Misdirection.

If there was one thing Orochimaru believed to be the central element in a fight, that would be it. Shinobi were a skilled bunch who preferred to fight on mostly equal grounds, which was strange and funny because a fair fight meant that someone— either you or your opponent —had made a massive blunder.

And when you saw two highly capable shinobi like Orochimaru of the Sannin and Minato Namikaze fighting one another, that meant the real fighting was probably happening elsewhere. Orochimaru knew it. And he knew that Minato knew it. And he knew that Minato knew that he knew it.

It was simply the kind of people they were.

Highly trained, sophisticated killers.

And misdirection was their bread and butter.

Orochimaru had Minato figured out in the first five seconds of the fight. If the Fourth Hokage, master of the Hiraishin, wanted you dead, then you dropped dead— there were no two ways about it. But instead, Minato had drawn him a long-winded conversation, and when Orochimaru wanted some time to prepare his next scheme, he willingly went with it.

Orochimaru had a plan. A big one.

The problem was, Minato did too.

So if both of them were perfectly happy with stalling one another, it meant that the real event was happening somewhere else.

The question was… where?

There was no saying how long Minato-clone had been self-aware— or at least aware of everything happening inside the labyrinth. Not to mention Orochimaru’s personal disappointment with the Seal’s manifestation as a dingy, uninhabitable place, instead of something more… intricate like a jungle or a destroyed planet or something more cozy like a cave filled with illusory meat.

If both he and Namikaze were here, chances were that the child was somewhere in this gutter as well. And given how these waters ebbed and flowed according to the great Kyuubi's emotions, he had no doubts as to where these waters would eventually lead him. As the host of the Seal, Naruto would probably be allowed to enter without any problems.

Unless, of course, Minato had somehow complicated the entire process.

Speaking of whom—

A rasengan of all things came speeding towards him, just after Minato had tried to trap him using the Swamp of the Underworld jutsu. A Jiraiya special for the Snake-Sannin— no doubt Namikaze thought it'd be ironic and amusing.

Orochimaru clenched his teeth.

Still, it was surprising. Minato Namikaze was always of the ilk that used chakra like it was lifeblood, with extreme precision and only when necessary. For someone like that to keep bombarding him with all these jutsu was—

He weaved out of the trajectory of a second rasengan.

—Annoying. How was he doing this? Had Namikaze downplayed his chakra reserves in real life, or was something more insidious going on? He needed to find out—

A third and fourth rasengan pincered his head, each one a half-inch away from his ears, only to suddenly explode with extreme prejudice. It was only because of his incredibly honed instincts that he managed to survive the ordeal.

"Alright, now you're just being mean."

"What are you talking about?" Minato asked, standing with his arms akimbo.

It was official. Once again, the deceased Hokage took an opportunity to stall instead of using the opening to attack. He didn't call the man out— a momentary ceasefire was a perfect chance to catch his breath and think things through. And from what he could tell, he was pretty sure the person in front of him was a fake.

A shadow clone, just like the ones he'd been fighting thus far.

The prospect left two outcomes.

The first was that the real Minato Namikaze was elsewhere, likely taking the chance to meet with his son, who was now also in the Seal.

Or second, the great Kyuubi was about to meet its warden for the first time. The Five Elements Seal he had applied earlier trapped any and all of the beast's chakra from entering Naruto's system all this time.

He wondered if it would try to eat him alive.

"Getting tired so soon?" a panting Minato asked him, lifting up a hand. Slowly, a violent swirl of chakra began forming in the center of his palm, coalescing until it became a neat ball. But it wasn't like his previous rasengan. This time, it was different— a cerulean blue hue, mixed in with blood-red strands of chakra, gave the jutsu an ominous look.

Orochimaru carefully observed his opponent. Throughout the entire battle, the Namikaze clones had limited themselves to using basic attacks, albeit with enhanced agility and precision. In short, he'd employed tactics that required minimal use of chakra including the Hiraishin, which was a surprisingly low-cost technique.

But now, Namikaze had finally begun stepping up his game and throwing flashy jutsu left and right with reckless abandon. An amateur would think Minato was on the ropes, throwing everything into his attacks in a blind act of desperation to win.

Fortunately, Orochimaru knew better.

Expected better from a man like Namikaze.

The Fourth Hokage didn't have much chakra to begin with, and this was his clone. As much as he wanted to imagine Minato-clone re-cloning itself into several dozen more, patrolling this racid gutter of a Seal like ANBU, he knew better.

It was impossible. The chakra requirements for that were just off the charts. Maybe a jinchuuriki could pull it off under the right conditions, but not a Minato-clone, cut off from the main soul and trapped inside this Seal. So how was he doing this? The only available energy in this place was—

Ah.

So that's your game.

Orochimaru threw his head back, and laughed.

"…What?" the Fourth Hokage asked. "Don't think I'm on the ropes just yet, Orochimaru. I've still got a lot left in the tank."

Time and time again, their battle continued to prove that misdirection was the name of the game, and one needed to look no further than what the man had just uttered. A regular bluff would imply Namikaze wanted him to think he had more chakra than he actually did— something he wasn't simple-minded enough to actually do. A double bluff meant Namikaze had more than he was showing, and his interjection was an attempt to draw out the battle.

But not in this case.

No, this was a triple bluff.

Because Minato Namikaze wasn't saving his chakra at all.

Orochimaru sighed, mentally sparing a single second to mourn the loss of such a bright individual. As much as he despised the man, the end of a brilliant mind had come too soon.

"Credit where credit is due, Minato. This is a rather remarkable way of using senjutsu."

It was, admittedly, a brilliant plan. The two of them were fighting within the Eight-Trigrams Seal, the locale where the Kyuubi-no-kitsune's chakra was trapped. Were he to use senjutsu here, the so-called natural energy would simply be the chakra of the tailed beast, since the seal had no access to the natural energy of the world. Of course, controlling bijuu chakra was nearly impossible to do suddenly, but if one were to spend years within the seal, having nothing to do but practice…

He looked back at the multi-colored rasengan in the man's hand.

Like he said, brilliant.

The Hokage clone arched an eyebrow as he gripped a kunai with his other hand. "A compliment? You're going to make me blush."

"Don't get used to it. A single moment of respect for your brilliance does not outshine my animosity towards you."

"But it does show me that you aren't as smart as you think, Orochimaru," he shook his head. "Or have you forgotten? Using senjutsu requires a massive amount of chakra, otherwise the wielder suffers from a permanent animal transformation."

Orochimaru chuckled. "Don't play me for a fool. I may not be a sage like you, but—" their kunai clashed as they rushed towards one another, "I spent enough time understanding it all. Senjutsu requires you to balance natural energy with your own chakra. If you have low chakra reserves and appropriately imbibe low amounts of natural energy, then you can greatly increase your own strength—"

He rushed forward once more, swinging his leg in a sweeping kick, but Minato jumped backwards at the last moment.

"—Without undergoing any kind of transformation at all."

"Color me impressed," Minato laughed. "You have no idea how many people have missed that fine print."

Still, that left one question unanswered. The Kyuubi chakra was corrosive. Contact with it would destabilize normal chakra. His own limited experiments over the years had proved that. Any kind of nature transformation would be instantly negated and turned into pure Yang energy which would—

Orochimaru widened his eyes. That was absolutely bril—

He held that thought and twisted his body, just in time to avoid a kunai thrown at him, and promptly vanished in mid-air as Minato seamlessly substituted himself in its place, the rasengan already in motion towards his chest.

It struck true, driving through his body like a hot knife through butter. But where there was once a chest now stood a thick slab of rock instead. Orochimaru sidestepped his rock clone and grabbed the Fourth Hokage with a single hand, driving his other sharply into the man's heart.

"But I'm not like most people. I'm Orochimaru."

"You always were one step ahead," Minato coughed out, blood dripping down his chin. "Luckily, I was two steps ahead of you."

A second clone appeared out of nowhere behind the Sannin's back and thrust an ordinary-looking kunai towards his throat.

But Orochimaru caught the weapon just as its tip brushed across his throat, as his other hand held a kunai pointed at Namikaze's stomach.

"Looks like we're at a stalemate," the blond chirped, smiling all the while.

"You must be so proud of yourself," Orochimaru snorted, "thinking you're doing a great job of stalling me. But that's not an easy task when I was always three steps ahead."

Minato frowned. "You have no more clones. If you did, I’d have picked them up. The only chakra signature in our vicinity besides me is you."

Orochimaru smiled.

"Exactly."

And then he exploded in a cloud of smoke.

Fox.

Trickster.

Devourer.

Anathema.

Over the course of a millennia, the Kyuubi-no-kitsune had heard it all. Embraced it all. She had been adored, feared, worshipped, hated, welcomed, betrayed. She had seen empires rise, kingdoms scatter into ashes, civilizations grow and prosper, humans fight and kill and do grotesque things even she would have never considered in her lifetime. She had seen them worship her like divinity, then turn around to call her the Devil.

And yet, none of them came remotely close to describing what she was.

What she truly was.

And that was Power. Unlimited power. Power with a wellspring as deep as the ocean, with a bedrock as resolute as a mountain. She— did she even count as a she? Certainly, she was currently female, but what was a paltry thing like gender when one was crafted to be the embodiment of a purpose? When She was the Hand that enacted the Wrath of the World?

A Hand that had lost its owner. A purpose that had lost its meaning. Uncertainty and freedom had given rise to confusion, and while the World slept powerless and unaware, the Kyuubi-no-kitsune stayed wakeful. The other powers, both demonic and divine, did their jobs. But the bijuu, protectors of the World, the Scales of Balance, were left free.

Power without a purpose.

That was what she was.

Over time, she had come to live with it. Became comfortable in its absence. Sometimes, she shifted into a more human-like form to live alongside the, she returned to her massive creature form to demonstrate her wrath. She had long accepted that she'd never again be the Hand that obeyed the Will of the World, to end what required an ending.

But there went a mortal saying— old habits die hard. For her, it was the naked truth. The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox knew Wrath. Knew rage. Knew terror. Knew destruction. Those were parts of the purpose she was programmed to be.

And so she continued to do her job.

Even without its Power, the World continued to move.

And so, she did as well.

Wrath made manifest. Power, endless power that could destroy armies at will, no matter how large or great. And who could be a greater adversary to her than the Otsutsuki and their accursed descendants?

Uchiha.

Uzumaki.

Senju.

One had trapped her psyche and made her dance to their malicious tune.

The second had prepared everlasting chains.

And the last had thrown them around her proverbial neck and forced her to play ball.

Wrath had been tied down to a human's will. But even so, she was content. One way or another, she now had a direction.

A purpose.

The feeling had been short-lived, however. Bijuu were elements of destruction— a single roar could decimate a town, a single moment of rage could end a nation. It was the sort of power that was not meant for human hands. And within their heart of hearts, knew it, too.

So instead, the insignificant humans used them as deterrents.

Weapons created not to be used, but to make others fear.

She had laughed herself to insanity when she finally realized what she had become.

A tool.

A bargaining chip.

One that kept the other insignificant humans at bay.

She would have decimated the entire human race if not for how funny the whole affair was.

And therein laid her problem.

Hubris.

Using a sacrifice to a divine being of power and stature equal to her own, the Uzumaki had crafted those accursed shackles. Seals, they called them. Concepts given form. Sacrifices made to construe an effect that was greater than the sum of its parts. They called her a tailed-beast, as if she were a mere mindless beast in the first place, and bound her— and her kin —to other fellow humans.

Ones who would serve as a trap, a vessel, and keep them from ravaging their pretty little world.

Jinchuuriki — they called them. The power of human sacrifice.

She scoffed. As if humans knew anything about sacrifice. About purpose. About Power. About being the embodiment of anything remotely close to such concepts. In a world where butchers and killers cried about oppression, the Kyuubi-no-kitsune found this irony to be a cruel, cruel joke.

The World lay dormant. Senseless. Powerless. Unaware.

Her extensions lay careless, busy in their own little worlds. Busy enacting whatever they could latch onto and leaving the weak to inherit their world.

Leaving humanity to become the dominating force. Humanity and its band of warriors— the shinobi and their kage. Kage. How ironic. A race of warrior species referred to their leaders, their strongest fighters, as shadows. It fit perfectly considering how the race actually lived in the shadows of the true great races that dwelled in their realm.

And these shinobi— and their kage —had very serious plans for her.

First, with Mito Uzumaki.

Then, with the little tart Kushina.

And now…

She couldn't help but.

Her current warden was a babe, even by human standards. And innocent, to boot. Had she been human, she may have even considered aiding him. Helping him grow. Teaching him the ways of strength.

But she wasn't.

And so she didn't.

Normally, she would never be interested in her warden. After all, he was a rodent in a world full of rodents. Giant, dwarf, black, white, thin, thick— such things did not matter when they were all prey.

But unlike her previous jailors, her current warden wasn't cut from the same cloth.

He wasn't a shinobi.

Rather, he was just an innocent human, one who chose to live and let live. One born and bred away from the prejudice and customs and ideals of the cutthroat shinobi world.

She had watched him from within her seal. Watched him stumble through the gilded cage that was his life, raised like a pig for slaughter. Watched him being forced to imbibe that new seal— another accursed bit of fuinjutsu implanted into him, something that could make things difficult for her and her plans. Watched him instantaneously gain new chakra natures.

She watched. She processed. And she understood.

This child had potential. Coupled with this new seal, her unending chakra, and her guiding hand, this boy could become a true Kage. A shadow of the Divine. Born of accursed Uzumaki blood, it was only fitting that this human-ling grew to become the new ruler of this tiny world of shinobi.

One she could slowly craft into her perfect tool.

She loved the poetry of it all. She was born to serve the purpose of the World, only to then be forced to do the bidding of humans. And now, another human would serve her purpose.

Indeed, such irony was befitting when dealing with shinobi.

It would take time, but time itself was meaningless to an eternal being like herself.

Now, all she needed was to use the final ingredient in a proper fashion to get the ball rolling.

The other shinobi, Orochimaru— the one who wished to take over her warden's body by consuming his consciousness to use her entrapped chakra for his own benefit. Normally, she'd not bat an eye at such an arrangement. Humans killing humans wasn't always profitable, but it certainly brought some degree of entertainment to someone like her. What did she care for who held the keys to her prison or for what reason?

But the Ryujin, the accursed fuinjutsu enchantment developed by said shinobi, made all the difference.

It was the difference between entertainment and true peril.

It was the difference between a temporary imprisonment and decades of real servitude.

It was the difference between watching from the sidelines and actively taking a side.

And so, it was time she acted.

The shinobi world wouldn't know what hit it.

All she needed to do was ensure that her Warden chose her.

The Kyuubi-no-kitsune was presently shapeshifted to look like Mito Uzumaki— if said bitch had been less uptight, less headstrong, and far more sensual. By stroke of luck, she had come across a second Uzumaki, a girl whose awareness had somehow condensed into a spectral form with enough chakra to feel physical sensations.

And Naruto was there too. Her Warden, and the one human she'd have to keep alive no matter what.

It was certainly an interesting turn of events.

"Tell me, boy," she commanded imperiously. "Now that you see the game you have been a pawn of, what are you going to do?"

"I…" She could practically feel the confusion emanating from his form. His distress. His frustration from the lack of options. But most of all, she could feel the knowledge of his impending doom fighting against well-developed instincts that kept him from trusting strangers like her.

Finally, a jinchuuriki worth the trouble.

"He's coming," she heard the Uzumaki girl mumble. "I sense several more of him, fighting against another."

"Another?" her warden asked.

"He's blue, and orange too. He's a protector," the girl went on, much to her displeasure. "But we don't have to worry about him. He's—"

Her eyes met Karin's.

The girl whimpered.

"Who. Is. Coming?" she asked again, emphasizing each of her words. She hoped she wouldn't have to kill the annoying girl to make her warden understand the seriousness of the situation.

Exercising her wrath always made her feel good, but often left a bad impression on others.

And sometimes, impressions were everything.

"Black," the red-haired girl murmured. "The man with Black." The girl, now wide-eyed in fear, turned towards Naruto. "It's the man that lives atop the castle. The one who everyone fears."

"The Master?" Naruto asked, distress coloring his tone.

"He's coming. He's coming here. He'll kill you. He'll kill— kill—" The girl's eyes constantly darted between Naruto and her own vulpine gaze. "You need to hide. You need to—"

She could almost taste the girl's desperation. Yes, she could use this to her advantage.

She would serve as another useful tool.

In her long life, she had seen fractured fragments of the Juubi's essences manifest in humans across different forms. The shinobi of the modern world called such phenomena kekkei-genkai. Bloodline abilities.

She mentally snorted. As if blood had anything to do with them.

"I told you, boy," she repeated, gathering Naruto's attention. "If you do not listen to me, you will die."

"What do I—" Naruto began, only to be cut off by the Uzumaki girl.

"Why do you care?"

She raised an eyebrow at the sudden outburst. Not many would dare to raise their voice against someone of her stature, imprisoned or not.

"Naruto is your jinchuuriki. If he were to die, then you escape. There's no reason for you to help him."

And intelligent, too. What am I going to do with you?

"No." Surprisingly enough, it was Naruto who had spoken up.

"What do you mean?" the girl demanded.

"She can't escape. The Master— he wants to possess me. My body." He looked towards her hoping for confirmation. She gave him one with a shake of her head— what he said was technically right, though not for the reasons he thought it was.

"It doesn't work that way, Bl— Naruto," the girl argued, much to her consternation. "Once the jinchuuriki gets killed, the bijuu trapped within escapes. It's why jinchuuriki are kept safe and protected by their shinobi village."

Which was also technically true. Again, it wouldn't work that way for her, but the uppity little girl didn't need to know such details.

She considered eating her again.

"Only if I die," Naruto argued.

"Yes," the Uzumaki deadpanned. "That's what killing you means."

"You don't understand," her warden argued back. "The Master doesn't want to kill me. He wants to take over completely. I— my body — it'll still live on. As—"

"Orochimaru," came the incredibly smooth voice.

The one trying to kill her warden.

The man with Black had arrived.

The first time Karin laid eyes on the Snake-Sannin, she felt a nauseating wrongness in the air, the hideous presence of something significantly powerful and equally vile. And considering how she had been talking to the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, greatest of the bijuu, that was certainly saying something.

"We're under attack," she snarled, ignoring her own surprise at how feral she sounded. "We," she snatched Naruto's hand, "need to leave. Now."

Naruto turned and stared at her. Hard. "You want us to run?"

"That man is going to kill you, Blue. I'll— you need to escape from this place as fast as possible."

"What about you?"

At any other moment, Karin would have found the sentiment extraordinary saccharine. But considering how he was a mere boy compared to this… this demon clad in human flesh standing mere feet away, it was nothing but stupid.

"Karin, isn't it?" the man with Black chuckled. "Interesting. I wasn't aware you two knew each other."

Karin knew better than to respond to the serpentine man. Do not fear, she mentally repeated to herself. As much as this seemed real, it wasn't. She was a psychic imprint at best. A meshwork of Yin chakra. A dream-self of the real Karin Uzumaki, with her Mind's Eye connecting her consciousness with Naruto through this strange, incredibly complex seal. All the pain and suffering she felt here would be as real as real could be, and even make her wish she were dead. But it would still all be in her mind.

A farce that would end the moment her eyes fluttered open.

And if it wasn't…

She glanced at Naruto— her Blue —one last time. At long last, she'd gotten the chance to meet him. To talk to him. To do something for him, however insignificant the action may have been. She felt happy, being able to thank the person who had preserved her sanity during her imprisonment.

She turned to Naruto, her countenance as stern as she could muster. "I'm— this isn't the real me. My actual body is somewhere in the castle, on the first floor. Find the real me and get me out if you can. If not, then—" She audibly swallowed. "Then this is where we say goodbye."

"But—"

"Get out! Now!" Karin screamed, her hands quivering. From fright. From anger. Maybe both. Her awareness told her of the protector in the pipes. She'd sensed him quite a while back, and he wasn't too far away either.

So why was he taking so damn long to arrive?

She met the Kyuubi's eyes.

"You need to listen to me," the demon-woman had told Naruto. Just what was her plan? Karin knew that jinchuuriki were able to draw chakra from the beasts sealed within them to generate explosive strength, both physical and elemental. She'd heard tales of Utakata, the infamous missing-nin of Kiri and jinchuuriki of the six-tailed beast, and if any of them held water, then jinchuuriki were Dangerous— with a capital D.

But Naruto was no Utakata. He wasn't even a shinobi. He was just a child, much like herself. His eyes were tender with naivety, and his chakra was far too bright for anyone who called themselves shinobi.

The Nine-Tailed Fox had unending chakra, but what good was power without the skill to use it? The Kyuubi could have supplied him with hundreds of times the energy his body could handle, but Naruto wasn't capable of using a single jutsu.

He was raised like a civilian.

Just what do you plan to do to him, False God? she mused, her eyes never leaving the woman.

The Demon smirked.

"Help him," Karin murmured inwardly, tears of desperation falling from her eyes.

The smirk deepened. "Very well, I will. But you have to convince him to go through with it."

Karin blinked. Had she just read the Demon Fox's mind?

The woman chortled. "I'm allowing my unfiltered thoughts to be heard by you, Uzumaki spawn."

"C— convince him to do what, then?" Karin exclaimed.

"Embrace his destiny," the demon in human form answered, looking like a starved predator smiling down at its first meal in weeks. "He's my jinchuuriki. Mine. This seal locks me away from the mortal realm, but it is as much a prison for him as it is for me. It tethers Naruto to a life on the run, sought after by power-hungry jackals who want my power for their own purposes. It's a prison of his own father's design."

Her features contorted for a moment, as if realizing she'd spoken far too much. "And now, he is mine to shape. Mine to wield. And mine to nurture."

"I won't let you destroy his innocence," Karin growled audibly, earning a strange look from the boy in question.

"Then you need to make a choice," the Demon mentally shot back. "His innocence, or his life. My power can save him, but at the cost of his innocence." Her lips twisted. "He seems to trust you, for some utterly human reason. Use it to convince him to accept his role as my warden. To accept my power as his own. Let me guide him and destroy his enemies. Let me be the balm that protects him from pain."

She paused, her fanged teeth bared in victory, "Let me be the flame with which he burns the world down."

Karin glanced at Naruto— at Blue, her Blue —staring at him with indecision and a growing trepidation.

"Shall I assume that you're going to give up?" the man with Black silkily asked, his slit-like eyes staring at Karin with something akin to amusement. "Or have you changed your mind?"

Karin clenched her fingers tightly, causing her companion to hiss out in discomfort. She glanced down and saw her hand wrapped around Naruto's wrist, her nails digging into his skin and drawing out blood. She felt her own weight shift as she placed her shoulder blades against his. It was only for a moment, and for that single moment, she allowed herself to ignore her Eye and let herself feel. Intense relief, realizing he was still standing next to her. Intense fear, realizing he was in danger. And possible pain. Loss. Terror. Confusion. Bewilderment.

She waged an internal war against everything that was happening around her. A part of her continued to whisper in her ears that none of it could possibly be real, that it was all in her head and she was back in her prison cell, moments away from waking up to white lab coats and needles and a life that would never change.

But this time, there was no denying it.

This time, she would face reality.

She squeezed harder.

Naruto didn't push her away.

And that, in her mind, made all the difference.

"Do we have an accord?" the demoness audibly asked.

There was a very real possibility that if she accepted, her Blue would cease to exist. But even so, Naruto would still survive.

It was more than she could hope for in this cruel world.

"Yes," she heavily sighed. "We do."

"Well?" the man with Black asked, his hand at his waist in typical interrogative fashion. "Aren't you going to attack me?" His smirk deepened. "Assuming you can attack me."

A deep, ominous chuckle reverberated from behind them. "She can't," answered the demon-woman, much to his visible surprise. "But you'll find that I can."

Their eyes met.

Bijuu met shinobi.

For a moment, nothing happened.

And then, the man with Black— Orochimaru —opened his mouth in silent horror and screamed.

It was a generally accepted fact that bijuu, unlike other spirits, were genuine chakra constructs. Some even knew them as reflections of the original Juubi, otherwise known as the mythical World Tree. One could even say that the nine bijuu were not unlike Shadow Clones themselves, constructs created out of chakra with personality derived from the original— clones that later developed their own quirks and established their own identities.

Nine beasts. Nine different reflections, each with varying amounts of chakra.

The fact that bijuu could perish and yet seamlessly return to the mortal realm only reinforced the belief.

Orochimaru knew all this, and more. As someone who had spent over a decade trying to come up with an invention that required a bijuu-sized chakra battery to function at maximum efficiency, it would have been foolhardy not to. But even so, he'd fallen into the one trap that almost every other person before him succumbed to.

His own ego.

Bijuu were powerful, but they were seen as beasts. Not shinobi. Degenerate existences that followed the law of the jungle and bowed down to the whims of those that were more powerful.

The Kyuubi-no-kitsune proved him wrong.

It was a common saying that eyes were the windows to the soul. Before this day, Orochimaru had thought the rhetoric was a terribly overused cliché.

Really, he should have known better.

One moment, he was meeting the inhuman gaze of the Kyuubi. Her eyes gleamed with a feral awareness, burning like smouldering embers. Orochimaru continued to stare for a second.

The gaze extended.

And suddenly, a dark, horrible awareness swelled unbearably inside his head, making him feel like his mind was about to explode. He was— he was—

His mouth fell open. His eyes dilated. Could he even comprehend what he was seeing? There was a blur of images, alien and strange and nauseating to his senses. He didn't know how, but his arms and legs moved apart into a spread-eagled position, his body writhing in a mixture of fear and agony. He could see huge branches extending outward in directions and dimensions that made no sense, and yet they did. Things far above human comprehension, bending and contorting into shapes that couldn't exist. He saw himself wreathed in ghostly flames and instinctively knew they were a part of his future, or various possibilities of it.

And Power! So much power! Dark emotions— greed, wrath, hatred —hung around him like a cloak, hugging his form. Ghostly things, restless spirits, souls of the dead and decaying— they were all drawn into this insane whirlpool of rage and insanity. Inexplicable sensations flared in his body, ones so alien that he was no longer sure whether it was pain or pleasure. Or both.

Then he saw Death. Death sat across from him, staring at him through prison bars.

Solid.

Tangible.

Unavoidable.

Maybe it was Death as a concept. Maybe it was his own death he was seeing. He could feel his throat itching as he screamed, as raw flames erupted all over his skin—

Orochimaru gasped, opening his eyes.

His entire face had scrunched itself into all sorts of contours as specks of experience came rushing in from his clone. Not for the first time, he breathed a sigh of relief for not waltzing into the literal belly of the beast and instead sent a clone to do some reconnaissance.

Clones were so useful.

Whatever weird genjutsu the Kyuubi had done to his shadow clone, it had caused it to immolate in sheer horror. Everything he'd experienced by proxy were mere remnants of the clone's memories. It was frightening, to think that whatever the clone had truly seen was so incomprehensibly horrid that it couldn't be passed back to him as feedback.

It begged the question. Just what did clone-Orochimaru see?

He knew of the infamous Mangekyō Sharingan. He knew of its loathsome mastery over illusion. But this? What kind of infernal jutsu had the bijuu performed on him?

Could such a thing even be considered a jutsu in the first place?

Orochimaru took a shuddering breath, struggling to see past the anger, the hate, the unsettling fear that the bijuu had instilled into him via his clone. Errant thoughts flooded through him— feelings of extreme vengeance, of retribution, of butchering the kid for resisting his will.

But it wasn't enough. Not to cow someone like him. He would not bend or break before emotions. Unbridled emotion was a brute-force tool, and Orochimaru had always prided himself on being a scalpel. Rationality. Order.

Pragmatism.

That was what chakra was meant to be used for. Proper, well-established releases of one or more elements, not a sloppy explosion of energy. Shinobi controlled their chakra. They didn't let chakra control them.

And he wouldn't let some chakra construct control him.

For he was Orochimaru of the Sannin.

The anger abruptly evaporated, the burning hatred dissipated, and the fear subsided. Finally, he could think clearly and rationally again.

Orochimaru inhaled, and it felt like the first breath of fresh air in decades. It seemed he was finally getting used to the Kyuubi's chakra without losing himself to its madness.

"It's time, Orochimaru," he exhaled. "Time to take what you want."

He stepped into the chamber, ready to face the bijuu in the heart of the monster's malevolent power. The very air throbbed with raw, untamed, savage strength. Strength that he wanted to snatch away from the creature and impart unto himself. Strength that would soon be his, once his Ryujin Seal assumed command.

But first, he had an opponent to face— the infamous Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.

As well as a boy to kill. The very one the beast seemed so intent on protecting.

"Well," he murmured, squaring his shoulders, "no pressure or anything."

Performing spiritual evocation was always a bad idea.

Spirits, both demonic and divine, weren't part of the human realm. As a diligent student of senjutsu, Minato had long since come to that conclusion while training at Mt. Myobuku to become a Sage. The mountain, much like the infamous Ryuchi Cave, was not part of the human world, instead tethered to reality through strings whose nature defied human comprehension.

So whenever a spirit crossed the barrier between realms, it created ripples in the fabric of space and time around them. The stronger and more influential the spirit, the greater the ripple effect.

And he, Minato Namikaze, had invoked what could be considered the most potent spirit there was.

Shinigami. God of Death.

Not the god that was responsible for ferrying souls to the afterlife after death, but the one that kept them from doing so. It was a Punisher, one that held jurisdiction over creatures from the mortal and spiritual realms. A check of sorts to keep powerful spirits from wreaking havoc on the mortal plane. Any soul or spirit that came into the Shinigami's grasp was caught in an eternal illusion, forever trapped in an endless cycle of self-contemplation.

Never to die. Never to be reborn. Never to find any release.

For spirits that were basically immortal, it was as close to Death as could be.

What else could you call something like that, if not a God of Death?

And the Uzumaki— crazy bastards that they were —created a way to harness that power and turned it into a self-sacrificial jutsu.

Like he said, crazy.

And that was what the real Minato Namikaze had condemned himself to on that night so long ago. He was merely a shard of what was once Minato. A reflection of the original soul, given form and mass through condensed yin and yang chakra, or as the shinobi world liked to call them—

A clone.

Most shinobi believed shadow clones to be mere tools— brute-force methods of attacking and spying on foes. Expendable forces to be summoned into existence and given a command, then dispersed or annihilated as soon as the clone was in danger of being identified.

It sounded simple, but there was so much more to it. The technique was esoteric, but he knew one thing— a human soul could only handle so many conduits. The Uzumaki scrolls were never clear on what having too many would cause, but something about soul resonance could apparently have grave effects on reality as he knew it.

There was a reason, after all, why the Shadow Clone Jutsu was considered forbidden.

The real Minato Namikaze was forever trapped inside the Shinigami's realm— his stomach was the colloquially accepted locale —and sentenced to contemplate on his actions till the end of time. He'd feel the pain he had caused others. It was a fitting punishment for an eldritch creature of the spirit world, like an evil god or beast, but for a human?

It was intolerable.

Even clone-Minato, trapped within the Eight-Trigrams Seal, felt the agonizing effects of resonance. After all, the seal in question was held in place by the Shinigami's own powers. Any disturbance in the Seal would attract clone-Minato's attention, but in the absence of invaders, with little else to occupy his time, he too would be stuck in eternal contemplation.

Such was the reward of the Fourth Hokage's grand sacrifice.

"You're being too hard on yourself," clone-Minato muttered as he studied the Ryujin Seal. "You could always give up and self-destruct."

But deep down, he knew that wasn't an option. There was no Minato Namikaze out there in the real world to assimilate the information feedback from the clone's annihilation. The Eight-Trigrams wouldn't allow anything to leave in the first place.

You built it, the stray thought slithered into his mind. You can always tweak it.

He cursed under his breath. He wasn't fond of second-guessing. Ever. But second-guessing and contemplating was all he'd been doing since the formation of the Seal. It wasn't like he had anything else to do.

Meanwhile, his reflections— clones of the original clone —were all spread across the labyrinth that was the Seal, trying to keep Orochimaru and his clones at bay. At their current strength, even with the home-ground advantage, they could only hold him back for so long. Not only was the Snake-Sannin a complete soul, he was also his better in power, experience, and treachery.

Not to mention he could use shadow clones just as efficiently.

It was only a matter of time before the Sannin figured out the laws upon which this place operated, and more importantly, how to use them to twist things in his favor.

Stalling the Sannin through close-ranged skirmishes seemed like the logical course of action. Orochimaru was many things, but a hand-to-hand combat expert was not one of them. The tactic wouldn't stall him forever, but it would keep him from reaching where Naruto was.

And all the while, as his own clones kept him busy, the real clone-Minato was doing his best to comprehend the intricacies of the Ryujin Seal. Trying to understand how it was made, what it represented, what its conditions and requirements were— all this while factoring in the mammoth-sized ego of its maker. What Orochimaru wanted, what he wanted, the levels to which the Ryujin could be tweaked without tearing itself apart, and most importantly, how to use it while keeping everything else working smoothly.

It was an exhaustive job, something that needed days to figure out to not accidentally blow everything to bits. There was no telling what a complicated piece of fuinjutsu like the Ryujin would do if it self-destructed inside another powerful, equally complicated fuinjutsu like the Eight-Trigrams Seal.

"That'll have to wait."

He whipped his head around, a kunai instantly materializing into his hand as his body spun, bringing the weapon barely inches away from a heart-shaped face with red hair and—

"EEEP!"

He stopped his motion midway, the blade barely an inch away from piercing straight through the girl's left eye.

"Who're you?" he barked, no time for pleasantries. Formality and patience were tools that worked on a man like Orochimaru, but this girl— if she was a real entity in the first place —was a complete unknown who had literally appeared out of nowhere. He had sensed Orochimaru's entry into the Seal earlier, but her?

He gazed into her, his sage abilities sensing her chakra to get a feel of—

Clone-Minato blinked.

Nothing.

The girl was present, but there was literally no chakra around her— no, there was. Yin chakra. A thin layer, almost imperceptible, but it was still there. The girl was no mere soul, but she wasn't a chakra construct either. Nor was this some kind of intricately spun genjutsu web. Yet despite all that, she still somehow existed in front of him.

And now that he took a closer look, she looked an awful lot like Kushina.

What the hell was going on?

Thankfully, the strange girl wasted no time in cutting right to the point.

"Naruto needs your help. The man with Black, Orochimaru, is about to kill him."

"..."

Well, if nothing else, she had a good head on her shoulders. Truthful or not, she had managed to say the one thing that would immediately attract his attention.

Clone-Minato narrowed his eyes. "Tell me everything."