Orochimama

"Hey, that's gonna cause feedback into the suppression seal at fourty-five degrees! You trying to get this thing to blow up?" Jiraiya yelled, interrupting me from my painstakingly meticulous process of creating the seal that would hold Anko's life in the balance.

"No, it won't because the River seal that comes next will naturally bleed off the energy and take it to flow into the next seal to help mitigate any excess amount while allowing it to keep a useful store of energy for me to discharge if I need a sudden burst of chakra into this sector." I responded calmly and Jiraiya barely grumbled, instead he just went back to looking for another aspect of the seal to bitch about.

I was positive he actually knew some of his complaints weren't valid and he was just trying to grill me and get under my skin. Unfortunately for him, I had spent months spending significant amounts of time with toddlers. He could not match their ability to ask "why" and was thus doomed to fail to get at unsettling me to any real degree. Not unless he was prepared to ask me to sing the same nursery song thirty-six times in a row. It also helped that he wasn't the only one looking at my seal work.

"This north star spiral is going to be placed extremely close to the liver. Do you have a way to mitigate that?" Tsunade asked from the side where she was pouring over a scroll that had a human outline and the seals I would be putting on Anko.

"No. If I move it too much it destabilizes. It has to be close to the seal and chakra sea while far away from the grounding roots in her legs and the balance on her back. I spent hours pouring over it. You'll just have to be ready to jump in and assist with any signs of liver damage." I replied as I took another step back, putting the last line of seal work down with measured brush strokes.

Jiraiya had gone quiet, staring at the almost completed seal in silence. Longer than he'd gone through the entire process when he was trying to critique me.

"You're not just moving just human chakra with this." Jiraiya eventually noted.

I blinked. I hadn't expected him to put that together, though the man was one of the foremost seal masters of the world.

"Correct." I stated as I put the last touches in and stood, stretching my back languidly. Jiraiya didn't even glance my way, eyes locked on the seal.

"What else is being moved?" Jiraiya asked and I heaved a sigh. I had figured that question would come eventually, but thankfully I had a suitable half truth.

"Nature Chakra."

"How the hell are you doing that?" Jiraiya asked in shock, again going over the notes.

"There is a particular clan I found. Their biology naturally gathers and manipulates Nature Chakra. A small handful of their cells are in each Cursed Seal. It perpetuates the seal endlessly because it can never run out of Nature Chakra and its excess builds and is kept in an intneral store. The hardest part was figuring out how to limit it so it didn't gather too much Nature Energy." I answered as I ambled over to the nearby chair and table where water and refreshments had been brought hours previous.

"Even still, that's insane." Tsunade cut in. "The survival rate of something like this must be miniscule."

"Yeah." I said drawing the word out slowly. "You guys have given me a lot of shit about the bodies."

The two turned to stare at me incredulously.

I held up my hands in surrender. "I didn't say it was undeserved shit! Just saying you guys already know this was dropping bodies."

"Right. You're hot now and said it cute, so it's okay." Jiraiya groused.

"No. It's not okay. It was wrong and very real people had very real pain and had very real deaths. I am not saying this dismissivly or casually. I will admit my wrong doings and try to fix them, but if I give all my sins their weight I would soon be crushed." I countered and Jiraiya's jaw clenched but he didn't fight me on the statement. Ninja our age didn't have much room to cast moral judgement on others. We all had skeletons in our closet; admittedly, mine was more a department store of skeletons.

"You gonna finish or what?" Jiraiya demanded rather than continue the argument.

"I'm done." I replied with a shrug and crossing my legs in the chair. "Now's your chance to give it a look over before we bring Anko in, kick Jiraiya out, and then start painting her."

Jiraiya looked more betrayed in that moment than he had the entirety of my new life.

"Not my choice, Anko made that rule. She did say you could stay under one condition though." I said and Jiraiya began to look hopeful until he saw the look on Tsunade's face.

She looked positively gleeful.

"W-what's the condition?" Jiraya was visibly sweating.

"Castration." Tsunade and I answered in synch.

"Right, well I'll see my way out afterwards." Jiraiya bravely took the highroad.

"Thought you might." Tsunade said with a chuckle.

The room lapsed into silence as I watched the two double check my work. A fluctuating silence of the three of us being in a familiar situation together that was comfortable until a memory would arise and the atmosphere would again grow charged and anxious. A spiral of emotions that I did not need nor want to fall down. The whole deal of giving them this knowledge and research was not without benefit to me. My former teammates would polish the process and give me more knowledge on how to improve the seal. Knowledge that I could then take and move on to other projects.

Truthfully, I lost nothing from giving them all my research into the Cursed Seals, because I had no intentions of ever placing another one, nor developing the seal any further. Putting a piece of my soul into the seal is a necessary part of the process; the nature chakra would run wild if there wasn't a piece of consciousness in the seal to guide it. Tsunade and Jiraiya would never allow for such a technique to move on past them and would likely burn it. Alternatively, they would dump a lot of their own time and energy into figuring out how to make counters to my seal. Hours wasted because I had no plans to continue to use them.

Giving it up would cost me nothing. They viewed it as valuable and I did not.

Simple economics that I make the trade.

I would just have to advise them to burn all of the notes on the technique. Not now, but in a year or so to make sure they didn't spread it around and allow some other monster to try this again. They wouldn't listen to me about burning it now and if anything make them spread copies around.

Good thing Danzo was dead.

With that cherry thought, I leaned back into my chair and pulled out my latest reading material.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"Really?" Tsunade asked, catching sight of the book and her entire being became infused with disappointment.

"What?" Jiraiya asked before glancing over at me and then repeating himself with far more incredulity. "What!?"

I ignored Jiraiya's reaction to Icha Icha Innocence and instead addressed Tsunade. "Really. It's not bad. It's not the height of fiction either, but it's pretty good. This one in particular. Paradise was a bit rough, cliche, and clearly a shameless author insert, but each book released has gained more polish and became less self aggrandizing."

"So they don't have gratuitous and unrealistic sex scenes?" Tsunade asked disbelievingly.

"Hey!" Jiraiya objected.

"Oh they absolutely do." I answered.

"Hey!!" Jairaya objected again.

"But they aren't just that. The first book is pretty much just a story to string together sex scenes-"

"I'm right here!" Jiraiya complained.

I continued as if he hadn't spoke. "-but the other two have some really compelling stuff about the nature of love and what it would mean for two ninja to be able to put aside their differences and trust each other. There is some genuinely good romance tips in this that I did not expect to see. It has heart and beauty to it."

"And porn." Tsunade said dryly.

"And GOOD porn." I stressed. "The good part is hard to find in romance stuff. I'll admit, I went in to the book to find something to keep me company in a late and lonely night of m-"

"Too much information." Tsunade cut in while Jiraiya had a level of conflict on his face that bordered on panic. "Too many damn perverts on this team."

I gave a shrug. "Good food is good food even when you don't like it. It just means it's not your flavor."

I went back to my book, Tsunade went back to probing at where the scroll of seals would connect with the ones on the ground. Jiraiya remained almost catatonic in the room. Eventually, his blatant and prolonged staring became too much, and I peek over the edge of my book. His face was going through a litany of emotions but I looked up just in time to see him settle on one.

Anger.

"You're not going to butter me up. I don't know what your long con is here, but it won't work and you're not going to manipulate me. I saw through you once before, I'll see through you again." Jiraiya stabbed towards me with an accusing finger.

"You didn't see through me. I wasn't doing anything against you. You know that I was-" I began.

"No! I know Orochimaru. I saw the raw anger, the hatred that burned in him and the travesties he committed with that rage. If ANY part of that is in you, then you can't be trusted and are a danger to the world." Jiraiya continued.

Internally, my hackles rose and I had to fight the urge to instantly fire back a scathing response about the man's hypocrisy. As much as it hurt, Jiraiya was, to some degree, correct with his assessment. I could very much see how he got to his conclusion and I couldn't say I would disagree with him if I were in his place. He had worthy grievances and Tsunade stood to the side all but nodding along. My former teammates, my former family, had a front row seat into the person I was, I just needed them to see that perhaps they were too close to see the forrest from the trees.

"You are right." I started. Nothing throws an angry person off like agreeing with them. "I was angry. At Sensei. At the world. At you. I used my anger to justify myself as I did terrible things to people. I let my anger turn to sadism and immorality and that is not to be excused."

Jiraiya opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.

"However! Anger is a secondary emotion." I stated.

"The hell does that mean?" Jiraiya demanded.

"Anger is a response to another emotion. It arises when there is another one that we don't want to feel, or can't, and our body jumps to anger instead. Anger feels good. Anger makes us feel justified. Anger is better than feeling sad, afraid, or hurt." I stated as I stood, gently closing my book and placed it on the table. "I did not grieve my parents, or address the fact that their sudden deaths instilled in me a deep fear of death. Instead, I grew angry at the world for taking them, I grew angry with the very idea that I too might one day pass and because of that, I was justified in anything I did to defeat such an opponent."

"And all that anger is just gone now? You recognized the root cause and just, poof, it all goes away? Bullshit." Jiraiya was growing more red in the face and approaching me, fists tightened into balls at his side.

"No. Of course not. But my circumstances have changed. Most of my anger came from fear. Fear of being rejected. Fear of death. Fear of those I cared for realizing that I was a monster. Recognizing that does not fix me, addressing the root causes has. I am not just Orochimaru, but also someone who has died. I know Death now, and I am not afraid. When my time comes, if it's earned me, I will let it take me gladly." I answered.

"Then you won't mind if I let death come early?" Jiraiya demanded, hand twitching to his weapon pouch.

"If you earn it." I answered. I had far too much to live for, too many plans in play, to just accept my death. However, should it come, I would die knowing I did what I could to make the world a better place; at least after my fusion.

"Which won't be today." Tsunade cut in, pulling Jiraiya away from the mounting tension. "We have work to do here. Finish checking the damn seal so we can be done if you're gonna throw a hissy fit from being around her."

Jiraiya tore himself away and went back to staring at the seal again with an almost manic anger, trying to pick it apart and find something wrong. There were a few more accusations, a few more questions, and Jiraiya and Tsunade both taking copious amounts of notes, but ultimately I was given the all clear. Jiraiya was kicked out, and we began our work. Taking one person who was glaring at me hatefully and replacing it with another, smaller, and much less threatening glare.

A more hurtful glare though.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry." I tell her as I ink the seals onto her skin.

"Fuck your sorry." Anko responded, and that was the end of all conversation in the room.

The woman was right to be angry with me and I couldn't blame her. There was a lot of that going around. The best I could do was be respectful towards her and offer what little I could to her. I had to hope that was enough. I wanted to give her silence, but as we were winding down, there had to be certain things that needed to be said.

"It is my recommendation you be put under anesthesia for this." I offered.

"No. I'm not going to unconscious in the same room as you." Anko countered.

"If that is your choice, I will respect it, but know, this will be VERY painful." I tried my best to not be antagonistic.

"I can handle some-" Anko began, but to the Tsunade cut her off.

"Kid, she's not underplaying things here. This is going to fucking suck. Do yourself a favor, and get knocked out."

Anko hesitated, but pride shone in her eyes as she said, "I can handle it."

The two of us heaved a sigh, and moved on, setting the Special Jounin into the correct position, threw a thin blanket over her to preserve her modesty, and opened the door again. Jiraya entered, followed shortly by Hiruzen. The seal was set, the necessary observers were present, and time had come.

"Well, lets get this party started, shall we?"

"We can." Hiruzen said, ambling over towards the chairs, but stopped half way. "I trust this will be safe?"

"As safe as I can make it. Verified by Jiraiya and Tsunade." I answered.

Hiruzen glanced back at me. "Good. Know that if you try something-" a wave of killing intent washed forward, carried by a wave a chakra that even reduced by age spoke to the strength of The Professor. "I will see to it you have a thousand painful deaths."

I let the killing intent wash over, not fighting against it, but accepting it for what it was. "I will do whatever it takes to see that she lives."

The intent vanished, and once more an old man walked towards a chair to rest his aching bones.

I walk to my place, sit down at the small circle set out for me, and take a steadying breath. I couldn't appear too nervous for what was to come. I was about to absorb a shard of the original Orochimaru into myself. All my study of the soul told me that I was probably going to be fine. Most likely. However, I also knew I didn't have the greatest of records on accounting for the abilities of souls and they tended to fuck up Original Orochimaru's plans quite often. Though that could also just have been Sharingan hacks. Taking a bit of the original into myself again was not high on my list of priorates, but the cause was good and the math looked right. To delay because of my own uncertainty would just ruin all that I had put in place.

"Ready?" I asked everyone in the room, including myself.

Tsunade, Anko, Jiraiya, and Hiruzen all responded in the affirmative.

"Beginning." I stated as I ran through twenty different handsigns in quick succession, though not so fast that anyone present would think I was trying to obscure one. My chakra flared and began to pour into the seal, though that wasn't the end of things. Many seals, especially complex ones, had much more to them than just dumping your chakra into the matrix and letting it rip.

In many ways, seals were a lot like a motherboard on a computer. It gave the path and fulfilled functions, but one had to operate the seal beyond that. The seal was the hardware, but the ninja using it had to be the software. I had to direct different parts of the seal to grow stronger or weaker as it went, balance its functions and keep the whole thing stable. It took skill and enough power provided over a period of time to truly operate a seal. It was the major reason Uzumaki were considered the pinnacle of seal masters. It wasn't that they had special hidden seal knowledge, it was their skill with operating an existing seal that was noteworthy.

I had chakra beyond that of the average Uzumaki, so I felt confident in my abilities.

All the way up until Anko began to scream. I managed to keep things together, but the sudden and violent cry of pain was jarring as I felt my chakra burrow into her and began to seize the familiar sickly chakra within her. It writhed and fought the attack, quickly attempting to kill its host rather than be captured. My own chakra had already cut off that avenue and metaphorical needles stabbed into the structure. My eyes closed as I focused on the task at hand and doing my damndest to block out the violent cries of my one time student.

Sweat gathered on my brow as I began to bleed the Nature Chakra out of the seal, guiding it along the pathways of the seal to dump it into its designated place, where it would slowly release into the surrounding air over the span of the next few hours. Drop by drop, I forced the potent chakra of the world out of her until the collection was all but gone. It was time.

I took a deep breath, seized hold of what was left, the shard of soul, and ripped with all my might. Anko shrieked and went limp as the seals began to dim, pulling back towards me, my own chakra flowing back into me and, with it, the soul.

When it came to me again, I almost immediately lost track of it. The small shard was already attuned to me to a degree where I struggled to tell where I began and it ended. My body instantly began to treat it as if it were the same entity as myself. That seemed a good sign?

I maintained grinding at it, shoving all my chakra and will against it. A metaphysical mule kick to the manifestation of my past and all at once, it was gone. I cast my senses about for the shard, trying to find if it survived the strike or at least blended with the rest of me. I found nothing. It was all just me. I mentally checked for any changes.

Any shifts in mood? No excess anger, just a knot of worry about being tired and surrounded by people that still kind of hated me.

Any unsettled chakra? Everything was running smooth and clear.

Morality? I contemplated how okay I was with vivisection and came back with a resounding sense of wrongness.

Everything seemed fine. I breathed out a sigh of relief and stood. Anko, poor girl, had sweat so much the sheet covering her was practically soaked. Despite that, the woman rose on shaky legs and gave me the middle finger.

"Told you." She stated, voice cracking and hoarse, before collapsing back into the bed. Tsunade was there in an instant, glowing hands gliding over the woman healing any found damage and diagnosing her status. All the while Hiruzen and Jiraiya seemed ready to kick my ass the moment Tsunade so much as said "boo."

Thankfully, such a call was never made.

"She's good." Tsunade answered and the two men relaxed.

Hiruzen walked towards me and offered a hand up. I took it hesitantly.

"Orochitama of Hidden Tunnel. You have held your end of the bargain. I will hold up mine. May there be peace between us." Hiruzen stated stiffly.

"Thank you. May there be peace with all." I responded back, shaking his hand firmly. It wasn't all that I wanted from these people, but it was better than I deserved.