CHAPTER 23: Snake's Bargain

As soon as Naruto heard the words, he paled.

Channeling Lightning chakra to his legs was almost second nature, by now. He bounced off the floor, arms held in front of his face. He would escape through the window, going straight through it.

Something grabbed his ankle, slamming him against the floor. It held him there and it hissed.

'A snake?'

"Ow…"

The man laughed. "Such bad manners, little Namikaze. Did sensei teach you nothing?"

"Sensei? …Are you a student of the old man?"

"Poor manners indeed." The man smiled, revealing too perfect teeth. "Sarutobi-sensei must have become too lax, over time."

Sarutobi had taken very few students in his life.

'He's clearly not Tsunade, nor Jiraiya.' He had never met either, but he knew they summoned slugs and toads, respectively.

That left…

"You're Orochimaru, aren't you?"

He laughed in delight. "That is who I am."

Orochimaru's golden eyes seemed as if they were piercing him. He spoke, his voice carrying the tone of someone who was used to people obeying him without question.

"Would you care to join me for a walk?"

They walked in the crowded streets of Haraji.

Orochimaru seemed to glide through a crowd, never touching people, and never slowing down. Naruto struggled to follow him.

"The Land of Rice once was part of the same empire that became the Land of Fire. This is the reason you may have seen a few similarities." The man said.

Naruto said nothing. He was not sure why he was making conversation, nor what he wanted exactly.

Orochimaru shrugged. "Have it your way. I had hoped that fresh air might make you more amenable."

"…What do you want?" Naruto grit out.

Orochimaru tilted his head. "That's a very broad question. There are so, so many things I desire."

"Enough with the riddles. If you're here to bring me back to the village, there's nothing I can do… If you want to kill me, then go ahead."

The man sighed. "You really have no patience, do you?"

"What is this about? I have lost the Nine-Tails! Konoha can afford to let me go."

"I figured as much."

Naruto stopped in his tracks. There was something he was missing here.

"How do you know?.." His first instinct was to palm a kunai, or channel Lightning, but it would be of no use here.

"I have my sources."

"…Are you even with Konoha?" He thought he was, as he had seen his name on the active lists, but he had never seen the man. And three years was a long time.

"Now that's a more interesting question." Orochimaru laughed. He considered. "You could say that I am. In a way."

"I don't think ninja villages work this way. Yes or no?" Naruto gritted out.

"Well, my case might be a bit peculiar. Sensei always had a soft spot for all three of us."

"Do you mean the Legendary Three?"

"Of course. Jiraiya is the only one really active by now, and even he spends most of his time outside the village. Knowing him, I cannot assure you that this time is entirely productive. Tsunade…" He sighed. "Tsunade is running away, and has been doing so for a while."

"What about you?"

Sarutobi didn't say much about his students in general, and even less when it came to Orochimaru.

The man bowed in a dramatic fashion. "You could say that I am more of a free agent. While I am still technically on the books, only a war at Konoha's doorstep would force me back home."

"…The Fifth allows this?"

"Of course he does!" He laughed. " He's the one who set this arrangement up in the first place. I am a researcher, first and foremost. As long as I get the village some useful findings, they will simply let me be."

"Useful findings..? Are you going to send me back?" Naruto asked, defensive.

Orochimaru looked at him. "That will depend on you. Catch my interest… and I might let you do as you want. You have the look of someone who doesn't want to go back all that much."

"I don't."

He laughed. "Did you not enjoy the shinobi life?"

"There are some aspects I do hate." He said, distaste obvious. Killing was one. "And blind, undying loyalty to people who lie to me is not something I can stand."

Orochimaru looked at him, a little more seriously. "Then we may have this much in common."

Somehow, Naruto relaxed enough to take a sip of his cup.

They were sitting in the back of a tea shop, where Orochimaru, with a simple glance, had gotten them a private room.

The comparison to a snake den was all too easy to make.

"You seem to value truth. I do, as well." Orochimaru said, finally stopping to talk in circles. "There is a time for lies, as any Shinobi knows. But you have something of value to me. For this reason, I won't bother lying to you. I will ask you to do the same."

Naruto licked his dry lips.

"What do you want then, Orochimaru-san?"

The man smiled. He looked pretty unamused. "Information about Akatsuki and their plans."

"Who is Akatsuki?"

"Not a person, I can assure you." Orochimaru said dryly. "The organization who kidnapped you. Three years ago, if memory serves."

Naruto's head whipped up. "They are an organization?"

He nodded. "Likely based in the Land of Rain, though I can't confirm. They are very secretive."

"A man with a Sharingan teleported me to a hideout. It was raining, and we were high up in the sky." Naruto supplied.

Orochimaru nodded again. This likely confirmed his suspicions, then. "This would be Amegakure, yes. What else did you see?"

"…I was unconscious during the entire Nine-Tail extraction. I felt around a dozen people's chakra, and I'm sure they are the ones who pulled the Beast out of me."

"You felt their chakra?"

He nodded. "I apparently have some very… rudimentary chakra sensing abilities."

Orochimaru's eyes lit with interest. "…Would you be able to recognize these chakra signatures you encountered there?"

Naruto hesitated. "If they were close enough, yes."

"That's not enough."

"If I trained my ability, yes."

"Then, if you don't mind… You will be spending a bit more time with me, I'm afraid. There's someone who can help you train your sensing ability."

"Why do you need to find them in the first place?"

Orochimaru sighed.

"Akatsuki is dangerous to me and my own ambitions. I am still unsure about the specifics, but Nagato, its leader, is… Well, a madman. He would destroy half the world, if it meant cowing the other half."

He shrugged. "Not that I would care all that much, but ever since I refused his offer to join him… I've been on his bad side. Once he attains the power he craves, he will stop at nothing to destroy me. And while it pains me to admit it… I'm no match for him as things stand. So I want to prevent that."

"…I see."

"Did you see any of their faces?"

"Just three of them. There were two Uzumaki and… No, maybe three."

"Elaborate."

"Uzumaki Ryūjin and Suijin were there, for sure. There was a man in a machine."

"That would be Nagato, then. Ryūjin and Suijin, then?" He chuckled. "This brings me back."

"You met them?"

"You could say that. We fought in the Third War. Though they went by Dodai, back then."

Naruto saw a chance to get some explanations.

"What is this all about? The Dodai thing."

Orochimaru looked curious. "So you didn't know? Back in the Second War, the village of Uzushio, Konoha's ally, and where your mother's clan originated from, was destroyed."

"I think the teachers mentioned this, back at the academy. It was pretty vague though."

"I don't think Konoha is going to go about this one in detail." Orochimaru shrugged.

"Why not?"

"I'll get to it. When Uzushio was destroyed, Iwa stole some of its children, and raised them as its own. Kiri did the same. The Dodai clan was one of the clans that took in two children. Twins, in fact."

Naruto had a sick feeling.

"They… took them in?"

"Technically, they shifted their memories around until their only loyalty was to Iwa, but yes, you could say that."

"But that's brainwashing!"

"Sure." Orochimaru said, casually. "It's also somewhat common in the shinobi world."

"…Does Konoha do the same?"

"Well." Orochimaru smiled a mirthless grin. "Isn't this pretty similar to what sensei did to you?"

"…" Naruto had realized. He had simply preferred not to mention it.

"And well, somehow, the Uzumaki twins must have found out, realized the truth and escaped, if at different times."

"That's horrible."

"The shinobi world often is."

"Why didn't they… or any other survivor come to Konoha? There was never an Uzumaki clan in Konoha, was there..?"

"Simply put, the survivors didn't trust Konoha. They scattered, settled somewhere else, giving up their name… or became mercenaries, for most of them."

"But… why?"

"Well, that would be because Sarutobi-sensei, who was Hokage at the time, stood by and did nothing to help Uzushio when Iwa and Kiri attacked."

"You'll have to ask him for the details, he never told me more. Knowing him, he probably considers it one of his greatest failures."

Naruto said nothing. Despite his faults, he really looked up to the old man, even now, after all the lies.

He would have to ask him the day he got back to Konoha. It didn't seem like he could avoid it forever. Less and less.

He changed topics.

"…What does the organization… Akatsuki, you said. What do they want with the Tailed Beasts? They said they would come for the One-Tail, as well."

"Ah. Uchiha Sasuke. I've heard of him." Naruto sighed in relief. He was likely alive, then. "This is something I'm not sure about. I have a few theories, though."

"Tell me, please."

"Nagato is likely aiming for world domination. He will probably use the Bijū's power for that. Either by making himself, or somebody loyal, a Jinchūriki. Or he plans on making a weapon. Or he needed the Nine-Tails' life-force to restore his body." Seeing Naruto's face he continued. "He has the Rinnegan, a mystical eye, which has not been seen since the Sage of Six Paths."

"The Sage of Six Paths? I thought this was a fairytale."

Orochimaru shrugged. "Maybe it is. But that's what his eyes seem to be. Its powers fit some of the legends. Control over gravity, chakra absorption, mastery over all five elements and apparently, even more."

"…That's a lot to take in."

"It is."

"So you want to stop him?"

"If necessary. First, I will need to find who is involved and what they plan on doing. If it turns out to be nothing of concern to me, I'll stay out of it."

"What is it you're even after, in the first place?"

Orochimaru laughed and said simply. "Immortality."

He continued.

"When I heard from my informant in Rain that some of the higher-ups were beside themselves because a prisoner had managed to escape from the top of the tower, stealing Uzumaki Suijin's research… and made the man disappear at the same time... Well, I became curious."

Naruto stiffened. He had not forgotten what kind of man was sitting in front of him, no matter how affable he might pretend to be.

"This was more than three years ago." He said.

"Certainly." Orochimaru smiled. "I bribed some people to warn me of any development concerning anybody I knew had previously been affiliated with Akatsuki. Including those who worked with bounty hunters. You never know when a precious body might appear."

Orochimaru continued. "The prisoner, who apparently was just a boy, vanished off the face of the earth in a flash, mid-fall. There is only one technique I know of that can do this."

Naruto stayed silent.

"Senju Tobirama, and later Namikaze Minato's Hiraishin." He enunciated. "The rest was putting pieces together. A Sarutobi boy, who didn't really seem very Sarutobi at all, born on the day the Fourth Hokage made the most powerful of the Beasts disappear. Sensei must have lost his edge." He said. "And then a Rasengan to the head...? This was just confirmation. I do wonder how you managed to learn both jutsu when men twice your age couldn't do it, though."

"I didn't. Not really."

"I see. Well, you can tell me about this, how you are still alive, and the reason you still look thirteen, later. There's something else I'm more interested in."

Orochimaru's eyes turned hungry.

"Now… Little Namikaze. Do you still have Uzumaki Suijin's research?"

Naruto thought fast.

Admittedly... he panicked.

And faced with only two bad options, those being surviving on his own, or this...

Perhaps it was no surprise that he took such an tentative, impulsive decision.

"…I have it." Naruto said.

"Then I will buy it from you. For a fair price."

He steeled himself. "I'm not interested in selling."

Orochimaru looked amused. "Oh, no?"

"I want to learn from it. We can both use it, alternating."

"I'm sure we can find some sort of agreement."

"There's more that I want. You're looking for immortality, aren't you? The Nine-Tails might help you with that. You said it had a life-force strong to restore someone's body."

Orochimaru nodded. "Certainly. It is also currently sealed in the highest tower of Rain." He shrugged.

"Not all of it."

"..What?"

He was taking a big gamble here. "The Nine-Tails and I struck a deal. It left me two tails worth of its power. It is a limited amount, so I cannot offer you much of it, but you can study it."

"…You are telling the truth." Orochimaru licked his lips.

"Yes. On top of that, I am also descended from the Uzumaki clan. And I have carried the strongest Beast for years."

"Yes, this is true… Your cells might prove to be very valuable."

Naruto waited.

Orochimaru spoke. "So… You want the information contained within his research, too. An interest in Fūinjutsu, I assume."

"Yes."

"And… Something else. Name your price."

"I will give you access to my blood… and my cells. As well as what I can spare of the Nine-Tails…"

Naruto hesitated again. He closed his eyes.

"In return… I will ask for your guidance and training. I need strength, the kind I won't be able to reach on my own. Make me your apprentice."

Orochimaru laughed. It was a real, full laugh this time.

"I accept your bargain."

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