Blood dripped from Orochimaru's pale arm, blooming into a small dark red stain on the decaying leaves.
He couldn't remember the last time he was injured.
Although this injury was nothing to him, it brought an uncomfortable feeling, like chewing on a fishbone while eating.
"Heh heh..."
A low, anger-suppressed laugh rumbled from deep within his throat.
"This is... a huge surprise, Naruto-kun."
His gaze towards Naruto had completely changed.
It was no longer the appreciation for a novel toy, but the scrutiny of one of a kind discovering another, the wariness of a predator towards another, even more incomprehensible predator.
This brat's fighting style, his so-called "purification" theory, and that unheard-of vicious weapon... everything about him exuded an eerie strangeness not belonging to this world.
If he didn't expose more of his abilities, taking down Uchiha Sasuke, this perfect vessel, without a scratch in a short time, would likely come at a considerable cost.
Orochimaru's left hand, hidden in his sleeve, subtly and silently changed to an extremely obscure hand seal.
This was a signal.
A signal that only his most trusted pawn could understand... Several hundred meters away, in another battle circle, Yakushi Kabuto, wearing round-rimmed glasses, had just cleanly dispatched two Otogakure examinees who tried to snatch his scroll with a surgical scalpel.
He adjusted his glasses, and his gaze beneath the lenses precisely caught Orochimaru's subtle movement in the distance.
"It seems Lord Orochimaru has encountered some trouble," he murmured to himself, a knowing smile playing on his lips.
"Uzumaki Naruto... is becoming more and more intriguing."
Yakushi Kabuto didn't hesitate. He took out an unassuming scroll from his embrace and casually slapped it against a tree trunk in front of him.
The scroll silently transformed into a wisp of green smoke, merging into the forest.
There were no violent Chakra fluctuations, nor any astonishing sound and light effects.
However, the perennial dampness in the forest, mixed with the stench of decaying leaves and soil, seemed to grow thicker.
The flow of air seemed to become viscous and sluggish.
In the center of the battlefield, Naruto remained in a vigilant stance, his Shadow Clones forming an impregnable diamond-shaped defensive formation around him.
He could feel that while Orochimaru's aura was still evil, it now carried a hint of solemnity.
"What's going on?" Sasuke's voice suddenly rang out, tinged with strange confusion.
His Sharingan could clearly see the flow of Chakra.
Just now, he noticed a faint layer of peculiar Chakra, imperceptible to the naked eye, permeating the air.
They were like pervasive mist, silently enveloping this area.
"Naruto, the air..."
He tried to warn him, but found his tongue felt paralyzed, somewhat unresponsive.
Naruto almost simultaneously noticed the anomaly.
His highly trained body possessed an almost animalistic intuition for environmental changes.
The air he breathed into his lungs carried a faint, nerve-numbing sensation.
His combat style, which heavily relied on biological functions, experienced an extremely brief stagnation at this moment.
Buzz—
The roar of the Chainsword showed a barely perceptible delay.
Now!
"Are you two alright?!" A gentle yet anxious voice came from the woods behind them.
Yakushi Kabuto's figure emerged from behind a bush, a Konoha forehead protector clearly visible on his forehead.
His face showed just the right amount of worry and urgency, like a Konoha comrade who happened to pass by and came to assist.
"You two, retreat quickly! I'll hold them off for a while!" he shouted, rushing towards Team 7's direction, his movements appearing harmless.
Sakura's face even flashed with a hint of relief.
However, the moment he approached Naruto's defensive perimeter, he flicked his wrist.
Several senbon, coated with the same neurotoxin, silently shot towards Naruto's Shadow Clones from an extremely tricky angle.
This wasn't a fatal attack; its purpose was merely to create chaos and an opening.
Naruto's Shadow Clones immediately swung their swords to block, but the neural sluggishness made their movements a beat too slow.
Clink clink!
Amidst the crisp clashing sounds, two Shadow Clones, in blocking the senbon, created a fleeting gap in their formation.
Orochimaru seized this opportunity.
This excellent opportunity created by his subordinate's intellect.
"Snake Shedding Jutsu!"
His body, like a peeled snakeskin, limply remained in place, taking the full force of Naruto's powerful blow.
But his true body, in an incomprehensible manner, appeared at the gap in the formation.
His neck, as if boneless, strangely stretched and stretched further.
In an instant, it spanned over ten meters, appearing before Naruto.
No Ninjutsu.
No bizarre techniques either.
Only a tightly clenched fist, imbued with all his strength, struck fiercely and precisely at Naruto's left temple.
Bang!
A dull, teeth-grinding thud.
The light in Naruto's ice-blue eyes, which always burned with the flames of judgment, violently flickered for the first time, then rapidly dimmed.
The world before him suddenly went black.
The powerful impact caused his rock-solid body to uncontrollably fall backward.
Boom.
Naruto's body slammed heavily onto the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The roaring Chainsword slipped from his loosened hand, falling to the side with a clang.
The high-speed rotating chain emitted an unwilling, grating friction sound, finally slowing to a stop, like a dead steel behemoth.
Time seemed to freeze at this moment.
"Na... Naruto?" Sakura's lips trembled, producing an incoherent sound.
Sasuke's pupils contracted to their limit.
His spinning Sharingan stared fixedly at Naruto, who lay motionless on the ground, as if to engrave this scene in his mind forever.
How... is this possible?
That Naruto, as powerful as a god, as indestructible as steel... that Naruto who forcibly dragged him out of the abyss of fear, who forced him to grow stronger in the most brutal way... actually... fell?
This realization was a hundred, a thousand times more intense than the fear Orochimaru brought.
It was a sense of collapse, as if the sky and earth were falling apart.
Orochimaru didn't even spare another glance at Naruto on the ground.
He slowly retracted his elongated neck, turned around, and his golden snake eyes once again locked onto the stiff Sasuke.
A victorious, cat-and-mouse sneer played on his face as he once again extended his long tongue, greedily licking his lips.
"Now..."
His footsteps were slow, one by one, treading upon Sasuke's shattered beliefs, closing in on his now immobile prey.
"No one will disturb us now, my dear Sasuke-kun."
Fear.
Boundless fear, like icy seawater, surged from all directions, drowning Sasuke's mouth and nose, filling his lungs.
He wanted to pick up the Chainsword from the ground, to fight like Naruto, to tear apart this demon before him.
But his body was firmly pinned in place by the neurotoxin and an even deeper fear; he couldn't even move a finger.
He could only watch, helplessly.
Watching Orochimaru's neck once again stretch out eerily, in a way that defied the laws of physics.
Watching that pale and demonic face constantly enlarge in his vision.
Watching him open his mouth, revealing two rows of stark white teeth.
"Become mine."
"You will get everything you desire... power!"
The demon's whisper echoed in his ears.
The next second.
Pfft!
Sharp fangs plunged fiercely into Sasuke's neck.
A cold, utterly evil Chakra, like the most defiled torrent, surged wildly into his body through the wound.
"Ah ah ah ah ah—!"
A piercing scream, not human-like, tore through the forest's dead silence.
Intense pain, accompanied by the revulsion of his soul being defiled, instantly shattered Sasuke's last will.
His body convulsed violently, and on his neck, three black tomoe patterns emerged like living things, spinning, and finally settling.
The light in Sasuke's eyes completely extinguished.
His body went limp, falling backward, plunging into boundless darkness.
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