Chapter 27, Part 2: The Serpent's Despair
The Tenchi Bridge was no more. Only jagged, splintered pylons remained, jutting from the churning river like broken teeth. The battlefield had become a chaotic mess of water, shattered rock, and the colossal, writhing form of Orochimaru's Eight Branches Technique. The eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent was a living natural disaster, its sheer size dwarfing everything around it.
From the central head, Orochimaru surveyed the scene, a pristine Sword of Kusanagi in his hand, his face a mask of triumphant madness. Kabuto stood on another of the serpent's heads, his broken arm already crudely reset and wrapped in bandages, his expression one of cold, clinical focus.
Opposite them, standing on a precarious piece of floating debris, was Naruto. And he was laughing.
It was a low, rumbling chuckle at first, which grew into a full-throated, joyous roar of pure, unadulterated battle lust. The golden aura of his Reiatsu, once a subtle pressure, was now a visible, raging inferno, cackling around him.
"YES!" he roared, his voice echoing across the valley. "This is it! This is a real fight!"
Orochimaru's serpentine eyes narrowed. This was not the reaction he had expected. He had anticipated fear, awe, despair. Not... ecstasy. "You've gone mad, Naruto-kun!"
"Mad?" Naruto's grin was a terrifying slash of white in the golden storm of his aura. "I've never been more sane in my life!"
He raised Nozarashi, the massive cleaver seeming to hum in harmony with his soaring spiritual pressure. "Come on, snake! Show me what your big monster can do!"
"As you wish!" Orochimaru hissed.
The eight heads of the serpent attacked as one. One head spewed a powerful jet of wind, another a torrent of poison, while a third lunged forward, its fangs dripping with venom. The other heads prepared to fire their own jutsu, a coordinated, omnidirectional assault.
Naruto didn't retreat. He charged.
He leaped from the debris, his feet finding purchase on the churning water's surface, and ran straight towards the monstrous serpent. He met the jet of wind head-on. His golden aura flared, splitting the gale around him like a rock in a river. He swung Nozarashi in a wide, contemptuous arc, not even a named technique, and the wave of cutting pressure it produced decapitated the lunging snake head and dispersed the cloud of poison before it could even spread.
"Impossible!" Kabuto muttered, his analytical mind struggling to comprehend the scene.
From their hiding spot, the Konoha team watched in stunned silence.
'He's... he's fighting that thing... and he's winning,' Sakura thought, her perception of what was possible shattering with every passing second.
'That energy ...' Yamato thought, a cold sweat breaking out on his brow. It's not just powerful; it's... heavy. It feels like the world itself is bending around him.'
Orochimaru, enraged, commanded his remaining seven heads to strike. He lunged forward with the Kusanagi, while Kabuto formed hand seals, launching a volley of Water Dragon Bullets.
It was a storm of fangs, blades, and jutsu, all converging on Naruto's position.
Naruto's grin widened. "Arashi no Ha!"
He became a vortex of golden destruction. He began to spin, Nozarashi a blur of motion, creating a 360-degree sphere of absolute cutting power. The Water Dragons were shredded into mist. The lunging snake heads were met with a wall of unstoppable steel and were horribly mangled, sent reeling back with deep, grievous wounds. Orochimaru's Kusanagi struck the spinning vortex and was violently thrown back, the force nearly ripping the blade from his hand.
Naruto's spinning stopped. He stood in the center of the chaos, not a single scratch on him. "My turn," he growled.
He flickered. Not with Shunpo. His raw speed, amplified by his rising power, was simply too much for them to track.
He appeared above one of the serpent's heads, Nozarashi held high. "Ryōdan!" He brought the cleaver down. The head was split perfectly in two.
He flickered again, appearing beside another head. A horizontal slash. It was decapitated.
Flicker. Another head fell. Flicker. Another.
It wasn't a fight. It was a slaughter. A butchering. He was systematically dismantling Orochimaru's ultimate technique with a terrifying, almost casual efficiency.
Orochimaru screamed in a mixture of rage and pain as his colossal form was torn apart. "KABUTO!"
Kabuto, seeing the battle was lost, made his move. He performed a complex series of hand seals. A blinding light erupted from his position, designed to momentarily stun Naruto. "Lord Orochimaru, we must retreat!"
When the light faded, the colossal Eight-Branched Serpent was gone. Orochimaru, back in his human form, was clutching his arm, panting heavily, a look of utter disbelief and frustrated greed on his face.
Naruto stood on the water before them, his golden aura slowly receding, a look of profound, bitter disappointment replacing his battle-crazed grin.
"You're running?" he asked, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "Already? The fun was just getting started."
"This isn't over, Naruto-kun," Orochimaru hissed, his body already beginning to sink into the shadows of a summoning seal Kabuto had placed. "That power... it will be mine!"
"We will meet again," Kabuto said, a final, parting shot. They vanished, their chakra signatures disappearing completely.
Silence fell over the ruined valley. The battle was over.
Naruto stood there for a long moment, the thrill of the fight draining away, leaving him with that familiar, hollow emptiness. He had won. Overwhelmingly. And it had felt... unsatisfying. They had broken too easily.
From the forest, Kakashi and the others cautiously emerged. They looked at the apocalyptic devastation—the destroyed bridge, the bisected summon, the shredded trees—and then at the lone figure standing in the air.
As Naruto turned to walk back towards them, his expression unreadable, none of them noticed the small, silent figure that detached from their group.
Sai, his face a perfect blank mask, slipped away from the team. He followed the faint chakra trail left by Orochimaru and Kabuto, his mind a whirlwind of conflicting orders and newfound, terrifying truths.
The small sketchbook, the last vestige of his forgotten heart, slipped from the pouch and fell silently onto the mossy ground below, left behind in the deepening shadows.
Tbc