Ryusei Nishida, this was the name that had finally crossed Orochimaru's radar even before he set foot on this battlefront.
Not from Hiruzen, whose warm "parting words" always left more unsaid than spoken, but from Danzo himself, whispered later as they finalized preparations.
Orochimaru found it amusing.
That such an intriguing specimen could exist within Konoha without his notice all these years was unacceptable.
That was just another reason why he thought he needed to urgently become the Hokage of that village.
As Hokage, nothing of value would slip past him ever again.
It wasn't Ryusei's Senju blood or his ties to the so-called revivalists that fascinated him.
Bloodlines came and went, and he had seen dozens of "prodigies" choke on the weight of their heritage.
After all, only one Tsunade existed.
Jiraiya and Orochimaru himself had risen from civilian stock, proving genius didn't belong to clans.
What truly intrigued him was the boy's survival.
Again and again, the village had engineered neat little death traps around him.
Again and again, he'd clawed his way out.
That wasn't just talent, it was willpower, tenacity, and a rare kind of cunning.
Perhaps the highest Orochimaru had ever seen in someone so young.
He had followed the reports closely.
Since his arrival on this front, Anbu higher-ups in his company arranged for various "accidents" for him.
Every week, new missions meant to grind him down or erase him outright.
Yet the boy only grew sharper, stronger.
A week ago, he had even survived a sure-kill operation.
The data left little doubt: Ryusei Nishida had already reached the level of an Elite Jōnin at thirteen.
That was monstrous.
Even Orochimaru and Jiraiya had not been so advanced at that age.
Perhaps only the two village founders could claim such progress.
So, a week prior, Orochimaru had passed the news to Danzo.
Hiruzen was being fed Anbu reports as well, but Danzo had no Root spies inside these official forces.
In this sector, Orochimaru was Danzo's only reliable source. That gave him leverage.
And now it had brought Tatsuma Aburame himself to his tent.
Danzo's vice commander. His personal bodyguard.
One of the highest-ranked shadows in Root.
"What a pity…" Orochimaru mused aloud, his voice almost wistful.
Not pity for the boy's cursed birth or dangerous path.
Pity that such a specimen couldn't be bent to his will.
A boy like that would have been invaluable for the new faction Orochimaru was quietly building.
But his identity was poisoned by politics, and even Orochimaru's strength and freedom had limits, for now.
His golden eyes sharpened, the smile on his lips turning thin and cold.
"Remember. Try to capture him alive. Bring him to me first for a few days. Danzo and I have already agreed on this much. At the very least, if you can't, then his body must reach me intact. Every piece of it. If not… You understand the consequences."
Tatsuma's fists clenched at his sides.
The tone, the arrogance, the complete disregard for Root or village interests, it gnawed at him.
Orochimaru only ever cared about his own twisted ambitions.
But still, Tatsuma bowed his head and promised obedience.
Inside, he almost laughed.
Capture him alive?
Impossible, and dangerous.
The boy was too much of a variable.
And who could say what madness would seize Orochimaru once he had Ryusei in his grasp?
Maybe he would even let him go for some twisted reasons, if judging from his personality.
No, the boy would die, and his death would be confirmed in every way possible.
Tatsuma would see to it that nothing, not even a Sage of Six Paths miracle, could ever bring him back.
With that unspoken rift between them, the two parted ways.
Tatsuma returned to meet with his strike squad, handpicked from Root's most trusted, to finalize the mission preparations.
They could already organize the matter fully with Orochimaru's subordinates there now that they had his permission.
Orochimaru lingered in the dim chamber, pale fingers drumming lightly on the arm of his chair, already thinking less about the mission's success than about what he might learn from the boy's corpse.
Although Orochimaru understood that mindset was the key to fulfilling one's destiny, his research only confirmed what he had suspected since childhood: the true upper limit was determined by bloodlines, no matter if you reach it or not.
So, Orochimaru knew that he eventually had to increase his own "ceiling" too, which couldn't be broken no matter how determined or educated you were in shinobi mechanics.
The deeper he delved, the more certain he became.
That was why a specimen like Ryusei, a Senju child with such monstrous talent, was crucial.
He had seen firsthand what that bloodline could do.
Tsunade alone had carried its banner with terrifying force. But the rest? Wastes.
Weak heirs who squandered their potential, producing neither another Tobirama nor anything remotely close to Hashirama.
Instead, some had allowed themselves to be whittled down and wiped out during the Second Shinobi War, and the others, the majority, were actually willing sacrifices on the village altar, diluting their bloodlines permanently.
Orochimaru had fought in that war. He wasn't naïve like Tsunade, drowning in sentiment, or Jiraiya, forever hiding behind bluster.
He had noticed the traces, the quiet maneuvers, the subtle cleansing of troublesome clans. He never shared those suspicions aloud.
What point was there? He understood the true nature of men, Hiruzen, Danzo, and the village elders. They were all the same.
He did not judge them. In fact, he had become the same.
The pursuit of his dream left no room for morality.
From the beginning, he had distinguished propaganda from reality.
The village claimed unity, but he had seen how they broke their own pillars.
Sakumo Hatake, once a hero, was discarded in disgrace.
The Senju, hollowed out. The Uchiha slowly boiled alive in a pot of suspicion and restriction.
Nobody needed to tell him; he had always been able to see what others refused to.
And so he set about his own venture, his own climb to the peak.
If Hiruzen could become the Hokage and wield the village machinery to enforce his "ideals", then Orochimaru would become Hokage and bend that same machinery to fuel his research.
Forbidden techniques, immortality, the pinnacle of shinobi evolution.
For years, he had worn the mask of loyalty.
For years, Hiruzen had played along, even planning to name him successor.
Yet something had shifted a few years ago.
Perhaps his own aura had slipped, his appetites bleeding through the mask.
Or perhaps Hiruzen himself had simply grown old and paranoid, like the decrepit emperors who turned against their crown princes.
Either way, Orochimaru knew, Hiruzen had crossed him off the list of successors.
Fortunately, Orochimaru had prepared a second path.
He had always known Danzo would come.
With Danzo's cover, he could expand his experiments quietly, and with Danzo's ambition, he could still claw his way to the Hokage's seat.
"That brat Minato… is he the one you truly chose?" Orochimaru's brow creased, his tone curdling into disdain.
It wasn't that the title of Hokage itself was his ultimate goal.
To him, the position and the political power attached to it were merely stepping stones toward his true ambition: to master every jutsu, uncover all shinobi knowledge, and achieve immortality.
That was the real summit.
What stung was that Hiruzen's decision pushed him farther from that destiny.
For years, Orochimaru had been praised, paraded as the genius heir of his teacher's will, only to be discarded when it mattered.
Even for someone like him, cold and analytical, there was an indignity in that betrayal. And for someone as prideful and arrogant as Orochimaru, it was intolerable.
Look at his current assignment: shoved into the northeast, against Kumogakure's most brutal forces.
Here he was, commander of a front where the Third Raikage himself could appear, flanked by his sons and jinchūriki, without a single Kage-level ally at his side.
Meanwhile, Minato, the golden child, the one Hiruzen was silently grooming to be his puppet successor, was given a jinchūriki girlfriend, an elite mentor, and a front loaded with easier opportunities to rack up clean victories.
Even the Flying Raijin had been passed down to Minato, a technique denied to Orochimaru despite all his years under Hiruzen's wing.
Orochimaru saw the game clearly. This post wasn't a sign of trust. It was a graveyard assignment.
Hiruzen wanted him here to bury his chances of collecting merits, to smother his reputation beneath an impossible warfront.
After all, what commander could realistically counter the Third Raikage and his bloodline monsters "alone"?
At best, Orochimaru could only slither through this war like a snake, relying on intelligence, guile, and underhanded tactics to keep the front from collapsing.
But he knew, if things continued this way, this front would break eventually, and so too would his war record.
His nails bit faintly into his palm as he clenched his fist. A low hiss escaped his throat.
"Then I will use this time better than they expect. If they deny me the seat, so be it. Even if I do not become Hokage, I will still rise as the one they cannot ignore, through my jutsu, through my strength."