From mid-air, Izanami walked carrying a black katana. With every step she took, the oppression she radiated pressed down on the entire maze like a mountain crashing down.
It wasn't like Orochimaru's killing intent, which felt like a cold blade against the neck. Izanami's presence was absolute—a heavy, suffocating weight that made the stone walls crack beneath the sheer force of her existence.
Seeing Izanami appear, Naruto and Sasuke visibly relaxed. Even Sakura felt her tight nerves loosen up, letting out a breath she didn't know she was holding as a deep sense of security washed over her.
"It seems Your Excellency was hiding quite well," Orochimaru purred, though his yellow eyes narrowed as his pale body instinctively tensed up. His fingers twitched near his sleeve, every survival instinct in his mind screaming that the woman stepping off the empty air was far more dangerous than anything he had ever faced in his entire life.
Izanami descended slowly, landing softly on top of the stone wall right beside the three kids. Her dark eyes swept over Orochimaru, making him shudder. It was like how a predator had locked on to him.
" Hmm, well, I actually wasn't hiding; it's just no ninja village dared to gather information about me Izanami spoke as she looked at Orochimaru.
"And besides," Izanami added, her tone dropping into an icy, deadly calm, "And besides, how could you have time to think about anything else? Let's dance, shall we"
Before Orochimaru could even process her words, Izanami vanished and appeared in front of Orochimaru, brandishing her sword straight at his neck.
Orochimaru's survival instincts flared to their absolute limit. He threw his head back violently, turning his body into fluid mud as he tried to sink into the ground beneath him.
SLASH!
The black blade cut straight through the air, the stone floor, and the dirt deep below. A huge, deep trench split the whole maze in half, throwing dust and broken rocks everywhere.
Twenty feet away, Orochimaru burst out of the dirt, breathing hard. Blood dripped down the side of his pale face. Even with his numerous escape methods, he had barely dodged getting sliced in half.
"Kukuku... such crazy speed," Orochimaru gasped out, his yellow eyes wide with fear and excitement. "You really are a monster!"
Then he made some quick hand seals and struck the ground, shouting" Summoning Jutsu"
A giant cloud of purple smoke erupted into the maze, filling the air with a foul sulfur scent. Out of the smoke, the massive, enraged body of Manda, the boss snake of Ryuchi Cave, towered over the entire maze walls.
"Orochimaru! Why did you summon me without a sacrifice?!" Manda hissed, his giant purple tail thrashing and crushing stone walls into dust.
"Shut up and kill her!" Orochimaru barked from behind him, his voice laced with rare panic as he used the giant serpent as a meat shield to buy precious time.
Manda glared down at Izanami's tiny figure, opening his massive jaws wide to swallow her whole. "Insolent human—"
Izanami didn't even look up at the colossal beast. Without breaking her stride, she casually swung her black katana in a wide, horizontal arc.
SLASH!
A blinding crescent of pure black energy cut through the air. The giant serpent's words were cut short as the black slash sliced cleanly through Manda's massive neck, instantly killing the boss snake before his giant head slid off his body and crashed to the ground with a deafening thud.
The sword strike didn't stop there. The wave of destruction carried straight through Manda's corpse, rushing forward toward Orochimaru with terrifying speed.
Seeing the black slash cut through his summoning animal like paper and keep coming for his life, Orochimaru's heart nearly stopped.
He slammed his hands together, making hand seals as fast as he could. "Summoning Jutsu: Triple Rashomon!"
Three giant, terrifying iron gates shot out of the ground, forming a massive wall between him and Izanami.
The black crescent slash slammed directly into the first gate.
BOOM!
The black crescent slash slammed directly into the first gate. The giant demon face didn't hold for even a second, shattering into pieces like thin glass. The energy carried straight through, blowing the second gate apart into a cloud of pulverized metal dust.
Finally, the slash struck the third gate with a deafening screech of tearing iron. The massive metal door creaked violently, deep fissures spreading across its surface, before the energy finally dissipated. The third door barely managed to stop Izanami's strike, standing heavily battered and barely intact.
From behind the cracked iron, Orochimaru dropped to his knees, gasping for air. Blood dripped down his pale face, and sweat soaked his clothes. He stared at the ruined gate in sheer disbelief—this jutsu named Rashomon was a forbidden jutsu that was used by the first Hokage and is considered the ultimate defense that even blocked a tailed beast ball. But this jutsu, which was supposed to be completely impenetrable, was almost destroyed by a single, casual wave of her hand.
Through the thick smoke and falling metal dust, Izanami kept walking forward at a calm, steady pace. Her boots tapped softly against the cracked stone, the sound echoing through the dead silence of the ruined maze. Her dark eyes remained completely indifferent as he looked at the Sannin as if he were nothing more than a stubborn pest.
" Oh, you actually managed to block that strike " Izanami commented with a blank face.
"Though calling it a block is a bit generous," Izanami added, her tone dry and cold. "You look more like a half-dead rat hiding behind broken garbage."
Orochimaru pushed himself up from his knees, his hands trembling as he wiped the blood from his cheek. He had survived fight after fight against the strongest ninja in history, but this was different. There was no strategy to counter, no technique to copy, and no weakness to exploit. Standing before her was like standing before a natural disaster that simply didn't care if he lived or died.
"Kukuku... truly terrifying," Orochimaru rasped, his voice shaking despite his best efforts to hide it. "To think such power exists in Konoha... I must admit, I miscalculated."
Up on the stone wall, Naruto placed his hands behind his head and sighed. "Man, I almost feel bad for him. Almost."
Sasuke didn't laugh. His Sharingan stayed fixed on Izanami's black katana, his mind trying to process the absolute gap in power. "She didn't even use a jutsu... That was pure, raw physical strength and chakra control."
"Is... is he going to die?" Sakura whispered, watching the legendary Sannin look completely helpless on the battlefield.
"Well, probably not. I heard big sis Izanami said that when it comes to cheating death, Orochimaru is an expert. " Naruto thought about it for a while and spoke.
Orochimaru also realized he had only one choice. He couldn't win, he couldn't negotiate, and he couldn't hold her off any longer. He bit his own tongue hard, using the sharp pain to break free from the weight of her oppression.
In a split second, Orochimaru's jaw unhinged to an impossible degree, and a pale, slime-covered snake burst out from his mouth, shooting straight into the ground. Before his old body even hit the dirt, the snake shed his skin entirely, spawning a fresh, blood-soaked Orochimaru who immediately dissolved into a frenzy of hundreds of smaller black snakes, scattering in every direction like a frantic plague.
Some of these snakes went straight towards Izanami and Team 7. This is Orochimaru's favourite wide-area attack.
Seeing this, Izanami swung her sword a few times, protecting the kids and incidentally killing all the snakes that were running around. But after killing all the snakes, she found that there was no trace of Orochimaru.
****
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