Ch425. Hashirama vs Orochimaru

While Sarutobi was getting spanked like a misbehaving unwanted child by pissed Tobirama, Orochimaru came face to face with an unamused Hashirama who had his arms crossed on his chest.

"You know..." Hashirama started, "I have no idea what problem you have with the foolish little monkey but attacking Konoha is going one step too far."

As he finished speaking, he unleashed the full brunt of his chakra's pressure upon Orochimaru, making his knees almost buckle. Only his long experience with life and death situations allowed Orochimaru to keep himself standing. His whole body, though, was slightly shivering from the passive killing intent Hashirama was releasing.

It was not full of hostility and ill intent like Orochimaru's was. Instead, it was somehow filled with disinterest and annoyance, only making Orochimaru that much more pissed. If he was reading Hashirama's killing intent right, the man didn't even consider him a warm-up!

Yet, whenever Orochimaru wanted to move, he would realize his body was fighting him.

'Is this the level of the first God of Ninjas? It is nothing like Sarutobi! They are totally in a different league!' Orochimaru was inwardly freaking out.

Unfortunately for Orochimaru, as Tsunade removed the restrictions on Hashirama and Tobirama, their Edo Tensei forms regained their full power. In front of Orochimaru was now standing Hashirama who could go one against one even with Kyuubi and easily have the upper hand.

Sweat poured from Orochimaru's forehead but the man still crazily smiled and playfully asked, "Why? Are you gonna spank me too?"

Hashirama's eyebrow twitched in a mild annoyance. "That... was gay."

Hearing that, Orochimaru's jaw dropped in speechlessness. He expected many types of responses but not that one. The worst part was that he was utterly unable to refute him since he recently possessed a female body.

It really made him wonder if there was no unexpected side-effect to his Possession Technique.

"Ah, whatever. Who am I to question your sexual orientation." Hashirama offhandedly shrugged and took a fighting stance.

Orochimaru would usually throw a hurtful remark back but with Hashirama focused on him, he could not let his concentration slip for some petty pre-fight trash talking.

It actually saved him too. In a blink of an eye, Hashirama was upon him, his fist razing its path towards Orochimaru's abdomen with bone-shattering force and Orochimaru only barely managed to twist out of its path thanks to how focused he was.

But...

He didn't get enough time to rejoice because a split of a second later, Hashirama's second fist found purchase on Orochimaru's jaw, causing his body to be catapulted back before it bounced on a floor a few times and stopped in an unmoving heap.

Hashirama definitely felt bones breaking upon his fist connecting but this was supposed to be one of Konoha's brightest and strongest. No way did the fight finish with just that. He knew he went down into history as a naive idiot, especially for giving other nations their bijuu... and he served his well-deserved no-Mito couch time for that... but he was not that naive.

Even his stunt with the bijuu was in hopes of preventing a senseless war. He might have miscalculated human nature there but it was not a decision made out of naivety.

"Cut the small tricks." He spoke towards the downed body of his opponent.

Orochimaru did not get up... instead, his body dissolved into the mud, causing Hashirama to lift his leg and stomp onto the ground with enough force that if the roof was not supported by the sealing barrier, it would have crumbled down.

Unfortunately for one Snake Sannin, that meant he was caught between the unmovable sealing barrier and the full brunt of Hashirama's stomp, reminding him of his academy history lesson where he learned that the First Hokage was the best sensor Konoha ever had. The force from the stomp pressed Orochimaru's body onto the barrier, squashing it so strongly blood flowed out of his mouth, eyes, and ears while multiple bones broke and muscles got mangled.

Hashirama watched as his opponent was turned into a gory pulp, inwardly sighing. Not everyone could be Madara and withstand his strength head-on. Not even Tobirama could match him in taijutsu.

But then something surprising happened. From the mouth of the mangled pulp, like a snake shedding its skin, another Orochimaru emerged and Hashirama had to prevent himself from retching.

The dude was completely covered in stinking saliva!

'Where does he go for ideas for these kinds of Jutsu! Did his teacher never teach him anything about propriety!?' Hashirama inwardly complained, taking a step back from the disgusting man. 'Somebody should have given him mental medical help a long time ago if this seems like a good technique to him.'

Tobirama, who was still inflicting untold atrocities upon Sarutobi's body by spanking him with various chakra natures, was actually quite impressed by the technique of Sarutobi's protege. Visuals aside... it was a masterpiece!

Alas, it was apparent the technique was not yet finished and even if it was, against his brother, it would be meaningless.

Just as the 'new' Orochimaru landed, he already had to swing his sword in order to prevent Hashirama from landing a blow on him...

Or so he attempted to do. Hashirama was a bit more experienced than Orochimaru accounted for, though. Instead of dodging the sword slash, Hashirama caught Orochimaru's wrist and broke it in one fluid twisting motion. With this motion, the sword's path also twisted, and before Orochimaru could even register the pain from his now broken wrist, his very own sword impaled him right through the center of his chest, causing his eyes to go wide in disbelief.

Hashirama relaxed his grip on Orochimaru's wrist, looking him straight into the eyes, "You are too slow." He said just as blood spurted out of Orochimaru's mouth, flowing down his chin.

The skin-shedding technique was no magic. It was a chakra technique and as such, needed preparation from its caster. It just so happened that Hashirama was much faster than Orochimaru's reaction time that Orochimaru did not manage to use his life-saving technique before the blow landed.

As the light was leaving Orochimaru's eyes and his eyelids started to drop, he lamented, 'I guess I will have to use my contingency measures. How... unfortunate.'

His soul left his body just as Hashirama sidestepped, letting it fall down onto the ground.

Outside of the arena, Tsunade watched the exchange and she had to admit, her grandfather was strong. No wonder people called him a legend.

She also relished Sarutobi's utter disbelief and hurt look when the sword entered Orochimaru's chest. The old monkey did not enjoy seeing his misguided student dying.

'Who knows... maybe I will be lucky and this will finally mentally break him enough to stop meddling in the politics of the village.' Tsunade wistfully thought, knowing it was just not to be. Sarutobi was getting very close to the 'need to get rid of with my own hands' category in Tsunade's books.

As she contemplated these things, she suddenly felt something peculiar and chuckled.

Orochimaru's soul did not dissipate as is natural for dead people. Instead, it was being pulled in a certain direction... only to be met with an impenetrable wall in the form of the sealing barrier.

'Heh, the sucker definitely did not think that an anti-spiritual barrier would be a thing.' Tsunade snorted as she manipulated the barrier, causing Orochimaru's soul to be stuffed into a vial she took out from her pocket.

She looked at the bluish wispy substance in the vial and cooed, "So you want to be immortal?" Her lips stretched into a massive smile before she giddily added, "You can be my immortal guinea pig, then!"

Just his luck that Tsunade was in a dire need of somebody she could kill and resurrect as many times as she wanted in order to progress with her current research.