Desolation of the Caged Bird Chapter 38 - Deity Slaying Method, Part II

Before Namikaze Minato had gone to Amegakure, there was a vagrant inside a prison, scratching at the soil with nail-bitten fingers.

Greasy-haired, filthy, sundered from soap, segregated from cleanliness, and thus, from any sense of godliness. Forsaken and ambling, the imprisoned vagrant remained within his prison. Muttering words, ever so often, whispering lines, incoherent to many, incoherent to nearly all, the vagrant, pale, like a corpse, bony, like a skeleton, sat in his prison, and waved his fingers, foolishly in the air.

No corner of his cell, no part of his prison, was spared from fūinjutsu formula, from seals, from calculations, corrections, and equations. The ground, the rocky formation behind him, the earth, and even the walls of his prison, the barrier itself, painted over with blood and mud, covered in incomprehensible sigils and patterns, all which obscured him, that sole vagrant, that mad prisoner, from seeing anything beyond, and prevented anything beyond from seeing him.

Yet, through that obscuring barrier, a voice travelled. The vagrant, for the first time in a long time, had a visitor.

A proper visitor. Not that former apprentice, come to see him in chains, swearing one word or another of his death, not his former teacher, shaking his head, lamenting his pitiable state of madness, and sparing him no words. Not his former teammate, complacent on his competence, fattened with the joys of besting his once indefatigable foe, and not the blond man, the father, the leader, come to ask if he, this vagrant, had reconsidered, seeking rhyme and reason to his madness.

No, this visitor was none of them.

This was a familiar visitor.

That meant it was finally time.

“Orochimaru.”

The voice of a plant-man, sans plant, and sans man, came from beyond the barrier. The vagrant within it paused only for a moment, to laugh, before he lifted his hand, bitten and gnawed to the bone, and the sigils, patterns, writings, and characters, the seals and equations painting the barrier and obscuring him from sight, shifted and shuddered, parting like a curtain of beads.

The vagrant smiled.

“Zetsu. You are late.”

The plant-man, who was neither plant nor man, slowly replied, “Our agreement did not specify a time for the next meeting.”

“Are all the pieces in place?” the vagrant said. “Even if they are… You are still late. Late.”

He lifted his hand, bony, gnawed, and pointed.

“Late. Kekekeke… Late.”

The vagrant extended his arms open, revealing cuts and wounds, bites and scratches.

“The Rinnegan… a legendary Dōjutsu. It is not enough. Tobirama created the Flying Thunder God Technique so that one man could fight multitudes. To separate foes, and defeat those with godly visual prowess, to counter that technique of the Uchiha, which undoes death and rewrites reality for the cost of an eye…”

The vagrant cackled. 

“Kukukuku… But you already know that, as long as you have lived.”

There was a beat.

“I am here to free you,” the not-plant man said. “Do you no longer need my assistance as we agreed?”

“No.”

“No?”

“That agreement was made before I could see.”

The vagrant extended his fingers out. An image appeared, of a rain-covered village, of a battle, ongoing, of a blond-haired man just arriving and speaking to a man with purple eyes.

Another image appeared, of the Hokage Monument, the people in Konoha, living their lives, moving and bustling.

Yet another image appeared, of darkness and the depths, the very bottom of the sea, where a body wearing a cloak with red clouds was crushed.

And yet one more image, of a mansion within a desert, where a red-haired man, the Kazekage, barked orders to his troops.

And once more, another image, and another, and another—

“Namikaze and Jiraiya branded my soul with Tobirama’s technique. It was my tragedy, but it was my apotheosis. In trying to decipher how to subvert that technique, I studied it, thought about it, every waking moment, every single hour… I created a means to amplify my own thinking process, relying on thought partitioning information with Shadow Clones. For years… I have thought of nothing but that technique…”

The vagrant rose to his feet. His legs were skinny, thin, malnourished, but they stood all the same.

“Every place where Namikaze Minato has placed down a Flying Thunder God jutsu-shiki… and every place where Tobirama placed down a jutsu-shiki… I see them all. I am connected to them all. Every jutsu-shiki of that technique is my Cursed Seal. The Flying Thunder God Technique was designed in a manner that, if two users of the technique exist, they can connect to it and share it. They were aware of this, which is why they never intended to tell me I was branded with it. They would never have told me. Namikaze wouldn’t, for he is too clever, and nor would Jiraiya, out of a sense of vindictiveness. They would have waited till I escaped before revealing it…”

He took a step forward. His bones cracked and shattered as he did. Sickening, nauseating, popping sounds filled the air.

“Were it not for my sensei, old sensei, Hiruzen, were it not for his kindness, I would have never known… were it not for that lingering bit of sentimentality, I would never have known that they dared—”

Bits and pieces of the vagrant’s skin began to crack and peel. Shattering like eggshells under the steps of giants.

“They dared brand my soul, they dared attempt to compete with me in the art of juinjutsu…” The vagrant bellowed. “ME! OROCHIMARU! I, who created the Cursed Seal of Heaven and Earth! I, the one closest to immortality, the one who has studied the nature of the soul better than any! I, who dissected mothers and fathers and families and children for the sake of discovery, I, who opened hearts and skulls searching for greater understanding of the soul! I! They dared to brand my soul with a detestable curse… they dared…”

There was a burst of chakra. 

“Such arrogance and recklessness are central to Jiraiya’s core. A foolishness, an impulsivity-driven imbecility, one he has not abated since he was a boy scampering off to peek at hot springs. Self-deluded by his mastery of Senjutsu, he thinks himself a Sage, thinks himself Invincible and Untouchable. Yet he forgets, in this world, even Sages fall and die before lesser men, just as Hashirama fell, and just as the so-called Sage of Six Paths fell.”

The vagrant stepped in front of the barrier and gazed into the eyes, not-plant, not-man.

The not-plant man asked. “How do you plan on escaping this barrier without my help?”

“Kekekeke... With a thing you know well. It is the thing that has no voice, but tells tales. The thing that has no legs, but always marches forward. The thing that is always coming, never here, always departing, but never leaves. The thing which devours all things, creates all memories, and with it comes ends to beginnings.”

The not-plant, not-man said: “...Time.”

The sound of glass shattering filled the air. The Ido no Kaeru barrier broke. The not-plant not-man leapt back, just as the vagrant burst out, his old, haggard, beaten form, molted away, shed completely. What emerged was a handsome man, bare and nude, who looked no older than twenty, with long flowing black hair that covered his back.

“Even the fastest shinobi in the world…”

The rejuvenated Snake Sannin, Orochimaru, craned his neck.

“Cannot outrun time.”

XXXXX

Did he know?

Not Pain, not the Deva Path, but Nagato, hidden deep underground in a hideout within Amegakure’s lake, observed Namikaze Minato’s approach with the Deva Path and the Naraka Path, the only two of his Six Paths that had not been sent elsewhere, and he felt a sense of unease.

Did Uchiha Obito know? Did he know the Fourth Hokage’s technique could affect attacks?

Nagato was not gracious enough to believe that Obito had forgotten about that detail, or that the man had not known about that detail. Which meant Obito had fed them not false information, but incomplete information. The plan they had was predicated on the belief that Namikaze Minato’s technique could only affect himself, and that he could not teleport other people unless he was touching them, or unless he marked them.

He had prepared judiciously on both fronts, for his Six Paths to be touched, and to have the Animal Path to quickly resummon the others if Namikaze did manage to mark them and send them away. However, Namikaze Minato did not need to touch them. The technique he used had created a seal on the ground that teleported everything connected to it, everything that touched it.

This meant Namikaze Minato’s toolset was one that directly countered his. The Six Paths were most effective when working as a group, but Namikaze could separate them, and the Animal Path, the one which could be used to re-summon the group back to him, had been preemptively taken out before it could do so.

Cutting off connection to the other destroyed Paths and pouring all his chakra into the recently restored Deva Path, Nagato saw, through its eyes, Namikaze’s approach, and performed the technique to the fullest.

“Banshō Ten’in!”

Namikaze was sent reeling towards him. Yet, only for a fraction of a second, before the man vanished from the technique’s influence, reappearing where he previously stood, where he had dropped a kunai, those tri-pronged kunai.

Five.

“Konan. Where are the reinforcements?”

“They’re on their way—”

Four.

“Konan?”

Konan’s voice was cut off. Namikaze flung his kunai towards the Deva Path. The Deva Path sent out a black chakra rod to intercept it, clashing the kunai in the air. Namikaze sent out three more, using one kunai to ricochet off the others in a display of shurikenjutsu that threw off Nagato, and ultimately had a kunai spiralling above his head.

Three.

Namikaze appeared above him, a large ball of spiralling chakra in his hand.

“Rasengan.”

Two.

The attack connected with the Deva Path, its back, its spine, burying it into the ground and earth with an explosion of chakra, tearing away what remained of the Akatsuki robes and revealing the pale flesh underneath. Through the gaze of the Naraka Path, Nagato saw a seal be seared into the back of the Deva Path’s flesh as the technique landed.

A marker.

One.

“SHINRA TENSEI!”

The Deva Path’s arms extended outward, creating a wave of devastating force. Namikaze rapidly brought kunai in front of him, which spread out a large jutsu-shiki. The pushing wave of force, which should have sent him careening, encountered it and vanished. Namikaze turned the Kunai upside down, and the force returned, smashing into the Deva Path and sending it deeper into the ground, past concrete, brick, stone, and into bedrock, obliterating the lower portion of its legs and crushing all bones into jelly-like paste.

As the dust settled, as only the Naraka Path was left standing, the only Path with the least combat ability, Namikaze stood over the Deva Path’s crushed body, and turned to the Naraka Path with an unusually curious expression. 

“Six bodies. The Rinnegan was said to belong to the Sage of Six Paths. Six Paths… Six Abilities… One summoned, the other used machine parts, the other two, I do not know what they did, while this one…”

He looked down at the crushed Deva Path.

“Used gravitational attacks with a five-second cooldown period.”

Nagato felt as if there was a fishbone lodged in his throat.

“As the last one, I presume you’re the one who healed this one, which means you’re not combat-oriented.”

Slowly, Nagato spoke through the Naraka Path. “With your strength, you could go to the other Four Shinobi Villages and conquer them. Why has Konoha toiled, foolishly, as it has, for so long?”

“Peace through conquest is a fool’s errand.”

“It is still peace,” Nagato said. “If there are no enemies to oppose you—”

“No external enemies, you mean," Minato sighed.

“Internal disputes you suppress,” Nagato said. “Quell and subdue and execute.”

“That would make me no different from the likes of Hanzō of the Salamander,” Namikaze said. “Was his reign peaceful?”

Nagato did not answer.

“Return Sensei’s soul to his body. As his former student, I’ve given you enough courtesy.”

Nagato fell quiet.

Namikaze was correct. The Deva Path’s Shinra Tensei had, at minimum, a five-second time limit before the technique could be used again. Most shinobi were unable to notice this time limit, nor take account of it; however, Namikaze Minato had. That first time he took the attack, stored it in his kunai, and then tossed the kunai, sending the attack back at him, it had been done faster than five seconds. The second time, he had taken note of how the Deva Path used chakra rods to deflect his kunai rather than pushing them away, and deduced the five-second cooldown.

With that cooldown known, the Deva Path’s devastating main offensive ability was rendered completely useless by the Fourth Hokage, who could attack in between the cooldown period. 

The Preta Path’s ability to absorb chakra and ninjutsu did nothing against a man too fast to hold on to. The Human Path’s abilities to drain souls was also rendered likewise ineffective. The Asura Path’s immense strength and physical prowess, alongside the ability to fire missiles, shoot projectiles, and create multiple limbs, had no recourse against a technique that teleported a person and made them untouchable. The Naraka Path’s ability to summon the King of Hell and restore bodies likewise would do him no good. The Animal Path, similarly, could only summon creatures, but anything that could be summoned could also be sent away by the Flying Thunder God Technique.

Namikaze Minato, the Fourth Hokage, was a man to whom the Six Paths Technique was utterly ineffective.

No, he was a man to whom Nagato’s current Six Paths was ineffective because each path had only one ability. If he could use multiple abilities with the same Path. If his body were not the way it was, if he were at his peak, before his injuries, fighting in person, then perhaps, yes, the fight would have gone differently.

As it was, however, Nagato had to accept an unfathomable truth.

Alone, and relying on his Six Paths Technique, he could not defeat Namikaze Minato.

However—

A giant puff of smoke emerged in the center of the battlefield. A gargantuan white serpent arrived at the battlefield.

“Nagato, the reinforcements are here.”

He was not alone.

“NA—MI—KA—ZE!”

Orochimaru of the Sannin blurred forward, his elongated foot smashing into Namikaze Minato’s stomach like the tail end of a whip. The Fourth Hokage folded in half like a chair. The sound barrier shattered. The man tumbled head over heels as a yellow-and-white bullet, flying far from Ame’s boundaries towards the distant lake.

Orochimaru, clad in a black cloak with red clouds, stood before him on one leg. “Once he and Jiraiya are dead,” Orochimaru said. “I shall be turning in my official resignation from the Akatsuki.”

Orochimaru smiled at him with a sliminess that made Nagato uneasy.

“Kukukuku… you don’t have any problems with that, do you, Nagato-kun?”

Nagato did not like the man.

But at this moment, he did not find him detestable. 

For all of Orochimaru’s sins, he was, in the end…

A member of the Akatsuki.

XXXXX

How?

For the first time in years, Namikaze Minato found himself facing an incomprehensible, utterly unthinkable scenario. His stomach burned from the force of Orochimaru’s kick; the sheer weight of the attack had nearly split him in half, but the pain did not, and could not compare to the bitter cocktail of confusion and disbelief that was the fact that Orochimaru was free.

How?

Even that, yet, still did not and could not compete with the fact that he had attempted to teleport away, to avoid that attack, and he had. He had used his technique, but for whatever reason, it had teleported him back to the exact same spot.

How?

Minato skidded to a stop atop Amegakure’s vast lake, using the water-walking technique to tread upon the surface of the water. The rain pounded heavily from above, thunder rumbled in the clouds as he held his stomach, and his mind was racing, trying to understand just what had happened and why his technique had sent him back to the same spot, which forced him to be hit.

Beyond that, the knowledge that Orochimaru was free jolted him, because it meant the Ido no Kaeru Barrier had been broken.

Was this… their plan? Lure me here… and then use the opportunity to free Orochimaru? Sensei and I were the only ones who could react fast enough if he escaped… the only ones capable of reaching his prison and simultaneously stopping him… and both of us were intentionally drawn here…

Minato’s thoughts were racing, putting together a fuller picture.

Orochimaru escaped… Does that mean he knows the workings of the Barrier? Can he recreate it? Is that how he could attack me?

No, that was different. It was different from the feeling of not being able to use the technique when inside the Barrier; rather, it felt as if… I was being ‘anchored’ to a certain location…

Could he have… 

A chill ran down Minato’s spine. 

He shouldn’t have known about the fact that Jiraiya-sensei branded him with the Flying Thunder God Technique… the only ones who were aware of that were I and sensei… unless sensei told someone else…

One by one, Minato felt numerous chakra signatures approaching. He grabbed his full set of kunai as he controlled his breathing, watching his breath emerge in front of him in lieu of the cold and in lieu of the heavy downpour.

I should retreat… the smartest move now is to retreat.

Minato attempted to use the Technique. Rather than teleporting away…

Orochimaru teleported in front of him. A whip-like kick spread out, which Minato quickly blocked by raising his right arm after his second attempt to teleport failed again. The kick connected with his arm with such force that something cracked, and Minato rolled with the force of the blow, cartwheeled atop the lake, applying chakra to his hands as he skidded over the water’s surface, moving a good dozen feet away from where Orochimaru appeared.

Orochimaru’s right leg was still extended from where the kick connected, and the man’s slimy, serpentine face contorted into a filthy grin that almost made him a caricature of all things human.

“Kukukuku… performance issues, Minato-kun?”

Seeing him, seeing him appear so much younger, so much different, in a much better state than the seemingly maddened hermit Minato often checked in on, Minato gently shook his hand, knowing that he had several fractures, if not a few broken parts, and took a deep, slow, long breath.

He knows.

Minato was certain of it now. There was little doubt in his mind any longer.

Orochimaru knew.

Sensei, did you… Tell someone about marking his soul with the Flying Thunder God Technique? Who? Who was it? Who could have leaked that information? Mitarashi Anko? No, she only visited once… and I observed it all. Tsunade? No, she, too, only visited once. The culprit… it can only be the other person who visited… who spoke with him in private… the one wouldn’t have shown up on Pure Leaf Pearl…

Minato’s blood ran cold.

Sarutobi.

Hiruzen.

“Kukukuku… You’ve probably guessed it.”

Minato had never before felt such raw, unbridled vitriol for his predecessor. 

If Orochimaru has been aware of the fact that his soul has been branded, if he has spent the last ten years aware of that fact—

Sarutobi… did you not consider this a security risk?

As the Professor, did you not consider it? Did you never consider informing me about this? 

Minato ran his hand through his wet hair. No, Sarutobi wouldn’t. To do so would mean he would have to have the belief in his mind that his teacher’s technique, Tobirama’s technique, the Flying Thunder God Technique, was fallible, and could be bested.

Sarutobi idolized Tobirama. Thus, it would never have come to him to believe that his teacher’s greatest masterpiece could ever be subverted or exploited by his prodigal student. To do so would be to see Tobirama as a mere man, and not as the deity in his heart, the one who handed him the mantle of Third Hokage, the man who sacrificed his life so he and his team and squadron could escape safely.

In Sarutobi’s mind, Tobirama was the cloud, high in the sky, and Orochimaru was a serpent slithering on the ground. It was anathema for him to conceive of the possibility that a snake could rise to the heavens and devour the clouds.

Minato knew this. Orochimaru knew this, too.

This was the result of venerating the teacher and underestimating the student.

“...I don’t suppose you’ll tell me how you did it.”

To Minato’s surprise, Orochimaru did reply.

“Time.”

“Time?”

“You never did take time to study that barrier yourself, did you? If you had, you would have noticed it did not account for a non-inertial frame of reference.”

Minato went stiff.

“What?”

He didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it. 

“We live on a planet, and everything on it is moving. It rotates on its axis and orbits the sun. Our entire solar system rotates in a galaxy, which is itself also moving and rotating,” Orochimaru pointed at the water beneath their feet, moving with the wind.

“To dematerialize in one location and rematerialize in another without accounting for this would leave most witless fools floating in the vacuum of space where the planet used to be. To arrive at an intended destination, one must not only traverse space but also arrive at the precise moment that the destination point occupies at that specific location. Tobirama's technique does this. This is the reason such things are called spacetime techniques, not space techniques, because all of them account for that tiny difference in time…”

The Snake Sannin laughed.

“But that barrier did not. For whatever reason, whoever implemented it assumed the world does not rotate. They made it assuming the world is stagnant, with an absolute reference frame. Perhaps they have never heard of relativity, or perhaps they did not understand something so basic as non-inertial frames of reference, or perhaps they were under the impression that the planet is flat. Whatever the case was…”

Orochmaru lifted his finger.

“Time is the answer. Perform a space-time technique not intending to teleport, but using the time differential to momentarily lock in your coordinates, to ‘freeze’ yourself for a brief moment in time. Your body will shatter the barrier as the world spins beneath you, and you will arrive beyond it.”

Minato’s ears were pounding with blood. Despite the rain, there was a dryness in his throat.

“The impact would kill most people.”

“Kukukuku... Yes, the drawback is that one needs a body capable of withstanding that impact and surviving, but for me, such was hardly a challenge.”

Orochimaru walked forward.

“The Toad in a Well Barrier is aptly named. To escape it, one must not try to climb out; one must let the well fill up with water and float to the top. As long as they can survive, as long as they do not drown…”

Minato gently gripped his kunai in reverse, taking a deep breath. “You figured this out a long time ago.”

“Eleven months after I was imprisoned.”

Minato closed his eyes, smiling ruefully. “Sensei never could figure it out.”

“Because Jiraiya lacks a foundation in the sciences. He cannot conceive of ideas beyond himself and his bubble. While I studied mathematics, chemistry, biology, anatomy, astronomy, and cosmology in my pursuit of betterment, of immortality, Jiraiya…”

Orochimaru sneered.

“Jiraiya studied naked women.”

Orochimaru shook his head.

“Kukuku… As it is, I am done giving you my explanation, because I am done stalling for time.“

Several individuals wearing black cloaks with red clouds surrounded Minato on all corners atop Amegakure no Sato’s lake.

Nagato, the body that used the gravity attacks, stood in the forefront, once more amongst them.

“Akatsuki…”

Nagato extended his hand out.

“Attack.”