Naruto : Venom

Sasuke extends a hand to me. "What's your answer Alvarcus? Are you coming or are you staying?"

Everyone, I am sorry. I am going to Orochimaru.

Yet I won't abandon Konoha. I will break orders given to me by the Hokage herself. I'm going to have to reverse summon myself to get a summon contract, something she expressly forbid me from doing.

I'm going to spy on Orochimaru.

I'm going to pull an Itachi. Infiltrate an organization that is a threat to the Hidden Leaf and send information to Konoha about its movements and aims. Work from the inside to protect what I truly care about. Everyone is going to hate me. Everyone will be told to kill me on sight. I'll probably never be allowed back into Konoha.

I'm damning myself to protect everyone else.

"Fine." I finally say after a long silence. I open my front door and wave the Sound Four back inside. "I'll go with you. I'll go to Sound." I take a deep breath to try and calm my nerves. It doesn't work at all. "I'll go to Orochimaru."

Sakon steps forward. "Pack for light travel, then we leave. Leave everything nonessential, we can replace all that you own in Sound."

I walk to my room and grab my mission bag. I toss in some more essentials, clothes and kunai and drinking water. I'm ready to go in five minutes.

I walk back out to see the Sound Four and Sasuke raiding my kitchen for food. "Really? You could have asked first. How rude."

"It isn't like you're going to need it anymore. It would go to waste." Sasuke says without even turning away from my fridge.

I sigh, "Fine. Eat your fill. The grape juice is mine. Everything else is fair game."

We feast. It is fitting, a last meal of sorts. Sasuke and I will not be coming back. Not for a long time, or even forever. This could be my last moments in Konoha.

"Come. It is time we left." Sakon finally says. My home is now void of any kind of food.

We exit my house and head towards the main gate. No one stops us, no one sees us. There are no guards, the Sound Four must have killed them when they came in. We run as a group for only a few minutes before we stop.

The Sound Four turn to Sasuke. "We need to move your curse seal into the next stage. To do that, you have to be placed in a temporary state of death. Otherwise you really will die."

Sasuke thinks it over for a few seconds. He glances at me and I nod my head. I'll protect him. "Fine. What do I need to do?"

Sakon unseals a barrel. "Get in and then take this pill. It will force your seal to advance."

With a sigh and a role of this eyes, Sasuke does as asked.

"The pill?" He holds his hand out to Sakon. Sakon gives it over and Sasuke swallows it.

"Tastes like oranges. I hate oranges." With those inspiring words, Sasuke passes out in the barrel.

The Sound Four immediately go into action. They surround the barrel in a square and fly through some hand signs and in unison chant "Four Black Fogs Formation!" A dark purple fog extends from each of the Sound Four and flows through the air and into the barrel with Sasuke. After a minute the fog stops and the barrel seals itself.

Sakon walks up to the now sealed-in-a-barrel Sasuke and pulls out five more sealing tags.

"Just to be safe. Wouldn't want anything to disturb the process." After he places the tags on the barrel's lid he shouts, "Dark Sealing Method!"

Jirobo walks up and hoists the barrel onto his back. "Time to move. Can you keep up?" He asks me.

"Please, I can run for days. Literally. I've done it before. You'll have no issues with me and my stamina." Wow I really ramble on when I'm nervous.

"Good. You might not be useless after all." Tayuya mocks me.

I snort at her. "I'm better than you, I can tell you that."

She saunters towards me. "Big words tough guy. Want to put your money where your mouth is?" She drapes an arm over my shoulders. "I promise to be gentle, it is your first time."

"What the hell lady! I'm twelve! The innuendo is not okay!" I duck under her arm and slide away. "Stay away vile strumpet!"

"Tayuya, enough." Sakon breaks us up. "We have to get to Orochimaru. His new body awaits."

Oh shit. I completely forgot that was the reason they came to get Sasuke in the first place. Orochimaru needs a new body, the final acts of the Third Hokage damaged his current one too much to keep using. It is dying. Of course he would want Sasuke for that.

Let's see, in cannon they barely arrive after Orochimaru is forced to make the switch. That means it should be fine, I can scale the time line back an hour. They didn't stop to get me in cannon so we have that working for us. As long as we follow cannon from here on out Sasuke will get to keep his body. If not, I'll just take him. We'll figure something out.

The Sound Four and I start running north towards Sound. We don't talk further, simply keep running. A hour passes without incident.

"Stop!" Two Konoha shinobi appear before us. "What are you doing here? Five shinobi fleeing from Konoha is very suspicious. Especially at the speed you all are moving at." It is Genma, the proctor of the third part of the Chunin Exams, and one of his teammates. "Alvarcus? What are you doing with them?"

Ah crap. They saw me. "I've been kidnapped?" The Konoha nin tense at my declaration. Whoops, I just made them want to fight a lot harder.

"Brat, prove your loyalty. Defeat them with us, prove you want to go to Orochimaru." Thanks Kidomaru, way to ruin my story.

Genma's mouth drops open. His senbon that he chews on falls out. "You... you're defecting to Orochimaru?"

"Uh... you know what? Fuck it, everyone would find out eventually. Yes, I'm going to Orochimaru." There, cat is out of the bag. There is no turning back now.

Genma tenses even more. "I have to kill you now. You just signed your death warrant. I want you to know that I am sorry, you showed such promise."

He lunges at me at high speeds. I've fought faster, he's got nothing on Kakashi. The Sound Four don't move to defend me. They want me to prove I'll hurt Konoha shinobi. To prove that I have forsaken everything for Orochimaru.

"I'm sorry too." I say when he is only a meter away from me with his kunai arm extended towards my throat. He's only a half meter away when I let the Jiongu out. He had no hope of dodging, not when he's that close. It tears from my neck, reopening the scar Kisame gave me. It latches onto his arm and works up his body. In moments it is around his neck.

"Genma!" His teammate yells. Raido is his name, I think. I vaguely recall that from my memories. The Sound Four engage him. He's putting up one hell of a fight. Genma would be too if I didn't have my Jiongu wrapped around his body. I got lucky, I had surprise on my side.

I reel in the Jiongu until I'm holding his neck in my left hand. I slam him into the ground, nearly crushing his neck. I kneel down next to him and lean in towards his ear.

"Tell Tsunade I chose option four. She will know what I mean. Will you do this if I spare your life? Blink twice for yes." Genma's eyes flutter twice. "I have to make it convincing. This is going to hurt. I am sorry." Genma's eyes widen in fear. I attach three chakra strings to his chest.

"CLEAR!" I zap Genma with electricity. His body convulses and he passes out.

I withdraw the Jiongu fully and leave him on the ground. To add insult to injury, and really sell myself to the Sound Four, I lazily sit down on his chest. One of my knees is raised and I'm bracing my head with an arm balanced on the knee.

Raido puts up one hell of a fight, he forced the Sound Four to use their cursed seal all the way to level two by himself. I am actually impressed, I doubt I could do that without the Jiongu. Eventually though he is subdued. He might have been able to hold his own while they were only using level one, but the power boost from level two is too great. They're toying with him.

Once they're finally done with him all that's left is a body that's beaten and broken. I can only hope there is a medic on his team, otherwise he will die.

"You finally done?" I call out to the transformed Sound Four. They all have amusement on their faces when they see my chair.

"Oh?" Tayuya calls out with just a hint of lewdness in her tone. This chick is weird. "You're not scared? You're surrounded by monsters."

"Sweetie," I call back to her, "I'm the only monster here."

I do something I've only tried once before. I let the Jiongu extend out of my eyes. I let it slowly overtake my entire face, becoming a kind of thread armor. I let it cover all of my visible skin. Just to really sell the idea, I have it form a crown of moving thorns. Ever shifting, ever pulsing. Alive.

"You ain't got nothing on me. What's a couple of horns and a new skin color when I have a literal monster inside me?"

The Sound Four still, either from my gruesome new look or my words.

"You're not scared of us?" Jirobo asks. Okay, so they paused because I didn't react like normal. I like to think it was because I scared them.

I laugh. "Scared of you? Nah, compared to some things I've seen, hell things I've fought, you're cuddly teddy bears. You don't know the meaning of scared until you've had a sentient chakra eating sword stabbed through your heart seconds after cutting off your head."

Kidomaru whistles. "Bet that hurt."

"It does explain his scar." Jirobo adds on in mild curiosity.

"If anything, I'm scared of your fashion sense. Giant purple ropes for belts?" I shudder. "Disgusting. It looks terrible."

"We can trade war stories later. We need to move." Sakon pushes us forward. "We have to get out of here before the rest of their team arrives. We'll need to set up a defensible spot while we deal with the backlash from going level two."

We run for five minutes. The only reason we didn't keep going further is because the Sound Four reverted out of their level two mode. They dropped like stones. Panting, laying on the ground. Easy to kill. If I ever wanted to turn around today, now would be the perfect time. I can't though. I don't know how badly it could affect Sasuke.

We rest in silence for hours.

"Alright, let's move." Sakon says. "We've rested long enough, we can make it to Sound non stop easily."

We get up and start running. This is wrong. Where's the retrieval team? They should have been here by now. Why aren't they here?

Sakura, she's the one who told Tsunade about Sasuke's defection. She's not here to do it, so that means Tsunade doesn't know yet. She won't know until Genma and his team get back to Konoha. Shit, we might make it in time for Orochimaru to use Sasuke's body. I'll just have to hope that the delays my presence caused are good enough. Otherwise I'll need to kill everyone here and take Sasuke away to safety. I don't even know if I can do that.

Kidomaru would have to die first. I can't guarantee I can get out of his webbing and if I am trapped it is over. Sakon and Ukon would go next, I can probably get them both in one go if I am quick about it. Plus the Jiongu will deal with them if they try to assimilate with me. 

Tayuya would be next. I could probably get the Jiongu to shut down my hearing so all of her audio genjutsu would have no effect on me, then I'd just have to dodge her weird summons. Jirobo would be last. His best move is to make a chakra eating earth dome and his brute strength, I can handle that easily.

That plan is crushed because of one tiny thing.

"You all have taken too much time." A new voice cuts through the air. "Orochimaru-sama was forced to take an inferior body. Now tell me, where is Sasuke Uchiha?"

"K-Kimimaro?" Tayuya nervously says. "W-what are you d-doing here?"

"I am here to make sure Sasuke Uchiha makes it to Orochimaru-sama." He coughs into his hand. It comes away red. "As my last act in this world, I will be of use to Orochimaru-sama one last time. Now come, we will travel together."

He sets a much faster speed for us to follow. No one complains, not even me. I don't dare to oppose this man, even on his deathbed he would kill me. My spare hearts would only slow him down. The only good thing to come of this is that he told me Orochimaru was forced into a different body. That gives Sasuke and I a three year buffer. I can work with that, I can convince Sasuke to leave Sound by then.

Only a short hour later we come up on the Valley of the End. We don't slow down to look, we don't even enter it. 

We go around straight into the Land of Sound. It only takes us minutes to reach the Hidden Sound Village, Otogakure or Oto for short. It is a truly hidden village, the entrance is hidden beneath a tree and is very hard to find unless you already know it is there.

"Oh how wonderful!" We're greeted by Orochimaru himself.

...

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