Warnings: So much manipulation, Orochimaru being a Magnificent Bastard, graphic blood and the disregard thereof, aftermath of an attempted suicide, remembered parental death, angst, very bad parenting, etc.

Word Count: ~5400

Pairings: Eventual Sakumo/Orochimaru, possibly Kakashi/Obito in the future because everyone knows what flavor of trash I am

Notes: To disclaim, though you may have noticed already: this Orochimaru is not nice. He's a bastard and manipulative, utterly ruthless and completely twisted, without apologies for anything he does. Sakumo isn't going to be sunshine and roses either, but Orochimaru's definitely not a hero, closer to chaotic neutral than anything. He's also so much fun to write this way.

(And to preempt the inevitable: don't worry. There are plans regarding Kakashi.)

(The chapter title comes from ee cummings, this time from what if a much of a which of a wind.)

Bullet With Butterfly Wings

2. whose hearts are mountains, roots are trees

Despite the light still glowing on the porch, the interior of the house is completely dark. Orochimaru lingers by the door for half a moment, coiled-snake-still as he watches the shadows of tall trees shift in sprays of darkness against the moonlight.

He remembers the report, cold and clinical in its wording, read once very long ago. He'd glanced over it with half an eye, because the uncomfortable twist-turn of his stomach brought forth too many thoughts he hadn't wanted to consider. Derision, certainly, but…not in the proportions he would have preferred.

This, he'd thought, disgusted with himself and lingering traces of sentiment more than the actions a good man was driven to. This is what happens when you care.

Orochimaru has made a point of not caring ever since.

There's still time before the brat-sized version of the Copy-Nin returns to find his father curled up in a puddle of his own blood. An hour, if Orochimaru judges the path of the moon correctly, and it's so little time in the larger scheme of things, but…enough. Perhaps.

He has other plans, if this fails to be profitable. None so simple, or so expedient, but there's always a risk when dealing with steady, honest men. Orochimaru has experience corrupting others, but always they've had a seed of darkness in them to begin with. Those like Jiraiya, Naruto, Kakashi himself—they cling too tightly to their morals to be tempted by the power he can offer them. Twisting a good man to his aims—he'll have to be truthful, honest, and Orochimaru dislikes little more than letting others see him with even the smallest portion of his walls lowered.

Still, he reminds himself, laying a hand on the latch. The truth is just another manipulation, just another way to bend a man's mind to his will. Like the spirits in folk tales, compelled not to lie by a foolish priest, who nevertheless tell just enough of the appropriate truth to lead their captor to his doom.

Orochimaru has no intention of dooming Hatake Sakumo, or for that matter the world at large. It's been decades since he cared for anything more than his own interests, and despite what Jiraiya always feared Orochimaru needs no power beyond what he himself can hold. Politics are overall amusing, but distantly so. Such petty jockeying is useless in the long run, and such power is intangible, unmeasurable. Orochimaru would prefer to focus on physical strength, quantifiable might.

(Sasuke, something in him whispers. You cared for Sasuke. Cared enough to follow him into the third great war of your lifetime, as if all the others hadn't stolen enough from you. As if you had any desire to fight at all. But he went, and you followed, and what does that say, stone-heart?

He ignores it, pushes it down. Monsters don't care, and he's never been anything else.)

Another flicker of self-directed irritation pushes him forward, snake-slide silent as he opens the door and ghosts into the silent house. Even from here the smell of blood is heavy in the air, sweet-copper-sharp in his throat, and Orochimaru opens his mouth automatically, flicks his tongue and tastes blood and something thicker, the metal of a bared blade. The blood is still coming, still fresh—it hasn't pooled yet, hasn't settled into a stain on the floorboards that will never come out.

He's in time, then, as he knew he would be.

Down a dark hallway, into a room with moonlight just starting to spill through the windows. Shadows lie across the half-curled form in the center of the floor like prison bars, stark against the silver light, and Orochimaru takes a brief moment to study the man, dispassionate, assessing.

(Weak, he thinks, and then dismisses it. Previous actions have proven that Hatake Sakumo is a legend in his own right; this is an aberration in a set of data, a deviation in a previously steady upward trend. It can be overcome, Orochimaru is sure. Given the…correct motivation.)

Green chakra flickers around his hands, ghostly in the semidarkness. He kneels beside Sakumo, heedless of the blood that soaks into his pale blue robes, and grips one broad shoulder, tugging the man onto his back.

Sakumo rolls with a low groan of pain, and his eyelids flutter. Agony adds lines to his face, but Orochimaru only spares him the most cursory of glances before turning his attention to the gaping wound in his stomach. Let it never be said that Hatake Sakumo doesn't know how to gut a man, Orochimaru thinks with a trace of dark amusement, tugging the torn shirt away and laying a hand over the wound. He's not Tsunade, can't perform the miracles she conjures so effortlessly, but this is simple, straightforward. A deep wound, and a killing one if left untended ever a few minutes more, but entirely repairable.

The work is quick; within a handful of moments there are further signs of recovery in the body beneath him, and one hand attempts to rise, batting newborn-pup weakly at him.

"So there's life in you yet, Hatake," Orochimaru tells him, coolly amused. "That's good. Open your eyes."

A pause, as if Sakumo is resisting just for the sake of being stubborn. Then, slowly, dark eyes slit open, pain-dazed but coherent. "No," he whispers, fading-faint.

Another touch of biting annoyance twists around Orochimaru's nerves, even as the last raw edges of the cut seal together. Pulling his hands away, he sits back, and casually reaches for the tantō that lies discarded nearby.

"No?" he asks, cold and clear with knife-sharp edges. "I just saved your life, Hatake."

Those eyes fix on him, an undercurrent of fury in the normally placid ash-grey. "No," he rasps again, and coughs painfully. "This—I can't—"

Orochimaru snorts. "Can't live with the whispers?" he mocks, aiming to draw blood. "Can't bear the shame? Grow up, Hatake. Lesser men than you have endured such things all their lives and stood strong against it." In a blurring sweep of motion, he half-lunges forward, slamming the red-painted tantō down and driving the blade inches into the floor, just to the side of Sakumo's cheek.

"You sparked a war that's been brewing for a decade now," he hisses, holding the startled, wary gaze without wavering. "But there are bigger stakes in this game than grudges between old men, Hatake. The Third Shinobi World War is going to begin shortly. I don't care. I've removed the most dangerous players from the field already, and Sarutobi is a shortsighted, peace-loving fool, but he's a clever one. The war will be over soon enough. But another one is brewing, and all of the countries will fall to it. Gods will fall to it. So help me. Atone for the deaths you've caused here by preventing those yet to come."

Sakumo's breath catches. He breathes in, then out, closes his eyes. When he opens them again his face is set, grim. "That's why you saved me?" he asks.

Orochimaru sneers at him, rising to his feet in a smooth shift. "I'd hardly do it because we're friends," he points out. "Save your sentiment for Jiraiya or Sarutobi; I want no part in it. You are strong, and as matters stand you have few reasons to remain in the village for the duration of the mission. When it has been completed, you can return a hero. For now, you must prove that you are one again." He pauses, looking down at the sprawled and bloodstained figure, and adds, almost absently, "To others, and to yourself, I think."

There's a long, careful pause, Sakumo studies him, and the mindless reactionary is fading now. In his place rises the shinobi, quick-sharp and clever. "You're leaving the village."

Seeing no point in denying it, Orochimaru inclines his head. "As you just attempted to do. However, my version of burning bridges is far less permanent than yours."

Sakumo flinches slightly, dropping his gaze, and swallows as if just seeing the crimson that paints him. "I have a son," he says.

Orochimaru snorts. "Yes," he mocks, "and you were so very concerned with his wellbeing ten minutes ago. Tell me, Hatake, who exactly do you think would have been the first to come across your body?"

Not just a wince this time, a full-body blanch, color leeching from his face like watercolor left out in the rain. "I—"

Entirely involuntarily, Orochimaru thinks of skin gone cold, of eyes glazed open, of bodies rent by blades and carried home by apologetic comrades who nevertheless failed to do anything. "Enough," he bites out, whip-crack-sharp, and turns away. "Your merits as a parent aren't in question here, only your skills as a shinobi. I have a war to prevent. If you wish to make amends for past actions, you can join me outside the walls, on the eastern bank of the Nakano, in a quarter of an hour. If you do come, tell no one. There are far too many unfriendly ears within the village."

He doesn't wait for a response, but stalks out of the room, out of the quiet little house, and closes the door sharply behind him. The moon is still up, and Orochimaru casts a glance down at his stained robes. The blood is mostly across his thighs, but it has seeped upward as well, and he's pleased with the effect. A kunai pulled from his sleeve easily drives through the fabric in several strategic places, and Orochimaru carefully smears what's left of the blood on his hands over his throat and down. Then, with one more glance at the stillness of the house behind him, he calls up a shunshin and aims for the source of the all-too-familiar chakra that's been itching at him since he arrived in this time.

Jiraiya's apartment is as close to the bathhouses as he can reasonably get, with a wide glass door looking out and a few very clearly dead plants out on the balcony. Normally, Orochimaru would use the front door, because there's no telling what Jiraiya is up to within, but tonight such politeness won't suit his act. And it will have to be a perfect act—Jiraiya has always been able to see through him more clearly than any but Tsunade.

Still, pain and fury are easy to conjure up. Old friends in a shinobi's life, never far away, and Orochimaru puts them on now, turns his landing into a staggering stumble and his chakra into a seething whirl of confused emotion

(easy, easy, because what has he ever been supposed to show? whatever was he meant to portray, because he's never fully understood, even in the face of Jiraiya's mocking, Tsunade's temper, Sarutobi's patience. what emotion is there, beyond his intellect? so distant, so divorced as to be unrelated to him entirely)

as he lurches forward, colliding shoulder-first with the night-cool glass. He leaves a streak of red across the door, sliding sideways as if unable to halt his fall, and carefully weaves rarely-felt terror into the net of emotions his chakra conveys.

From within the apartment there's a loud thump, a curse, a flurry of footsteps. An instant later the door swings open, sending Orochimaru falling, but—

This time hands catch him. This time arms come up to wrap around his chest, halting his graceless tumble, and Jiraiya says, "Orochimaru!" in the familiar tone that is three parts indignation and seven parts worry.

"Jiraiya," he says, one hand coming up to grip worn cloth, and the relief that colors his voice is…perhaps not as much an act as he would like.

("How many would believe me, child, if I told them what you dreamed?"

"No one living," Orochimaru answers with certainty. Another hesitation, but he takes the proffered hand, trying not to flinch at the spark-crack of power that dances across his nerves at the brush of skin on skin, and Hagoromo doesn't pause as he pulls Orochimaru up, out of the dust and blood-clumped ash that covers the ground.

It's true, he thinks, even though he spoke the words without considering them first. Tsunade believes him evil, broken, even with his recent turn of assistance; Sarutobi is nothing but a resurrected corpse, and a beaten one at that—he might let himself be convinced that Orochimaru is not rotten through, but then, his old sensei has always been a fool where Orochimaru is concerned.

Only Jiraiya ever had faith in his better nature, and even Jiraiya doubted just as often as he believed. And—the thought of him is uncomfortable, even now. Their days as teammates, as friends, are long since passed into memory, but the fact that Jiraiya died alone, at the hands of the students he gave so much of himself for, strikes Orochimaru as an injustice the world should never have done someone as bold and bright as Jiraiya. It seems…unfair, and even if Orochimaru knows full well that nothing in life is ever otherwise, he can't quite shake the sentiment.

Jiraiya has always been his greatest foil, hasn't he?)

"Jiraiya," again, because he can't stop his mouth

(he dreamed he dreamed he dreamed but it doesn't matter what he dreamed anymore does it? how many of them died in their dreams and never woke at all?)

(how much does he wish to linger there still, in fantasies and falsities, just so long as all of them were happy?)

not here and now, when it counts. Never, ever when it counts.

(Hate me, he used to think, because once there had been nothing, and even utter loathing was worlds better than nothing.)

Big hands cup his elbows, haul him up with careful attention to the false wounds, but when Jiraiya tries to pull him inside Orochimaru resists.

"Orochimaru," Jiraiya says, and that tone is fully concern now, edged with alarm. "What the hell happened to you? You look—you look like…" Fear in his eyes, he reaches up to touch the blood on Orochimaru's throat, and it's not an act when Orochimaru twitches back and away from his fingers, but it makes his gaze go dark with something like terrible fury.

"I'm leaving," Orochimaru tells him, and watches the alarm beat out every other emotion in that familiar, well-remembered face. "I can't—"

"Who." It's not a question so much as a threat, twisted through with the intent to make things right that will always leave Jiraiya a fool. Then his expression softens, and he ducks his head (giant bastard) to put himself at eye-level with Orochimaru. "Please, Orochi. Who hurt you?"

Orochimaru allows the silence to linger for a long moment, then shifts his eyes away, raising a hand as if unconsciously to press against his throat. "Root," he finally allows, threading reluctance through his tone. "I—there was a genjutsu. It broke. And—I'm going. I can't stay here."

Truth, in the most basic sense. Shattered bits strung together, just enough to fool an honest man, or mislead an honest fool.

Jiraiya is quick. Too fast for Orochimaru to pull away, he seizes his hands, grips them tightly. "No," he says, just a note less than sharp. "Orochimaru, running isn't going to solve anything. Stay and face them like the bastard you are. Sarutobi-sensei and I will—"

"You can't protect me from him," and it tastes like the rotten-rancid ashes of that dream still coat his tongue. "Jiraiya, I had no reason to tell you, but—" He swallows down the I thought I should that is half a lie too much to pass, hesitates over the words that might replaces it, and finally decides on, "We are…friends."

How long since he last spoke those words? More than fifty years now, he thinks, but they come to his lips with surprising ease, slip into the air and fall between the two of them, half challenge and half concession.

(How do you manipulate an honest man?)

Jiraiya's eyes turn warm, fond, fearless in the way that Orochimaru could never hope to emulate no matter how much cool disdain he shows the world. He cups Orochimaru's shoulder, and the worry hasn't faded entirely, but at least it's eased. "See a medic first?" he suggests, but not as if he has much hope that Orochimaru will agree.

(You tell him the truth. There's no surer way.)

Orochimaru hides his smirk in the fall of his hair, and when he looks up he lets only gratitude show in his eyes. Jiraiya has always needed to be everyone's hero, after all. "Thank you," he says, and because there was never truly a chance before, because maybe he always wondered how things would have changed between them had he spoken those words, he also says, "Goodbye."

There's a long, careful moment of silence, fragile-thin like the beating of butterfly wings, and then Jiraiya sighs softly. He steps away, running a hand through his flyaway white hair, and says with wry humor and bitterness mixed, "You and Tsunade—I'm losing both of you, aren't I, and there's nothing I can do."

Orochimaru remembers him walking away in Ame, shoulders bent under the weight of sins he never should have claimed, and feels a flicker of old, half-forgotten anger. "We were never the first to leave, Jiraiya," he says, and though he means it to come out biting, it…doesn't quite manage to. Weary, he thinks, more than anything else, because Jiraiya had been gone and Tsunade and Orochimaru both had little idea if he'd ever return. There had been a war raging, battles to be fought, but Jiraiya had turned his back on all of it.

Dan had died barely two months later, far away on a lonely field, and the cracks in Tsunade that had formed with Nawaki's death were suddenly soul-deep and seeping poison. A month after that she had disappeared into the night, taking Dan's three-year-old niece with her, and—

Well. Orochimaru's actions are his own. He's always known that. But what would have changed, if they had been there? How would his decisions have differed, with the only two people he's ever cared for looking over his shoulder?

Maybe there would be no difference. Maybe nothing would have changed, and the end would remain the same. But.

(There's always a chance, isn't there?)

There's no answer from his teammate, not a word in defense or protest, because Jiraiya has always accepted blame for everything and anything. Orochimaru doesn't look at him, doesn't want to see what expression he might be wearing; he looks away, pushes fully to his feet with his eyes fixed on the bloated moon.

Farewells are wasted time.

(He doesn't think I shouldn't have come, because that's what second chances are for. A different route, rather than the same plodding course. A variation in the process to achieve a altered outcome. The data will reflect what his heart cannot see.)

(Oh, but monsters have no hearts. A logical fallacy, then, isn't it? What doesn't exist can't feel as if it's breaking.)

The rush of the river in the gorge below is amplified in the darkness, loud enough that it sounds closer than it is. Moonlight leaves the ground a stark study of shapes and lines, traced in silver and black, and turns the surrounding trees to shifting sentries as the wind ghosts past.

Out of sight of the wall, finally beyond Konoha's borders, Orochimaru feels something tension-tight finally start to ease from his spine. He remembers the last time he was in the village, barely hours ago and decades in the future—still bearing traces of Pein's attack, emptied of nearly all its shinobi. Remembers Sasuke in front of him, grimly determined to finally uncover some form of truth, but unprepared for what he eventually found.

("The children are fighting her now, and have my power shared between them, but I more than any know how powerful she is. I would have a…contingency, as it were."

He wonders how they fared, Sasuke and Naruto battling Ōtsutsuki Kaguya together. He'd asked, then, why Hagoromo hadn't sent them back together, and been fixed with the kind of patiently tolerant look Orochimaru might have bestowed upon Sasuke at his most obtuse, when the shadow of his brilliance burned itself out chasing Naruto's light.

And oh, how familiar, Orochimaru thinks, unable to tell if the twinge in his chest is bitterness or regret. How familiar, that the genius falls second to the fool, but is too entranced to ever care. They're snakes before a charmer, both of them, and the music has caught them inexorably in its grip. Even now Orochimaru feels the pull of the tune; to him Jiraiya is months dead, the only reminder of him a lonely little shrine in a faraway wood, but he still manages to make himself Orochimaru's bane, and not simply because here and now he is alive, untouched.)

Shadows slide apart, and a figure steps forward from the edges of the trees. Familiar, even if Orochimaru only ever knew Hatake Sakumo distantly, before. The man is a legend in this time, a hero to outstrip all three of the Sannin. A shame to see him brought down, and for so many years Orochimaru has wondered—

But he supposes it doesn't matter now. Whatever Danzō has had his hand in, he won't be a problem for much longer. Either Sarutobi or Orochimaru himself will see to that.

"I take it you've decided, Hatake," he says, forcing his voice to lightness away from the weight of his thoughts. Too many thoughts—Konoha is no good for him, and never has been.

"Because you left me so much choice," Sakumo says, level and even, but there's a trace of a wolf's growl beneath the placid tone.

Involuntarily, a shiver of anticipation, of interest crawls down Orochimaru's spine, and he feels his breath catch, his attention sharpen. Oh, but he'd forgotten, hadn't he? Too many years spent dealing with Hatake Kakashi, who was an abandoned dog, too wounded by the world to be much of a true threat, kicked too many times to do more than bare his teeth and snarl. But Hatake Sakumo—he's a wolf in every way, wilder than a dog could ever hope to be, for all that he wears a mask of domestication well. How fascinating. How amusing.

Maybe this won't be quite the chore Orochimaru has been expecting.

"We all have choices," he retorts, and it takes effort to hold himself back, to keep from finding the cracks that snake through Sakumo's defenses. He wants to poke and prod and push, see how far he can drive this cornered wolf before it turns to savage him. Not yet, he tells himself, though restraint has never been one of his virtues. Only later, once Sakumo is committed, once there's no chance of him turning and walking away. Then Orochimaru can test him.

There are still lines of grief and despair in Sakumo's face, but he's changed his clothes, strapped an unfamiliar sword to his back. Not the tantō, Orochimaru assesses, judging weak points. Too tempting? Left as a twisted sort of gift for his son? Too thoroughly tied to his career as a Konoha shinobi?

Whatever it is, Orochimaru decides he'll find out. Sakumo is suddenly intriguing, and it's as though a previously greyscale figure has abruptly come into focus, flooded with unexpected color.

After all, Sakumo isn't wearing his hitai-ate anymore. There's no sign of it on his person, no symbol of any sort on his plain black-and-grey clothes to set him apart from a hundred other unaffiliated shinobi scattered around the Elemental Nations. Orochimaru had expected pride, some way of Sakumo to remain clinging to his past. Not this sudden divorce, complete and certainly thorough.

"I've come to realize that, sometimes, things that look like choices end up being solid walls instead." Sakumo crosses his arms over his chest, fixes Orochimaru with a predator's level stare. Orochimaru is used to being the biggest threat in any given room—the Fourth War's battlefield is the first time since his fight with Hanzō that he has truly felt outclassed—and the sudden shift is interesting, if not something Orochimaru will allow to stand for long. "Explain it to me, Orochimaru. More than just rumors of a coming war. Tell me why it's worth abandoning Konoha to stop this."

Orochimaru wants to point out that Sakumo has already decided, clearly—he wouldn't be dressed the way he is if he hadn't. But people dislike logic, he has learned, don't care for clear reasoning the way he does.

"You want more?" he asks, amused, and slips forward, circling Sakumo with steady steps. The man turns, eyes locked hunter-sharp on him without wavering, and it makes Orochimaru want to push, and push, and push until that faint hint of danger rises to the surface. What's the point of having such interesting darkness in him if he always keep it so tightly leashed? Why play the dog when the wolf could be a king?

"I think you owe me that at least." Quiet, steady, just a hint of a threat that bypasses the caution in Orochimaru's mind and instead curls around his curiosity. Jiraiya has always said it will get him killed one day, hasn't he?

"I owe you nothing," Orochimaru counters, and there's a smirk pulling at his lips, intent and on the verge of taunting. "But I'm fond of questions, so I suppose I can answer this one. I was under a genjutsu, a—terrible one." Sweetness turned to poison on his tongue, ashes so thick in his mouth that they clogged his chest and stopped his throat. A thousand other faces equally caught, Kage just as trapped as any chuunin. "He gave me proof. The words on the Uchiha's Shrine have been twisted by a creature formed of a goddess's will. Madara was fooled into believing a fantasy of a perfect world, and preserved himself so he could create it."

Seeing the disbelief that slides across dark eyes, Orochimaru laughs softly, stepping away. "Let me show you," he proposes, glancing back over his shoulder with just a hint of challenge. "Let me convince you, Sakumo. The threads are already pulling tight; we have only a few years to cut them from the loom. But…this much time I can spare."

There's a very long pause, the rushing of the river rising to fill the silence as the moon sails through a tattered bank of clouds. Sakumo is staring at him, assessing, contemplative, and at length he takes a breath. "You stayed when the rest of your team didn't," he says quietly. "I noticed. So I'm going to assume you're not the type to abandon the village for no reason, especially right now. But you're sure this leads to another war?"

And…that's a way of looking at it that no one has before. Orochimaru hesitates, can't quite help the way his eyes slip sideways from Sakumo's face to study the darkness beyond him. Loyalty, he thinks, and wants to laugh, but the sound will cut his throat like glass. He thinks I'm loyal.

Honest men are all fools, and not all the power in the world can change that, it seems.

"Certain," he says, instead of responding to that parts he'd rather not have heard. (Untrue, untrue, his mind whispers, but are they? But they have to be.) "Soon Madara and the creature Zetsu will take a pawn from the Uchiha Clan—one of their strongest, in the future, but currently overlooked. There are plans already laid that will be devastating to Konoha—Rinnegan eyes to an Uzumaki boy in Ame, traps set for the Kyuubi, soldiers grown for attacks to come. Zetsu is the threat—in its hands, Madara is just another piece on the board. But there are…clones, scattered like seeds across the Nations. I plan to root them out, leave the creature blind and deaf. Will you assist me?"

"Yes," Sakumo answers, as simply as that. Orochimaru had expected more argument, more stalling, and he narrows his eyes at the man. Sakumo sees the expression, and offers a crooked, tired smile in return. "I'm a dead man, Orochimaru. There's nothing you can take from me that I haven't already thrown away."

Despite himself, Orochimaru thinks again of his parents' bodies, laid out so carefully as if to compensate for the fact that they were dead. Thinks of blood on the floor and a tantō driven deep into the wood, both marks that will never come out. "Your son?" he asks before he can quite stop himself.

Grief leeches what little animation there is from Sakumo's face, and he looks away. "Kakashi is strong. He's never needed me. And with my actions, my shame—I'll only destroy him if I stay. He means too much for me to let that happen."

It's not forever, Orochimaru thinks of saying, but dismisses the impulse. Sakumo likely knows that already, and wouldn't be comforted even if he didn't. "Then let us go," he says instead, careful-courteous and just faintly laced with mockery. "There's an old Root facility in Rice Paddy Country that will do well as a base of operations. We can make further plans there, and I have…things to be obtained in the area."

Things to do, as well. This is his original body, far better suited to the Sage transformation than his temporary vessels. Always before something has blocked Orochimaru from managing to achieve the final step, but perhaps, here and now, with his new wisdom and old form, there's a chance he can do better. A chance to attain the power that should be his right as Manda's summoner. Attempting it will be dangerous, but…worthwhile, perhaps.

"Weapons?" Sakumo asks, falling into step with him as Orochimaru turns east.

Orochimaru thinks of Kimimaro, of Jūgo, of Karin. Thinks of Tenzō, whom he will double back for before Sarutobi has the opportunity to uncover that lab, of Anko whom he will collect in time. Such beautiful tools, perfectly crafted by both nature and lack of nurture and the skill of his hands.

Perhaps it won't be like it once was, but it will be enough.

"In a manner of speaking," he says, and laughs whisper-sharp and snake-sly when Sakumo glances sideways at him in uncertainty.