The moment the capture operation began, Hatake Sakumo was notified.
Orochimaru was, after all, a ninja from The Fireflies. So, out of courtesy and to avoid any potential misunderstandings, the organization's leader was naturally informed.
So, Hatake Sakumo gathered a team from the Ino-Shika-Chō trio and joined the operation.
However, compared to the decisive order last time to simply take Danzō's head, the Hokage's command this time was to capture him alive. Moreover, she wasn't on the front lines herself. As a result, unexpected incidents kept occurring throughout the operation.
Capture alive meant nobody wanted to go for the kill. Faced with the massive encirclement, Orochimaru was actually able to fight and retreat.
But even with Orochimaru's fierce counterattacks, trapped within Konoha's net, he should have been forced to surrender.
Orochimaru was locked in an encirclement by elites of his own caliber. Sakumo himself was charging in, blade in hand. Then, the unforeseen finally happened.
In Sakumo's mind, hesitation was not an option. He might even have to kill Orochimaru on the spot—since the founding of The Fireflies, the organization had never had such a major stain.
Only by eliminating Orochimaru directly could he prevent any damage to the organization's reputation… People couldn't withstand intense scrutiny. What if they actually dug something up?
Even if he did kill Orochimaru, Sakumo would still be plagued with worry. The precedent of the "public trial" made him fear the village elders might use Orochimaru as an excuse to investigate The Fireflies as well. The possibility was small, but not zero.
After all, there was a degree of opposition between The Fireflies and the Konoha elders. If the Second Hokage had such an opportunity, he definitely wouldn't pass up the chance to interfere.
Well, Sakumo was overthinking it. He just felt that after The Fireflies had been entrusted to him, such an incident was hard to explain to the previous leader. For certain reasons, Amekagure Yūkari definitely wouldn't act that way.
So, even with the Hokage's order to capture him alive, the honest Sakumo was actually thinking about how to make a "mistake" look as natural as possible.
And that was only one side of the problem.
Everyone's objectives differed. Sakumo struggled to find a single, decisive killing opportunity.
He had only one shot. If he failed, he couldn't try again. One violation of the Hokage's order was a mistake. Two would be impossible to explain.
He didn't want to disobey or kill, but for the organization's reputation, Orochimaru's life didn't matter much.
Yet, when Sakumo finally found an opening to draw his blade, the cold steel only cut through empty air. Orochimaru, at the center of the net, vanished abruptly from everyone's sight.
"Lord Sakumo, good call. But still a step too late…"
Minato Namikaze praised Sakumo's reaction. As expected, the veteran's combat experience was superior. He still had much to learn.
And now the problem was Orochimaru had escaped. How were they supposed to report this to the Hokage?
Since Sakumo's slash and Orochimaru's disappearance happened almost simultaneously, his action looked like a last-ditch attempt to stop a fleeing target.
Even if the Hokage ordered capture alive, killing was preferable to escape in an emergency. Sakumo's move appeared perfectly reasonable.
Sakumo said nothing, silently sheathing his blade. He never thought he'd have a "shoot first, aim later" day.
The mission failed, but Sakumo wasn't surprised. He knew where Orochimaru was—where else could Orochimaru be but in the freezer?
Trying to kill Orochimaru was Sakumo's default response, his duty as the leader. Yet, based on the intelligence he possessed, Sakumo also knew it was something he couldn't actually accomplish.
After the mission failed, the group headed to the Hokage's office to report.
Orochimaru's escape via space-time ninjutsu naturally took the Hokage by surprise. It also meant Konoha didn't understand Orochimaru's true strength. The man had hidden too many cards.
Considering that, the mission failure wasn't the fault of their ninja. She could only declare Orochimaru a missing-nin and issue a bounty and arrest warrant.
Overnight, Orochimaru went from a Konoha hero to a wanted criminal everyone wanted dead.
And Amekagure Yūkari's handling of the situation and control of the narrative was worthy of her self-proclaimed identity as a Firefly ninja—Orochimaru was the Third Hokage's student and Shimura Danzō's partner. His fall was naturally their responsibility.
The Fourth Hokage truly was the Fourth Hokage. Using the Third and Danzō as trash bins? No, she was using them as cesspits, dumping anything with the slightest stench their way.
As for Orochimaru's association with The Fireflies, it was downplayed into near oblivion.
Controlling the narrative was crucial. Distorting the truth was standard practice, let alone mere "biased reporting."
Theoretically, Yūkari should have tightened control over The Fireflies further, but she couldn't. Because some old men had remarkably long lives… She hadn't forgotten where the corpse of Madara Uchiha in her possession came from.
With Orochimaru gone, Konoha wouldn't be capturing him anytime soon. So, after the meeting concluded, everyone went their separate ways.
Minato had no idea that both good and bad news awaited him at home.
Meanwhile, Sakumo returned to The Fireflies headquarters with a troubled mind. He contacted Yūshin first, then descended into the underground space.
In that special room where he'd achieved his "low-tech time travel," Sakumo once again saw the frozen form of Orochimaru.
He had a general idea of what Orochimaru had experienced. Their experiences were strikingly similar. They had both played the role of "Ken" in that trio.
The problem was, Orochimaru was truly guilty. How should he be handled now?
A spatial ripple appeared beside him, and Yūshin stepped out.
"Orochimaru vanished? Confirmed it was a summoning? Not some reverse summoning escape, right?"
Yūshin seemed eager to confirm this. Once this was dealt with, all the messy time-travel events would finally form a closed loop. The ramen chef could be excluded. He was special, knew what to do and what not to do, and wouldn't cause harm.
"Orochimaru's experience was similar to mine. It probably wasn't reverse summoning…"
The manner of disappearance was too familiar. Sakumo was fairly certain.
"Good. This old popsicle is finally useful."
As he spoke, Yūshin prepared to take Orochimaru away.
"Lord Yūshin, how do you intend to deal with Orochimaru? From what I understand, his actions are truly horrifying." Yūshin's casual, almost harvesting attitude prompted Sakumo to ask.
"Nothing much. Just dumping him somewhere… I'm using him as fishing bait. You all treat him as you normally would. Assume he was just reverse-summoned away."
"But his memories and experiences from Konoha's founding era…"
"He's different from you. He lost those memories. Like I said, you can think of it as him being reverse-summoned."
Now Sakumo fully understood. A portion of Orochimaru's memory had been sealed or excised. He sighed in relief. As long as no paradoxes were created.
"Let me warn you. If you pursue Orochimaru, be very careful. With your current strength, you're no match for him."
Before taking Orochimaru, Yūshin offered a piece of friendly advice.
After experiencing Konoha's founding era, Orochimaru's power had expanded to an absurd degree. He truly surpassed Konoha's White Fang.
The bad news was, Orochimaru's strength was almost unrivaled. The good news was, even Orochimaru himself didn't know it. He possessed the hardware but lacked the software and drivers to utilize it.
A tragedy.
Yūshin vanished with Orochimaru. Sakumo muttered to himself:
"Seems 'Ken' had a far more exciting second half of life than the first."
But even Sakumo didn't know then that the "Ken" "shared account" would be reactivated again soon.
Yūshin took Orochimaru away, casually finding a small forest in the remote northwest of the Land of Fire, far from Konoha.
He thawed Orochimaru, then left immediately.
Post-thaw, Orochimaru's boot-up sequence was agonizingly slow. It couldn't even beat one percent of the Shinobi World's brains.
Shivering uncontrollably from the cold, he tried to generate heat through movement. Limbs twitching, he attempted to stand using various bizarre, twisted, inhuman poses.
It looked like the aftermath of a severe stroke.
Unfortunately, all attempts failed. With a chunk of his brain missing, lack of coordination and low intellect were to be expected.
But the missing brain matter wasn't all bad. Precisely because his brain couldn't boot normally, his nervous system began a spontaneous self-check and repair.
The GUI wouldn't load, so his BIOS started resetting to factory default.
In short, the Hashirama cells within Orochimaru activated. Detecting the physical defect within minutes, his brain began regenerating.
Another quarter-hour passed before his intelligence started coming back online. The brain was a delicate organ; repairing it took time.
The vacant look in Orochimaru's eyes gradually sharpened into a cold, sinister gleam. Then, as if surfacing from drowning, he gasped for air.
"Wh-what happened?"
Once his breathing steadied, confusion set in. He had no memory of what transpired—unfortunately, once the "surface OS" booted, the deeper operating system fell silent.
Yūshin's "editing skills" were top-notch. Orochimaru's memory now ended with him being surrounded. He had no clue how he escaped.
"Who saved me? I seem to have undergone space-time transfer… Was it Ryūchi Cave?"
A careful self-examination only deepened his confusion.
First, the clothes he wore now were completely different from those during his escape.
Second, his body felt… off.
Orochimaru vaguely sensed he had lost something important. But the harder he tried to remember, the more it eluded him.
His head throbbed.
"Surely, no one cracked open my skull? Hmph, not a funny joke…"
"First, leave this place. Plenty of time to solve these mysteries later."
Thinking this, Orochimaru clutched his head and left the small woods. He was still tense, expecting Konoha pursuers to be hot on his trail.
"Something's wrong… Why does that chase feel like it happened ages ago?"
...
Orochimaru was adept at hiding. Once out of Konoha, he was hard to find. In fact, if he lay low, his concealment skills were no worse than the elderly, lonely version of Madara Uchiha.
But Orochimaru could lay low. Orochimaru would lay low? Unlikely.
He couldn't stay idle. There were endless ninjutsu to research, countless scientific experiments to conduct. He'd inevitably leave traces. Konoha ninja would eventually catch the scent.
Jiraiya embarked on the traditional path of chasing his comrade. Pursuing Orochimaru was like binary code to him—a relentless, unforgiving sequence of 0s and 1s written endlessly.
Until you couldn't tell which was 0 and which was 1 anymore.
But after Orochimaru's escape, as a missing-nin, he was no longer the Hokage's primary focus. As long as Orochimaru didn't plan a counterattack against Konoha, he wasn't worth her attention.
A rabid dog roaming outside. As long as it didn't return to bite villagers, the village head didn't need to expend too much energy on it.
The Hokage had too much to deal with. Orochimaru's priority wasn't high.
Under Yūkari's special policies, tensions within the Uchiha clan grew more severe with time. Continuing like this, conflict would inevitably erupt in the most extreme form.
Even if everyone worked together with unity, they could only delay the eruption, not prevent it. Was it possible for a volcano under tectonic pressure to remain silent forever?
Especially since this wasn't Konoha's founding era. "Unity" seemed a bit too fantastical for the current Konoha.
Konoha's internal situation was too complex. So complex it sometimes made people think of "entropy increase" and even the idea of "starting over from scratch."
Of course, just a thought. Konoha hadn't reached that point.
But Konoha hadn't. Other places had.
Unexpectedly, chaos in the sky arrived before chaos on the ground.
To be precise, chaos on the moon.
Even more precisely, "The (False) Ōtsutsuki Rebellion."
When entropy increased to a certain level, internal chaos reached its peak, leaving only "reboot" or "destruction" as options.
In any case, a paper bird descended from the high sky and alighted on Yūshin's shoulder.
Author's Note:Writer's block. Taking a day off.
Some issues with the initial summoning plot point require pushing the final events later. Specifically, I recently realized Sasuke's age during his summoning was too old.
I need to adjust the subsequent content.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BOOK COMPLETED ON PATREON!
This story has reached its conclusion on my Patreon!
Full story available now
Exclusive bonus content & early access to new books
Join my Patreon community today!
✨patreon.com/GoldenLong
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━