The sealed kunai

Chapter 41: Where There is Shadow There is Light

Sasuke stared at Orochimaru impassively as he held his jutsu puncturing the man's arms that he had placed up as a defense, "Orochimaru you're weaker than me. There's no point in sacrificing my body to you anymore."

"Big words from the leftover Uchiha." Orochimaru taunted as he glared dangerously at Sasuke, his own blood staining his face.

Sasuke smirked, "Hm. If I hadn't been so weak I never would have come to you in the first place now would I? The only reason you wanted me was because you couldn't take Itachi, right Mister Sannin? The world might have considered you a genius, but you're nowhere near the level of an Uchiha. Before us, the greatest genius in the universe barely comes off as average."

Orochimaru laughed maliciously, "The only thing you're good for are your eyes boy. If you truly believe that you're my equal then go back and fight Naruto-kun again and prove your skill. Oh that's right, you lost to him once and ran away from him without even fighting the second time."

"My eyes huh?" Sasuke said, narrowing his eyes at Orochimaru's jab at him, "As someone that carries the famous name Uchiha, from my point of view your attempts to obtain our power are so disgusting they're almost funny. The way you keep saturating yourself with drugs and switching bodies... your methods are pointless. Do you even have a true goal anymore? You claim to seek the reason behind existence and yet all you do is make petty attempts to play God with people's lives." He drew his sword, "You sicken me." He moved in at the disabled Orochimaru to finish him off with his blade.

However when he got close, the snake-summoning shinobi opened his mouth as a long white figure burst from his body that turned out to be a massive white snake comprised of smaller white snakes.

Sasuke turned around and faced off with the grotesque figure, "So your true form is a scaly white serpent. You experimented on your own body because you wanted to take over others so badly... and now you're a pathetic shell of your former self."

"Sasuke-kun..." Orochimaru hissed threateningly, "Give me your body!" He dove at Sasuke as the young Uchiha jumped over his first attack, allowing the bed Orochimaru had been in to be rendered to splinters. Some of the smaller snakes lunged at the airborne Sasuke, however he cut through them and slid along the ground upon landing, his back against a wall. Orochimaru turned on him with a hiss and sent an entire wave of snakes at Sasuke as an attack.

Sasuke immediately pulled the top of his shirt back, freeing his upper body and activated the level two transformation of his cursed seal, "Though the snake dreams of soaring through the sky, it is forever doomed to crawl on its belly." Sasuke was surrounded and engulfed by the attack as his skin color turned dark brown and the star marking appeared on his face. But immediately upon being overwhelmed, the snakes exploded in blood revealing the fully transformed Sasuke, complete with his wing-like hands fully grown from his back, "You'll have your chance to fly snake... In the talons of a hawk."

Orochimaru simply lunged at his young quarry once more, "Sasuke!"

XxX

(With Naruto and Company)

Naruto, Maki, and Sai stood back to back as all of the shinobi of the Prajna Group were radiating killing intent. "So..." Naruto said, directing his eyes at Maki, "If me and Sai were to break out of this and get some space away from these guys could you keep up with us?"

"Don't patronize me senpai." Maki said with some aggravation in her voice, "If you're going to go then go. I wouldn't be here if I couldn't keep up."

With that, all three teens utilized their own Shunshin to escape being boxed in by the enemy. Naruto in a gusty cyclone, Sai in a swirl of ink, and Maki in a burst of light. The Prajna Group shinobi all turned to pursue the split up force of 3 Root ninja, however a trio of kunai corralled four of them, separating them from their comrades who ran off into the forest to chase the younger opponents who threw the weapons.