In hindsight, she probably should have expected this.

Really. It made perfect sense.

Why go for the Sharingan—a dojutsu he'd studied quite literally to death, thanks to Danzo—when there was a brand new, never before seen, totally noncanon kekkei genkai wandering around the Forest of Death.

Being on Kabuto's team made a lot more sense now.

Knowing all of that didn't make her situation any less gross, though.

It was absolutely nauseating. The grossest. The most gag inducingly foul. Worst of all—

It. Was. In. Her. Hair.

Agh!

She knew how to get out, of course. Who could forget the exploding snake debacle? It wasn't the snake's fault Orochimaru told it to eat her, though. Really. She didn't want to kill it.

She might have to kill it.

Folding her fingers together, she offered up a prayer for the snake's poor soul before activating her seal.

She knew how to create Shadow Clones, of course, but she didn't have nearly enough chakra to create as many as she would need to burst through the many layers of snake she needed to escape. She did, however, have a lot of water stored inside her seal. It was mainly for use as fuel for her suiton techniques, but none of them would help her now. Instead, she was going to let out all the water she'd stored away in the hopes of either replicating Naruto's explosion or—preferably—getting the serpent to puke her up.

Eugh, it was all so nasty.

The snake's stomach was illuminated by her seal's blue-white glow, the rising water level casting reflections on the pink walls of flesh in a bastardization of that one scene in Tangled. Hanako took a deep—nauseating—breath just before she was submerged and put all her focus into expelling water. Her eyes were closed, so she couldn't really see what, if any, affect her desperate act was having. Honestly, if this didn't work, she had no alternative. Wait, no, she could—

As soon as the thought came to her, she was moving. Flowing up and out of the snake's mouth with a torrent of water, Hanako found herself on her hands and knees in the mud, coughing wetly.

A squelch had her looking up, eyes wide, and she froze when she recognized the person in front of her.

It was the Kusa kunoichi—or, rather, Orochimaru wearing her face. She—he?—licked his lips with that obnoxiously long tongue, clearly doing so for effect.

"Well," he said with a rasping voice, coming closer with slow, steady footsteps. "That was unexpected."

Hanako didn't answer. Instead, she reached out with her chakra. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, but she couldn't help but sigh in relief when she felt no one near.

Wait, that wasn't right.

"Oh? A sensor?" No. "How interesting." No. That's wrong. How could he get that wrong?

She pulled her chakra back and pulled herself to her feet. She didn't bother with a defensive stance. Nothing she did would have any effect on a Sannin.

No lasting effect, anyway.

As he approached, she let her mind run in the background as she focused on keeping her body relaxed.

When he went after Sasuke, he'd used crushing Killing Intent to paralyze him and Sakura. Killing Intent was just ninshu—the only kind most ninja still knew how to use—and she'd requested training in Konoha's Torture and Interrogation sector specifically to learn how to counter it. So that was dealt with.

He chuckled lowly. "What? Nothing to say?"

The snake was still around, but, even if it wasn't, he could always summon more. Her team would not be coming to her rescue, though her dogs might—if they hadn't unsummoned themselves to make sure they were available should she need them. No. It was better to operate on the assumption that she was alone.

His smile faded. "You know, I expected a bit more snark from Kakashi's hatchling. I'm a bit disappointed."

Good.

She leapt into the air, bouncing from tree to tree, her chakra laden hands brushing the bark as she went. Below her, she heard Orochimaru's laughter. Hopefully, he'd be too distracted to notice.

Up, up, up she went, spiraling upward toward the canopy. Orochimaru was gaining on her, but she spared him little thought. Right now, her advantage—if she could call it that—lay in her ability to detach herself from the situation. Shikaku had always praised her for it, calling it a skill beyond her years, but she knew the truth. Having lived another life, it was very easy to look at this one with foreign eyes. Like playing a video game, she acted as though her body were apart from her, activating the necessary skill with an absent eye on her mana bar—ahem, chakra levels. This technique was purely theoretical, more idea than actual ability, but it was within the realm of possibility and she was fully willing to bend the rule of this new reality to suit her.

Anchoring the bottoms of her boots to the underside of a tree branch, she met Orochimaru's smiling gaze with a glare. His Killing Intent rolled off her like a wave of hot air and she let herself smile in return. Pressing her hands together in the familiar ways, she launched herself downward, using the collected chakra in her hands to recall the myriad of threads she'd attached to the trees during her ascent. Now tightening, the weave pattern revealed itself, a giant, glowing cocoon closing in around Orochimaru, who'd launched himself straight up while Hanako jumped in circles.

It probably wouldn't hold him long, if at all, but it was still satisfying to see an idea come to fruition like that.

As the silk threads enclosed the Sannin within their folds, Hanako once again propelled herself upward, activating her seal. Yanking the cocoon toward her, she had every intention of swallowing the snake whole.

Alas, it was not to be.

The cocoon burst open, the force of the blast throwing Hanako back. Rather than stay and see what he'd done, she borrowed the momentum and began fleeing. She really should have just done that from the beginning, but she had to try. Naruto's shadow clones always popped the instant they entered her seal—despite surviving storage scrolls—so she had no idea what awaited anyone inside. Who better to experiment on than the mad scientist himself?

Snakes sidled up to her, huge and angry. She immediately let herself drop down from the trees, using her small size to her advantage and diving through the thick foliage. Above her, the air was filled with the sound of snapping branches and hissing snakes. The exposed parts of her face and hands were riddled with stinging cuts and scratches. Her hair caught on something and she pulled free, heedless of the pain it caused but very aware of the way her headband fell free. She couldn't stop to retrieve it.

Hanako's boot caught on a raised root and she was sent tumbling forward. She raised her arms over her head as she rolled, cursing her clumsiness. If she couldn't get her footing back, it was only a matter of time before Orochimaru's snakes caught her, but it would take too much time to actually find her balance.

If only she could turn into a human wrecking ball, à la Chouji. Then she could maintain her momentum without wasting valuable time getting to her feet.

Suddenly, she found herself weightless, her body suspended in air as she rolled right off the edge of a cliff. She barely had time to register the lack of ground beneath her before gravity grabbed hold of her and pulled her down, down, down with alarming speed. She twisted in midair, desperately searching for someway to save herself from her future life as a human tortilla. She unfurled her chakra and reached out wildly. Was there anyone out there? Anything? Even being swallowed again would be preferable to ACME style flattening.

Please?