Chapter I

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto, this challenge belongs to dracohalo117, any themes or ideas that appear in either Thanathos' or Arynia's Perfection fics belong to them respectively and whatever is left belongs to me.

A/N: This is a challenge I've been planning on taking up for some time. Here are the parameters: 'Perfection: After Orochimaru leaves Akatsuki he takes objects of great power from each of his fellow members. He returns to Konoha and kidnaps the one he will make his new vessel…Naruto Uzumaki. (Living Kushina, Naruto with powers of Kakuzu, Hidan, Sasori, Zetsu, Nagato/Pein, Konan, Itachi, Kisame, or Deidara, you can remove some of the powers if need be, but having all of them is much appreciated).'

Now let's see if I can make something out of this challenge!

Orochimaru frowned in annoyance. When Sarutobi had allowed him to flee rather than killing him, the Sandiame may have thought he was doing his old student a favor. However, at least from the point of view of Orochimaru, being forced to abandon all of his experiments and equipment was nothing short of inconsiderate. Had Orochimaru not been setting up a lab in one of the minor villages outside of Konoha for years, he would have been seriously set back in his research after this unforeseen event.

He was particularly annoyed because the timing of Sarutobi's raid meant that he had had to abandon every one of the sixty children he had commandeered, just when the vitals of that one little boy had seemed to be on the point of stabilizing. Now he might never know if his trying to reproduce to Mokuton bloodline had come to anything. Pity. Waste.

That was frame of mind and state of thinking Orochimaru had reached by the time he was approached by Akatsuki. He was ready to listen to this group and its advances and propositions. Though it was difficult for him to sort out their confused and tangled web of morals and obligations, the one thing he truly understood in their offer was something he had yearned for and actively sought after for a good part of his life. Power. And at what cost?

No cost, the representative of this group assured him. The only thing that would be asked of him would be that he fight alongside the other members of this group and, naturally, swear allegiance to their leader.

Orochimaru considered this and, as he did so, let his eyes travel over the man before him with interest. He was crouched low to the ground, his broad, slightly domed back swathed in a dark robe patterned with bloodred clouds. A wide straw hat hung with veils hid the man's face. Absently, Orochimaru wondered why the man felt the need to cover his face. After a minute, his focus returned to the man's offer. To his pleasure, Orochimaru found that his superior mind had it all neatly worked out. There was not a doubt in his mind. Power for the sake of a few flimsy promises? Was there even anything that needed consideration?

And thus Orochimaru found his way into the ranks of the Akatsuki. And what he saw there changed his life.

Orochimaru had always been a solitary man, his furtive habits of secrets and lies stretching even as far back as to when he had still been on a genin team. They had been little things then, but he had had a lifetime to build those habits and interests up to something a bit more sinister. And for the last couple of years, the interests had shifted to the topic of immortality.

Orochimaru had tried and tested every method he had heard of to extend his lifespan, for despite everything he had done to himself, Orochimaru could never escape the looming fate of the mortal man: Death.

Until he made an amazing discovery.

If one lives life without incident, without the corruption of cancers and diseases, if one does nothing to force an early death upon oneself, what is it that ultimately kills one? The answer, of course, is simple obsolescence. The body runs out of inertia. Organs fail, whole sectors of the brain shut down and the body begins to decompose.

Now, these were not original observations for Orochimaru to make, but such was his loathing for his own ties to mortality that he became desperate to hit on the solution that would solve his problems and prevent his body from decaying and coming undone, betraying him, in fact. And finally, after years of fruitless searching, the fateful question occurred to the Snake sannin. It is, perhaps, inevitable that my own body will eventually fail. But who on earth is to stop me from turning to the bodies of others when my own is no longer up to the task? And the answer to Orochimaru's longest-standing dilemma was at last within sight.

True, the technique took time to perfect, but once it was finished, it was truly an elegant jutsu. Orochimaru had only to look around him, select a suitable host, and take over, molding the features to resemble his own (a moment of vanity). Through trial and error, Orochimaru discovered two very important features of his new favorite jutsu. The first was that whatever host he selected, he was stuck with them for a minimum of three years. The second, and possibly more important discovery, was the fact that, when he took possession of a new 'skin', as he liked to think of his hosts, their natural bloodlines and abilities came into his possession for the duration of his stay inside of their bodies.

Naturally, the first step from the latter discovery was to ensure that all of the hosts Orochimaru had lined up for future occupation had some bloodline or power to recommend them as to make Orochimaru's stay in their skin more valuable and more worthwhile. However, as it often is with all who crave power, simply occupying those with one existing bloodline or another became trite and less spectacular a prospect with time. So, just as naturally as the first phase, the second phase of thinking cropped up.

If one can create one jutsu, one can create many, right? So if one can have one power, one may as well have more than one. The long and short of it: if Orochimaru was going to stick to inhabiting those who already possessed a bloodline when he found them, his choices were rather limited. However, if Orochimaru were to combine bloodlines, were to create rather than find a host, why, the possibilities were nigh-limitless. He could build an incredible body.

The Perfect body.

When Orochimaru was formally inducted into the organization of Akatsuki, he was immediately paired up with Sasori, the man who had been sent to recruit him. Initially, Orochimaru assumed that he had only been placed with a partner because he was new to the organization but he soon discovered, when he finally met the other members in person shortly after his initiation, that is was customary for all of the members of Akatsuki to travel in groups of two, unless of course their mysterious leader, a man known only as 'Pein', instructed them to go after a more difficult target, in which case multiple groups were dispatched.

However, unusual customs aside, Akatsuki was all Orochimaru could have hoped for in an organization. Not because of its immediate goals, which seemed to consist mostly of going after high-bounty missing-nin, particularly in Ame, where the Akatsuki headquarters were located, though occasionally certain groups would be forced to journey farther afield in pursuit of their quarry. Not even the long-term goals of the group interested Orochimaru, as he was never specifically told what those might be. All he knew of those matters consisted of what he had gathered from whispers and question and snatches of conversations. From these things, he was able to surmise that Akatsuki's leader's, Pein's, plans included the Jinchuriki and the nine bijuu in some way.

But none of these things made Orochimaru notably excited. No, the element of Akatsuki that really piqued his interest was the members themselves. Once Orochimaru was able to have a good look at each of them in person, he wondered at his good fortune at being invited into this group.

For one thing, there was his own partner, Sasori of the Red Sand, the legendary puppet master from Suna. Orochimaru had not initially recognized him when he had come to ask Orochimaru to join, but once the Snake sannin properly understood just who his partner was, he was truly impressed. Sasori's reputation preceded him, though it was some time before Orochimaru saw any more of him than just the puppet he travelled in.

Another member who made an impression on Orochimaru was the yet-partner-less Kiri missing-nin Kisame Hoshigaki, the Monster of the Mist, also known as the Tailed Beast Without a Tail. Kisame had become one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist when he had killed first his teammates to prevent them from leaking information under torture and then his sensei when he realized the man was corrupt. He had taken from his dead master the sword he still wielded, a sentient, scaled weapon that acted as a leech, drawing chakra from all those it touched, save for Kisame, to whom Samehada could give chakra to heal him.

Orochimaru had been aimlessly exploring the corridors of the Akatsuki headquarters when he happened to encounter Kakuzu, formerly of Takigakure. The Snake sannin's heart beat faster, though Orochimaru knew it to be out of excitement rather than fear. From what Orochimaru had heard of the man with the strange eyes, Kakuzu not only had in his possession the hearts of the village leaders who had imprisoned him, but a pseudo-immortality technique to accompany them. Apparently, the man had managed to incorporate those hearts into his own body, allowing him to send them into battle in the guises of great beasts of thread and chakra. Orochimaru knew that Kakuzu could never be killed so long as even a single heart remained to him. This was an ability worth investigating.

Yet another member with an ability so tantalizing that it practically made the Snake sannin start salivating when he first saw it in action was that of Hidan, Kakuzu's partner. While Kakuzu's abilities only seemed to grant him extended life, it seemed as though Hidan's powers wrought true immortality. It was said that it was Hidan's patron god, Jashin, who apparently demanded numerous bloody sacrifices every time Hidan fought, was the source of Hidan's immortality. True, it did seem slightly inconvenient that any part of Hidan that happened to be cut off during a struggle would have to be manually reattached, but to Orochimaru's mind, the prospect of not dying when, say, ones head was removed more than made up for that.

There was a member of Akatsuki that Orochimaru rarely saw, and that was the organization's spy, Zetsu. Possessing a split personality, and an accordingly split appearance, Zetsu's loyalties often seemed slightly random and unfixed. These were, perhaps, the reasons that Zetsu never had a partner. The reason he made such a good spy, Sasori informed Orochimaru, was that he had the ability to merge with surfaces, mainly the ground, and instantly reemerge from any other surface at all, allowing for fast travel and quick communication.

For some time, Orochimaru had been wondering how, in an organization mainly composed of missing-nin, Akatsuki managed to collect the bounties for the other missing-nin they tracked down and killed on a daily basis. The answer came to him in the form of Konan, 'God's Paper Angel of Ame.' Konan had the ability to infuse sheets of paper with her chakra to manipulate them as weapons, or even go so far as to transform her entire body into sheets of paper. These abilities, while interesting enough, especially from the standpoint of a scientist, paled in comparison to those of Konan's partner, Pein.

The moment Orochimaru laid eyes on Pein, he could barely contain his greed. The Rinnegan! A practically unstoppable doujutsu, one to rival even the Sharingan. But, as Orochimaru quickly learned, the Pein that he had thought of as the leader of Akatsuki was nothing more than a fragment of the true Pein, who was, in fact, a man named Nagato, the leader of Ame. Nagato used the six bodies of Pein in much the same way Sasori used his puppets, directing them through the metal piercings that were infused with Nagato's chakra. However, each of the bodies of Pein, unmistakable with their orange hair and numerous facial piercings, was more attractive to Orochimaru than any number of puppets, as each possessed the Rinnegan.

The moment Orochimaru realized that, for the first time, he was in close contact on a daily basis with so many individuals with such immense natural power, it became clear to him what he would do. The first body he would test his immortality jutsu on would be one constructed of the DNA of all of Orochimaru's fellow members of Akatsuki. With that decided, all that remained was to gather the DNA.

Logically enough, Orochimaru decide to begin his enterprise of gathering DNA with Hidan. Hidan left pints of blood spattered on the ground almost every time he engaged in battle. It was no trouble at all for Orochimaru to salvage some, secretly tucking away the vials in his cloak.

Kakuzu presented a bit more of a challenge, as the man had no blood to spill and kept his hair tied up and covered at all times. It was only the merest luck that Orochimaru managed to procure some of Kakuzu's DNA. He and Sasori had been joined by Hidan and Kakuzu on tracking down a pair of missing-nin from Suna, the Gamamoto brothers. Sasori hung back from this fight, as the Gamamoto brothers were close-range fighters who wielded oversize, serrated kunai. Kakuzu had weakened them, calling out only two of his thread beasts before drawing back and allowing Orochimaru to kill the first brother. Orochimaru suspected Kakuzu had been ordered to do so, as he had not seemed whole-hearted in his insistence that the Snake sannin finish off the shinobi. Of course, orders or no, Hidan demanded that he the one to kill the other brother, which he did, with much messy, drawn-out suffering.

Kakuzu and Sasori, possibly regretting letting Orochimaru claim one of the kills, told the Snake sannin to seal up the bodies in a scroll so they could be brought back to Ame for the reward. This Orochimaru obligingly did. However, while he was bent over, sealing the body of the brother he himself had killed, he noticed several thick, dark, coarse threads caught in the jagged ridges of the man's weapon. Quickly and carefully, Orochimaru worked the threads free, folding them up in a square of cloth and hiding them in his cloak before sealing up the corpse and hastening after his teammates, a small smile playing around his thin mouth.

Orochimaru had at first thought it would be easy to gather genetic material from Pein, just run his fingers through Animal Path's hair and he'd have his sample. But it soon occurred to Orochimaru that the paths of Pein could not have originally possessed the Rinnegan before Nagato took control of them; therefore, DNA from any of them might not be of any use at all to his plan to obtain the Rinnegan. Orochimaru thought again. It came to him that Nagato had to control his paths of Pein somehow, and that perhaps that was the way to gather the genetic material he needed. Suddenly, Orochimaru remembered the piercings, the tiny spikes and bars composed of dark metal. Metal infused with Nagato's chakra. The same type of metal that all of the Paths of Pein could form literally with the flick of a wrist.

Once he had come to this realization, it was no trouble at all for the Snake sannin to pay a little visit to the private training grounds behind the Akatsuki headquarters building just as Deva Path was leaving, its own training done for the day. Orochimaru was delighted to find that Deva Path had been practicing its aim, hurling short lengths of the chakra-infused metal he produced at the straw dummies and various targets. Pretending he was just cleaning up a little before he did some practicing himself, Orochimaru went around, pulling short lengths of metal out of the targets. He put the resulting pile of thick metal rods by the door that led back inside the compound, but not before he snagged a few pieces, pulling them inside his sleeve and slipping them in a pocket sew into to the inside of his robe. Being paranoid by nature, Orochimaru then spent the next few hours outside training, just in case anyone was watching him.

Though Kisame was a formidable fighter, there was not much in the way of special bloodlines or powers that he had to offer Orochimaru. No, what the Snake sannin really wanted from the Hoshigaki was some genetic material from the large, leech-like sword, Samehada. And, in a way he could not have foreseen, just such an opportunity presented itself to Orochimaru, practically screaming to be exploited.

It started when Orochimaru asked Kisame to spar with him with the vague idea that fighting the shark-man would give him a better idea of how to acquire some DNA from Samehada.

Kisame pulled a face. "Can I put off that spar, actually? I'll make it up to you later."

Kisame immediately had Orochimaru's attention at that, though the Snake sannin thought he disguised it well. "Why?" he asked, feigning disappointment.

"You picked the one day to ask that Samehada is shedding," Kisame said. Orochimaru noticed that Kisame did not have the sword with him.

"Shedding? I didn't know he sheds," Orochimaru said, shaming disinterest as hard as he could.

"Yeah, it doesn't happen often, only once every couple of years."

"What happens?"

"Well, a new coat of scales grows, forcing the old scales to drop off. The old scales won't absorb chakra once they fall off, but they're still full of chakra, so once all of them have fallen off and the new coat has settled, Samehada eats the old scales."

"How long does the whole process take?"

"A good twelve hours, not including the twenty minutes of so it takes him to eat the old scales," Kisame said ruefully.

"In that case," Orochimaru sighed discontentedly, "I'll let you off sparring, for now."

"Don't worry, I'll make it up to you once Samehada's ready," Kisame promised.

Orochimaru nodded and walked away. Once he was out of sight, he headed straight to Kisame's room to gather a couple of scales, almost unable to suppress his laughter. That had been amazingly easy!

When Orochimaru had first been shown the outdoor training grounds behind the Akatsuki headquarters, he had immediately noticed and commented on the tiny strip of garden down the left side of the headquarters building. He was quickly informed that Zetsu, who found it easier to merge with the ground if there were plants growing in it, tended to the flowers and grass there. Orochimaru carefully made a note of this, knowing that if he was going to get some DNA off of Zetsu, it would probably be while he was reemerging from the ground.

After nearly a month of bidding his time and keeping an eye out, Orochimaru thought that he might finally have hit on a way to get some of Zetsu's DNA and get away with it. It was when he spotted Konan arranging some long-stemmed yellow flowers in a vase, flowers Orochimaru knew he had recently spotted in Zetsu's little garden. When he questioned her, she gave a strange look before answering.

"Yes, they're from Zetsu's garden. He'll object as usual, but he'll deal with it." With a flourish that Orochimaru suspected was for his benefit, Konan produced several paper flowers from nowhere and slid them into the vase, mixing them in with the real ones. Orochimaru watched her, his mind whirring with thoughts of how to get his hands on even a few strands of Zetsu's DNA. It would be more than two weeks before he could implement his plan to achieve that end.

Orochimaru left the building, intending to do a bit of target practice. However, no sooner than he set foot outside the building he caught sight of something green in the corner of his eye. He immediately adjusted his path, heading for Zetsu's garden and pulling a small pair of sample snips out of an inner pocket. He knelt down, pretending not to see the enormous, flytrap-like growth or the accusing pair of mismatched eyes staring at him from the height of the nearest flowers. Orochimaru began clip flowers, slowly moving down the bed until he was directly in front of Zetsu's head, which was the only part of the man that was poking out of the ground. Orochimaru clipped off a few strands of Zetsu's hair before he was forced to pull back his hands or risk losing them as Zetsu closed his flytrap with a loud snap.

Orochimaru hastily stowed the snips away and stood, backing up a step. Zetsu's flytrap opened up again and the mismatched man glared at Orochimaru.
"What do you think you're doing?"

Orochimaru sighed theatrically, doing his best to put a bit of whine into his words. "Konan's making me do her dirty work just because she still thinks of me as the new guy. She asked me to come out here and cut her some flowers." Orochimaru sulkily held out the bunch of assorted flowers in his left hand.

Zetsu stared at the flowers as though they were the murdered corpses of his closest family and friends. "Just don't do it again. It's not funny."

Orochimaru nodded quickly. Zetsu glared at him one more time before sinking back into the ground completely. Orochimaru uncurled the hand wrapped around the stems of the flowers he had cut and delicately began picking greenish hairs out from between the stems.

When he had collected all of the strands of hair and carefully tucked them away he went back inside. He placed the flowers in one of Konan's vases just in case Zetsu thought to check up on his alibi. He stared at the slightly wilted flowers in discontent. Something was missing. Konan mixes paper flowers in with the real ones, Orochimaru realized. If I'm going to do this, I have to do it right or the others will suspect. Orochimaru hunted up the vase Konan had filled two weeks ago. It contained the browned and shriveled husks of those old flowers and, as if in mockery of the dead blooms, several full, perfect paper flowers. Orochimaru got rid of the dead flowers and slipped the paper creations out of the old vase and arranged them in the new one. Now that that's done, how do I go about getting a bit of Konan's DNA? Orochimaru wondered, walking away. Without warning, he stopped cold in his tracks, quite glad that no one else was around to see him. Either I'm a gold-plated genius or a complete and total fool, Orochimaru thought, slowly turning to face his floral arrangement. I was there when Konan made those paper flowers. I don't remember her pulling out any paper to fold. The paper just… appeared. Every one of those flowers contains both her DNA and her chakra! As Orochimaru rearranged the flowers to hide the gap that had been created by removing one of the paper flowers, he decided Gold-plated genius.

Sasori, the final member Orochimaru needed DNA from, was proving to be even more of a problem than Pein had been. For one thing, he always traveled and fought from inside one of his favorite puppets, Hiruko. Orochimaru had only seen him without his casing once in all of his time as one of Akatsuki, and that had been because Hiruko had been damaged in a fight and Sasori wanted to repair him. When the red-haired man emerged, Orochimaru had been intrigued. The man must be over thirty at least but he had the slight frame and boyish face of one in his late teens. The round eyes that had stared at Orochimaru so defiantly, daring the Snake sannin to comment on his appearance, were set in a face of smooth, hollow curves unmarred by the passing of time. But Orochimaru, his primary affinity being that of snakes, did not have to rely entirely on his eyes to analyze his partner. He drew breath after quiet breath, letting the sensitive scent receptors in his mouth and nose take in every aspect of Sasori's scent.

That smell troubled him. Sasori smelled of warm, varnished wood and sharply of much-used and well-oiled metal, but not, to Orochimaru's quiet distress, of anything that a human normally possesses that could be taken for a DNA sample. He simply did not have the smells of hair or sweat or even of saliva. The only hopeful smell Orochimaru caught under the overwhelming odor of chakra-infused iron was the faintest, rusty smell of blood, coming from the vicinity of Sasori's chest cavity as he bent over Hiruko, a delicate tool gripped expertly in his hand. So, your heart is human, no matter what the rest on you is, eh Sasori? Orochimaru thought. This was one problem he could attack directly. The only thing he could do was wait for an opportunity to present itself and, if need be, tweak the circumstances a bit.

And, as it just so happened, the very situation materialized no more than a couple of months after Orochimaru made his novel discovery abut the state of Sasori's true body. It was when Pein had directed Sasori and Orochimaru to go after Yashiki Matsuma, high-profile missing-nin hailing from Yugakure. Orochimaru thought wryly, as his sword glanced harmlessly off of Matsuma's plated bracers and he dodged a high kick, that perhaps Akatsuki's esteemed leader had underestimated this Yashiki Matsuma. He was putting up one hell of a fight. It was at this point that Orochimaru, having dodged a rapid succession of kicks and blows, and more than one potentially fatal projectile, failed to notice the final move of the set. Matsuma's knee slammed into his chest and sent him sprawling. He was prevented from getting up as several large shuriken that had been sent spinning after him the moment he had been knocked back slammed into the rock around him, pinning him tightly by his clothes and nicking and lacerating his flesh in several places. It was all he could do to crane his neck upwards to watch how Sasori was faring.

The puppet master, hidden inside Hiruko as usual, seemed to be holding his own. The scorpion-like tail of the massive puppet came whipping down to block a wild swing from Matsuma, just missing the missing-nin's face by a hairsbreadth. Matsuma struggled for the briefest moment before recognizing that he would be unable to gain any ground against the powerful jointed tail. Instead, he fell into a kind of crouch, disengaging his thick, heavy blade from Hiruko's tail, allowing the tail to arc of his head and slamming the wide, rounded pommel of his weapon down on the broad shell of the large puppet, using chakra to strengthen the blow. Orochimaru winced as the reinforced wood splintered and buckled, the body of the puppet completely collapsing in scant instants.

What Yashiki Matsuma could not see from his perch on top of Hiruko's shell, but what Orochimaru could see from his worm's eye vantage point was the red-haired figure released from the underbelly of the demolished puppet lightly drop to the ground and scuttle up and over the side of Hiruko's shell. Sasori was on Matsuma in an instant, one arm wrapped around Matsuma's throat and another fetching out a kunai. Matsuma, caught off guard not wasting time trying to draw breath, simple reversed his grip on his mighty blade, plunging it back under his own arm, the tip aimed straight for Sasori's heart. Orochimaru caught sight of a flash of purple. His nostrils dilated and he caught the tantalizing scent of blood. Then he realized that Matsuma had stopped moving. It probably had something to do with the poisoned kunai protruding from the side of his neck.

Sasori released his hold on Matsuma's body and let it topple off the back of his ruined puppet. Then he himself leapt down and Orochimaru was astonished to note that the red-haired man nearly stumbled upon landing. He approached Orochimaru, swaying slightly, and dropped to his knees to tug the shuriken out of the rocky earth, freeing his comrade. When he bent over Orochimaru, the Snake sannin saw a shallow gash in Sasori's chest right over the place one's heart would be in a normal human. The gash was leaking purplish liquid and the odor of fresh blood came to Orochimaru in gusts as Sasori straightened and stood up. Orochimaru pulled back his sleeves to examine the many cuts and bruises on his arms, pretending not to notice Sasori's condition.

It seemed that Sasori himself had barely noticed his injury. It was only when he looked down at the purple blood dripping down his robe that he reacted, exclaiming in annoyance and trying to stem the flow. Secretly, hidden from Sasori's sight on Hiruko's other side, Orochimaru crouched down to examine the thick, heavy sword that Matsuma had wielded. The last two inches of the tip were soaked in the same purplish blood that Sasori was still trying to clean up. Taking a quick glance at his partner, Orochimaru fetched out a small, tattered scroll and unsealed a glass vial, into which he scraped the precious drops of Sasori's blood before stoppering the vial and sealing it up again.

Orochimaru, consumed of late as he had been by his ambition to collect genetic material from every one of his teammates, was startled to discover that he had already been part of Akatsuki for several years, long enough to make him feel slightly superior when Sasori mentioned to him that there would soon be new member joining their ranks. Superior, as least, until he saw who the newest member was, saw him walk in wearing his new black and red robe zipped all the way up past his chin so that the collar was just below his eyes. And what eyes! As soon as Orochimaru met those eyes of Itachi Uchiha's, he remembered that before he had joined Akatsuki he had long fantasized about recruiting one of the famous Uchiha clan to be his new host. And the reason was all in the eyes.

Though Itachi treated Orochimaru to a look of dislike and mistrust every time he met his gaze, Orochimaru was unable to resist sneaking looks; such was the allure of the Sharingan.

Though Orochimaru had no use for Itachi as a new skin, he could certainly see the advantage of adding the might of the Uchiha clan doujutsu to his repertoire. However, Orochimaru soon grew frustrated with Itachi's wariness and guarded nature. Not once was there a chance for Orochimaru to salvage so much a drop of his blood, a strand of his hair, a sample of his sweat. Finally, Orochimaru knew that the only way he was leaving Akatsuki with Itachi's DNA was if he took it by force. And so he planned to finally leave Akatsuki for good. He may not be able to ensure that the process would be neat and painless, but he could at least ensure that it would be worthwhile.

Enraged, Orochimaru fell back before Itachi who straightened up slowly, surveying the Snake sannin coolly. "Give up," Itachi intoned quietly. "You will no longer be welcomed back into Akatsuki after this attack, and I know for certain you cannot return to the place where you were born. If you continue to struggle, you will fall before my Sharingan. Give up and depart intact."

"Brave words, Itachi Uchiha," Orochimaru spat, drawing out a kunai inside of his robe where Itachi couldn't track the movement. "But you forget, I've got decades of experience on you. And anyway I-" Orochimaru had been trying very hard to keep still, to not move or lean forward or, by any inflection suggest his plan, but the time had come for action. He launched himself forward, his hand, with its modified kunai, darting out, aimed straight for Itachi's right eye. Itachi backed up-moving, weaving from left to right. Doggedly, Orochimaru followed him, his hand darting back and forth like a snake following the movement of its charmer's pipe.

Itachi lashed out and caught Orochimaru in his shin with a chakra-enhanced kick: to great effect as Orochimaru was already leaning forward, throwing his center of balance off. Orochimaru collapsed, the aches and injuries from the beginning of the fight making themselves known to him. He was back on his feet in an instant, however, roaring, "Come here and I'll cut your optic nerve right out!" Once again he plunged forward and once again Itachi fell back. Orochimaru wondered why he didn't Shunshin or Kawirimi. A moment later, he had his answer.

"Kamui," Itachi uttered, still backing away. To his horror, Orochimaru saw his precious kunai begin to warp and be sucked in by a rapidly expanding glassy black void. In one last ditch effort, Orochimaru lurched forward, throwing both his and Itachi's aim off by a few inches. He had only time to feel the kunai in his hand bite deep into the skin just to the right of Itachi's eye and graze his cheekbone before he lost feeling in that hand altogether. For a timeless moment, made throbbing and staticky by pain, he stared uncomprehendingly at the stump of his arm and then at his detached hand, halfway through its fall to the cobbles. He hastily stooped and caught it, cradling it in his good hand before it could hit the ground. Shooting a bleeding Itachi a look of pure malevolence, Orochimaru Kawirimi'ed away, trying not to collapse and trying not to pass out and trying not to drop that kunai, more precious than either of his hands….

Orochimaru woke up lying on his back. For a moment he thought it was nighttime and that the sky above him-he could tell by the freshness of the air and the inconsistent air pressure on his skin that he was still out of doors- was dark until he thought to open his eyes and discovered that it was only late afternoon. This fact was only registered in the back of his mind, though, because it took a backseat to the fact that there was someone leaning over him… a potential threat.

Instinctively Orochimaru kicked out, catching the stranger in the gut. While the young man bent over struggling to breathe and trying not to vomit from the ferocity of the attack, Orochimaru sat up. Finding the modified kunai still in his hand, Orochimaru made haste to stow it away and draw out a more normal one. When the young man before him finally straightened up, Orochimaru was ready, his good hand shooting out to press the kunai to the young man's throat. He stopped moving immediately, though Orochimaru could feel him swallow nervously. He stared with wide blue eyes from behind a curtain of bright blonde hair. He really was awfully young. "Hands," Orochimaru rasped. "Show me your hands."

The young man slowly raised his hands to shoulder height, palms outward in the classic See-I'm-Not-Armed gesture. Orochimaru's eyes flickered to the palms of hands and then back to the boy's face, slightly confused.

The young man chuckled nervously, stopping when he felt the cold knife riding his Adam's apple. "Yeah, people always ask about the mouths when they first see my hands-un. Actually, it's a funny-" Orochimaru didn't wait for the rest of the chatty boy's sentence. Withdrawing the kunai from the boy's throat, he made haste to drop it point-down in the grass. While the boy's eyes automatically followed the falling knife, Orochimaru used his now-free hand to shut the boy up, clapping the heel of his open palm to the young man's temple, hard. The boy's eyes rolled back and he collapsed, out cold. Orochimaru stood to leave, though not before picking up his kunai and relieving the boy of a few of his long, blonde hairs. Even in his pained and weakened state, Orochimaru was a scientist at heart and not one to pass up a chance too good to miss.

Orochimaru growled in annoyance. He would have to remember to invent a special, nasty punishment for that man who thought it would be amusing to give Orochimaru-sama a female skin to reside in for the next three years. Not that the body looked remotely female now that Orochimaru had managed to convert it to something closer to his own style. But the point was that the woman had, in life, had no particular skills useful to a skilled shinobi.

This made it all the more urgent that Orochimaru begin work crafting his perfect host. He wanted it to be ready by the time his stay in his current skin was up. So he began to take in test subjects, shinobi, of course, being his preference. In a matter of months his call for test subjects seemed to spread like wildfire, passed on by word of mouth. In no time at all, people not only began to offer themselves and others of their villages to Orochimaru specifically for testing, but others, malcontents and missing-nin alike, began to cluster around Orochimaru, viewing him as a sort of demi-Kage and a leader in harsh times. Orochimaru, being a clever and practical man, despite his many faults and vices, saw all of these things and turned them to his advantage, forming the Village Hidden in the Sound, Otogakure, with himself as the leader. No only did this move supply him with a nigh-endless influx of willing test subjects, but it gave him power, status, recognition, and an army, things that seemed, to him, sure to show those weak shinobi of Konoha just whom they had banished all those years ago.

No! Orochimaru pressed his hands against the one-way glass. His slitted eyes flickered from monitor to monitor, from cot to cot. Just when he thought that an entire batch of test subjects was going to survive the first infusion, just when every last one of them had stabilized hours after the shots, suddenly their vitals were going haywire! Through the glass he could hear the disheartening noise of heart rate monitors flat-lining, one after the other. It was a noise he had heard all too often in the last few months. In his anger and frustration, Orochimaru pounded his fist against the glass before mentally composing himself and retiring to his study.

On his desk were two file reports Orochimaru had been avoiding reading for days. Slowly, he slid the first one toward him and opened it. On the inside was clipped a picture of one of Orochimaru's pet test subjects, Kimimaro Kaguya. Orochimaru flipped up the medical reports, hopeful in case they should contain good news about the sickly bone-user. The news was anything but good. Orochimaru's right-hand man and top medic Kabuto, a recent addition to Orochimaru's staff, had been working to cure the young Kaguya's mysterious illness since the bone-user had first arrived, but to no avail. Orochimaru slammed down the file. He did not want to read Kabuto's dismal predictions that 'the boy's condition may worsen with time, completely deteriorating by the time he reaches the age of fifteen.'

Orochimaru turned to the other file on his desk, sliding it toward him and flipping it open. Inside was a picture of the scowling face of Jugo, a tall, orange-haired boy who had arrived in Otogakure along with Kimimaro. Though his violent and unstable split personality rendered him unsuitable for possession, his talents and abilities were utterly desirable to Orochimaru. He had adopted the task of extracting the enzymes that caused Jugo's physical transformations as a side project to take his mind off of the long, depressing months of failing to have a single subject survive one of the DNA infusions. Orochimaru secretly hoped one day to be able to transfer Jugo's powers to all of his soldiers, minus the deranged personality, of course.

Orochimaru flipped Jugo's file closed and pushed it away from him, settling down in his chair. Little though he wanted to, his forced himself to think on the day's experiments. Another batch dead. Oh, why are all of my shinobi so weak? Why is everyone always failing me? I need to come up with a solution to this, and soon. Orochimaru rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Finally, after several minutes of sitting in silence, he called in Kabuto.

When the silver-haired, bespectacled boy entered the room, he hastily dropped down on one knee in the style of the old legionaries. Orochimaru swiveled his chair so it faced the door and Kabuto. "Stand up, Kabuto," Orochimaru said. Kabuto hastened to do as he bid. Good boy, Kabuto, Orochimaru thought grudgingly. Got a good mind for medical jutsu and a keen interest in the scientific side of everything. Reminds me of me, a bit. Still, if he has no good news, this confrontation may not be very good for his health. "What do you have to tell me, Kabuto?" Orochimaru asked.

Kabuto, perhaps hearing the note of warning in Orochimaru's voice, avoided his slitted gaze. "I have nothing new to report, Orochimaru-sama," he mumbled.

"You see, Kabuto, I've been working on this project for months, trying to create the perfect host. You should know. You've been on and off that project for as long as you've worked for me."

"Yes, I am aware, Orochimaru-sama." Kabuto pushed up his glasses to disguise how his hands were trembling.

"Well, you would have thought, wouldn't you, that by now we'd be seeing some results. But no." Orochimaru brought his hand down on a pile of file folders in a tray on his desk. "Every single one of my test subjects thus far has died, Kabuto. I am running out of time and patience. You'd better start making suggestions fast, or I may just begin to take a serious look at you with your regeneration techniques."

Kabuto's eyes widened for the briefest of moments behind his glasses. He attempted to speak but only a harsh croak escaped his lips. He had to lick the sweat from his lip and clear his throat. Despite these measures, his voice was shaky with terror. Orochimaru approved.

"As it so happens, Orochimaru-sama, I believe I may have a possible solution to you problem."

Orochimaru leaned forward, instantly riveted. "Choose your words very carefully, Kabuto, as they could either save or condemn you."

Kabuto acknowledged this. "Hai, Orochimaru-sama. It has come to me that, as your problem is that you cannot find one with a body strong enough or perhaps DNA stable enough to accommodate additions to their genetic code, what you really need is someone with a power that will literally not allow them to die."

"What you say sounds promising," Orochimaru admitted, "But I hope for your sake that you have something a bit more specific in mind, something more than pure postulation."

"I do, Orochimaru-sama. What I have for you is a name." Kabuto pushed up his glasses once more and the light on the desk behind Orochimaru danced on the round lenses, causing them to turn briefly opaque, momentarily occluding Kabuto's eyes. "The name I have… is Naruto Uzumaki."

Orochimaru sat bolt upright in his chair, hands clutching the arms hard, nails biting into the wood as if they were hooked talons. The Nine-Tails' Jinchuriki!

A/N: And so the very first chapter of my first challenge fic draws to a close, leaving the audience breathless for more! Haha. There are several things I would like to draw your attention to at this point, if you would be so kind as to allow me a few moments of your attention.

-This chapter was mostly setup, as this fic will require quite a bit of that, so it wasn't all that humorous. Rest assured that the rest of the fic will be rather more so.

-This is M-rated, not for any specific reason, but because I want to be sure I'm all covered in case something should crop up later on...

-This challenge comes from the profile page of the author dracohalo117 and he gave me permission to take it up.

-Any similarities between this story and any of the other stories written from the same challenge, primarily those belonging to Thanathos and Arynia, will you please disregard, as those ideas belong to them and their amazing stories and I merely borrowed certain aspects (yes, I asked permission) while other parts may be pure coincidence.

-This is not my first fic, so i will be writing both this challenge fic and my original Naruto fic, A little Insanity is good for the Soul, at the same time, hopefully alternating updating chapters between the two of them.

-Please be aware that in this fic, Naruto will be very powerful- the parameters of the challenge pretty much ensure that- but he is still a kid and I will try my best to avoid making him overpowered.

-Something I learned from doing the extensive research required for this chapter- While I admire Kishimoto (Naruto is a pretty complex series, in my opinion) he didn't exactly make all of his dates and ages and timings match up in canon... so bear in mind I'll be wrestling with that while i write.

-One last thing- Kabuto's prediction about Kimimaro dying by the age of 15- well, he did. (Or so the Naruto Wiki informs me...)

-Okay, so maybe I lied and this is the last thing... could you please see your way to leave me a Review? Thank you. Until next time!