"Give it up, Uchiha Sasuke. You're no match for me," Neji said coolly, watching his raven-haired opponent gasp for air at his feet. "The Uchiha clan is a relic of the past. You should accept your clan's fate, and go quietly into the night to meet your kinsmen."
Sasuke gritted his teeth, his fingernails raking the dirt at his feet as he gathered his limbs underneath himself and pushed himself up onto his feet with great difficulty. He had tracked Orochimaru and his entourage across the continent, all the way to the ruins of the Land of Whirlpools off the coast of the Land of Fire… he could not fall here, in the middle of nowhere, so close to his goal…
"I've often heard it said that the Uchiha clan traces its origins back to the Hyūga, but I'd always taken those rumours with a pinch of salt, since the Uchiha were no longer around to deny them," Kabuto remarked lightly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "But having witnessed this duel, it seems there may be some truth to those rumours… The legendary Byakugan… often imitated, never duplicated… accept no substitutes, eh?"
Sasuke glared at Neji, unwilling to tear his gaze away for even a heartbeat, not even to silence the chattering bystanders with his Sharingan. Kabuto, Guren, Nanashi… Orochimaru had doubtlessly trained them as rigorously as he had Neji. Each of them was exceedingly dangerous, but for the sake of the Uchiha clan's revival, Sasuke had no choice but to keep his trump card hidden. Uchiha Nanashi, for her part, seemed altogether uninterested in the presence of another Uchiha survivor, chatting with Guren without even bothering to look at the match.
"It's… not over yet," Sasuke hissed. "Don't look down… on the Uchiha!"
Though it shamed Sasuke to admit it, he was thoroughly outclassed by the boy once touted as the Hidden Leaf's greatest genius. It was as if nothing had changed since their fateful duel in the Chūnin exams three years before; yet if he could not even beat one measly Hyūga clansman— Orochimaru's set condition for granting him an audience— how was he supposed to meet Uchiha Nanashi?
Hyūga Neji could see the razor-wire Sasuke had spread out as clearly as if he had painted them neon pink, and he could deflect shuriken with his bare hands, no matter how many were thrown at him or how they ricocheted off each other to strike at his blind spot. No ninjutsu Sasuke knew could pierce or outspeed the rotational velocity of the Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven Jutsu, and his every attempt to plunge his opponent into a genjutsu had met with immediate failure.
And as Sasuke had just discovered, Neji was far better at taijutsu than he was. In his base state, Neji was just as fast as he was when he triggered the Gate of Opening or used the Chidori, and he really knew how to throw hands! What sorts of performance-enhancing drugs had Orochimaru fed him!?
"It's over, I've already sealed your Tenketsu." Neji said coldly. "In case you've forgotten, your internal organs are inextricably linked to your chakra pathways. If you try to force out chakra from your already damaged organs, you might very well permanently disable or kill yourself, at the very worst."
"You've seen nothing yet…!" Sasuke growled. "I'll show you the true power of the Uchiha!"
After seeing how Sakura had blinded herself by using Susano'o just the once, Sasuke had grown subconsciously apprehensive about employing his newly evolved eyes. After all, he would never have beaten his older brother had he not overtaxed his visual prowess… but it seemed he now had no choice but to rely on his newfound powers.
But just as the tomoe in Sasuke's irises swirled and merged into a single pattern…
"I've seen enough."
At the sight of Sasuke's new eyes, Neji's breath caught in his throat, and before he realised it, he had taken half a step back. It was as if the chakra in Sasuke's pupils had grown hundreds of times more sinister in the span of a heartbeat… but at the sound of Orochimaru's voice, he snapped out of his momentary trance. He stood to the side and bowed as his master slowly walked into the centre of the battlefield to face Sasuke.
"Such a dark intensity in those beautiful eyes," Orochimaru said silkily, a note of admiration in his voice. "With those eyes, there is no longer any doubt in my mind who defeated your brother…"
Sasuke bristled at Orochimaru's words.
"You're… mocking me!"
After all, Sasuke knew very well he wasn't the one who had driven Itachi into a corner, forcing him to draw out more power than his frail body still possessed; he wasn't the one who had killed his brother… it was all Sakura, that hateful vixen. He remained stony-faced as Orochimaru approached, eyeing him with the eyes of a serpent who had just found a particularly tasty-looking egg.
"Well, you've found me, Sasuke-kun," Orochimaru went on softly, brushing past him. He leaned in uncomfortably close and whispered, his breath tickling the little hairs in Sasuke's ear. "So, what now? I wouldn't be opposed to hearing you out… after all, you're making quite an impression on this vessel of mine, you know…? This excitement, the feeling is almost… electric."
Sasuke's eyes widened in shock as a wet, slimy sensation wormed its way into his ear. In a flash, he flickered a few metres away, feeling sick to his stomach as he looked up to see Orochimaru staring back at him with Sakura's face, an unnaturally long, forked tongue lolling out from her delicate mouth.
"My mistake, I thought a familiar face might put you at ease," said Orochimaru, his tone teasing as Sakura's voice slipped from his lips. He raised a hand to his face, and when he lowered it again, his own features had returned. "There now— better?"
"You perverted bastard…!" Sasuke hissed. "Show yourself before me with that face again, and I'll melt it off!"
Orochimaru licked his lips as he tasted the sweat that he had collected from Sasuke's ear and nape.
"Now, that's interesting. Your Cursed Seal of Heaven has fully bloomed, but it hasn't corroded your mind…" he said thoughtfully. "You truly never cease to fascinate, my favourite test subject… Haruno Sakura… Oh, but I really ought to say Uchiha Sakura, shouldn't I?"
Sasuke was beginning to have second thoughts about forming an alliance with this monster. He'd assassinate the Hidden Leaf's council members all on his own, and if it came down to it, he'd unleash the full might of his ocular prowess and take Nanashi away from this freak!
He glanced at the black-haired girl standing beside Guren of the Crystal Style. According to his intel, Nanashi was counted amongst Orochimaru's new Sound Four, along with Hyūga Neji, Kabuto, and Guren, the old guard having fallen one after another over the past two years. The only problem was, she did not appear in the least interested in speaking to him.
"You know full well Sakura isn't a true Uchiha," Sasuke said coldly, turning back his attention to Orochimaru, lest the snake slide his tongue down another hole where the sun didn't shine while he wasn't looking. "You planned for her to steal Nanashi's powers, just so you could take them for yourself."
Orochimaru smiled.
"That is not false, but neither is that the whole truth," he said. He made a small gesture, and Kabuto came running up with a scroll. "You see, when Itachi massacred his clan, the higher-ups stepped in at once to secure your inheritance in your name, lest the Uchiha holdings fall into the wrong hands; yet as I'm sure you've already figured out, they kept a large part of it for themselves…"
Kabuto unfurled the scroll and performed a hand sign, from which tumbled a mountain of dusty old books and scrolls. Orochimaru selected one of the books and began flipping through its pages.
"I've always harboured an interest in the Uchiha clan," Orochimaru admitted, tapping the book's pages with the back of his hand. "When I became a missing-nin, it grew much harder for me to pursue my research, but luckily for me, a certain Leaf Council member shared my passion for unearthing the secrets of your clan's powers; a few years back, he sent me a few documents he reckoned he could spare to aid me… here, have a look…"
Sasuke reluctantly took the book from Orochimaru's hands, and his eyes widened in shock. The book was a photo album, and in one of the aged pictures, standing beside his mother and father in their old living room, was the spitting image of Sakura, holding baby Itachi in her arms. The only difference between her and the Sakura he knew was that this girl wore the Uchiha clan's black, form-fitting combat garb instead of her usual low-cut cheongsam.
"It was only recently that I remembered why I had felt such a sense of déjà vu when I first saw Sakura-kun, three years ago in the Forest of Death," Orochimaru said. "I knew I had seen her face before… because I had."
"This isn't possible," Sasuke said, his mind reeling. This sort of ageing couldn't be faked; the photo was real. "How can this…"
"This photograph is dated twenty years ago to this day," Orochimaru went on. "I had one of my informants snoop about the Hokage Residence for this Uchiha Konan's birth and mission records, but they found none, which suggests her records were sealed… and that is something only the Hokage at the time could have authorised. Had it not been for this single photograph, and one other document originating from the police station, it would have been as though she had never existed… this woman, whom I suspect is Sakura-kun's true mother."
Sasuke said nothing.
"I believe Sakura-kun's powers stem from a mutation within the Uchiha bloodline," Orochimaru said softly. "The capacity to mimic already lies in your blood, so it isn't far-fetched to imagine that, through some spontaneous evolution of a gene— or perhaps the mingling of blood from another Kekkei Genkai lineage— a new and unique ability to copy bloodline limits might have unexpectedly arisen."
Sasuke's mind reeled as he struggled to make sense of these new revelations. So, Sakura was a true Uchiha after all… that matched the story the Manyū patriarch had told, of Manyū Chifusa's tryst with a handsome Uchiha visitor to her village, eighty years ago… but then, what had the higher-ups done to Sakura's birth mother, this Konan? Had they deemed her too dangerous to let live…?
As if reading his thoughts, Orochimaru answered.
"You're in luck, Sasuke-kun," he chuckled. "It just so happens that I've discovered a way to undo the pesky seal Sarutobi-sensei placed on my favourite Edo Tensei targets… the answer lies here, in the Land of Whirlpools! We'll soon have it from our dearly departed Third Hokage's very mouth!"