Chapter 238 - Forbidden Art: Eight-Headed Serpent Technique
Ritsu stood atop the Wood Human's head and did not relax his vigilance for a single moment. The Rinnegan being in Kitsuchi's hands did not mean it was absolutely safe. Orochimaru had more tricks than could be easily counted, and Ritsu was not prepared to assume there were no further schemes in play.
So he kept his Byakugan open and sweeping continuously across everything within range.
Which was how he saw Minato's arrival and departure so clearly - and more than the visible state of his clothing, he could see how significantly Minato's chakra had been depleted. The kind of drain that meant an extremely high-intensity engagement had just taken place.
His heart sank.
Something had happened in the village.
Timing the events together, tonight was very likely the night of Kushina's delivery. He had already suspected Tatsuhata wouldn't pass up an opportunity like that. That suspicion now appeared to have been correct.
And Orochimaru's attack on Iwagakure tonight was probably not a coincidence either.
All of this was coordinated. Orochimaru and Tatsuhata had connected and were running parallel operations simultaneously.
What was surprising was that Tatsuhata apparently hadn't used this opportunity to attempt reclaiming the Rinnegan. Instead, Orochimaru had come for the Rinnegan while Tatsuhata seemed to have gone after Konoha directly. The evidence was Minato's condition - there were very few people in the current shinobi world capable of leaving the Fourth Hokage looking like that, and among those few, the only one with both the motive and the timing to strike Konoha right now was Tatsuhata.
"This is a problem."
Ritsu's brow pulled tight.
He was worried about his parents and his clan members in the village, and he couldn't stop his mind from running through what Tatsuhata's objective could actually be. What had he gone to Konoha to do? What was he after?
The possibilities churned through his head without resolving.
In truth, he couldn't figure it out. He didn't know Tatsuhata well enough. The man's character was largely opaque to him - the information the Uchiha clan had provided said only that Tatsuhata was highly independent and deeply devoted to his younger brother. In other words: a somewhat solitary person who couldn't stop thinking about his little sibling.
That didn't give Ritsu enough to extrapolate from.
"I really need to learn the Flying Thunder God at some point."
He muttered it half to himself.
Until now he had never prioritized it because Minato had always been there - a living personal teleportation service who could be called on when needed. It had never seemed necessary to develop that capability himself. He had focused entirely on strengthening his own foundations.
But moments like this one showed him exactly how helpless it felt to be separated from the situation by distance with no way to cross it instantly.
That was a problem for another time.
For now, what he could do was limited. He needed to end this fight with Orochimaru as quickly as possible. Whether or not he could actually kill him was secondary - the priority was terminating the engagement fast.
He settled his breathing on top of the Wood Human's head.
One moment of stillness.
Then he entered Sage Mode.
Purple markings bloomed around his eyes. A half-transparent coat of sage chakra spread across his body, the small snake-shaped constructs circling and weaving around him.
That visible transformation was not something Orochimaru could miss.
Orochimaru had never trained in Ryuchi Cave's sage techniques himself. But years ago, driven partly by competition with a certain someone, he had researched sage techniques deeply, and he was not unfamiliar with what Ryuchi Cave's system looked like. And now with the Sharingan's enhanced perception, his analytical clarity had gone up considerably.
He saw the natural energy absorption happening immediately.
"Sage techniques."
Orochimaru's eye twitched slightly.
He knew exactly how dangerous sage techniques were. Among himself, Jiraiya, and Tsunade, he excelled at infiltration, assassination, and self-preservation. Tsunade was unmatched in close-combat taijutsu and stood as the greatest medical ninja in the world. Jiraiya's strength was direct, overwhelming frontal assault - particularly when using sage techniques, he was willing to go toe-to-toe with jinchuriki and not flinch.
He had a very clear understanding of what sage techniques did to a fighter's offensive capability.
The moment he saw Ritsu enter Sage Mode, he pulled his alertness to its absolute maximum. His Wood Human's fighting style shifted immediately - he switched to a primarily defensive posture.
It wasn't enough.
Sage Art: Wind Release Chakra Mode.
A savage roar of wind swept across the nighttime sky above Iwagakure. Ritsu launched from the Wood Human's head, and his speed was genuinely like lightning - he crossed the distance between the two Wood Humans in an eyeblink and appeared in front of Orochimaru.
He had combined the Wind Release Chakra Mode with sage techniques.
The result was another sharp increase in movement speed. Everything had its costs - the extreme velocity placed enormous load on the body - but Ritsu's current physical constitution handled it without issue.
This particular technique was not actually the product of his Rinnegan research. It was more accurately a side discovery from the process of developing a different new technique - in strict terms there wasn't much innovation in it, just the integration of sage chakra into an existing framework with some adjustments. But being a side product didn't make it weak. With sage chakra added, the technique's power had risen sharply along with its speed.
This was also its first use in actual combat. Orochimaru's inability to respond in time was sufficient evidence of what it could do.
Ritsu's palm drove into Orochimaru's chest. Against a normal ninja, that impact would have detonated the heart. Orochimaru, however, was not a normal person - and classifying him as human at this point was arguably questionable.
So the strike that would have killed anyone else instead sent Orochimaru into another demonstration of his signature technique, his mouth splitting at the corners as he expelled a fresh body of himself, the new Orochimaru shooting clear with a serpentine lower half like an arrow loosed from a bow.
Honestly, Ritsu found himself thinking, compared to forbidden techniques like the Reanimation Jutsu and the Impure World Reincarnation, Orochimaru's Orochimaru Style Substitution might genuinely be the most impressive of all. No hand seals required, no preparation needed. Other than the Third Hokage's Dead Demon Consuming Seal, it had flawlessly neutralized everything - the Nine-Tails jinchuriki's Tailed Beast Ball, a Mangekyo's Amaterasu - all of it, and with no lingering consequences.
That was worth studying. He was watching Orochimaru's technique carefully, making a genuine effort to understand its structure.
The Orochimaru Style Substitution was absolutely a secret technique - it operated well beyond the level of standard jutsu, involving a highly sophisticated positive change transformation, which meant Ritsu's Yang Release capability was the only reason his Byakugan could even perceive a rough outline of what was happening. A normal Hyuga or Uchiha practitioner would see nothing at all. Even a Sharingan could only copy techniques involving the five basic elemental natures - jutsu that operated through Yin and Yang transformations existed outside the domain the Sharingan could capture.
Understanding the Orochimaru Style Substitution fully and making it his own was going to take substantial time and focus. The mechanism wasn't something that could be read at a glance. This was one of Orochimaru's proudest creations.
He had taught it to others before, but no one other than Orochimaru himself had ever executed it smoothly - for everyone else it consumed enormous chakra, nothing like the effortless ease with which Orochimaru deployed it.
But that research would have to wait.
Right now, the priority was either defeating or driving off Orochimaru. Everything else was secondary.
Ritsu pivoted on his heel, direction reversed, the shrieking wind announcing his movement. In the Sage Art enhanced Wind Release Chakra Mode, his speed wasn't just extreme - he could change direction a second and even a third time while airborne without losing it. He caught up easily with the serpentine Orochimaru whose lower half hadn't yet divided back into legs, and this time instead of using a body-targeted Gentle Fist strike, he aimed the Whirlwind Iron-Cutting Fist directly at Orochimaru's head. He wanted to see whether the Orochimaru Style Substitution could work when it was the head specifically that was being destroyed.
But the strike didn't connect with Orochimaru.
It connected, again, with the reanimated Senju Tobirama - who had been placed there to intercept it - and ground the Second Hokage into dispersed ash for the second time.
Orochimaru had placed a Flying Thunder God coordinate seal on the reanimated Tobirama's body, originally intending it as a retreat option for situations where the threat was too severe to withstand. Running now was possible in principle, but he had decided against it. He wasn't in the mood to run.
So the reanimated Second Hokage served as a shield instead, buying him the single moment he needed.
And with that moment -
Orochimaru unveiled the technique he had been saving.
The Wood Human had demonstrated its limits. More precisely, it had demonstrated its limits specifically against Ritsu - someone who possessed Wood Release himself. Their two constructs had fought to a standstill and given Ritsu an opening to close in for a direct attack. A beheading tactic.
But Orochimaru didn't shy away from beheading attempts.
He had noticed Minato's brief appearance and disappearance, just as Ritsu had. Combining that with Tatsuhata's movements, he had concluded without difficulty that Tatsuhata was creating a massive disturbance inside Konoha. Which meant Minato would be occupied there.
That put him in an interested frame of mind. He decided to keep dragging things out.
And beyond the calculation, something about the engagement had genuinely caught his attention. The level of ability Ritsu was showing had activated a certain competitive instinct. He wanted to go a few more serious rounds. He wasn't planning to fight to the death against Ritsu - that wasn't what this was. But going a few more rounds was fine.
So -
Forbidden Art: Eight-Headed Serpent Technique.
The serpentine Orochimaru underwent a violent transformation in midair. His body expanded like something being inflated - flesh swelling, physical structure crossing rapidly from human toward something far beyond it.
In the space of a heartbeat, a creature the size of a Tailed Beast had appeared.
Eight heads. Eight tails. Its entire body was snow-white. All eight heads were serpent heads with needle-like fangs, and every pair of eyes was a three-tomoe Sharingan - sixteen crimson eyes surveying the area simultaneously. Several dozen Rock ninja caught within that shared gaze were dragged helplessly into genjutsu.
When it materialized, the shockwave alone crushed more than ten surrounding buildings. Half a street was flattened in an instant.
This was one of Orochimaru's ultimate techniques - the forbidden art he had developed himself, the Eight-Headed Serpent Technique.
Its function was not complicated. It gave Orochimaru a physical form comparable to a Tailed Beast in raw durability. He had developed it before acquiring the Wood Release bloodline - it had originally been his answer to the challenge of fighting large-scale opponents like jinchuriki.
His purpose in using it now was not to counter Ritsu's Wood Human. It was to make himself substantially harder to damage. Sheer scale was a natural physical advantage - a Gentle Fist strike powerful enough to rupture a human heart, landing on a body this vast, would at most destroy one eye. And he currently had sixteen, plus extraordinary regenerative ability in this form.
The eight-headed serpent opened one of its mouths and spoke in Orochimaru's voice.
"Ritsu-kun, that technique of yours is genuinely fast enough to give me trouble reacting. So I've simply made myself harder to hurt. Now then - let's continue."
The Wood Human he controlled moved first, pressing its attack.
Wood Human against Wood Human - the two constructs continued their stalemate, trading blows without resolution. But now with the Eight-Headed Serpent active, Orochimaru could personally join a battle at this scale.
A thick tail swept around with enough force to tear the air itself, landing like a colossal whip crack.
Ritsu's Wood Human staggered. Wood fragments exploded outward in every direction.
He was at a disadvantage for the first time.
"This thing... it references the Akimichi clan's Multi-Size Technique..."
Ritsu shifted laterally through the air, returning to his Wood Human's head, and narrowed his eyes at the eight-headed creature. He could see the fingerprints of the Akimichi clan's Yang Release secret technique - the Multi-Size Technique - embedded in its structure.
His expression showed no panic despite being pushed back.
Genuinely, in this moment, some part of him felt that Orochimaru was a walking treasury of things worth studying. Every technique revealed another layer of something interesting. If he hadn't been worried about the situation back in Konoha, he could have happily spent more time on this particular fight.
But worry made that impossible.
"The size advantage is real, no question. But I'm not limited to Wood Release and the Dead Bone Pulse."
Ritsu murmured it quietly, almost to himself, while his Wood Human kept swaying under the continued assault.
When the words were done, he launched upward - abandoning the Wood Human beneath him entirely - a streak of blue-white lightning against the dark sky, driving straight toward the central head of the eight-headed creature. He drew back his fist and threw it at a skull large enough to swallow him whole.