The night had been hectic, as expected. Ne's people slept without any issues all night while Sasuke and she devoted themselves to setting a series of hidden traps on both sides of the bridge. In addition, she altered all the photographs and most of the profile information so that no ninja from Konoha could be recognized. The last thing they did before going to sleep for a couple of hours was enchant the papers to prevent the fraud from being discovered and place a genjutsu linked to a bomb, which would activate once the illusion was dispelled.
The next day, Seina yawned as she drank a coffee to wake herself up. Sasuke, beside her, looked like a zombie staring into nothingness, as he did every morning. Ironically, the only ones who were more than ready and well rested were Mizunoto and Kinoto.
"I should have gotten up for my guard shift," Kinoto said when he saw them resting quietly on top of a log.
"I'll collect later when we get back to Konoha," she replied evasively. "Either way, today we'll set the traps we talked about and investigate the perimeter. The meeting with the spy is tomorrow at 10:00 AM, so we have time to carry out all kinds of terrain reconnaissance. Mizunoto, Sasuke, and you will handle the eastern side of the bridge."
The rest of the day passed more or less quickly. Seina made sure to separate the Ne pair to keep both of them under control. She also assigned herself to the western side, since the spy was supposedly coming from that direction. One way or another, the entire perimeter surrounding the bridge would be watched by her magical creatures, which she had already deployed the night before. On the other hand, she had created a couple of clones to pose as Tobi and Zetsu to "attack" and distract them, clones that were under an enchantment and genjutsu on the eastern side of the bridge. If Ne's people were even moderately smart, they would know to use that moment to hand the package to the spy while their attackers drew Sasuke and her away from the bridge.
Once the package had been delivered, they would leave the clones under an enchantment, waiting for the next phase of the plan, and return to the rendezvous point using Hiraishin. The spy, according to their calculations, would flee upon seeing the fight, but if everything went as expected, her creatures would be able to follow him and capture him before he got too far. Sasuke and she would capture the spy while the fake Akatsuki distracted Mizunoto and Kinoto instead.
It was a plan that depended on so many variables, something she hated, that it made her nervous. It was essential that Ne's people didn't realize they had been discovered, but it was also crucial that the information be destroyed to avoid loose ends. Not to mention the original, though no longer primary, objective of the mission: capturing the spy alive.
In any case, they had planned and prepared the terrain as much as possible. All that was left was to wait.
"Do you think it'll work?" Sasuke asked seriously from the other side of the bridge.
"I don't know."
They waited for a long time in silence, senses on high alert to avoid any ambush. Her clone, covered by a black cloak with a wide hood, would sound exactly like Sasori inside his puppet. Without a doubt, that was the voice the spy would recognize, since according to Kakashi's information, Sasori hadn't used his own body outside his puppet for years. Seina doubted he would be careless enough to show himself to a supposed spy.
Suddenly, while she was thinking about the mission, she saw someone appear within the line of sight of one of her creatures. He wore a hooded robe as well, but grayish white. She couldn't see his face, not even his shoes, but from his build and the shape of his back she tentatively deduced that he was a man. He walked calmly, as if he had all the time in the world, using the shadows to remain unnoticed. Soon he entered her auditory range and a few minutes later appeared in full view of everyone.
Her clone stepped out from behind a tree where she had hidden him and walked at the same pace as the spy until they reached the middle of the bridge. Then the bastard pulled back his hood, revealing his face. It was Kabuto. She felt Sasuke's surprise resonate with her own, but while Kabuto meant little to Sasuke aside from working with the person who had tried to kidnap him, Seina had unfinished business with that asshole. The same idiot who had tried to kill her twin brother years ago.
"Easy… sooner or later we'll give that little rat what he deserves," Kurama purred maliciously.
"Better sooner rather than later," she hissed before taking a deep breath. She needed to focus on her mission.
Thanks to the tiny spider in her clone, she could see everything as if she were experiencing the meeting firsthand, so she kept one eye on the spy and the other on the surroundings, but it seemed he had come alone.
"Sasori… it's the first time I've seen you outside your puppet," Kabuto said, trying to glimpse Sasori beneath the cloak.
"Hmph… do you think I'm an idiot?" her clone asked cynically, his voice disguised. "Mind your own business, Kabuto, and the matter that concerns us."
"Right, I suppose. I'm still a bit disoriented since your jutsu was dispelled and I started remembering who I was."
"I have a few questions," her clone cut in, just as arrogant as Sasori.
"Then you'll have to make them quick. I'm risking my life coming here."
"Orochimaru's bases, how many there are and where they're located."
"There are several active bases, despite Konoha's efforts to destroy them," Kabuto murmured. "Orochimaru is smart, so he changes bases weekly. Most of them are in the Land of Sound, but there are also a few in other countries, maintained by Orochimaru's spies for when he needs them."
"And where is he now?"
"…Right now, he's in a base located on a northern lake. In about three days he'll move again."
Seina didn't hear the sound, but she saw Orochimaru appear out of nowhere behind a tree. She couldn't tell how he did it, but judging by the snake slithering at his feet, which she could see thanks to her spy bee, she deduced it had something to do with that. Kabuto froze abruptly, as if he had sensed him too, and threw a kunai in his direction. Cleverly, Orochimaru used a rabbit to cover his trail.
"Are you seeing this?" she asked Sasuke, noticing him nod. "He ended up coming."
"He must not trust Kabuto, or Kabuto is a double agent."
"Looks more like the second."
Her clone kept talking to Kabuto, who now seemed more nervous, as if fearing for his life. Seina glanced at Kinoto, who appeared completely focused on Kabuto, and knew she would have to initiate the second phase of the plan before Orochimaru could reveal himself.
"Ready?"
"Yes."
She gave the signal to her disguised clones using her magical summons and detonated one of the traps that Kinoto and Mizunoto didn't know had been set. Seina watched all five fronts with a slight headache. Ne's people seemed mildly surprised by the presence of Tobi and Zetsu, while Orochimaru was now watching the scene intently, hidden among the branches of a tree instead of lying on the ground with his snake. It seemed he didn't want to draw attention from his former comrades.
The most interesting reaction was undoubtedly Kabuto's. It was clear he hadn't expected the attack from the new "Akatsuki." He looked genuinely shocked.
"Well, well… Sasori hasn't been a good boy, has he?" said her clone disguised as Tobi in his irritating voice.
"I told you he was plotting something."
"This wasn't part of our agreement!" Kabuto exclaimed, drawing a kunai and channelling chakra through his free hand several meters away from where the bomb had exploded.
"Kabuto is my spy in Orochimaru's base," the fake Sasori said exasperatedly, ignoring him. "It wouldn't be a bad thing for one of us to know what that traitor is doing behind our backs."
"It's already too late. About four little rats have been spying on you from the beginning," White Zetsu laughed, then sang cheerfully, "Come out, little rats, come out!"
Seina gave the signal and everyone emerged from their hiding places. The traps were working exactly as planned: Kabuto was separated from Sasori and wounded by an explosive talisman. Coughing, Kabuto deactivated his chakra scalpel and turned around. Without saying another word, he left Sasori behind to escape from Akatsuki, who were now trying to capture him.
"We need him alive!" she shouted while her entire team tried to restrain their disguised clones, giving Kabuto the perfect opportunity to escape.
Sasuke played his role well, using the techniques and strategies they had practiced so many times so their clones would know how to avoid being accidentally dispelled. She caught a glimpse, suppressing a smile, of Mizunoto creating a clone that slipped away through the trees with a backpack full of fake reports. Even so, the idea had been to get Ne's members out of the way so they could stop the fight and follow Kabuto. First point of the plan that went wrong.
"We need to get rid of those two temporarily," she commented to Sasuke.
"I'll detonate trap seventeen."
"Done."
One of the secret traps was triggered, launching a conductive chakra metal net. Sasuke used a wide-range genjutsu to capture them all, with the unfortunate "luck" that Mizunoto was caught in the net, unable to avoid it. The pre-charged electrical chakra rendered him unconscious within seconds. Kinoto, however, managed to avoid it without batting an eye; he did not even look at his companion's body lying on the bridge floor.
Seina stomped lightly on the bridge with a chakra-charged heel, making it shake just as another fuinjutsu trap was activated by Sasuke. Kinoto dodged several kicks from one of her clones, followed by an almost precise stab that forced him to retreat into the previously prepared fuinjutsu circle, knocking him unconscious instantly. As soon as he collapsed, Seina grabbed him before jumping into the forest, followed by Sasuke and Mizunoto's body. They left them hidden just in case, accompanied by one of her undisguised clones. She doubted they would wake up for hours, but if they did, they would surely wonder why they were left unprotected in the middle of a mission.
Their Akatsuki-disguised clones hid, waiting for the third part of the plan, while Sasuke and she used hiraishin on the creature she had planted inside Kinoto's backpack.
"What the hell?!" Kabuto shouted when he saw them appear right above him.
He dropped the backpack as if it were infected, more focused on defending himself than keeping his loot close. Orochimaru, a few meters away, turned around instantly. His eyes widened with growing fervour when he saw Sasuke only three meters away.
"I see you left your companions behind," Orochimaru said from atop a tree, wearing a somewhat macabre smile. "Interesting."
"Our mission is to capture the spy," she replied as if commenting on the weather. Then she looked at Kabuto. "But you're not really an Akatsuki spy, are you?"
Kabuto smiled faintly, a trace of arrogance that angered her, and opened his mouth to reply. Sasuke cut him off before he could say anything, with his usual cold bluntness, which many mistook for arrogance but which Seina knew stemmed from impatience.
"It doesn't matter what he is. We came to capture him. We're not letting you walk away just like that. Orochimaru can go to hell."
Kabuto lost his smug expression, clearly irritated by Sasuke. It was obvious he had realized that to Sasuke, he was just a mission. Sasuke didn't care about Kabuto or Orochimaru in the slightest, and for people as arrogant as them, that had to sting. Orochimaru stopped smiling, licking his lips like a psychopath as he stared at Sasuke. He was clearly plotting something.
"You have very poor manners, Sasuke-kun," the sannin hissed, "but what can one expect from someone who grew up with a pair of outcast orphans, a lunatic jōnin as a teacher, and under the shadow of a traitor and family murderer like Itachi Uchiha?"
"Mmm…" Sasuke murmured, unaffected by anything he was hearing. He looked at Orochimaru indifferently. "I suppose you understand traitors very well, after all."
Despite his intelligence, Orochimaru seemed offended. A dozen snakes burst from his arm toward Sasuke, attacking him head-on. It was unclear whether he meant to kill him or claim his body. Even so, Sasuke's evolved eyes allowed him to evade every attack while severing all the snakes' heads with a chidori spear in his hand. Kabuto tried to attack her to even the fight, unaware of the discreet adamantine chain she had been burying into the ground.
"AGH!" he screamed as the chain pierced through his back.
Orochimaru paused his fight with Sasuke for a second to glance at his right-hand man. He raised another arm, releasing a single snake that coiled around Kabuto, clearly to drag him away from her. Before they could cut the new snake, Kabuto was reverse-summoned, to Sasuke's and Seina's surprise. Orochimaru used the feint to launch himself at her, mouth wide open. With some disgust, she saw that at the same time, the tip of a sword began emerging from deep within Orochimaru, aimed at skewering her.
Kabuto reappeared behind Sasuke with a snake and a chakra scalpel in hand, but Sasuke was faster and managed to dodge. Seina stopped watching from the corner of her eye to focus on her own fight. They exchanged blows with their weapons, but Orochimaru was slippery. He used his snakes as if they were his own limbs, though given everything, Seina wondered whether they truly weren't.
Orochimaru's elongated neck snapped back into place as if nothing had happened, which impressed her a little, she had to admit. Fortunately for her, and unfortunately for Orochimaru, her chains functioned just like his snakes. She saw the sannin's face shift between irritation and amusement as her adamantine chains repelled his creatures yet again.
"I must admit, you're more interesting than I expected."
"Want me to show you something new?" she asked sweetly, watching him coldly. Inside her, Kurama salivated with malice, his sinister laughter echoing in her mind.
"I doubt you can surprise me much more," the sannin replied dismissively.
"Huh. I wouldn't be so sure."
She smiled maliciously, making her enemy raise an eyebrow, just as one of her hidden clones used hiraishin behind him, holding a golf-ball-sized bijūdama. Orochimaru noticed a fraction of a second too late. The surprised, fearful look on his face pleased her. The condensed demonic chakra sphere slammed into his half-turned side, sending him flying like a bullet and crashing him through a line of trees he couldn't protect himself from due to the paralysis caused by the demonic chakra, among other devastating effects.
Eventually, the demonic chakra dissipated, leaving Orochimaru buried beneath trees and branches nearly 150 meters away. She didn't need to examine him to know that if he hadn't escaped or defended himself, his body would be riddled with burns, broken bones, and corrupted chakra acting like poison.
"Orochimaru-sama!" Kabuto shouted.
He moved to approach Orochimaru, but Sasuke stopped him. Seina began raising a fuinjutsu barrier as Kabuto grew increasingly nervous, clearly losing confidence.
"Keep him busy for a bit," she said to Sasuke, tired of the mission.
"What do you think I'm doing?"
"Do you really think you can capture me?!"
"Shut up, idiot."
Seina snorted a laugh at Sasuke's response. She didn't want to use her magic in front of Orochimaru, Kabuto, or Ne, even though they were still unconscious, so only one option remained to capture Kabuto without him using reverse summoning again. Before she could complete the barrier, however, she heard a tree falling and hitting the ground. She turned back, growling in frustration, and saw another Orochimaru emerging from the battered body of the first.
"Are you seeing this?"
"I'm a bit busy!" Sasuke snapped, still fighting Kabuto.
Suddenly, a sword was hurled toward them, forcing them to jump one after the other. Seina cursed aloud, dodging being skewered and abandoning her fuinjutsu barrier. Sasuke tried once again to trap Kabuto in a genjutsu, but Kabuto avoided eye contact. Worse still, he changed tactics, using a water clone to swap places and escape. Sasuke decapitated the clone with a frustrated growl and a chidori spear.
When they blinked, both Kabuto and Orochimaru were gone.
"So now what?"
"We follow them," she ordered, moving forward. "I managed to plant a summoning mark on his clothes with my adamantine chain, but it's better if they lead us to their base."
"With some luck, they won't move for another three days."
"I don't think they're that arrogant…" she muttered, jumping from branch to branch at a safe distance from Kabuto and Orochimaru.
The pursuit lasted nearly an hour until they reached a clearing with a small rocky hill. She had seen them enter there, so she signalled Sasuke from the last line of trees. They stopped in the shadows to devise another strategy.
"Let's eat something and rest for a few minutes," she whispered. "They're recovering from their injuries right now. And Orochimaru grabbed Kinoto's backpack before escaping, so with any luck he'll be even more injured."
They pulled out bentos and canteens, eating behind a tree and magical barriers. Sitting on the grass, Seina sighed as her body and mind relaxed from the tension of the past few days. She felt Sasuke's irritation and anger at letting his target escape slowly fade until they returned to harmony. It felt strange not having Naruto with them. Maybe that was why the atmosphere felt so off. After all, it was their first mission since returning that they'd done separately, and with Danzō's lackeys no less, whom Sasuke longed to kill.
"So, what do we do now?" her brother asked between bites. "Try to capture him or bring down his base?"
"Honestly… Kabuto is slippery, and right now he's glued to Orochimaru's ass. Capturing him will be difficult. And considering his abilities, Danzō managing to plant a mole in ANBU, and his relationship with Orochimaru… do you really think he wouldn't escape Konoha's cells one way or another if we did capture him?"
"Yeah. Konoha isn't safe or infallible right now."
"Exactly…"
"So, we steal all their documents and destroy the base, like we've been doing."
"That's what I was thinking. If we let them leave on their own in three days, like Kabuto said, there'll be nothing left here. They know we're nearby. The smartest move would be to clean everything out and leave quietly."
"What are we waiting for? If we stay out here too long, those other idiots will wake up, and then we'll have another problem."
"You're right," she sighed, taking a sip of cool water from her canteen. "Let's finish eating first, then continue the mission."
They ate in silence while spying on Orochimaru's base through her spider's eyes. Luckily, they hadn't noticed their presence, allowing her to watch them wash and tend their wounds in a lab-infirmary. Orochimaru said nothing as he cleaned his weapon and watched Kabuto heal himself. Then both of their attention shifted to the backpack.
"What do you think he wanted to give us, Orochimaru-sama?"
"Mmm… It probably has something to do with that bastard Danzō."
"Leave it to me," Kabuto cut in as he saw his master approach the backpack. "It could be a trap."
They watched silently as Kabuto examined Kinoto's backpack, finding nothing unusual. He opened it and began laying out its contents neatly on the empty metal operating table. Orochimaru observed with crossed arms and a neutral expression. Eventually, the backpack was empty, so Kabuto flipped it over and shook it.
"A false bottom," the sannin said upon hearing something shift inside.
"Looks like an envelope full of documents."
"Wait a second, Kabuto. Don't you feel the genjutsu?" He grabbed Kabuto's hand before he could break the seal. "It looks like a trap."
"Do you think they'd be stupid enough to try attacking you?"
"Mmm…" Orochimaru mused again, glancing at Kabuto before looking at the envelope. "Give it to me. I'll dispel the genjutsu."
Seina stood up and signalled Sasuke.
"He's finally noticed our trick," she said, fastening her wakizashi back onto her back. "I'll draw his attention. You'll enter the base using hiraishin and gather all the paperwork you can while planting the explosive talismans. Understood?"
"Understood. I'm ready."
"I'll wait until we see the documents burn, then we'll start the final part of the plan."
She watched silently as Orochimaru skilfully dispelled Sasuke's genjutsu. Even so, he failed to notice the explosive runes inscribed on every page and even the envelope. The moment he opened it, an instant explosion incinerated Orochimaru's hands and the forged papers. Both were knocked to the ground by the shockwave. It wasn't strong enough to collapse the cave, but it was enough to injure even Orochimaru himself. If not for his reflexes, he would have lost more than his hands.
"Orochimaru-sama!"
Orochimaru growled in pain as Kabuto tried to heal his hands. He shoved him aside with an elbow and shed his skin once more like a damn snake.
Seina launched another bijūdama toward the hill. It exploded, creating a crater the size of her home's dining room. Meanwhile, Sasuke activated his invisibility bracelet to slip into the base unnoticed. The vibrations from the blast rippled through the base, alerting Orochimaru and Kabuto to her presence. They abandoned what they were doing and headed for the exit, knowing anything that had been in the envelope was already destroyed. Sasuke used the moment to enter the empty laboratory.
"Are you ready for our first real fight?" she asked Kurama, who was eager to come out now that Danzō's lackeys and "Akatsuki" were no longer nearby.
"You have no idea how much…"