Naruto : Venom

Minutes Later

”Orochimaru-sama you’re not going to believe this!” Kidomaru calls from outside of Orochimaru’s office. Jirobo and Sakon are flanking either side of him.

”And what, pray tell, will I not believe?” Orochimaru looks up from an illustration of the human body’s chakra network.

”Tayuya and Alvarcus slept together last night!” Kidomaru blurts out.

”Good.” Orochimaru goes back to his diagram. ”I’m surprised Tayuya got him to move that quickly, I thought he was more reserved than that.”

”Oh, not like that.” Kidomaru hastily specifies. ”We caught them sleeping in each others arms. It was adorable.”

”Interesting.” Orochimaru taps his chin with his pen as he contemplates something. ”Perhaps it was a good idea to have Tayuya seduce him to strengthen his ties to Otogakure. His presence here is tentative at best. This way it will be more than just Sasuke keeping him here.”

”Wait, you knew Tayuya was trying to get him?” Kidomaru asks in surprise. ”I thought for sure you’d be pissed that your child got corrupted by her.”

”Of course I knew.” Orochimaru condescendingly says. ”I ordered it myself when he showed the tiniest hints of attraction to her. Why do you think I always chose Tayuya to fetch him? Why do you think I sent her as their escort for the Chunin Exams? Neither Alvarcus or Sasuke would have any trouble with genjutsu and Sasuke is formidable with them on his own. It was a farce to get them to accept her presence so that Tayuya could get closer to Alvarcus. In all actuality you, Kidomaru, would be the most effective of the Sound Four to accompany them. Both Sasuke and Alvarcus are close range fighters, you have very diverse long range fighting capabilities.”

”Huh.” Kidomaru smartly says back to his boss. ”The more you know. It’s weird though, I’ve seen her seduce people for missions before. I would swear that there’s genuine attraction going both ways.”

”Sakon, Jirobo. Do you agree with your teammate?” Orochimaru asks.

”I could see it.” Sakon replies. ”When we first met him, the flirting and such was forced. Now it seems... natural.”

”Yeah, it’s definitely different from when she forces it. Either she got really good at acting or she’s genuinely smitten with him.”

”How unexpected.” Orochimaru smiles deviously. ”Unexpected, yet not unwelcome.”

Unknown to everyone present, a small brown spider hidden behind one of the scrolls starts to shake in fury.

...

”You heard Orochimaru say what?” Shirokumo asks a tiny brown spider in an empty storage room.

The tiny brown spider does a little dance, scurrying left and right quickly while waving each of its legs in an intricate pattern.

”I can’t believe it.” Shirokumo’s body goes slack in resignation. ”Is there no low that Orochimaru won’t stoop to? To go so far as that! To have someone seduce another simply so he gains something he wants? He’s defiling something that should be sacred. Aw shit! How am I supposed to tell Al this?”

The tiny brown spider frantically waves its two front legs.

”Yeah I know he’s not going to take it well!” Shirokumo sighs. ”And here I thought he might actually have one positive thing here. Why does everything fall apart around him?”

The tiny brown spider bobs its body thrice.

”Yes, you did good bringing this to me.” Shirokumo praises him. ”Keep spying for as long as you can, every little piece can help, we just might not know how yet. Although, I have no idea how this could be helpful. At the very least it should give him another reason to want to leave as soon as possible.”

...

A Training Field, Otogakure

”Alright.” I calmly say to myself as I start to go through my warm up stretches. It’s really just a time waster, the Jiongu doesn’t need to be stretched out. But I’m not really here to train, I’m here so no one will bother me. I rarely train by myself ever since I came here, it’s so rare that this should be the last place for anyone to look for me. I’m here to figure out a few things.

”Should I tell Sasuke? Hell, can I tell Sasuke? If I do he might ask how I know and I’d need a very well planned out cover story.” I stand up out of my stretches and start running. I’ll get in a few laps before I move onto the more advanced things. When I say laps, I mean shinobi laps. I’m running straight at a wall, then up it onto the ceiling, then across that and down the far wall. Rinse and repeat.

”He deserves to know about Sakura, it wasn’t just me who lost her. Honestly I should tell Kakashi about her too. I know I’ll tell them both but when will I tell them? I can tell Kakashi in a letter -as tactless as that is that’s about the only way we can talk right now- and I can rely on him to control himself around Orochimaru and Kabuto. But Sasuke? He can be very narrow minded, he could very well decide that now is the time to kill them both. We’re not ready, we won’t be for a while. But does that justify me keeping it from him?”

I skid to a stop from my all out sprint next to a box full of kunai. There’s at least forty in there, it’s more than enough for what I want. I extend chakra strings and attach them to all of them and starts twirling them in unison around my body.

”Here’s where it gets even more perilous, should/can I tell him about Danzo? ’I want you to kill Sasuke Uchiha and bring me his eyes as proof.’ Sure, to just about anyone else that makes sense. What is the best proof of a dead Uchiha? Their eyes. Yet I am not just anyone, I know who Danzo is. I know that he had a hand in ordering the Massacre. I know what’s on his arm and in his covered eye.”

I let the spinning metal tornado slow to a stop. All of the kunai are just hovering around me, not moving the slightest. Suddenly they all explode outwards like shrapnel from a grenade. Forty wickedly sharp kunai all deeply embed themselves into the walls, ceiling and floor. It’s a dangerous move, that’s for damn sure. It’s also one I’ll never be able to use if I have a teammate with me, they’d be caught in the technique too.

”I think he wants Sasuke dead because he turned traitor but I think he wants Sasuke’s eyes even more. The Sharingan have become a limited resource and Danzo would happily kill multiple people for an extra two lives. Sasuke needs to know about this looming threat and I can’t spin this off as a general thing. No, I have to tell him to specifically watch out for Danzo and Root. I can’t always be there to step in, I can’t always be there to watch his back. Take the Chunin Exams for example, we were apart for most of it. The only times we were together was during the time between exams.”

I leave all but ten kunai embedded around the room. I start to twirl the ten around me again as I extend an additional ten strings from my fingers. A moment later I have all of the elements extending from each hand and soon those join the kunai spinning around me. This right now is my best defense, a sphere of earth, fire, water, lightning, wind and metal.

”Hell while we’re on the topic of things I need to tell Sasuke, I need to tell him what Orochimaru really wants with him. I’m not even sure if he knows why he’s really here. I bet he thinks it’s because Orochimaru wants to study the curse seal or something equally as weird, like Orochimaru genuinely wanting to train Sasuke because he sees his potential. That one’s not it, hell that isn’t even why I’m here. Sure Orochimaru saw my potential, but what got me here was his obsession with calling me his child and the knowledge I can provide him. But Sasuke is here as a meatsuit. The only real interest Orochimaru has in Sasuke is as his next body and I’m 99% sure Sasuke doesn’t know that.”

I let my defense crumble, the kunai go flying and the elemental whips fade out of existence. I quickly fly through some hand seals and five one meter thick pillars of earth raise up out of the ground around me. They’re all equally spaced apart from each other, from a bird’s eye view they’d look like the points of a pentagon.

I fly through more hand seals and my cheeks swell. ”Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work!” Fires as hot as hell itself rage towards one of the pillars and melt it into a smoldering heap of slag.

”Who the fuck am I kidding, Orochimaru isn’t event he biggest problem when it comes to Sasuke. It’s his innocent brother, Itachi. That’s the reason Sasuke is here, to become good enough to kill his brother. Is it worth it to try and convince Sasuke otherwise? In a little over two years can I change something that Sasuke has believed for most of his life? And how would I even do that? Say I got Shirokumo to set up a spy network in Konoha and he stumbled across a file labeled The Uchiha Massacre? That’s flimsy at best and for something so important he’d demand hard irrefutable evidence. I implicitly trust my spiders, but he won’t.”

My cheeks swell again. ”Wind Release: Pressure Damage!” The very air itself surges towards a pillar and turns the earth pillar to dust in blast of hurricane strength gales.

”Plus Itachi is dying. I have no idea how to save him, I don’t even know if it is possible to save him. But if I can -and convince Sasuke he’s innocent- he’d be one of the strongest people I’d ever have on my side. Itachi’s presence alone could swing the tides of the Fourth Shinobi War, not only would it keep him out of the grasp of the Edo Tensi, but it would give the good guys a ridiculously overpowered piece. That’s something worth looking into.”

My cheeks swell yet again. ”Lightning Release: False Darkness!” Lightning rips across the field and punches a hole straight through the earth pillar and continues on and spears into one of the far walls before it dissipates.

”Speaking of the Edo Tensi, I need to learn how to counter that before Sasuke and I finally kill Orochimaru. If we finally kill Orochimaru. In the off chance that I fail to prevent the Fourth Shinobi War I need to be as prepared as possible for it. Knowing how to dispel the Edo Tensi alone would be a major benefit, especially if Madara comes back again. I could force him back into the afterlife and with him goes the access to the Rinnegan.”

”Earth Release: Devouring Earth!” Jaws of earth harder than tempered steel bear trap burst forth and crush one of the remaining pillars. Bits of the shattered pillar fly in every direction, if I ever use this jutsu to its fullest potential against an enemy they’ll just be a bloody smear on the ground.

”I’m getting ahead of myself. One thing at a time, and first comes telling Sasuke everything that he needs to know. He’ll have to learn all of it eventually and I’m the best person to tell him it all. First I’ll let him know about Danzo, right now that’s the most pressing issue. If Danzo knew who I was in the Chunin Exams you can bet your ass he knows that ’Red’ is Sasuke. I’m sure my letter -as amusing as that was- didn’t sooth things over with the wannabe dictator. We’ll have to be extra wary for the tournament.”

”Water Release: Exploding Water Colliding Wave!” Water surges out of my mouth and tears the last pillar apart in its multiple currents. It isn’t just the one pillar that gets swept away, all of the debris that I’ve made throughout today are whisked away along with it. Once the water settles, I’m standing with it coming up to my ankles.

”Oops. May have overdone that one a bit.”

...

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