Haruto Finds a Wild Orochimaru

"Damn it…" the pale shinobi sighed as his team stood on a high branch, "To think we'd be the ones to find pinkie and her team getting their asses kicked." 

"Oh hey, they've got the scroll we need!" Asami, the team's resident twin tailed genki girl and current bane of Haruto's chill existence, noticed when the Uchiha boy took it out to bargain with the Kusa shinobi wrecking them. 

"Jumping in and saving prey from predators…" Haruto sighed, "Kirigakure certainly has changed." 

The trio body flickered around the Uchiha boy holding the scroll and Haruto ably relieved the trembling boy of it. 

"We've accepted payment." Haruto turned to gaze intently at the Kusa shinobi, a lanky and flexible androgynous specimen, "I'd warn you away from our clients, but you seem quite fixated." 

"Hmmm… a Hozuki… how delightful." the Kusa nin smiled widely, "Hopefully you three can freshen things up, this meal was getting so very stale." 

From his haori, Haruto retrieve a thermos covered in seal work, "In the afterlife, be sure not to curse me too much." Haruto twisted the cap off the thermos and his hand blurred with speed pulling it away as a sudden geyser of water erupted from it, "It's mostly Lady Shigure's work that will defeat you." 

The genin team reinforced Haruto as he held onto the high pressure beam of water shooting out of the thermos as it gouged into the dense wood of the massive trees chasing after the evading Kusa nin, creating a refreshing spray that slowly made its way down from their high up battle amidst the branches. 

"She's fast." Haruto gritted out, "And agile." 

Reaching the safe limit for use on the thermos, Haruto tapped a seal on the side and twisted the lid back on. They'd failed to take out the Kusa nin with the powerful water attack, but they also changed the composition of the battle field into their favor, the location now saturated and ready to supplement their water jutsu. 

Haruto drew his katana and readied his off hand as a finger gun, while Asami ran through the hand signs for her water bullet jutsu, and Tamo filled his hands with shuriken. 

"What do you bastards think your doing?" shouted the orange clad teammate of the Sakura girl.

"Saving you." Haruto sighed, condemned to interact with another high energy person. 

"Yeah, are you stupid or something?" Asami yelled, and Haruto hoped that the pair wouldn't rile each other up and somehow combine their genki idiocy to critical levels. 

Why couldn't this Kusa nin have been more competent and killed this team before they arrived?

"You're the one who's stupid!" Orange boy screamed back and prepared to dive on them from his place higher in the roadway of trees holding up this massive canopy "Robbing us and saying its saving! We don't need your help! Hand us back the scroll and get lost!" 

"Oh Naruto… think you can handle me all by yourselves?" the kusa nin smiled as she swiped a bloody finger over a wrist tattoo.

"Like hell we need help dealing with the likes of you!" he screamed as he diverted his attention and leapt across the distance with his fist cocked back, "I'll get you out of here right now!" 

"So brave, good thing I brought a friend!" the kusa nin announced with bad intentions. 

A massive burst of smoke clouds heralded the arrival of a giant snake summons so huge it could fit a house in its mouth. And apparently so agile it could whip its head faster the genin could leap through the air batting him away hard enough to shatter some of the smaller branches of the massive trees they stood atop before he landed on something firm enough to arrest his momentum… painfully. 

Despite the monumental size of the snake and the forces involved in that strike, Kami apparently didn't put the quit in the kid in orange, but he did put a biju. Evil chakra filled the area like a tangible miasma all could feel, no need for chakra sensing ability. 

'What a mess.' Haruto internally groaned, 'Unless we are incredibly lucky and someone has found an alternative Snake Clan to summon… then this shinobi is most likely the infamous Orochimaru… and he's attacking Konoha's jinchuuriki who holds the most powerful biju within him.'

Said orange boy bounced back to deliver a mighty wallop to the snake before being blown away by a casual wind jutsu. 

"Maximum effort." Haruto announced, causing the other two Kiri genin to snap out of their sudden shock from the exposure. 

The pale shinobi suddenly filled out his kimono as his muscles expanded, and the air around his katana turned into a long impossibly sharp extension of the sword. Tamo leapt from his left side and began throwing a hailstorm of shuriken and kunai at the Kusa disguised infiltrator while Asami jumped to the left and began firing water bullets. 

'Time to earn my keep as Kiri's strongest genin.' Haruto thought before charging straight down the middle at the shinobi effortlessly deflecting projectiles while weaving water bullets. 

Haruto hoped to turn that faint smile upside down with his arrival, executing a three to seven slash that finally forced the kusa shonobi to abandon his idle position atop the snakes head, leaping up and away from the slash moving to roll around Haruto's other shoulder. 

"Die." he intoned as the shinobi lined himself up with Haruto's finger, evading the blade to run right into the gun. 

The water gun jutsu landed flush over the heart, blowing the Kusa shinobi back in the air and tearing through his chest. Rather than feel satisfied, Haruto began looking for the fake out even before the body turned to mud, revealing the switch with a clone, likely during the smoke from the summoning. 

'There!' Haruto grimaced as the suspected Orochimaru drop kicked Tamo, sending the shuriken chucker flying, then whipped a kunai at Asami the broke her concentration on her next water bullet, launching it uselessly into the canopy. 

"I'll get you!" she screamed and tried to get back to firing off water bullets with her seemingly endless reserves of energy, but the kunai she dodged had a wire attached with which maybe-Orochimaru yanked it back and hit her in the back of the head with the ring pommel, the force from the vastly powerful shinobi putting her flat on her face. 

The snake under Haruto attempted to strike at the still unmoving Konoha genin, but the pale genin ended it by thrusting his wind coated blade into its head and causing the tightly controlled flowing chakra to flare out like a sudden gale in its skull that blew its massive eyeballs out. 

"What are you doing just standing around, you big chicken?" yelled the yet again returned orange jinchuurki at his stationary teammate. 

"How interesting…" Orochimaru grinned, "A Hozuki with such potent wind style. Compensating for something?" 

"Yeah." Haruto frowned, "My inability to shrug off lighting style justu. Obviously." 

"Such a well developed sense of humor." the snake sannin smiled, then put on a burst of speed the left Haruto unable to raise his blade to counter.

'Is he done playing with us?' Haruto questioned as he used his chakra to stick to a tree branch, burning off his momentum from the launching strike by sliding around before kicking off return to the battle where the legendary shinobi wrestled the jinchuuriki with his incredibly long tongue raising the boy's top to expose a spiraling seal.

'Oh no.' Haruto panicked internally, 'Is he trying to release the Nine Tails? Could he possibly be that arrogant? I have to stop this… I have to kill the boy so the fox can't escape!' 

Lining up the shot as he flew through the air, Haruto wished the orange boy better luck in his next life.

"Nice try!" Orochimaru still spoke clearly despite his tongue's extensive engagement with the boy. 

The shot missed close enough to tear through the kid's spiky hair, and Haruto felt despair as the sannin's chakra laden fingers slammed into the boy's stomach. 

'I failed.' Haruto's heartbeat filled his ears as he contemplated the imminent arrival of the most powerful bijuu, the walking calamity whose tails shatter mountains and raise tsunamis. 

Rather than an explosion of evil chakra, the boy just went to sleep. 

'Oh thank fuck.' Haruto sighed. 

When the suspected sannin casually threw the jinchuuriki out like old garbage, the boy's teammates finally found the strength to get moving. The pink haired girl pinned the jinchuuriki to a tree through his thick orange jumpsuit with a kunai, while the Uchiha boy armed himself with a handful of diamond shaped knives and a folding fuma shuriken.

'Good luck, kid.' Haruto wished him well then changed course to go pick up his fallen teammate who grimaced as he held his broken ribs tightly. 

"There is no shame in this defeat, Tamo." Haruto assured him and began tightly binding the boys ribs before utilizing his limited medical ninjustu prowess to take some of the edge off while a groggy Asami kept overwatch and an eye on the battle between sannin and the Uchiha boy. More like a stage play considering the speed the man used to deal with his team. 

"That's the best I can do." the pale Hozuki informed the downed boy. 

"It hurts much less now." Tamo's pinched face belied that statement, but no one called him out on it.

The injured boy made a shaky rise back to his feet and the trio caught the unlikely sight of the Uchiha boy landing a fire justu using a wire trap. The snake sannin's head burst into flame, but he emerged from the attack without even a singed hair, revealing the vast gulf in the potency of their chakra. All the boy managed to achieve was to melt and warp whatever facial prosthetic Orochimaru used to augment his transformation. Then fast as his water gun justu, the sannin's head leapt from his body, his neck extending much like his freaky tongue. He sank his fangs into the Uchiha boy's weakly developed trapezius before he could even understand what was happening, the legendary perception of the Sharingan providing him no escape. Haruto grit his teeth at the display, feeling humiliated that this enemy played with them so frivolously. His team might as well have not even intervened for all the help they provided. 

Whatever venom the snake sannin delivered in that bite must have been a sadistic concoction, for the Uchiha boy fell to his knees screaming as soon as the sannin withdrew his head. With a few parting words the man withdrew. Not retreated, not driven off, he simply came and went as he pleased deep within enemy territory. Lord Fifth would never stand for this kind of security disaster.

Haruto collected the orange boy while Tamo and and Asami stood over the kneeling pair of the Uchiha boy and the Sakura as the girl held his hand and wept. Haruto understood, he felt like weeping too after that close encounter with assured death. The only reason any of them survived was the sannin's mood. Had any of them actually managed to register as a threat or even an inconvenience, that jolly sadism would have turned cold in a heartbeat and they would be no more. 

"Come on." Haruto ordered after he arrived with the orange boy slung over his shoulder, "We need to find a place for our teammates to recover." 

"I'm okay, Haruto. I can continue." Tamo insisted by Haruto simply shook his head. 

"We're in no rush." he overrode the injured boy, "Asami, if you can seal up that snake." the woozy girl nodded, "I do believe we'll be bringing home the most valuable sample. Our promotions are assured." 

Haruto knelt down and added the now unconscious Uchiha boy to his load. Light weight!

"Come, Sakura. Dry your tears. Your teammates need you now." Haruto instructed and the girl looked up to him with her big green eyes and nodded. 

"Let's go!" he commanded and the team moved out. 

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