This isn't awkward at all. I uncomfortably look around Orochimaru's office as the Snake Sannin is studying me.
His eyes are roaming over every miniscule feature, searching for something. I hope it's for a new scar or obvious signs of combat and not something more sinister. With him I can never tell if he's trying to be considerate or a massive creep.
"I take it that the mission went well?" Orochimaru asks me.
"I suppose you could say that." I dance around his question. I don't think he'd take me teaming up with Konoha shinobi well. Especially my old sensei of all people. "Totally wrecked that base by the way. Any news about that? Did Kusa fuck off or did she send more sheep to the slaughterhouse?"
"Kusa is withdrawing." Orochimaru has a pleased aura about him. "Did you really have to rain down fire from the heavens upon them? It was a tad excessive."
"Damn I'm totally going to call it that. The Fire of Heaven. Thanks for the idea."
"You're more than welcome. Now, was it necessary?"
"True it was excessive." He's not wrong, not even a little bit. "But you wanted me to make a statement, to show what I am truly capable of. So I did."
"Enough about the Kusa base." Orochimaru moves on. "Tell me about your visit to the Land of Snow."
"I got the armor?" I awkwardly fumble for a new topic. It failed horrendously.
"Alvarcus." Orochimaru leaks off some killing intent, enough to let me know he's serious. "What happened."
"Nothing major, just bumped into my old sensei and some past friends from Konoha who proceeded to blackmail me into helping with their own mission which resulted in me toppling the dictatorship that once was the Land of Snow's government by blowing Doto's head off with a pebble. Oh! I also attempted to get you a few new recruits but they kinda sorta tried to kill me so I killed them. Sorry about that."
"You should know better than to lie to me." Orochimaru narrows his eyes at me in disappointment. "Now tell the truth."
"You're right my bad." I hang my head in shame. "I also found a bounty station before all of that and got a Bingo Book."
"You're... not lying?" Orochimaru says to himself as he's analyzing me for the smallest of reactions.
"Nah." I let a long and drawn out sigh through my lips. "I can think up of some crazy shit but even I couldn't pull that one out of thin air. Seriously it was a total cluster fuck. It's a miracle that nothing went majorly wrong. I mean all that shit happened but I'm still back in one piece!"
"Really?" Orochimaru asks in mild surprise. "Back in one piece?"
"Not for everyone else's lack of trying." I sheepishly admit. "So yeah. I blew up the base, found a boat, got confronted by some Konoha shinobi, got blackmailed by said shinobi, ended up protecting an actress who turned out to be a Princess, had a minor mental breakdown, unwillingly boarded a blimp -"
"A blimp?"
"Yeah think giant balloon and you've got it." I quickly explain to him.
"Ah the warship." Orochimaru states matter of factly.
"It's not a damn warship! It's a fucking blimp! Ahem. Anyways where was I? Ah yes, after boarding the blimp unwillingly might I add, killed a few people, found Doto and my armor, was taken pseudo prisoner because he threatened to kill the Princess, some crazy chick attempted to torture me and failed horribly at it, broke out with the Princess and murdered Doto with a pebble. After that I just kinda explored the Land of Snow for a bit and made a pit stop at the main base. Did you know your guards don't know who I am? That wasn't awkward at all."
"You're leaving a great amount of detail out." Orochimaru coolly levels an intense stare at me. "Particularly about the Konoha shinobi that you so conveniently glossed over."
"Well yeah." I snort out. "Idiots tried to get me to go back to Konoha with them. Yet here I am, reporting back to you. You would think that after me going to Oto for the third damn time they would learn that I want to be here. Seems like only Kakashi understood that, he hardly tried to get me to go back."
"You escaped from under Kakashi of the Sharingan's nose?" Orochimaru sounds impressed with me.
"It's not like that." I explain quickly before he can do something I don't want. Like insisting on stepping up my training yet again. "He still harbors a soft spot for me, I was his student for a while. He let me go, he couldn't bring himself to take me down. Now that I think about it I probably got lucky it was him there instead of Gai or Asuma or even Kurenai. They'd try much harder to stop me, he just kinda let it happen. Kinda similar to when the Third Hokage let you leave Konoha."
"Splendid!" Orochimaru chirps out in happiness. "It's always uplifting to know that you choose me over them. I admit, I have my doubts once in awhile yet you always lay them to rest. Now you must be tired from your journey, go rest. I will call on you to answer any more questions I have at a later time, for now my curiosity is satisfied."
"Cool." I rise up and make my way towards the door.
"Oh and Alvarcus?" Orochimaru calls after me. "You've missed a week and a half's worth of training. We're going to do double sessions until you're back on track."
"Do we have to?" I whine out.
"Yes, yes we do." Orochimaru grins sinisterly. "I've had plenty of time to come up with new ideas, you going to Snow was a boon for me. These sessions will be extra fruitful."
"Fantastic." I groan out as I leave.
Orochimaru's pleased smile vanishes the moment the door closes behind his child.
"Unacceptable." Orochimaru spins his chair to look at the massive map of the entire elemental nations that he has on his wall. He's glaring a specific village, one of the big five. "He's still too soft. It should not have been them who let him go, it should be him that let them go. No, not even that. He should have killed them regardless of his past connections."
Orochimaru is pulled out of his intense glare and thought process by a sensation in his left hand. It's spasming uncontrollably, not enough to be a real problem but enough for others to know something is wrong with him.
"So it begins." Orochimaru firmly grasps his left hand in his right in a vain attempt to stop the twitching. "Alvarcus you must hurry, I need you to be able to stand by my side. While I am incapacitated you will be my sword. You will be my shield. You will be the one who acts in my stead until I can claim the Uchiha."
I quickly rap my knuckles twice on Sasuke's room's door.
"You in there buddy?" I call out.
There's no answer.
"Huh." I scratch my head in confusion. "I thought for sure he'd want to catch up especially because of that conversation we had moments before I left. Well whatever, not like we're going anywhere soon."
With a lazy shrug I take the ten steps down the hallway to my own room.
"Now where am I going to put my armchair?" I ask myself as I swing my door open.
"There you are!" Sasuke heatedly says as he rises up from my couch. Guess he did want to talk after all since the bastard decided to hang out in my room and wait for me. "Orochimaru sure took his time debriefing you."
"Not my fault?" I hesitantly say. "Okay, kinda my fault. The mission was totally fucking weird and I'm the one saying that."
"We'll get to that later." Sasuke walks over to the door I just entered and holds it open. "You coming?"
"Where to?" I follow after him as we both step into the hallway. "Is my couch not comfy enough? I've got an armchair now too, maybe that is more to your liking?" I giddily pull out the scroll and wave it around in the air. "Where should I put it? I'm running out of space, I might have to knock down a wall and take the room next to mine too. What's in that one anyways? Whatever they or whatever is in it can be relocated. This is much more important."
"You and your damn furniture." Sasuke shakes his head in exasperation. "We're going to a training field."
"Any particular reason?" I ask as we're making our way through the base.
"It's the last place anyone will look for us. We've got some talking to do."
Training Field
Sasuke and I are standing five meters apart from each other. The usually pleasant air temperature in the room is cooling rapidly as we both flex our metaphorical muscles. We're slowly raising our killing intents at each other.
Sasuke didn't want to come here only to not be disturbed, he wants to spar too.
"Yours feels different." Sasuke says as both of our intents stop climbing. We can each go farther, much farther, but this is a spar. It's little more than a friendly contest.
"Different how?" I curiously ask him. I always knew that each killing intent is slightly skewed to each individual. They all carry a sense of promised death but each unique person naturally emits their own personal flavor. For example Orochimaru's feels like thousands of snakes are slithering all around you and they can kill you with just a single drop of poison.
"It's back to how it used to feel. No that's wrong, it's just closer to that. Back before we went to Orochimaru." He shares with me. "It used to feel like there was a ferocious monster lurking in the corner of my eye, always just out of sight but close enough that I knew it's there. But what was really scary about yours was that there was no true intent to kill. It felt like the monster wanted to torment me into insanity and if I happened to die in the process then so be it."
"That did fit me surprisingly well. Even now I really enjoy messing with people, doubly so while we're fighting to the death. Dare I ask what it felt like after we went to Orochimaru?" I know that he twisted me into something else, something more dark and violent. How did it affect my killing intent though?
"Bloodthirsty." He sums it up in one word. "Like you were prepared to wade through a sea of blood while cackling in joy. Like you were ready and willing to cause as much pain as possible simply because you wanted to see if you could cause more than the last time."
"So what does it feel like now then?" Called it by the way. I knew it was dark.
"A bit of both." Sasuke tilts his head as he falls deeper into thought. "There's a monster hiding just out of sight, lurking on the edge of my vision and breathing down my neck. It wants to play with me, see how I tick and push me onto the brink of insanity and beyond if it can. It won't act on it's own though, not at first. It wants to wait for me to make a mistake before it starts to play. It also promises death to those who are stupid enough to challenge it. Death in a very painful and unique manner."
"Huh." That's almost exactly how I've decided to act now. Give everyone one chance then it's open season. Example A: Nadare and his team. Example B: The shinobi that confronted me when I first got on the blimp. I gave both groups an out, they didn't take it and instead attacked me. So they died.
"What about mine?" Sasuke asks me eagerly.
"Your's feels like a cold calculative killer is watching me, seeing everything about me. I'm standing in a brightly lit empty white room but the ever present feeling of eyes on me does not fade. They see all, exactly what I am going to do and what I have done. Nothing remains hidden from those eyes. They bring a sense of finality with them, that no matter what I do, no matter how creatively I plan, you will see through it and systematically best me at everything I attempt with ease to slide a kunai into my heart. It's pretty scary to be honest, particularly for me since I like to plan out how I want my battles to go. The idea that my opponent knows every move I'm going to make is the worst feeling, it ruins all of my hard work and fun."
No doubt his killing intent is being influence by his Sharingan. Not surprised at all.
"So I'm your antithesis." He sums up. "You're chaos and insanity while I'm all seeing and focused. How the hell are we friends?"
"Opposites attract or some other bullshit reason like that?" I shrug as we both let our respective killing intents fade. "I'd prefer to say that we both had a healthy respect for each other and that respect grew into friendship after a few battles and training sessions."
"Your second one was way better. Let's go with that." Sasuke smoothly glides into a combat stance. His right foot is forward and his right hand is wrapped around the hilt of his sword. "Rules for the spar?"
"Avoid my face and my hearts please. I'd like to keep them both intact. Usual rules for you, no deadly or severely maiming attacks." I start to remove my outer layers, no need to ruin an expertly made coat. "We limiting this to a specific branch? Like only taijutsu or ninjutsu?"
"How about only genjutsu?" Sasuke arrogantly smirks at me. "Unless you have a problem using it. I hear you might have performance issues."
"Fuck you." I say with no real malicious intent behind it. "You know damn well that I can't use most genjutsus. You know what? Fine, let's do just genjutsu. I'll let you trap me over and over and over again and each and every time I'll casually break out of it while belittling your skills. Does that sound fun?"
"Okay okay you made your point." Sasuke says to me. "Not like you're special I can get out of almost every genjutsu too."
"Says the kid who was trapped in a month long coma because of one." I sassily point out. "You've got a really good track record going for you there."
"You think you can stand up to the Tsukuyomi?" He throws it back into my face.
"Huh. Can I get out of that?" I ask for no real reason. "I suppose it would depend on Sureddo's reaction time. I don't break myself out of genjutsu, Sureddo does it for me. So let's say it takes Sureddo on average a… let's go with a half second to recognize the genjutsu and then cause me pain to jolt me out. Well in the Tsukuyomi Itachi commands time itself, he can drag out a second to last for a day. So I'd be stuck in there for half a day before Sureddo breaks me out and that's assuming that it's not trapped with me. I should be alright from any lasting brain damage, unlike you and Kakashi, since I don't technically have one anymore which is really fucking weird to think about. Even if it was damaged Sureddo can just go and fix it for me since it devoured it and knows how it's supposed to be. Plus I'm accustomed to pain, very intimately accustom to it might I add, so most if not all of Itachi's torture methods will be less effective on me. So… Sort of?"
"You are the most broken person I have ever met." Sasuke bluntly tells me as he's taking that all in. "Okay. Couple questions. The hell is Sureddo?"
"Oh that's the Jiongu. It has a name now." I easily share.
"Right. I'm going to accept that and move on." Sasuke skeptically says. "How do you know how the Tsukiyomi works? I never told you."
"You think that your spymaster friend hasn't dug any information up on the person that you want to kill?" It's my turn to look at him skeptically. "Seriously dude, I'm in the information business bigtime. I think I might have the best network too, easily top five. You know about Amaterasu right?"
"The legendary black flames." Sasuke sounds longing as he says those words. "The pinnacle of the Uchiha's fire jutsus, probably even the pinnacle of fire jutsu itself. It's every Uchiha's dream to one day wield Amaterasu for themselves."
"Cool. Glad I'm not dropping that one on you." Bullet dodged. Being a spymaster is super convenient for sharing knowledge I shouldn't know.
"So you know where he's at?" Sasuke conversationally asks me.
"Not specifically." Crafty ass. He's trying to worm information out of me. "He and his big blue friend are constantly on the move, they're hard to pin down for long. Spiders can't exactly move at shinobi speeds, not to mention S-rank shinobi speeds. I have to wait for them to pop up again once they leave where they're at and they're never in the same place for more than three days."
"Good, that means when I'm ready we can find him." Sasuke rolls his shoulders. "So we sparing or what?"
"Hold up a moment." This needs to be clarified. "Did you just admit you weren't ready to face Itachi? You?"
"Uh yeah?" His brow furrows in confusion. "Alvarcus we've got to deal with Orochimaru first. One S-rank at a time."
"Holy shit. You've matured." I did not expect that.