The so-called 'good place' Orochimaru mentioned was actually a lowland area far from Oto.
By the way, Masashi really thought that the Sannin had a talent for civil engineering. The underground part of Oto was far more impressive than the surface.
The two of them came alone, without bringing anyone else. They each stood on a separate patch of ground, staring at each other face-to-face.
"So, how do we define 'defeat'?" Masashi asked.
"Of course, we go all out. For ninjas like us, knowing when to stop isn't something we take for granted, is it?" Orochimaru said with a smile.
"Alright." Masashi nodded. His eyes instantly turned into scarlet eyes.
"The Sharingan, huh? What a pity. I was hoping to see your new eyes."
From beneath Orochimaru's robe, countless snakes slithered out. They quickly spread out, like ink seeping into paper, crawling toward Masashi.
"This opening move of yours lacks sincerity…" Masashi shook his head, his hands already forming seals.
A thin stream of fire shot from his mouth, expanding rapidly upon contact with the air, forming a fan-shaped blaze.
The flames roared, turning water into smoke.
The vegetation and fast-moving snakes on the ground became the perfect fuel. Wherever the tongues of fire reached, they burned. A massive fire rose from the earth, dancing with the wind, quickly merging into a sea of flames.
Though he said Orochimaru lacked sincerity, his Sharingan remained locked onto his opponent.
Now that his ocular power had greatly increased, he could see through the sea of fire and locate the Sannin, even without drawing on Matatabi's chakra to evolve his Sharingan into the Rinnegan.
The raging fire surged forward, devouring the land, closing in on Orochimaru at a speed faster than the snake swarm.
Seeing the approaching flames, Orochimaru released the Water Wall.
Though the Land of Rice Fields was cold, it wasn't dry, making Water Release techniques feasible.
The water torrents clashed against the flames with equal force. To Masashi's eyes, a large chakra mass appeared, obscuring Orochimaru's figure.
As expected of one of the original trump cards of the First Hokage's lineage, he had ample experience dealing with the Sharingan.
In the original timeline, he was easily subdued by Itachi's genjutsu, causing his prestige to plummet from a boss-level threat to little more than an experience farm. However, the fact that he managed to survive until the very end and even undergo a partial redemption as one of the Sannin proved he was no pushover.
In terms of chakra nature mastery, he was a full-house like Hiruzen, proficient in all five elements with a primary affinity for Yang Release.
As for Yin Release, from Masashi's perspective, Orochimaru had decent resistance to genjutsu.
Throughout their journey together, their battle had already begun in subtle ways. Orochimaru had countered all of Masashi's genjutsu effectively, likely because he had been anticipating them.
Or… was Masashi just a genjutsu specialist who only excelled against weaker opponents? He refused to believe that. His genjutsu defense was top-tier!
As water and fire clashed, more and more steam filled the air, creating a dense mist. The ground beneath Masashi started to tremble.
Suddenly, the earth split apart. The burning ground crumbled away, and from the fissure, water gushed out.
This wasn't a Water Release technique, it was the underground water being forcibly drawn to the surface.
The muddy water doused the remaining flames, and within the sludge, a small snake silently slithered toward Masashi, suddenly leaping up with its fangs bared.
Then, its fangs shattered upon biting him.
Casually crushing the snake's head, he used the Lightened Boulder Jutsu to ascend into the sky. The chaotic chakra below, vast and turbulent, effectively disrupted his sensory abilities, even his Sharingan's insight.
But it didn't matter. He would simply destroy everything.
White chakra surged from his left shoulder, forming a giant arm, within which a magatama took shape.
Masashi threw it downward, targeting a specific spot on the ground.
The Yasaka Magatama, a high-density chakra projectile, was far less destructive than the Tailed Beast Bomb in terms of sheer explosion size, but within its effective range, it was just as lethal.
Blinding light and a deafening roar erupted simultaneously. Everything within the blast zone vanished in an instant.
A massive crater appeared where the attack had struck.
"… Still not enough."
Seeing that the Earth Release techniques below were still active, Masashi's right shoulder also surged with chakra, forming another Susanoo arm.
With both arms together, he formed and pulled out a string of magatama. Like a machine gun, over a dozen Yasaka Magatama rained down, each impact accompanied by thunderous explosions, shattering the land below.
The raging Earth Release techniques, along with the terrain itself, were utterly annihilated. At last, Orochimaru's chakra signature became clear.
If Naruto was the "Child of Prophecy" in the original timeline, then Orochimaru was the "Survivor of Fate."
Very few in the shinobi world could survive a direct bombardment of over a dozen Yasaka Magatama unscathed.
Yet the Sannin took it head-on.
To be fair, his Earth Release was incredibly formidable, the land was being destroyed faster than he could burrow through it.
From another area, he finally surfaced. But the moment he emerged, he was met with a sword slash.
Masashi welcomed him with a hundred-meter-long blade.
Fighting Orochimaru with standard ninjutsu was indeed ineffective. Magnet Release techniques weren't much better either. But since the Sannin had been countered by the Uchiha style in the original timeline, Masashi naturally respected that fact.
Besides, partially manifesting Susanoo allowed for more agility while conserving chakra.
Orochimaru's reaction was swift, so quick that the Totsuka Sword nearly grazed his nose as it sliced down. The hill he had been standing on was instantly cleaved into two.
After Masashi swung his massive blade a few more times, the hill was gone entirely. Yet, in the flying debris, Orochimaru once again managed to escape.
It wasn't that Masashi hadn't hit him. He had, but Orochimaru simply opened his mouth, twisted his body, and slithered away.
This guy truly lived up to his role as the frontliner of the Sannin.
Masashi started to feel that it wasn't really the Uchiha who countered Orochimaru, it was just that Itachi and Sasuke, those two brothers, were specifically built to take him down.
Otherwise, why hadn't anyone else finished him off so effortlessly?
Orochimaru ran with pure joy.
"All this running around is getting boring, don't you think?" Masashi called out in frustration.
"This is simply my way of fighting."
Orochimaru responded from afar.
That said, he was starting to realize he had no real way of dealing with Masashi either. After a series of exchanges, he had a solid grasp of Masashi's strength, at least in this stage, before he activated the Rinnegan.
His attack power and defense were both absurdly strong. More importantly, he could fly, and he had no weaknesses at any range, close, mid, or long.
He was incredibly well-balanced, with no apparent flaws.
At least, not in terms of offense.
As for defense, based on his own attacks, Orochimaru couldn't test anything beyond what he had already seen.
This was the inconvenient part of the Sannin's disbandment.
In the past, when it came to offense, that had been Jiraiya's job. Since their roles were so clearly divided, Orochimaru had focused entirely on tanking.
As for attack methods, he had been inspired by Hanzō's use of poison, leading him to specialize in capture and poison-based techniques. But the Susanoo rendered all of that useless.
Forget it. Let's test something else.
As he watched Masashi diving toward him, Orochimaru, for the first time since the battle began, didn't dodge.
Instead, he activated the power of the curse mark within him.
He knew exactly what kind of modifications Masashi had made to his curse mark technology.
And frankly, he wasn't impressed. Ultimately, this technology had proven far more useful for Masashi himself than for anyone else.
Among the Uchiha, there were barely enough successful curse mark transplants to count on one hand, and even those individuals could barely handle the chakra of a Two-Tails.
Orochimaru was different.
If he could implant it, he could use it.
His body suddenly began to expand.
The curse mark, as a degraded version of the Ryūchi Cave's senjutsu, provided an alternative path to acquiring Sage Mode for those who couldn't master it.
And like senjutsu, it granted the power of transformation. In mere moments, the small figure of Orochimaru had ballooned into a colossal beast.
Masashi halted his descent, observing the transformation.
The creature before him was becoming increasingly familiar.
So you developed this jutsu at this point in time, huh… Masashi raised an eyebrow.
Before him now stood a massive eight-headed serpent. The legendary Yamata no Orochi.
Masashi wasn't particularly surprised. Ever since Orochimaru had developed the curse mark, this technique was bound to appear. Though its attacks were purely physical, its raw power was formidable. More importantly, it could regenerate. Ordinary means wouldn't be enough to kill it.
In the original timeline, after Orochimaru had assumed this form, Itachi had sealed him away with a single strike from the Totsuka Sword.
The sword's effects varied depending on the wielder. For Itachi, it primarily focused on sealing the target's mind. For Masashi, however, it specialized in complete physical annihilation.
Though it still absorbed spiritual energy, ever since he had consumed the chakra of the Ten-Tails, he had lost all interest in absorbing other sources of chakra.
Simply put, his tastes had become more refined.
The eight heads of the giant serpent towered above him, their height surpassing his own position in the air.
A bit training didn't hurt. He retracted the Susanoo arms, then reached out to connect with Matatabi once more.
The chakra of the tailed beast surged through him, merging with his own.
Just like senjutsu, this infusion altered his chakra, and with that change, his eyes, both irises and sclera, shifted into a new form.
At the same moment, one of the serpent's heads lunged downward, fangs bared.
Having completed his transformation, Masashi casually waved his hand.
Slash!
From the void itself, as if drawn by an artist's brush from a higher dimension, a single line was traced through the air.
Above that line, the eight serpent heads were instantly severed, falling into silence.
Amenotejikara.
That was the name of this ocular technique.
Eight snake heads crashed to the ground with tremendous force, kicking up clouds of dust. When the dust settled, most of the eight snake heads were partially buried in the ground. A couple of them, having landed at better angles, remained open-mouthed, seemingly biting at the air in a futile struggle.
At the front, the eight decapitated necks had smooth, clean cuts, but showed no sign of regeneration.
Of course, they wouldn't grow back, because they hadn't actually been severed.
Amenotejikara, like Obito's Kamui and Fugaku's Amenominaka, was a space-time ocular technique.
Leaving Kamui aside, theoretically, Amenominaka allowed for infinite expansion and contraction, whereas Amenotejikara granted control over everything within a given space.
However, compared to Kamui and Amenominaka's straightforward applications, Amenotejikara was far more abstract, requiring immense imagination from the user.
But that wasn't an issue, at least, not for a transmigrator.
The necks of the Yamata no Orochi continued to bulge like bubbles, but all the transformations occurred on the already "severed" snake heads.
Each of them was twisting and distorting into bizarre shapes, they had "overdrunk" on their own power.
Orochimaru wasn't the type to randomly mash buttons in a fight. He immediately stopped this meaningless struggle, realizing the trouble Masashi's technique posed. While he began retracting his chakra, his main body subtly disconnected from the Yamata no Orochi.
Meanwhile, hovering in the sky, Masashi had already used the Animal Path's ability to create dozens of chakra black rods. To free up his hands, he finished making them and simply floated nearby with Lightened Boulder Jutsu.
Orochimaru hadn't fully detached from the Yamata no Orochi yet when Masashi had already made over a hundred black rods, which now hovered around him in a dense cloud.
In the next instant, he launched them all at once using Lightened Boulder Jutsu.
The Sannin really shouldn't have put on such a show in front of him. The bigger the target, the easier it was to hit.
With a sharp whistling sound, the black rods effortlessly pierced through the Yamata no Orochi's massive body, immediately disrupting its chakra flow.
Orochimaru had just begun extracting his true body when he suddenly realized, his lower half wasn't responding properly. For the first time, he showed a shift in expression.
Unlike Nagato, Masashi's Rinnegan had entirely different abilities, ones that Orochimaru had no experience dealing with. He realized he had underestimated the situation.
Still, he had no complaints, he'd brought this upon himself.
He immediately opened his mouth, preparing to use another Orochimaru-style Substitution Jutsu. And at that moment, his vision suddenly went dark, no, Masashi had landed in front of him with a smack.
"Where do you think you're going?" Masashi asked, grinning.
He genuinely admired Orochimaru's skill.
The chakra black rods had overwhelming interference capabilities, yet even after being hit by a hundred of them, Orochimaru still managed to successfully execute a substitution jutsu. His hands were already reaching out from his mouth, about to complete the escape.
But clearly, his speed had slowed down, otherwise, he wouldn't have been blocked so easily.
Masashi reached out to "help" pull Orochimaru out faster. He was quite experienced at this. After all, he'd spent half a year pulling weeds when he was a genin.
"…"
Left with no choice, Orochimaru retracted back into the Yamata no Orochi and resurfaced on the other side. But before he could even open his mouth, a hand suddenly shot out, grabbing a fistful of his impeccably maintained long hair.
The Human Path's ability activated.
Masashi wasn't pulling weeds anymore, he was after the soul itself. As long as he latched on, Orochimaru would have no more secrets. Honestly, he knew this guy would try to escape using the Yamata no Orochi's size.
But as Masashi stared at him, Orochimaru's eyes were completely blank. Yet the moment Masashi pressed his palm against Orochimaru's forehead, the head collapsed inward, nothing but an empty shell remained.
Without hesitation, he slashed through everything in sight.
The mountain-sized Yamata no Orochi collapsed like a toppled stack of bricks, each chunk impaled with a chakra black rod. Orochimaru's head suddenly popped out from the debris, only to immediately retreat again.
Masashi didn't have Amaterasu, but burning something already immobilized didn't require Amaterasu.
No way was he letting this slide.
Flames spiraled straight into the sky, instantly turning the "brick pile" into a blazing inferno. Floating above, he observed the scene below.
Chakra black rods weren't just for disrupting chakra, they also functioned as anchors, allowing for tracking, control, and more. If he planted enough of them, he could forcefully manipulate an enemy's body to use jutsu, even summon them like a summon beast. This ability was insanely useful but also downright cruel.
With over a hundred chakra rods at work, Orochimaru had nowhere to hide. But… he was ridiculously hard to catch. This had turned into a game of Whac-A-Mole.
The raging flames continued to consume the body of the Yamata no Orochi. Its massive, square-like chunks of flesh shrank steadily.
To prevent Orochimaru from escaping underground, Masashi sealed off the space entirely. This was absolute defense, absolute containment.
He had patience. He was just waiting to see where the Sannin could run once every last piece of that flesh was burned away.
Throughout the process, he added a few more Fire Release techniques to ensure the flame burned vigorously, bright and celebratory.
The Yamata no Orochi, a monstrous form created through the power of the curse mark, was still a mortal body at its core. No matter how large it was, it couldn't burn forever.
Its massive form shrank within the flames. Finally, in the raging inferno, the Yamata no Orochi ceased to exist, leaving behind only a hundred or so black chakra rods.
Orochimaru's chakra presence had vanished.
Masashi didn't buy it. The chakra had disappeared too abruptly. A person burned to death wouldn't have their chakra fade like that.
After scanning the area, using both sight and sensory techniques, flipping over every inch of the ground, Masashi had to admit one thing.
He… actually escaped?
Even in his life as Muzo, he had never encountered someone this slippery. Now he understood why Sasori was so desperate to kill the Sannin.
Masashi turned to look in the direction of Oto. At this rate, there was only one way to capture Orochimaru, wipe out Oto.
Kill the first wave of curse mark users. But now wasn't the time to do that. Besides… Even if he wanted to cause trouble, as long as he kept an eye on Kabuto and those three sacrifices, nothing too crazy could happen.
Hashirama… Tobirama…
A complicated mix of emotions surged within Masashi. He felt conflicted. He wasn't alone, but sometimes, he still felt lonely.
His interest in Orochimaru suddenly faded, leaving him disinterested. Leaving behind the burning land, he turned and flew toward Oto.
---
In an underground chamber, Orochimaru had just emerged from Kidomaru's curse mark. He stood still, his expression dark.
Masashi had suddenly grown this strong, throwing a massive wrench into his plans. But precisely because of that strength, his resolve only deepened.
Don't misunderstand, he had no interest in the destructive power of the Rinnegan. What fascinated him was something else.
Especially… the soul.
"You've become quite strong," he muttered with a sinister smile. "What a pity to lose a friend like you."
"Orochimaru-sama, what exactly…" A few Oto ninjas knelt before him. From what they gathered, their leader had just fought White Ghost?
Had they really torn their alliance with Konoha at a time like this? That was trouble.
But no one dared to say, "Orochimaru-sama, wasn't that a bit reckless?" Unless they wanted to be recklessly strapped to an operating table.
Everyone in Oto knew, the Sannin didn't waste time arguing. If you had objections? Well, you could discuss them while being experimented on.
"Orochimaru-sama, what are our next steps?" a purple-haired youth asked in a cold tone. "The forces above are expendable. We can have them launch the first attack on the Konoha ninjas."
"That seems to be our only option." Orochimaru's tone remained indifferent. "Let them attack. We'll retreat. This place is no longer worth keeping."
It was impossible to wipe out the Konoha ninjas. Even if Oto's forces went all out, they wouldn't be able to defeat the Konoha ninjas who had already infiltrated the village.
Their best bet was to scatter the enemy's focus and buy time.
After all, at the moment, Orochimaru had no countermeasure for Masashi. The curse mark users who had successfully undergone transplantation, as well as Jugo, had to be taken away. The rest could be discarded.
"Orochimaru-sama!" A subordinate rushed into the room in a panic. As soon as he saw Orochimaru's emotionless gaze, he shuddered and quickly lowered his head before delivering his report.
"The Konoha ninjas… they suddenly left. That Masashi took them away."
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