The Forest of Death no longer looked like a forest. It looked like the aftermath of a natural disaster. Broken, burned, and looking like hell.
Massive trenches carved through the earth stretched for hundreds of meters, cleanly sliced as if by an invisible god. Trees were not broken—they were erased. Entire sections of land had been flattened into smooth, ruined plains. Fires burned everywhere, thick smoke rising into the sky like a signal flare.
In the center of it all stood two figures. Sukuna, in his four-armed form, breathing heavily. The inefficiency of his current state finally catching up to him. The dip in his curse energy reserve didn't do as much as the inefficient technique did to his mind.
On the other hand, Orochimaru, with robes torn, skin cracked and regenerating slower than before, was panting.
He himself wasn't certain just how many times he had died, if not for his substitution technique. He too could say that the boy's technique wasn't perfect; most of the time the invisible slashes missed him.
If not for those, then he might have been dead a long time ago. However, every time those attacks struck, he died. At least he was supposed to be dead if not for his substitution technique.
He was dangerously running low on chakra, and the destruction sure had drawn attention. He couldn't stay here for long.
Orochimaru's earlier composed self had been completely gone. He was looking haggard.
And he knew that if he didn't end the battle soon then he would be in danger; that was how low his chakra was, so he decided to attack first, but not with the same speed as before. His hand seals were slightly slower. His chakra was still sharp, but no longer endless.
A wave of snakes rushed forward.
Sukuna swung his arm lazily.
Dismantle tore them apart—but the slash was wider than intended, cutting through the ground far behind Orochimaru as well. His control was worsening. The violent mix of natural energy and curse energy was fading, and with it, the wild surge that had fueled him.
His extra arms trembled slightly while sanity slowly came back. More than anything it was the natural energy inside his body which started to run out. There was a limit to how much natural energy a single curse mark could provide after all.
And Orochimaru noticed.
"My, my… it seems even monsters have limits," he said, though his own breathing was uneven.
Sukuna frowned at that, and instead of stopping decided if the long range wasn't working then he'd use his fist and rush right at Orochimaru.
They clashed again at close range.
Sukuna punched and Orochimaru blocked with a snake-reinforced arm. However, that still sent him flying back, his snake arms shattered. The ground cracked under the impact, but neither followed up immediately.
They separated once again.
Sukuna's darker skin slowly began to return to normal. One pair of extra arms dissolved into fading marks. His aura calmed from a raging storm to simmering heat.
The madness infused by natural energy was finally calming down.
He was panting now. The bloodlust finally cracked.
And through the haze, his thoughts finally returned.
He looked around. Blinked in confusion.
The forest was gone.
Miles of land lay in ruins—burned, cleaved, flattened into something unrecognizable. Smoke rose in thick columns. Fire spread unchecked.
His confused eyes slowly gained recognition of what really happened and his features hardened.
'I did this?' He paused.
The destruction was immense. So much that he himself couldn't believe he did it. He certainly was capable of it, but that's not how he did things. He relied more on precision, not raw destruction like this.
'Is this what Yuji must have felt in Shibuya?'
He closed his eyes, recalling the madness just earlier and felt a chill inside him. He didn't care about destruction like Yuji; the loss of life also didn't matter as long as it wasn't someone close to him.
However, being driven by those instincts like a mad dog—that gave him chills. To be completely taken over by his instincts to kill and destroy.
'It was like being Bruce Banner and Hulk taking over.' He grimaced.
Further away, Orochimaru reformed once more, battered but alive, eyes gleaming with a mix of fear and fascination. "Oh, finally running out of natural energy." He sounded almost relieved.
The monster had driven him to the limit. In the later parts of the fight, he thought of forgetting about his soul fragment entirely and just running away; however, he couldn't.
Every time the boy sniffed him out like a dog. There was really no way out for him until now.
Sukuna ignored the Snake Sannin for now. He exhaled, the madness receding inch by inch as the curse seal's first form also retreated.
He looked around again, the place was a wreck, and then he sensed around him. A few negative signatures were moving toward them.
'Most likely ANBU…' Sukuna mentally calculated their arrival time and grimaced.
He wasn't particularly looking forward to explaining this destruction to them. Not to mention, if they arrived first, most likely Orochimaru either would get away or they would capture him in his condition.
And of course he couldn't let that happen. Orochimaru had learned a bit too much about him to let him live.
And then there was the Konoha Crush Plan. He wasn't planning on letting the bastard get out of the forest alive anyway. There were a few people in that village he cared about; he wasn't letting this snake make a war zone out of it.
"Oi," Sukuna called with a wince. The throbbing in his head was terrible; his mind had overloaded from the earlier inefficient usage of his technique.
Orochimaru glanced at the boy. Seeing him actually talking to him, he was certain that the earlier mindless berserker state had ended.
"Are you planning on killing Sarutobi Hiruzen…" He straightforwardly asked, not hiding anything.
Orochimaru's earlier smile of relief stiffened once again. 'How come he knows?'
There was no one who was supposed to know this from Konoha. Unless Kabuto betrayed him or the leak happened from either the Suna or Mist side.
Yes, even the Mist was in his plan. He brought the plan to the new Mizukage, Terumi Mei, about the Konoha Crush Plan, planning on bringing more alliances under him.
After knowing that Hidden Mist would be participating in the Chunin Exam, he made sure to bring them under his plan as well. As for whether they would agree, they did.
Both Hidden Mist and Hidden Sand were in economic crisis. Orochimaru's offer was not only an opportunity for them but almost a necessity.
'If Konoha already knows then the plan is dead.' Orochimaru grimaced.
"You are certainly very aware, terrible how we couldn't even exchange names." Orochimaru said. He honestly felt terrible; he didn't even know the name of a person so powerful in the village.
Was his intel inside the village really that weak?
Sukuna saw the colors of Orochimaru's pale face changing and realized that the Konoha Plan seemed to have not changed from the story.
That almost made him let Orochimaru go. Besides all the chaos, the one thing he wouldn't mind seeing is Hiruzen Sarutobi die.
He personally had no beef with the man, but as long as that man was the Hokage, the village would be held back. As Orochimaru himself says, the change is needed and the windmill had to move.
However, if it came to that, Sukuna would do it himself. There was no reason to let this snake bloody his fangs.
"Forget it… I actually don't care. Just stay still." Sukuna scowled and in the split second made the decision.
As soon as their eyes connected, Orochimaru fell into a Genjutsu. This Genjutsu was even stronger than the one Kiyomi put him into. It even took him a few seconds to realize he was in one.
Instead of projecting something horrifying, he simply made an illusion of their current situation with lifelike detail with the sole objective of halting Orochimaru for a few seconds.
And it worked. Even Orochimaru couldn't say it was a Genjutsu. Part of the reason was his soul was fractured to the point that he was getting worse at defending against Genjutsu.
By the time he came out of it, Sukuna was already in front of him, hand on him, and then he saw his vision blur.
The next second both he and Sukuna were somewhere else entirely. He thought it was another Genjutsu, but no, this place was real. They were no longer in Konoha in the Forest of Death.
This place was different.
"Welcome, to Kamui dimension…"
xXx
A/N : How's things are going guys, hope everything is fine. My travel is fun as well, though focusing on writing is hard. Please tell me if you find any problem in this chapter. I'll fix them as soon as possible. I again wrote the chapter in busts so I can't be sure everything is exactly how I wished it to come out.
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