Orochimaru didn't stop running until he reached the Hidden Sound Village.
Three hundred kilometers. Twelve hours of continuous movement at speeds that would have killed lesser ninja. He didn't pause to rest, didn't stop to evaluate pursuit, didn't do anything except put as much distance as possible between himself and the monster wearing a child's face.
The guards at Otogakure's entrance barely had time to register his arrival before he was past them, moving through the underground corridors with desperate haste. His subordinates—Kabuto, the Sound Four, various experiments and servants—scattered from his path, recognizing something in their master's bearing that they had never seen before.
Fear.
Orochimaru reached his private chambers and sealed the door behind him with seventeen separate barrier techniques. Only then did he allow himself to stop moving. To breathe. To process what had happened.
His hands were shaking.
He stared at them with something approaching disbelief. These hands had performed countless forbidden techniques. Had dissected living subjects without trembling. Had signed death warrants for entire villages with steady precision.
Now they shook like leaves in a hurricane.
"Impossible," he whispered to the empty room. "This is impossible."
But it wasn't impossible. It had happened. He had felt it—the absolute certainty of death pressing against him as that boy prepared to open the final gate. The mathematical precision with which Naruto had calculated acceptable losses and found his own life expendable.
Orochimaru had faced death before. Had even died, in a sense, transferring his consciousness between bodies when the previous vessel failed. Death held no special terror for him.
But this was different.
This was facing someone who simply didn't care. Who would throw away his own existence without hesitation if the equation balanced in that direction. Who couldn't be threatened because threats required the target to value something—and Naruto valued nothing.
"Kabuto!"
The silver-haired spy appeared within seconds, his usual smile firmly in place despite the obvious tension in his posture.
"Orochimaru-sama. Your return is unexpected. The Chuunin Exams—"
"Are no longer relevant." Orochimaru moved to his desk, his movements regaining some of their usual grace as his analytical mind engaged. "The invasion plan is cancelled."
Kabuto's composure cracked. "Cancelled? But Suna is already committed. The preparations are—"
"Irrelevant. All of it. The invasion cannot proceed."
"May I ask why?"
Orochimaru was silent for a long moment.
"Uzumaki Naruto," he said finally.
"The jinchuuriki? I provided you with extensive data on him. His capabilities, while impressive for a genin, shouldn't pose a significant threat to—"
"Your data was incomplete." Orochimaru's voice carried an edge that made Kabuto take an involuntary step backward. "Catastrophically incomplete."
He began pacing, his serpentine movements betraying agitation that his subordinate had never witnessed.
"You reported that he was emotionally damaged. Hollow. Empty. You framed this as a vulnerability—someone without desires could not be manipulated, but also could not oppose us with conviction."
"That assessment was based on extensive observation—"
"Your assessment was wrong!" The words cracked through the air like a whip. "His emptiness is not a vulnerability. It's a weapon. The most dangerous weapon I've ever encountered."
Kabuto fell silent, waiting.
Orochimaru forced himself to stop pacing. To organize his thoughts into something coherent.
"I confronted him twice in the Forest of Death. The first time, I tested his reactions—sent a snake to devour him, expected panic or anger or desperation. He destroyed it from the inside in three seconds and faced me without any emotional response whatsoever."
"That matches my observations—"
"Let me finish." Orochimaru's golden eyes fixed on his subordinate with unusual intensity. "The second confrontation, I pressed harder. Used killing intent. Attacked with genuine lethal force. He evaded everything and then..."
The memory made his hands start shaking again.
"He opened the Gates. Not one or two, as most practitioners manage. Seven. He opened seven gates simultaneously, and he was prepared to open the eighth."
Kabuto's eyes widened behind his glasses. "The Gate of Death? But that's—"
"Suicide. Yes. And he was going to do it." Orochimaru's voice had gone hollow. "He looked at me and calculated that his death was an acceptable price for my destruction. There was no hesitation. No fear. No desperate last resort mentality. Just... math. Cold, empty math that said killing me was worth dying for."
"But surely if he'd opened the eighth gate, you could have—"
"Escaped? Perhaps. Perhaps not. At that power level, the destruction radius would have been..." He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that I couldn't call his bluff because it wasn't a bluff. He genuinely didn't care whether he lived or died."
Kabuto processed this information, his analytical mind working through the implications.
"So he's... truly empty. Not suppressing emotions or hiding them. Actually incapable of feeling anything."
"Yes. And do you understand what that means?"
"It means conventional manipulation tactics are useless against him."
"It means everything is useless against him!" Orochimaru's composure shattered again, frustration breaking through. "I've spent fifty years learning to exploit human nature. Fear, desire, ambition, love, hate—every emotion is a lever that can be used to move people. But he has no levers. Nothing to pull. Nothing to push."
He slammed his palm against the desk, leaving a crack in the stone surface.
"You can't bribe someone who doesn't want anything. You can't threaten someone who doesn't fear death. You can't manipulate someone who doesn't care about outcomes. He's immune to everything I am. Everything I do."
Kabuto adjusted his glasses, thinking.
"What about attacking those he's connected to? The girls who follow him, his teammates, his—"
"I considered that." Orochimaru's laugh was bitter. "I spent the entire journey here considering that. And do you know what I realized?"
"What?"
"He doesn't care about them either."
Kabuto blinked. "But the reports indicated significant attachment behavior from the females. Devotion, protectiveness—"
"From them. Not from him." Orochimaru began pacing again, his frustration finding outlet in movement. "They love him. Obsessively, irrationally, completely. But he doesn't love them back. Doesn't love anyone. If I killed every single one of those transformed girls, he would note it as a data point and continue existing exactly as before."
"Then they could be used as hostages—"
"To what end? Threatening to kill them wouldn't make him comply with demands because their survival isn't something he's invested in. He might calculate that saving them is tactically advantageous and act accordingly, but that same calculation could just as easily conclude that their loss is acceptable."
Orochimaru stopped pacing, his shoulders slumping with something that looked almost like defeat.
"I've spent my entire life pursuing immortality because death terrifies me. Every technique I've developed, every atrocity I've committed, has been in service of that singular fear. But him..." He shook his head slowly. "He's already beyond death. Not because he's immortal, but because he simply doesn't care about mortality. You can't hold death over someone who would accept it without blinking."
Silence stretched through the chamber.
"So the invasion is cancelled," Kabuto said finally.
"The invasion is cancelled. As long as Uzumaki Naruto remains in Konoha, any attack would face an opponent who cannot be deterred, cannot be negotiated with, cannot be stopped by any means short of absolute destruction." Orochimaru's voice was heavy with reluctant respect. "And I'm not certain I'm capable of delivering that destruction, even with full resources committed."
"Then what do we do?"
Orochimaru moved to the window of his underground chamber—a false window that showed an illusion of the surface world. He stared at the fake sky with hollow eyes.
"I've been considering that question for twelve hours. Developing scenarios, calculating probabilities, exploring options."
"And?"
"Every plan to eliminate him fails for the same reason." Orochimaru's voice had gone flat, defeated. "You cannot outmaneuver someone who will accept any outcome. You cannot corner someone who doesn't care about escape. You cannot threaten someone who fears nothing."
He turned to face Kabuto, his expression carrying something his subordinate had never seen before.
Resignation.
"Uzumaki Naruto is not a problem to be solved. He's a force of nature to be avoided. As long as he exists, Konoha has a deterrent that exceeds anything I can counter."
"So we do nothing?"
"We wait. We observe. We hope that something changes—that he develops weaknesses, that his emptiness somehow fills, that circumstances shift in our favor." Orochimaru's smile was bitter. "It galls me to admit, but there's nothing else we can do."
He moved toward the door, then paused.
"There is one thing I want you to investigate, however."
"What's that?"
"The phenomenon affecting the females around him. The transformations, the devotion, the spread to new subjects. That's not natural. Something is causing it—something that might be exploited or replicated."
"You think there's a technique involved?"
"I think there's something. And if I can understand it..." Orochimaru's eyes gleamed with a fraction of their usual cunning. "If I can understand it, perhaps I can use it. Not against him directly—that's clearly futile. But the phenomenon itself might have applications."
"I'll look into it."
"Do. But carefully. If he discovers our investigation, I have no doubt he'll calculate that eliminating the source of inquiry is optimal." Orochimaru's voice carried genuine warning. "And he won't hesitate."
Kabuto nodded and departed.
Orochimaru remained alone in his chamber, staring at nothing.
Fifty years of life. Countless techniques mastered. Hundreds of bodies stolen. All of it in service of becoming the most powerful being in the world.
And now, a twelve-year-old boy had revealed the fundamental flaw in that ambition.
Power meant nothing against someone who couldn't be moved by power.
Fear meant nothing against someone who felt no fear.
Death meant nothing against someone who didn't value life.
Uzumaki Naruto was, in the most literal sense, beyond his reach.
And Orochimaru, for the first time in decades, had no idea what to do about it.
In the Hidden Sand Village, a messenger hawk arrived with coded instructions.
The alliance with Sound is dissolved. The invasion of Konoha is cancelled. Do not proceed with planned operations.
The Kazekage—or rather, the imposter wearing his skin—read the message with shock. Orochimaru, canceling the plan they had spent years preparing? What could possibly have—
A second message arrived shortly after, carried by one of Kabuto's snake summons.
I encountered Uzumaki Naruto in the Forest of Death. Our intelligence was catastrophically wrong. As long as he exists, Konoha is invulnerable to conventional attack. Maintain defensive posture and await further instructions.
The imposter crushed both messages in his fist, frustration warring with confusion.
What had that boy done to inspire such caution from the legendary Orochimaru?
In Konoha, unaware of the chaos his existence was causing in enemy planning rooms, Naruto stood in the preliminary match arena, surrounded by seven devoted women with impossible figures.
The examination continued.
Opponents stepped forward to challenge him.
They fell.
Each one defeated with the same casual efficiency, the same complete lack of emotional investment, the same terrifying emptiness that had made a Sannin flee in terror.
The other competitors watched with growing unease.
The proctors watched with professional concern.
The Hokage watched with ancient sadness.
And somewhere in the shadows, seven pairs of adoring eyes watched with love that could not be returned, devotion that could not be acknowledged, hope that refused to die.
Naruto felt none of it.
But he continued existing.
Because that was all he knew how to do.