Reeeally short. Yeah, I was writing this, and when I got about halfway, I realised that 1) villages probably don't have libraries and 2) the shinobi don't have books.

Not to mention I've probably very much screwed up the canon as well. So if you spot any glaring mistakes, tell me.

I'm sure that I've butchered Orochimaru's character.

Searching

By Dark Ice Dragon

Browsing

Orochimaru browsed through the archive in the small village that he was in. He wanted to make his own village and every village had their own kind of uniform unique to them.

That was why he was there: maybe he could find an old race of people that he could base that uniform that he wanted on. He was on a mission with his three-man team, but at that particular moment, they were scouting what they could about the village and Orochimaru had volunteered to search the archives.

Orochimaru paused when his eyes caught a title on the shelf: The Art of Summoning. Tilting his head, he thought about flicking through it. He already knew how to summon Manda but with that book, it could tell him of the other summons that were in the world. If he knew about them, he would have an advantage if he encountered another summon.

Checking that there was no chakra near him, he picked it up. Orochimaru used the sunlight spilling in from the window to see the faded lettering on the cover.

Turning to a random page, Orochimaru saw that the paper was yellow and stiff. He already knew that it was old - there weren't many written texts in the form of books left. On the page that he turned to, there was a drawing of a young woman apparently dancing.

Eyes flicking to the text beside the drawing, Orochimaru read:

"Yuna was the first Summoner to defeat Sin completely. Her father,
High Summoner Braska, brought the Calm ten years before her. The drawing (left)
is of Yuna performing a sending."

So, the young woman was a summoner as well. And from what he had read, very powerful. Orochimaru knew about Sin; there were a very small number of texts about it -due to fires and them being lost when villages were destroyed- but there had never been any mention of this Yuna before. That was probably due to what Orochimaru had read wasn't complete; they were only what was left of the original.

He wondered what summon that she had that was so strong to beat Sin but brushed the thought away. He already had Manda and signed a contract with him.

Looking back at the drawing, Orochimaru saw the silk bow on Yunalesca's back. It wasn't too obvious and if he changed it slightly...

He smirked. He'd found the defining part of the uniform.