In a forest of dead trees on the border of the Land of Rivers.
Orochimaru and Hidan slowly rose from underground, like ghosts returning from hell.
Hidan tossed his silver hair, the triple-bladed scythe on his shoulder reflecting a cold gleam in the sunlight.
He turned, fixed his eyes on Orochimaru with a look full of fanaticism and mockery, and grinned.
"Hey, Orochimaru, I heard Lin Ze slaughtered you over a decade ago. Even your corpse was reduced to ashes. How come you're back, alive and kicking?"
Orochimaru slowly turned his golden, serpentine eyes toward Hidan, his lips curling into something between a smile and a smirk.
"Heh... aren't you unable to die, too?"
His voice was husky and resonant, with a distinctive cadence.
"Hahahahaha!"
Hidan threw back his head and laughed, his laughter full of madness and excitement. "Well said! Neither of us can die! Lord Jashin granted me an immortal body, and you... it looks like you have your own methods."
He leaned closer to Orochimaru, curiosity gleaming in his eyes.
"Can you tell me how you survived that God of Shinobi? I heard all about it. During that battle at the Valley of the End, Lin Ze turned into a Thousand-Meter Azure Dragon and blasted you, Danzo, and Kakuzu into ashes!"
Orochimaru's expression did not change in the slightest, but a trace of icy menace flashed deep within his golden, serpentine eyes.
That battle was the closest he had ever come to death.
His Eight-Headed Serpent technique had been broken, and his soul had been severely wounded by the Adamantine Sealing Chains. Had he not prepared a "Cursed Seal Reincarnation" contingency in the core of his Eight Branches Technique beforehand, hiding some fragments of his soul in a specially made Cursed Seal developed using Ryūchi Cave's Senjutsu,