The final two days of their honeymoon passed in a blur of slow mornings and long walks through Tanzaku Town. With no missions to worry about, Kakashi let Mei set the pace, taking her absolutely anywhere she wanted to go. They spent hours drifting through the bustling market districts, with Mei picking out elegant jewelry and rows of new shoes to match the casual outfits Shiori had tailored for her.
Kakashi didn't mind carrying the growing collection of packages, finding a quiet amusement in watching her enjoy herself away from the constant stress of the Mizukage office. He still didn't realize, however, that among those packages were a couple of custom-tailored formal suits Mei had quietly commissioned from Shiori during their fashion talk two days prior, fully intending to surprise him with them later.
But eventually, the brief escape from reality had to come to an end. By the morning of the third day, the bags were packed, the luxury suite was cleared out, and the reality of their responsibilities set in.
Kakashi gathered their things, wrapped an arm tightly around his wife's waist, and they vanished from the hotel suite, reappearing on a familiar, shaded path just outside the perimeter of the Hidden Mist village, right next to a hidden mark on a tree trunk.
That jutsu is so convenient." Mei sighed reluctantly. "But it does have a downside."
She didn't feel like separating just yet. Their honeymoon had undoubtedly been the happiest she had ever been, completely away from managing her position and worrying about her village. But this was something she knew was needed, and she would be strong.
Kakashi tightened his arm around her for a brief, comforting moment, understanding her reluctance perfectly. "It's only a temporary separation. We both have duties to look after, but I'm only one flash away."
Mei smiled, adjusting her grip on her shopping bags as she took a grounding breath. She leaned up to give him a brief but firm kiss on the lips, lingering just long enough to anchor the feeling before stepping back toward the hidden path leading to the Mist Village gates. "Don't keep me waiting too long, husband."
Once she was safely within her territory, Kakashi turned away, instantly disappearing from the forest and reappearing directly inside the Hokage's office in Konoha.
Tsunade looked up from her mountain of paperwork, blinking in slight surprise before a small grin crossed her face. "Back already? I expected you to take at least another day or two."
"Just dropping in to let you know I'm officially back in the village," Kakashi replied with a relaxed nod. "Everything went smoothly."
"Good to hear," Tsunade said, waving a hand toward the door. "Go get settled in at home. I'll need you ready if anything else with the Akatsuki happens.
"Much appreciated," Kakashi said. With a brief wave, he left the office and made his way back to his house to drop off his belongings and finally unpack.
- Kakashi's house -
Walking in, Kakashi saw Sasuke and Naruto playing a card game; the two gave him a glance and a hello before going back to their card game.
"20," Naruto called out, showing his cards.
"Bust, I got 22." Sasuke put his cards down with a sigh, tossing them onto the table as he finally looked up to face his sensei.
"How many rounds have you two played?"
Kakashi asked, seeing the slight annoyance that he could recognize despite his acting casual.
"78."
Sasuke spoke a little sharply.
"Uh-huh," Kakashi drawled, looking between the massive pile of cards in front of Naruto and Sasuke's sour expression. "So Naruto has won all seventy-eight times, and you're annoyed."
Kakashi realized the situation immediately. Naruto always possessed an unnaturally high level of good fortune when it came to games of chance, the complete opposite of Tsunade's legendary bad luck.
Naruto rubbed the back of his head helplessly. "We even used different cards many times; he was convinced I did something." Naruto sighed, a hint of amusement slipping through as he looked back at Kakashi. "Get this, Kakashi-sensei, he even changed places with me using that new eye of his, something about his spot being 'unlucky.' Hahahahah."
Sasuke looked away, slightly embarrassed at having his childishness exposed.
"Shut up, your luck is annoying."
Sasuke stood, mentally vowing never to play any luck-based game against Naruto anymore.
"Well, this should interest you, Sasuke. It's time to do something about that curse mark. I know it can't do much to you now, but we need to deal with Orochimaru."
"Are we going to kill him fully?" Sasuke asked, his tone completely indifferent.
"Not quite. As much as I don't want to, I need his help with something."
"And you think he'll go along with that?" Naruto spoke up, leaning back into the couch.
"He'll do it; I won't be giving him a choice," Kakashi replied simply before gesturing toward the front door. "You coming, Naruto?"
"Yeah," Naruto said, leaning up from the couch. "I'm far too interested in what you're going to do."
- Bandit Camp -
"Ok, so why are we at a bandit camp?" Naruto spoke up from the tree branch next to Kakashi and Sasuke, looking down at the group of bandits grinning like savages around a fire as they sharpened weapons and ate roasted boar.
"Don't you feel it? The one with the clean-shaven face," Kakashi replied.
Naruto turned back and focused on the man. "His chakra reserves? Almost at the level of a Jonin."
He looked back, confused as to where Kakashi could be going with this.
Kakashi shook his head. "You'll see. Sasuke, everyone but him can go."
Sasuke pulled out two handfuls of shuriken and flung them; all the bandits dropped dead without realizing what hit them. Before the scared-shitless bandit could even process what was happening, Sasuke appeared directly behind him and knocked him out with a single chop to the neck.
Kakashi dropped down, Naruto following along. While walking up to the bandit and Sasuke, Kakashi decided to have a teaching moment.
"Some have the misconception that the Flying Raijin binds to the target's physical body when placed upon them, but that's false."
"Their chakra, right?"
Naruto spoke up as Kakashi gave him an expectant look.
"Exactly. So while someone like Orochimaru could hop from body to body, his chakra signature stays the same. This, however, doesn't apply if he can drastically alter or remove it some other way," Kakashi said.
His Rinnegan spun to life as he reached Sasuke. Placing his palm over the curse mark on Sasuke's neck, Kakashi gripped tight and yanked Orochimaru's soul out with a single, violent tug. Before the spectral entity could even comprehend what was happening, Kakashi slammed his other hand onto the soul.
"So, I'm going to skip the headache and place the Flying Raijin on his very soul."
After the mark flashed onto the soul and melted in, Kakashi forced the soul into the bandit's body; the bandit's soul was suppressed and overcome within a moment, the body morphing to take on the appearance of Orochimaru.
Orochimaru stood on his new feet, stretching his arms as his slit-pupil eyes locked onto the lineup before him with immediate interest. His gaze drifted to Kakashi's spinning Rinnegan, causing him to still for a fraction of a second, before his focus snapped to Sasuke's own Rinnegan eye.
"Kukuku, what an interesting and unexpected surprise," Orochimaru chuckled, his raspy voice dripping with curiosity. "You clearly want something from me, Kakashi, or you wouldn't have gone through the trouble of bringing me back."
'Right to the point; this man is a survivor after all; he knows better than anyone when he's outmatched. Thank you, Nagato, for making him wary of the Rinnegan beforehand,' Kakashi thought to himself. He nodded calmly, letting his eyes morph back into the Mangekyō Sharingan.
The shift gave Orochimaru a sudden surprise. His pupils dilated as he leaned in slightly, his analytical mind completely derailed by the sight.
"You can turn them off?" Orochimaru asked, his voice sharp with newfound intrigue. He had been under the absolute impression that once those eyes manifested, they could never be deactivated.
"Yes, I can, and I can also reactivate them just as easily, but I need your help with something."
"And what's in it for me?"
Orochimaru tilted his head, always ready to get more than he gives up.
"For one, you get to stay alive. I can do this without you, but I'd be lying if I said it wouldn't be bothersome."
Kakashi watched his face twist into one of disinterest.
"I was ambushed by an army of 100,000, and the one responsible is involved with the Akatsuki. You were once a part of that organization; you know their goals, or at least you think you do. The one who truly leads the Akatsuki, the one who calls himself Madara, doesn't truly want world peace. If he gets his way, the world will be no more."
"And? Why should that concern me? I care nothing about the world."
"You would if you knew what this Madara planned on doing; even you wouldn't escape it."
Kakashi shook his head.
"Sasuke, explain to him the Uchiha stone tablet."
Sasuke explained the inscriptions detailing the Infinite Tsukuyomi, the ultimate genjutsu meant to trap the entire world in a dream to achieve perfect peace.
Orochimaru listened intently, his face morphing from casual amusement to dark calculation. The thought of a world locked inside an eternal illusion directly threatened everything he lived for.
"Kukuku... an eternal dream," Orochimaru spoke, his raspy voice dropping to a low, dangerous tone. "A world where no new knowledge can be found, no new jutsu can be created, and everyone is reduced to a mindless doll. How incredibly boring. If that happens, my quest to learn all the secrets of this world becomes completely meaningless."
Orochimaru looked at Kakashi with the interest of another intellectual. "You know me better than even my former teammates or sensei; you knew how I'd react." Orochimaru smiled, feeling more interested by the second. "Let's hear it."
"The Fourth Ninja War is coming; the hundred thousand that attacked me were mere foot soldiers, but they all had the strength of at least a Chunin. If they can afford to ambush me with such a force, then—."
"Then they likely have millions," Orochimaru finished, already knowing where Kakashi was going with this. "You want me to counteract this force with Reanimation, an undead army of the past versus millions. Fufufufu~. What decisiveness. I am curious how they managed to gather such a force."
Kakashi clearly heard the unasked question there. "A Wood-Style user. One who can use it to its full extent, and he even knows Sage Mode. Those things were white, and they all looked completely identical."
Orochimaru's eyes lit with instant recognition. "Zetsu."
'Good, now I can call them that,' Kakashi thought, tired of referring to them with plain terms. "Zetsu, then. They all seemed to have some resemblance to that Wood-Style user in terms of the feel of their chakra."
"Very interesting, and I'd be willing to contribute just for the fact that I refuse to be put in a 'perfect' dream."
Orochimaru spat the word 'perfect' as if it personally offended him.
"You have something that'd interest me."
Kakashi nodded, a small smirk playing on his lips. He had been waiting for the Sannin to become too intrigued to turn back, and it was time to drop the final bait.
"Immortality, at least- ageless immortality. I know how to achieve it. And my method doesn't come with the weaknesses that come with splitting yourself into unfit bodies that were never meant to carry a foreign soul."
Orochimaru froze entirely, his playful demeanor instantly vanishing. His slit pupils shrunk to tiny pinpricks as his focus locked onto Kakashi with a terrifying, predatory intensity. The casual mention of a perfect, flawless immortality without the degrading side effects of his own Living Corpse Reincarnation struck him right at his core. He didn't just want to listen anymore; he was completely hooked.
"You even know about the drawbacks of my own method."
Normally, the Sannin wouldn't be this quick to buy into someone else's claims, but Kakashi wasn't an Uchiha. Yet, he had just effortlessly displayed both a fully controllable Rinnegan and a dual Mangekyō Sharingan, feats that should be biologically impossible for an outsider. To a scientist like Orochimaru, such unprecedented ocular mastery could only be the result of supreme genetic engineering and scientific genius. If Kakashi had successfully unlocked the secrets of the Sage's eyes, then his claim of flawless immortality was undeniably real.
"Kukuku... very well," Orochimaru smiled, a dangerous, hungry glint in his eyes. "You have my full attention, Kakashi. Name your targets. Who exactly do you want me to bring back to fight this war?"
"Everyone.. Regardless of village or allegiance. Ninja from the past: Hokage, Kazekage, Tsuchikage, Mizukage, former ninja swordsman, B-rank, A-rank, and anyone else you can find."
Orochimaru blinked in surprise.
"You do know this will be frowned upon; are you not worried about that?"
The Sannin wasn't having a sudden change of heart; he was merely curious to see if Kakashi's resolve was genuinely absolute.
"I plan on making it up to every village in the end, but morality won't save us from millions of enemies on top of a Wood-Style user and 'Madara'," Kakashi replied with utmost conviction.
He knew exactly what the stakes were. He couldn't risk letting the enemy mastermind handle the Reanimation roster this time around, especially with millions of Zetsu foot soldiers backing them up. This entire strategy would have been significantly simpler if he could sense or locate Kabuto and seize his research. Still, the man had gone completely dark; not a single whisper or mention of his whereabouts had popped up anywhere in the underground networks. For now, Orochimaru was his only option.
"Fufufufu... pragmatic to the core," Orochimaru smiled, thoroughly enjoying the sheer lack of hesitation from the younger man. "Very well. If the Great Nations object, they can take it up with the dead. Who should we start with?"
"Hashirama, Tobirama, 3rd Raikage, 2nd Raikage if you can find him, 4th Kazekage, 2nd Tsuchikage, Hanzo, Sasori, just to name the ones off the top of my head."
Kakashi thought about Madara, but it was highly unlikely that'd work, and it'd just get Orochimaru killed, putting him back at square one.
"Then I'll be in contact with you."
Orochimaru regurgitated a scroll and started to hand it to Kakashi, watching the man take half a step back alongside his students.
"I put a Flying Raijin mark on your soul; I can just use that."
"On my soul?" Instead of being mortified or furious, Orochimaru was just more intrigued, his yellow eyes gleaming with professional fascination at a concept he hadn't even considered possible.
But before the Sannin could turn to leave, Kakashi gave him a final warning. "Don't try to contact Kabuto. I'm afraid he might be working with them, and he'd likely set you up. Try to stay off the radar. I know it'll be difficult, but I need your help, so don't hesitate to call on me. A simple pulse of chakra to the center of your chest will get my attention."
Orochimaru let out one last, low chuckle, inclined his head in a rare gesture of genuine respect, and sank backward directly into the ground, vanishing without leaving a trace behind.
Kakashi watched the displaced dirt settle, letting out a quiet breath as the woods fell silent once more. The pieces for the coming storm were finally starting to move.
"Let's go home."
Sasuke and Naruto nodded, grabbing a shoulder before they all vanished.
- Chapter End -
Posted at exacty 12:00am. Hope you enjoy.