Heirs to the Sannin - prologue
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:54 pmIt has been six months since Yondaime Hokage died fighting the demon fox Kyuubi no Yoko, and Orochimaru found himself sulking in his underground lab. Once again the position for Hokage has opened up and once again it was decided that someone else, other than himself, would fill that position. Orochimaru frowned as he looked over his scroll of techniques. He was going to need human bodies and some live humans to test his techniques on. Frowning his eyes focused on the cursed seal, an untested technique that he wanted to try but it would require live test subjects.
Pondering on where to get willing victims he debated modifying the seal to remove the control element. That element was the one that would most likely lead to death, he knew that if he had a Hyuuga body from a branch house member he could copy their seal, it would not be as good, but there were other ways to control minds that were superior and did not have the problem of killing potentially loyal subjects.
Hearing someone enter his lab uninvited he carefully drew a kunai and turned, not letting them see his weapon. He was mildly surprised to see the near cripple Danzo flanked by a pair of ANBU. Orochimaru laughed quietly to himself before addressing Danzo, “So what does the great and illustrious Danzo want with me? Hmm? And a pair of ANBU with you? For your protection or mine I do wonder?”
Danzo remained unaffected by Orochimaru’s mocking tone and harsh address despite the silky smooth voice with only a few hints of cracking in it belying his age. Passively he walked up to a table and almost seemed to look through it as he addressed the widely known snake summoner, “Konoha has been weakened by its recent trials Orochimaru-kun.” Orochimaru appeared annoyed by the address but remained silent as Danzo continued, “Even so it will endure for it is still strong. The soil it draws strength from is good and its roots are planted too well for the great tree to fall from something like this.”
Orochimaru smirked and countered, “Perhaps, but last I heard the old fool ordered the roots removed.”
Danzo looked at Orochimaru with his good eye, almost like he was looking through him and replied, “Sarutobi may be many things but fool he is not. No matter what you may believe he told me no such thing.”
The snake summoner looked confused, in truth he was, “I was there when he made the order.”
Danzo smiled slightly, “What order?”
Orochimaru was now annoyed and stated, “The ANBU root organization is to be disbanded immediately.”
Shaking his head the ‘former’ head of Root spoke, “Ever the genius but ever the fool, there never was an organization called ANBU root.” Orochimaru eyes widened as once more Danzo continued, “We are the Root of Konoha, we only work in ANBU for convience.”
Orochimaru smirked and laughed, “So what does the great root want with me?”
Danzo’s face turned serious and stated simply, “We want an arrangement, an alliance.”
Orochimaru raised an eye brow, “For a moment I thought you would ask me to join.”
Danzo shook his head, “I do not trust you that much Orochimaru-kun, but Konoha does need people who understand that some strength cannot be gained through friendship alone. Konoha needs people to follow the darker path, to help us gain needed strength in these dark times. The stronger the tree, the stronger the Roots must be, and they need to be unseen, and supported by strong earth, else the tree will fall. All Hokage knew this, from the First to the Fourth, all recognized this need. However, if you are not careful you may become visible and it is then that the Hokage will need to do something.
Orochimaru was interested but he schooled his face, “So what do you want of me?”
Danzo replied, “For now nothing, but remember I may have need later. Just do not make Sarutobi aware of what you do. And if you need certain resources come to me rather then get them yourself.” With that he dropped a scroll on the table he was next to.
As the old man went to leave the scientist shinobi asked a final question, “Why come to me now with this.”
Without turning the head of Root replied, “We both know that answer to that question.” And with that he and the two ANBU guard left.
Curious as to the scroll he picked it up and took it to a clear lab table examining it. It contained information on a specific seal as well as several objects in storage, “Perhaps staying in Konoha will not be so bad.” He went over to the other table and gathered supplies to help in his study the contents of the scroll. As he returned he looked upon the scroll outlining the caged bird seal and momentarily wondered how Danzo got his hands on it. He released the seal and three bodies appeared, smiling he continued his last line of thought, “Not bad at all.”
---
A few years later Orochimaru was sitting in on a meeting, it seemed that everyone important in Konoha was here, including his former teammates. The recently appointed head of the Hyuuga clan was currently yelling himself horse over his daughter’s attempted kidnapping. As yet they did not tell the surviving members of that ninja’s delegation. After listening to the senseless prattle he spoke up, “Why not just kill them all and be done with it?”
The Sandaime frowned, “That is not how we do things Orochimaru, I know I taught you better than that.”
Sneering he retorted, “You taught me to protect Konoha, have you not? If we let them go regardless what they know it will lead to war. But if we kill them now and accuse them of some form of theft, then we look like the victims, it may increase tensions but if we say they escaped alive Kumogakure will have no reason to demand anything from us, and in order to save face will have to try for the treaty again. We can also use this as an excuse to make the signing on neutral ground and demand the ninja they sent be added to their bingo book as traitors, leaving us innocent”
Tsunade frowned, “I don’t like this idea, its risky, we still have to deal with the possibility of them accusing us of this, they might have known this could happen and plan for it.” She also knew of the moral issues but kept her peace on that since she was active in the last war. She was still mad at the Hokage for not letting her leave, and she suspected Jiraiya was behind it, but she would do her duty and keep her teammate’s ambitious plans in check.
Jiraiya took that moment to speak up from the wall he was leaning against, “Actually I agree with Orochimaru, if they accuse us without saying why we would have reason to kill anyone while we deny it then they will look stupid as we are generally not known for baseless aggression, if they admit to what they really tried to do then their allies would trust them less since they would have an ambassador under the flag of peace try something so underhanded.” He paused for a moment then added, “Not to mention the loss of business that being publically shown to be incompetent and unable to complete an important mission.”
Sighing and feeling his years, the Sandaime looked to his rival, Danzo, “I am surprised you are not saying anything here.”
Without moving more than needed he turned to address the statement, “I have nothing to add, your own students are saying what I would.”
Thnking for a moment before making his decision Sarutobi then announced, “We will do it, we will send a message to Kumogakure and tell them that the people who arrived as ambassadors stole an important scroll and escaped. We will demand the head of the leader and the scroll returned. When they accuse us of wrong doing we will simply deny it and act offended. With what occurred, the next treaty will be signed in neutral territory and if they don’t like it…” After a short pause he concluded, “we know what they intend to do.”
With that said he turned to the head of Torture and Interrogation and nodded, soon all would be as it needed, the Hyuuga were pleased with this action, however he noted the Uchiha were slightly put out. He would need to see Jiraiya about preparing a mass seal for the clan, if it was civil war they wanted he would show them what the will of fire really meant. He just wished it didn’t have to be this way.
---
Twelve years after the Yondaime lost his life a white haired man stood on a roof watching the chaos below him. Frowning at the display then laughing at something he didn’t expect he could only shake his head. He was watching as Naruto again evaded chunin pursuers and could not help but find amusement in the fact one chunin ran through a slightly ajar door only to have an open paint can fall on his head, a paint can that was full of itching powder laced red paint. Finally the chase came to an end as Iruka finally caught up with the energetic youngster and dragged him back to the academy. Shaking his head he turned to look at one of the two ANBU behind him, “And they call him an idiot. I wish the Academy produced more Idiots like him back in my time.”
The ANBU with a dog face shook his head, “From stories I heard they did produce at least one Jiraiya-sama”
Looking back at the dog faced ANBU he grinned, “Flattery will not get you a special edition copy dog.” After a moment of silence watching Dog as he probably was pouting, he spoke up suddenly, “No wait, I lied.” With that he tossed the dog faced ANBU a book which he took almost no time to start reading his new precious possession.
The other ANBU, this one female, shook her head in either disgrace, or disgust, “A book like that will not distract me Jiraiya-sama… Jiraiya-sama?” She cursed and looked around only to note he was nowhere in sight.
The Toad Sage smiled as his escort took off, and then frowned, “The ANBU need better training in tracking, all I did was move to the side of the building and under the overhanging roof. I expected better of them.” He turned back towards the chunin who just noticed the itching powder additive and decided to look into training Naruto, he hadn’t seen such potential since his father and decided to see if he can bring it out, it was his duty as godfather after all. He then decided that could wait, “Time for some research.” With a grin he took off towards the bath house.
---
While her former teammates were enjoying themselves, Tsunade was not, rather she was having a bit of an argument with her former sensei, “I still say that each team should have a medical nin.”
Sighing the third Hokage looked upon his former student, “We have been over this before, and to be honest I do agree the theory is sound.” Tsunade smiled but frowned when he continued after picking up a hand full of papers, “However, each team should have a genjutsu specialist,” he placed a paper down, “A sealing specialist,” another paper, “an infiltration specialist,” again another paper, “a tracking specialist,” another paper, “the list goes on. “ he placed all the papers down and continued, “The ultimate truth is that by the time they graduate the academy and become Genin they are taught the basics of everything, and it is up to them to choose their path, and few go the way of medical ninjutsu. So few in fact that most never get fielded. The problem is so great that half of our medical staff are academy drop outs and are actually not actually ninja. We treat them as ninja but they are not ranked. We just do not have the numbers of genin who have the ability or potential.”
Tsunade sighed, this was an old argument, “We could train them more in the medicinal arts in the academy. Medical ninja specialists do save lives.”
The Hokage sighed, “Not always. There is the incident with Minato’s team.”
Tsunade winced, that was a low blow but she admitted a valid one. If Rin was more aware of her surroundings or had been trained more in taijutsu then she might not have been captured and the Uchiha would not be whining now about the loss of one of their clan, not to mention Hatake.
Sarutobi continued, “I know that is the exception, but most young ninja with medical skill do not have your taijutsu potential and it leaves them as a liability on the battlefield, its only after the battle when our side wins that medical nin truly shine. That is why it is not encouraged as much. Of course there are other problems with why, take the recent class that just started, out of the entire class of fifteen shinobi, three are projected to fail as they have poor chakra ability, and likely will prove insufficient to become shinobi. This leaves twelve; given the usual pass/fail ratio most likely three to six from this class will not pass their sensei’s tests. Also out of these twelve only three are not from major Konoha clans, and one of them is Minato’s son, and I am sure you are familiar with him. Because none of these children’s clans specialize in medical ninjutsu this leaves only two children that come from non clans who would have the time to learn it without it being used by their clans to refine their art.”
Tsunade frowned, “And you are going to tell me that these two that are left are not suited to medical ninja.”
Frowning the Hokage answered, “Perhaps the girl, but the boy is too self centered and will probably be an assault ninjutsu type given his current style. But it is still far too soon to know. They are still young and that could change. But even if both become medical ninja the odds on them both being on the teams that pass are slim, after all there is only an average of two teams passing each year and an average of four to five teams made plus the teams left over from previous years. And in order to ensure we have one medical ninja on each team we would need to train five of these kids in medical ninjutsu and we would need to override some clan styles.” He took a deep breath and continued, “There is also the problem of who to train them,” he smirked as her eyes narrowed, “After all we only have one medical ninja we can spare but she has refused every request we made for her to teach.”
Closing her eyes she was once again reminded of the problem that she was part of, “I will think about it.”
Smiling he answered, “That is all I ask.”
---
Three months later the Sannin found themselves in a bar sharing a drink. All three sat in companionable silence, although Jiraiya had to try hard and ignore the glares a few random Uchiha sent him. None spoke after ordering a drink for several minutes, but when Jiraiya spoke he said something that would change the fate of Konoha, “I have taken an apprentice.”
Tsunade raised an eyebrow, “Really now?”
Jiraiya nodded, “I had to use some favors but it should work out, not too many on the council were happy with my choice. But considering everything they really had no choice.”
Orochimaru ventured a guess, “Naruto then.”
Jiraiya drank some sake and nodded, “You were always the smart one,” he snorted at that, “He failed a third time to pass the test which actually helped.”
“Really?” Asked the slug princess, “And how might that help.”
“Simple my dear, if he failed he is a civilian, and it’s easier to get approval to train a civilian then another ninja that might already have a sensei, after all the council can only order ninjas, and only when the Hokage is otherwise unable to. He gave me the not, and I get to flip off the council. Besides, they are only suppose to be emergency power, Sensei relies on them too much these days.”
Interrupting Orochimaru tried to get more information, “Why would you want a failure ninja again?”
“Simple, the problem is the fact he has too much Chakra, the academy is use to teaching people with academy levels maybe Chuunin on occasion, not someone with Kage level.”
Frowning Tsunade asked, “Should you say that in public?”
Jiraiya pointed at the painting behind him, “Silence ward, donated it to this bar myself.”
Orochimaru smirked and filed that tidbit away for later use before asking, “So how do you keep it from being misused?”
Shrugging he replied, “Come now Orochimaru you know enough about seals to be able to activate them by presence alone.”
Tsunade tried to get the escalating argument on track before it was too late, “I also was looking into taking an apprentice, but have not decided yet.”
Orochimaru glanced quickly and subtly at the Uchiha in the room before grinning, “Then let’s make it a three all.”
The Toad Sanin raised an eyebrow, “a new Densetsu no Sannin?”
Sighing Tsunade nodded, “Fine… You realized I flipped a coin to decide on coming.”
The white haired man before her grinned and added, “Bet you followed up by saying ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’”
Silence was his only answer so his gin widened.
Pondering on where to get willing victims he debated modifying the seal to remove the control element. That element was the one that would most likely lead to death, he knew that if he had a Hyuuga body from a branch house member he could copy their seal, it would not be as good, but there were other ways to control minds that were superior and did not have the problem of killing potentially loyal subjects.
Hearing someone enter his lab uninvited he carefully drew a kunai and turned, not letting them see his weapon. He was mildly surprised to see the near cripple Danzo flanked by a pair of ANBU. Orochimaru laughed quietly to himself before addressing Danzo, “So what does the great and illustrious Danzo want with me? Hmm? And a pair of ANBU with you? For your protection or mine I do wonder?”
Danzo remained unaffected by Orochimaru’s mocking tone and harsh address despite the silky smooth voice with only a few hints of cracking in it belying his age. Passively he walked up to a table and almost seemed to look through it as he addressed the widely known snake summoner, “Konoha has been weakened by its recent trials Orochimaru-kun.” Orochimaru appeared annoyed by the address but remained silent as Danzo continued, “Even so it will endure for it is still strong. The soil it draws strength from is good and its roots are planted too well for the great tree to fall from something like this.”
Orochimaru smirked and countered, “Perhaps, but last I heard the old fool ordered the roots removed.”
Danzo looked at Orochimaru with his good eye, almost like he was looking through him and replied, “Sarutobi may be many things but fool he is not. No matter what you may believe he told me no such thing.”
The snake summoner looked confused, in truth he was, “I was there when he made the order.”
Danzo smiled slightly, “What order?”
Orochimaru was now annoyed and stated, “The ANBU root organization is to be disbanded immediately.”
Shaking his head the ‘former’ head of Root spoke, “Ever the genius but ever the fool, there never was an organization called ANBU root.” Orochimaru eyes widened as once more Danzo continued, “We are the Root of Konoha, we only work in ANBU for convience.”
Orochimaru smirked and laughed, “So what does the great root want with me?”
Danzo’s face turned serious and stated simply, “We want an arrangement, an alliance.”
Orochimaru raised an eye brow, “For a moment I thought you would ask me to join.”
Danzo shook his head, “I do not trust you that much Orochimaru-kun, but Konoha does need people who understand that some strength cannot be gained through friendship alone. Konoha needs people to follow the darker path, to help us gain needed strength in these dark times. The stronger the tree, the stronger the Roots must be, and they need to be unseen, and supported by strong earth, else the tree will fall. All Hokage knew this, from the First to the Fourth, all recognized this need. However, if you are not careful you may become visible and it is then that the Hokage will need to do something.
Orochimaru was interested but he schooled his face, “So what do you want of me?”
Danzo replied, “For now nothing, but remember I may have need later. Just do not make Sarutobi aware of what you do. And if you need certain resources come to me rather then get them yourself.” With that he dropped a scroll on the table he was next to.
As the old man went to leave the scientist shinobi asked a final question, “Why come to me now with this.”
Without turning the head of Root replied, “We both know that answer to that question.” And with that he and the two ANBU guard left.
Curious as to the scroll he picked it up and took it to a clear lab table examining it. It contained information on a specific seal as well as several objects in storage, “Perhaps staying in Konoha will not be so bad.” He went over to the other table and gathered supplies to help in his study the contents of the scroll. As he returned he looked upon the scroll outlining the caged bird seal and momentarily wondered how Danzo got his hands on it. He released the seal and three bodies appeared, smiling he continued his last line of thought, “Not bad at all.”
---
A few years later Orochimaru was sitting in on a meeting, it seemed that everyone important in Konoha was here, including his former teammates. The recently appointed head of the Hyuuga clan was currently yelling himself horse over his daughter’s attempted kidnapping. As yet they did not tell the surviving members of that ninja’s delegation. After listening to the senseless prattle he spoke up, “Why not just kill them all and be done with it?”
The Sandaime frowned, “That is not how we do things Orochimaru, I know I taught you better than that.”
Sneering he retorted, “You taught me to protect Konoha, have you not? If we let them go regardless what they know it will lead to war. But if we kill them now and accuse them of some form of theft, then we look like the victims, it may increase tensions but if we say they escaped alive Kumogakure will have no reason to demand anything from us, and in order to save face will have to try for the treaty again. We can also use this as an excuse to make the signing on neutral ground and demand the ninja they sent be added to their bingo book as traitors, leaving us innocent”
Tsunade frowned, “I don’t like this idea, its risky, we still have to deal with the possibility of them accusing us of this, they might have known this could happen and plan for it.” She also knew of the moral issues but kept her peace on that since she was active in the last war. She was still mad at the Hokage for not letting her leave, and she suspected Jiraiya was behind it, but she would do her duty and keep her teammate’s ambitious plans in check.
Jiraiya took that moment to speak up from the wall he was leaning against, “Actually I agree with Orochimaru, if they accuse us without saying why we would have reason to kill anyone while we deny it then they will look stupid as we are generally not known for baseless aggression, if they admit to what they really tried to do then their allies would trust them less since they would have an ambassador under the flag of peace try something so underhanded.” He paused for a moment then added, “Not to mention the loss of business that being publically shown to be incompetent and unable to complete an important mission.”
Sighing and feeling his years, the Sandaime looked to his rival, Danzo, “I am surprised you are not saying anything here.”
Without moving more than needed he turned to address the statement, “I have nothing to add, your own students are saying what I would.”
Thnking for a moment before making his decision Sarutobi then announced, “We will do it, we will send a message to Kumogakure and tell them that the people who arrived as ambassadors stole an important scroll and escaped. We will demand the head of the leader and the scroll returned. When they accuse us of wrong doing we will simply deny it and act offended. With what occurred, the next treaty will be signed in neutral territory and if they don’t like it…” After a short pause he concluded, “we know what they intend to do.”
With that said he turned to the head of Torture and Interrogation and nodded, soon all would be as it needed, the Hyuuga were pleased with this action, however he noted the Uchiha were slightly put out. He would need to see Jiraiya about preparing a mass seal for the clan, if it was civil war they wanted he would show them what the will of fire really meant. He just wished it didn’t have to be this way.
---
Twelve years after the Yondaime lost his life a white haired man stood on a roof watching the chaos below him. Frowning at the display then laughing at something he didn’t expect he could only shake his head. He was watching as Naruto again evaded chunin pursuers and could not help but find amusement in the fact one chunin ran through a slightly ajar door only to have an open paint can fall on his head, a paint can that was full of itching powder laced red paint. Finally the chase came to an end as Iruka finally caught up with the energetic youngster and dragged him back to the academy. Shaking his head he turned to look at one of the two ANBU behind him, “And they call him an idiot. I wish the Academy produced more Idiots like him back in my time.”
The ANBU with a dog face shook his head, “From stories I heard they did produce at least one Jiraiya-sama”
Looking back at the dog faced ANBU he grinned, “Flattery will not get you a special edition copy dog.” After a moment of silence watching Dog as he probably was pouting, he spoke up suddenly, “No wait, I lied.” With that he tossed the dog faced ANBU a book which he took almost no time to start reading his new precious possession.
The other ANBU, this one female, shook her head in either disgrace, or disgust, “A book like that will not distract me Jiraiya-sama… Jiraiya-sama?” She cursed and looked around only to note he was nowhere in sight.
The Toad Sage smiled as his escort took off, and then frowned, “The ANBU need better training in tracking, all I did was move to the side of the building and under the overhanging roof. I expected better of them.” He turned back towards the chunin who just noticed the itching powder additive and decided to look into training Naruto, he hadn’t seen such potential since his father and decided to see if he can bring it out, it was his duty as godfather after all. He then decided that could wait, “Time for some research.” With a grin he took off towards the bath house.
---
While her former teammates were enjoying themselves, Tsunade was not, rather she was having a bit of an argument with her former sensei, “I still say that each team should have a medical nin.”
Sighing the third Hokage looked upon his former student, “We have been over this before, and to be honest I do agree the theory is sound.” Tsunade smiled but frowned when he continued after picking up a hand full of papers, “However, each team should have a genjutsu specialist,” he placed a paper down, “A sealing specialist,” another paper, “an infiltration specialist,” again another paper, “a tracking specialist,” another paper, “the list goes on. “ he placed all the papers down and continued, “The ultimate truth is that by the time they graduate the academy and become Genin they are taught the basics of everything, and it is up to them to choose their path, and few go the way of medical ninjutsu. So few in fact that most never get fielded. The problem is so great that half of our medical staff are academy drop outs and are actually not actually ninja. We treat them as ninja but they are not ranked. We just do not have the numbers of genin who have the ability or potential.”
Tsunade sighed, this was an old argument, “We could train them more in the medicinal arts in the academy. Medical ninja specialists do save lives.”
The Hokage sighed, “Not always. There is the incident with Minato’s team.”
Tsunade winced, that was a low blow but she admitted a valid one. If Rin was more aware of her surroundings or had been trained more in taijutsu then she might not have been captured and the Uchiha would not be whining now about the loss of one of their clan, not to mention Hatake.
Sarutobi continued, “I know that is the exception, but most young ninja with medical skill do not have your taijutsu potential and it leaves them as a liability on the battlefield, its only after the battle when our side wins that medical nin truly shine. That is why it is not encouraged as much. Of course there are other problems with why, take the recent class that just started, out of the entire class of fifteen shinobi, three are projected to fail as they have poor chakra ability, and likely will prove insufficient to become shinobi. This leaves twelve; given the usual pass/fail ratio most likely three to six from this class will not pass their sensei’s tests. Also out of these twelve only three are not from major Konoha clans, and one of them is Minato’s son, and I am sure you are familiar with him. Because none of these children’s clans specialize in medical ninjutsu this leaves only two children that come from non clans who would have the time to learn it without it being used by their clans to refine their art.”
Tsunade frowned, “And you are going to tell me that these two that are left are not suited to medical ninja.”
Frowning the Hokage answered, “Perhaps the girl, but the boy is too self centered and will probably be an assault ninjutsu type given his current style. But it is still far too soon to know. They are still young and that could change. But even if both become medical ninja the odds on them both being on the teams that pass are slim, after all there is only an average of two teams passing each year and an average of four to five teams made plus the teams left over from previous years. And in order to ensure we have one medical ninja on each team we would need to train five of these kids in medical ninjutsu and we would need to override some clan styles.” He took a deep breath and continued, “There is also the problem of who to train them,” he smirked as her eyes narrowed, “After all we only have one medical ninja we can spare but she has refused every request we made for her to teach.”
Closing her eyes she was once again reminded of the problem that she was part of, “I will think about it.”
Smiling he answered, “That is all I ask.”
---
Three months later the Sannin found themselves in a bar sharing a drink. All three sat in companionable silence, although Jiraiya had to try hard and ignore the glares a few random Uchiha sent him. None spoke after ordering a drink for several minutes, but when Jiraiya spoke he said something that would change the fate of Konoha, “I have taken an apprentice.”
Tsunade raised an eyebrow, “Really now?”
Jiraiya nodded, “I had to use some favors but it should work out, not too many on the council were happy with my choice. But considering everything they really had no choice.”
Orochimaru ventured a guess, “Naruto then.”
Jiraiya drank some sake and nodded, “You were always the smart one,” he snorted at that, “He failed a third time to pass the test which actually helped.”
“Really?” Asked the slug princess, “And how might that help.”
“Simple my dear, if he failed he is a civilian, and it’s easier to get approval to train a civilian then another ninja that might already have a sensei, after all the council can only order ninjas, and only when the Hokage is otherwise unable to. He gave me the not, and I get to flip off the council. Besides, they are only suppose to be emergency power, Sensei relies on them too much these days.”
Interrupting Orochimaru tried to get more information, “Why would you want a failure ninja again?”
“Simple, the problem is the fact he has too much Chakra, the academy is use to teaching people with academy levels maybe Chuunin on occasion, not someone with Kage level.”
Frowning Tsunade asked, “Should you say that in public?”
Jiraiya pointed at the painting behind him, “Silence ward, donated it to this bar myself.”
Orochimaru smirked and filed that tidbit away for later use before asking, “So how do you keep it from being misused?”
Shrugging he replied, “Come now Orochimaru you know enough about seals to be able to activate them by presence alone.”
Tsunade tried to get the escalating argument on track before it was too late, “I also was looking into taking an apprentice, but have not decided yet.”
Orochimaru glanced quickly and subtly at the Uchiha in the room before grinning, “Then let’s make it a three all.”
The Toad Sanin raised an eyebrow, “a new Densetsu no Sannin?”
Sighing Tsunade nodded, “Fine… You realized I flipped a coin to decide on coming.”
The white haired man before her grinned and added, “Bet you followed up by saying ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’”
Silence was his only answer so his gin widened.