looked at Naruto as though he were a rare specimen.

"Naruto-kun, you're far more interesting than the Sharingan."

Shisui's gaze turned cold.

But Naruto gave a small smile.

"You're more honest than Danzo."

"Oh?" Orochimaru said, intrigued.

"He steals things and claims it's for Konoha."

Naruto raised a hand.

Nine-Tails Chakra formed a fox claw behind him.

"At least you admit you want it."

The fox claw struck at Orochimaru in an instant.

Orochimaru bent backward like soft clay, evading the first blow. He slid to the cave wall and spat out a long snake. The snake held the Kusanagi Sword in its jaws and thrust it toward Naruto's shoulder.

Naruto did not dodge.

A Chakra arm seized the blade.

The Kusanagi Sword made a shrill scraping sound against the Nine-Tails Chakra, but did not immediately break.

Orochimaru's eyes lit up even more.

"More than enough strength. And the reflexes to match."

Naruto tightened his grip and slammed the Kusanagi Sword and the snake into the ground.

Boom!

The stone floor split open.

But Orochimaru himself had already appeared beside Yamanaka Fūma, a finger poised over the ring-shaped mark on his chest.

"Don't move."

"If the corruption inside him erupts, the cave will collapse, the notebook will be destroyed, and he'll die."

Naruto looked at him.

"Are you working for that black thing?"

Orochimaru's smile faded slightly.

"Working for it? No."

"I'm merely interested in it."

Jiraiya asked coldly, "Do you know what it is?"

"A little."

Orochimaru raised a hand. A wisp of black Chakra coiled around his fingertip.

"It's neither a living person nor an ordinary grudge. It hides in the cracks of history and stirs the desires of the living. The Uchiha Stone Tablet, Root, the Advisor, the hospital—its traces are everywhere."

He looked at Naruto.

"It wants to use you to open some kind of rift."

Naruto asked, "You want that rift?"

"I want to know what's on the other side."

Jiraiya gritted his teeth. "So you're helping it?"

Orochimaru looked at Jiraiya.

"You always insist on dividing everything into helping and not helping. Science doesn't work that way. When something unknown appears, observation matters most."

Naruto walked toward the stone table.

Orochimaru narrowed his eyes.

"One more step, and Yamanaka Fūma dies."

Naruto did not stop.

"He's dying anyway."

Yamanaka Fūma's eyes shifted.

A little awareness remained in him.

At those words, his lips trembled.

Naruto raised his hand. A Chakra arm grabbed the notebook and the blood sample from the stone table.

At the same moment, Orochimaru pressed down on Yamanaka Fūma's chest.

The Black Ring Mark burst open.

Yamanaka Fūma screamed, and black patterns lit up across the entire pillar.

Jiraiya immediately formed hand signs.

Kakashi rushed toward Yamanaka Fūma.

Shisui's Sharingan spun as he tried to suppress Yamanaka Fūma's consciousness with genjutsu.

Naruto did not turn around.

The instant he took hold of the notebook, a golden formula spread from his palm across Yamanaka Fūma's chest.

He did not seal it from the outside.

Instead, he drove the formula backward through the fissure left by the burst ring, straight into the corruption's core.

The black Chakra thrashed like an insect pinned in place.

For the first time, Orochimaru looked openly surprised.

"You found the core that quickly?"

Naruto looked at him.

"Your observation is over."

Nine-Tails Chakra surged from the ceiling, floor, and walls at once.

Naruto had spread his Chakra throughout the cave the moment he entered.

Orochimaru had tried to use Yamanaka Fūma to hold him back. Naruto had done the same to Orochimaru.

The entire cave became a cage of fox claws.

Orochimaru's body went limp and dissolved into snakes that scattered in every direction.

Naruto raised his hand.

The fox claws closed in.

They crushed a swath of snakes.

But one White Snake slipped into a crack in the stone. As it fled, Orochimaru's voice came from its mouth.

"Naruto-kun, the next time we meet, I'll prepare a better experiment."

Naruto smashed the crack with his palm.

The White Snake broke in two.

But the real Orochimaru was already gone.

Yamanaka Fūma lay on the ground. The black mark on his chest had been suppressed, and his life was saved.

Naruto put away Kushina's Sealing Notes and picked up the jar of old blood.

Orochimaru had left a snake-shaped mark on its surface.

Naruto's fingers tightened.

The jar shattered, and the old blood evaporated in the Nine-Tails Chakra.

Outside the cave, a White Snake emerged from distant grass and fled deeper into the wilderness.

It had slithered barely a dozen meters when a Kunai engraved with a Flying Thunder God Formula struck the ground in front of its head.

Naruto appeared before the White Snake.

"Who said you could leave?"

The Flying Thunder God Formula lit up for the first time. Naruto was not chasing an enemy, but the eye Orochimaru had left in the dark.