Orochimama

Chapter 6

Kakashi sounded vaguely like someone had just punctured a bagpipe. Which made it fairly clear to me that he had apparently remembered the feel of Orochimaru's aura chakra. Well not exactly. One of Oto's sensors had informed me, after much hours of study, my chakra seemed to have a lot more Yin energy in it.

The presence of more of the "female" energy did not seem suspicious to anyone that knew. At least no more suspicious than everything else I was doing.

"So glad you could make it!" Tsunami said as she approached me, though when her eyes landed on my basket of food, they widened. "Oh my! You didn't have to bring such expensive ingredients for just a little breakfast."

"Oh it's no problem, Tsunami-chan." I reassured, "If I hadn't grabbed them they would have gone to a waste."

"Don't you mean go to waste?" Naruto asked me with innocent eyes.

"Nope!" I chirped in response.

"What are you doing here?" Kakashi seemed to have recovered himself, his voice filled with steel and resolve. The man doubtlessly preparing to nobly sacrifice himself so that his students could find time to escape from the terrible murderer that brought them caviar and lobster to have for breakfast.

"Ara ara. So serious, Kakashi-kun. I'm just here to help some of the locals." I promised. Kakashi seemed taken aback by my comment.

"You expect me to believe that you, Orochi-"

"Tama." I interrupted him.

"What?"

"Orochitama." I responded, "That's what I go by now."

"See Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto yelled, "This isn't that guy you were worried about. She just has a similar name." The blonde seemed now very relaxed in the situation as he came to conclusion that, because my name was two syllables different, Kakashi was just mistaken about me.

Cute kid. People had a lot of work ahead of them to make sure he doesn't die a very early death.

Sakura, meanwhile, could clearly tell that Kakashi was high-strung but wasn't very sure on why. She also had the sense to not draw a weapon since Kakashi wasn't doing that either.

Kakashi was also clearly trying to see what angle I might have for having people call me Orochitama as well.

"That can't be all you are here for." Kakashi finally said.

"Kakashi-san." Tsunami interrupted, "I don't know what your past is with Orochitama, but if you keep acting like this to a guest I'll-"

"It's okay, Tsunami-chan." I interrupted, "He has good reason to be suspicious. And I do have another reason for being here." I admitted.

Kakashi's gaze slid towards Naruto and he stepped a bit closer.

"Oh relax. I'm not here for you or your team. I'll explain over breakfast, since I for one am famished."

Kakashi reluctantly gave a nod. Likely realizing that, at the very least, I wasn't going to kill anyone this second. That or he just came to terms with the fact that if I did want to do something there wasn't much of anything he could actually do to stop me.

"Sakura. Can you please assist in making breakfast. Naruto, go tell Sasuke to come inside."

I mentally translated the Copy Nin's words to their true meaning. "Make sure she doesn't poison us while I stand to the side and watch like a hawk."

I'm not sure why, but I found Kakashi's rampant paranoia endlessly amusing. The man had very good reason to be paranoid about me, but all of his blustering, demands, and preparation I just found cute, since we both knew that he had literally nothing to stop me.

It was probably really stressful for him though.

I idly noted that Tazuna had entered the room with a scowling Inari. The two didn't much react to my presence beyond Tazuna checking out my ass before addressing me.

"You must be the one that Tsunami told me about. I'm Tazuna. Thank you so much for what you are doing for Wave." The bridge builder greeted with a bow.

"It's nice to meet you, Tazuna-san. I'm Orochitama." I greeted back, before crouching to put me near eye level to Inari, "And who's this?"

The child shuffled his feet and looked down, not meeting my eyes and gave a mumbled, "Inari."

"Well, nice to meet you Inari-chan." I said sincerely. "I'm not very familiar with your mom's kitchen, so can you help me with making breakfast?"

In the corner of my eye I noticed Sakura beginning to relax.

Kakashi, however, seemed to be weighing the value of Tsunami's child and the lives of his team, and feeling really guilty about the answer he was coming up with.

"Kakashi. Relax. You're going to give yourself grey hairs." I joked, "And make your futile attempts at making sure I do nothing dastardly from a sitting position. A stiff wind could push you over."

"Listen bastard. Kakashi-sensei just said to come inside. You wanna know why, you ask him!" Naruto shouted as the front door swung open, admitting Ninja Jesus and Ninja Anti-Christ into the home.

"Ara ara. This must be the last member of your team, Kakashi-kun." I said as I spied the last Uchiha walk into the room.

"Sasuke." Kakashi said in a formal tone, which immediately made Sasuke on edge, "This is Orochimaru."

"Ah, Kakashi-kun, I thought I told you. It's Orochitama." I corrected as I walked into the kitchen and grabbed one of Tsunami's aprons.

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Sasuke's eyes grew yet wider and he looked to Kakashi.

"You mean the man who-" Saskue started.

"Ah, well appearances can be deceiving." Kakashi said in what seemed like reassurance to most of the room. Sasuke took it for what the jounin intended. A warning to not trust the nice lady act I was giving.

"Hey, hey! Orochi Lady." Naruto interrupted, "You are a ninja, right?"

"I am." I acknowledged before turning to the counter. "Inari, get me a big bowl and a pot. Sakura, as soon as he does, can you please start cracking eggs into the bowl?"

I took charge of the kitchen from there. Ordering the various members in the house on menial tasks. From having Naruto fetch some water, to Tsunami preparing the rice, to Sakura beating the eggs, and even having Inari help me crack open the lobster's shell. All the while Kakashi sat on a nearby stool, staring with an almost unblinking gaze to see if I added anything into the mix that didn't belong there. Sasuke's gaze hardened every-time my hands strayed to a kitchen knife. Sakura constantly had to remind herself to not just get into the cooking process.

Tazuna was also staring, though for very different reasons.

Soon I was frying the rice in the beaten eggs. The already cooked lobster meat was added in. A few spices thrown on for taste, and caviar thrown in at the last second.

It was the most expensive breakfast I'd ever had.

"Well, Tsunami, if you would put these in bowls, I have some questions to answer." I said.

The other woman gave an affirmative and I settled myself at the dinner table, idly fanning myself to cool down from the stove's heat.

"So, to answer your earlier question, Kakashi-kun. I have a question in response."

Kakashi, Sasuke, and Naruto all came to the table, while Sakura hung back in the kitchen.

"What's your question?" Kakashi asked after he seated himself.

"How, exactly, do you think that Gato, a civilian, managed to get a hold of Zabuza? The man is one of Kiri's most wanted Missing Nin. Yet he managed to recruit him. How would you think such a thing could happen?"

"Zabuza could have found him, right? Because he needed money." Naruto asked.

I gave a nod, "True. But why would he do that, when Gato could then make a profit by informing Kiri on his location?"

"Someone introduced them then." Sasuke concluded.

"Ah. And I bet you know who that is." Kakashi accused, clearly thinking that it was me that introduced the two.

"Ara ara. So suspicious." I shook my head, "But no. It wasn't me. Though it is why I'm here. Gato has a ninja backer. Someone is helping him with his business. I'm very interested in who that someone is."

"So, what? You just going to go and beat it out of him? I can probably go kick his ass." Naruto smacked a fist into his palm.

"Oh no. Nothing like that." I shook my head, "I just intend for Gato to have some very bad days for the next few days until he gets panicked, and his big scary Demon of the Mist is in recovery."

Kakashi connected the dots I had laid out. "You want Gato to run off to alert his contact so you can get that contact for yourself."

"Sharp as ever, Kakashi-kun." I acknowledged. Rather than confirm the theory, this seemed to make the man question it instead.

"Why hand out the food though?" Sasuke asked. "That doesn't serve your goals."

I looked at the dark haired child, who already held such a dim view of the world that he felt the need to question acts of charity. Though I granted that it would serve him well in his chosen career path. In the ninja world there was often no such thing as too paranoid.

Which is really the only reason I've managed to get away with most of the shit I've pulled.

"Let me ask this instead, Sasuke-kun. Why is the mission to build the bridge important?"

Sasuke turned the question over in his head for a while. "They want to break Gato's monopoly on the transport to the island. He owns the docks, so this is a way for them to be able to get things another way."

I gave a nod, "That's a good theory. A good story too. You just need another way for people to get what they need and Gato's power collapses." I turned to Tazuna, who had been lingering nearby, listening to the conversation. "Tazuna. How hard do you think it would be for Gato to take over your bridge after you've built it? To make all incoming and outgoing traffic pass through his control?"

Even Naruto realized how easily the man could do just that.

"Then...why? Why go through all this trouble if Gato is just going to be able to take over it? What are we here fighting for then?" Naruto slammed a palm down on the table. Sasuke's face had grown darker.

"An excellent question." I responded. "Tazuna. Enlighten them."

The aging bridge builder heaved a sigh as the weight of the entire island settled on his shoulders. The old man collapsed at the table.

"She's right. The bridge by itself won't do anything. It's why I've managed to build as much as I have without anything happening." Tazuna admitted. "Gato doesn't care about the bridge itself. He cares about what it gives to the people. Hope."

"Hope?" Sasuke scoffed.

"Yes. One of the most powerful weapons in the world." I piped up. "Hope has been the cause of the rise and fall of more countries and causes than you can count. Hope is a powerful thing. It makes people act in ways that aren't their best interest. It makes people stand up. Put their lives on the line. It makes them rise against tyrants."

"But...why does it give hope? Why do people think it will fix their problems?" Naruto asked, scratching the back of his head in question.

"Because I told them it would." Tazuna admitted. "I told them that if it was completed we'd be able to fight against Gato. And with that promise people made plans to fight."

"So...it's not about the bridge? It's about getting people to fight?" Whiskered cheeks scrunched inwards. "Why not just make people fight then? Just waiting till a bridge is there is stupid."

"Of course it is. We're dealing with people, Naruto-kun." I responded as Tsunami and Sakura approached the table, bowls in hand for everyone.

"So that's why you were handing out food. You want to help the people be hopeful. You want them to rise against Gato." Sasuke concluded.

"Well, I did say I wanted him to feel pressured. Doing it in a way that helps people makes everything just that little bit better." I said as I took an offered bowl from Tsunami. "Now both you boys get up. Let Tsunami and Inari have a spot to sit and eat."

The two acquiesce quickly, allowing a spot for the mother and child to sit. Kakashi, meanwhile, stealthily dumped a few vials of liquid into his food. Doubtlessly something meant to detect poisons.

Meanwhile Naruto jumped up and practically danced with his bowl.

"Thanks! I'm starving." The boy began to shovel the food into his mouth.

"Sorry. I planned on having some breakfast ready earlier, but got a little tied up with doing some cleaning." Tsunami apologized.

Not being able to resist such a line, I rested an elbow on the table, placed my chin on top my fist, and gave my best husky tone, "Oh Tsunami, I can find much better ways for you to be tied up."

Tazuna froze as conflict stormed on his face. Inari and Naruto found nothing of note with my statement. Sasuke and Tsunami both looked confused. Kakashi just stared at me, as if asking me how he should react that.

The big surprise is that Sakura choked on her food.

"Really, Sakura-chan. What sort of books have you been reading?" I tutted, "Kakashi-kun. Have you been a bad influence?"

I really shouldn't have been surprised though. A girl just in puberty that constantly thinks about a boy and spends most of her time reading books? Personal experience should have warned me better than that.

Sakura, after she finished choking, gave a weak denial. "It just went down the wrong tube. I didn't know anything."

"Sure thing sweetie." I said, not wanting to keep the subject going enough for the other two to catch on. They had enough corruption, they didn't need this kind too."Well everyone eat up! You three in particular. Your sensei needs to get you all training."

Kakashi once again looked at me in shock.

"No Kakashi-kun. I can't read your mind." I stated, though that got me a flat look in response.

"Are you going to kill us after all the bad jokes? Because if so, I'd just like to skip to that part." He groused.

I gave a smirk. There is only so long a person can go on while terrified for their life before the terror becomes just a general wariness.

"Training? Training what? Is it going to be a cool ninjutsu? Oh man, we're going to learn to make things go all like swish, and then blam, and then have it go all boom!" The blond said while swinging around his now empty bowl. Gatos caviar probably didn't even really register for him.

"Ara ara. Swish, blam, and boom? All the ones I know can only do two of those max."

"Yeah, well Kaka-sensi knows a thousand jutsu, so you shouldn't feel too bad about it." Naruto comforted.

Orochimaru had a goal to learn off the the world's jutsu. He had spent a long time trying to accomplish that before his demise. The number of them he knew were well past a thousand.

"Oh? I'll be sure to pay attention then." I took one last bite of my food, finishing the food off. "Well then, please, do teach me something, Kakashi-sensei."

Kakashi smacked one hand to his face, "Naruto just-" he took a breath, "just go get my crutches."

------

Hatake Kakashi had come to the conclusion that Orochimaru was just trying to mess with his head. The snake summoner's comments and motions were all attempts to provoke a reaction from him. The woman was clearly watching him. Almost everything she said or did she turned to see what his reaction to them was.

The woman bit was also surprising. More surprising was that he found himself buying the idea that Orochimaru was, in fact, female. It was the small motions. The way she walked, the way she sat, the way she talked, the way she flirted. All of it was very female. This was not someone who just decided to try on some breasts to see if they could get a reaction.

Kakashi was really not sure what to do with that information.

"So what are we actually learning?" Sasuke asked, his gaze still locked on Orochi...tama walking beside an excitedly chattering Naruto.

"Aside from how to deal with unexpected interference in missions, you'll learn how to climb trees." Kakashi responded.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed, though the Uchiha didn't press it. Which was good. Sasuke had really impressed him with how he was handling the Snake Sannin's appearance. All of his genin were impressing him in different ways.

Sasuke clearly picked up on Kakashi's own distrust and with just a few words knew he needed to be near a teammate and ready to act at a moments notice. He also kept very close notice on every movement that Orochitama made.

Sakura was doing a great job in prioritizing the protection of their clients. The girl was clearly unsure if Orochitama was actually a threat, but she was taking textbook perfect precautions to keep the client safe.

Even Naruto, who seemed to decide that Orochitama was his new best friend, was noticeably not bringing up any information that wasn't already discussed. Naruto was doing a lot of talking, and most of it was gathering information while giving only vague comments and well known facts in return. He probably wasn't doing it consciously, but Kakashi could already tell he'd set Naruto with all assets he needed information out of in the future.

He just hoped that his cute little genin lived through this encounter. Though he was growing sure that Orochitama wasn't going to kill them. At least not now. She probably wanted them around to draw attention, to have another thing Gato was worried about. Because he was pretty sure that part was truthful.

Gato had a ninja backer. In retrospect he was almost embarrassed he hadn't realized that himself. Kakashi was very positive that the contact was not the only thing Orochitama had shown up for though. Otherwise she wouldn't have made contact with him and his team. And there are far better ways to make someone panic than handing out food to a repressed population. He just hadn't managed to see the whole picture yet.

"Kakashi-sensei." Sakura said timidly and quietly, "Why is it that she's coming with us to train?"

"Because he couldn't leave me alone with his client." Orochitama replied loudly, causing Sakura to jump a little.

Kakashi made a note to himself to work on wordless communication with his team when they got back home.

"She's right. I couldn't leave her with the client." Kakashi admitted, he also kept quiet that the other reason was because there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop the Sannin from doing whatever she pleased. He just hoped that once he got the kids on their training exercise she'd get bored and leave.

Kakashi cast his gaze about. They were in a clearing that would serve his purposes well enough. The sooner this started, the sooner he could go to bed and pretend this was all a fever dream.

"So, you guys are going to be learning how to climb trees."

"We already learned how to climb trees. That was like the first lesson in the Academy!" Naruto complained.

"Not like this. You are going to learn to climb trees without your hands." Kakashi began to make his way over to a tree when a white hand reached out to stop him.

"How about you let someone not suffering from Chakra exhaustion do this, hm?" Orochitama said before calmly walking herself up the tree and out onto a branch.

Kakashi marveled slightly at the level of chakra control she was also showing by keeping her dress and...other bits still in place.

"The tree climbing exercise is one of great benefit to a genin. It helps train your chakra control, which can in turn be used have you move faster, hit harder, and of course walk on any surface." Orochitama said.

She was willing to give lessons to his genin? That was worrisome. Was that why she was doing this? To have one of his team go off with her and think she was just some nice ninja lady?

It wasn't a horrible plan actually. All three of his students would be very attractive recruits for someone like Orochitama. If this was all just part of a recruitment drive for his students...

Kakashi suddenly become very worried he'd be seeing a whole lot more of Orochitama.

Doing his best to not show his disquiet on his face, he threw three kunai into the ground. "Give it a try yourself, use a kunai to mark your progress. A running start will help too."

The three genin did as instructed.

"As you run you have to be careful with how much chakra you are using through your feet. Too much and you'll break the wood. Too little and you won't stick."

Naruto was the first to fall. He had gotten a few steps up the tree before his feet began to slip out from under him as he used too little chakra. Sasuke just about reached the first branch when the bark cracked under him.

Meanwhile Sakura was taking a light jog to the upper reaches of the tree with seemingly no effort.

"Ara ara. Impressive Sakura-chan. I've only ever seen one person manage to do that well on their first try." Orochitama congratulated.

Kakashi managed to contain his own shock. He knew that Sakura would do better than the other two, her control was impressive, but he didn't think she'd manage it on her first try.

"Good job too Sasuke-kun. That's a little bit farther than I managed the first time I tried this." She complimented further.

"Naruto-kun, you might want to burn some chakra off first before you try again."

That had Kakashi coming up short.

"Huh?" Naruto asked, "What does that have to do with being able to climb the tree?"

For once, Kakashi found himself agreeing with his student. He wasn't sure why Naruto would want to do that either.

"You have lots of chakra Naruto-kun." The woman said as she detached from the tree-branch and flipped to land in front of the boy.

Kakashi was positive that the flash of satin he got was entirely intentional and it made him very uncomfortable.

Orochitama gave a pat to the boy's head, "So much energy in such a small package means that your chakra has a higher density than most people's."

"Density?" Sakura asked from her spot on a nearby branch.

"Yeah. Imagine most people's chakra is like sugar water. You get it flow how you want by making the right path for it. But Naruto here is more like syrup. He'll have to work even harder to get his chakra to move how he wants it to, but his is so potent that just a dab of it will do for most techniques."

Kakashi stared. He hadn't known that. He wasn't entirely sure it was actually true, but from what he understood of chakra theory it might just be. It changed everything about how he planned on teaching Naruto. At least it would after he got someone who he actually trusted to confirm the theory.

"So using a bunch of chakra first will help me burn through it and make my chakra easier to use because it makes it more like sugar water?" Naruto asked uncertainly.

"No. More like...it changes to warm syrup instead of cold syrup. Once you have your chakra moving and pumping it's going to be easier to use. I'm simplifying things a lot here, but the net result is that you will find that the longer a fight goes on, the better you'll do." Orochitama said as she slightly adjusted the bow in her hair.

"Whoa! I get better and better during a fight? I knew it!" Naruto said with a fist pump, "Hey, how come you didn't tell me this stuff Kakashi-sensei?"

"I uh-" Kakashi was hesitant to just say he didn't know. He almost began with a defense that this was based off of chakra theory that only people that worked in laboratories knew when he was cut off.

"Naruto, cut him some slack. No one can know everything. And your sensei is pretty famous. He's one of Konoha's top jounin and he is one of the Fourth Hokage's two living students."

She defended him to his students? Why would she-

Wait.

Kakashi's thoughts came to a halt.

"What? Kakashi was a student of the Fourth?!" Naruto yelled.

She just said-

"Really Sensei?" Sakura's question and Sasuke's brief sound of being impressed were entirely ignored.

Two.

"What do you mean one of two-" Kakashi asked as his blood ran cold. His voice sounding distant even in his own ears.

"Ara ara." Orochitama interrupted, "Look at the time. I have another appointment I need to get to. I'll have to pick this up with you later, Kakashi-sensei. Thanks for the lesson. I learned a lot." The devil of a woman said as she vanished.

Kakashi leaned against the tree behind him and tried to catch his breath. She was lying. She had to be. He'd assume she was until he received further proof.

Though a voice in his head whispered something he just couldn't shake.

Telling him that would only serve a purpose to Orochitama if it was true.