Orochimaru's jutsu might look unsightly, but Rasa was still a Kage. He had seen plenty of techniques that looked awful and worked terrifyingly well. He recovered his focus in a heartbeat.
With a flick of his palm, vast sheets of gold sand surged up from the ground, knitting themselves into a storm of glittering spears that screamed toward Orochimaru.
Orochimaru frowned slightly at the wide area attack, then dropped to one knee. His finger slid along the Kusanagi's blade, he pressed that fingertip to the sand.
"Summoning Technique, Rashōmon!"
Ink sigils rippled outward beneath his hands. From the desert burst a massive gate carved with leering oni faces and hung with heavy bronze bells, ancient and ominous as if dredged from myth.
Rasa's gold spears slammed into the gate and left only pale scratches before crumbling back to sand.
Orochimaru alighted upon the Rashōmon's eaves. He lay along the ridge, mouth stretching like a sack opening, and a torrent of venomous serpents poured out.
"Ten Thousand Serpents Devouring Array!"
The flood of snakes cascaded down the gate and across the golden ground, racing outward like wildfire in a dry season. Tongues flicking, they snapped their jaws, and from those maws slid razor blades of steel, turning every snake into a living bayonet. The writhing phalanx surged toward the Kazekage.
Rasa did not flinch. Numbers meant nothing before the desert's lord.
He raised his hands. The gold before him rose and stood upright like a towering wall. His palms came together, and the whole sheet compressed until it was straight, dense, seamless. With a push, the wall toppled forward like a collapsing cliff, sand and dust billowing into a choking cloud.
When it cleared, the ground shone wet and dark. Serpents had been crushed and ground to pulp, their blood mixed into the gold. A rank, fishy stench rolled over the field.
Rasa covered his nose. He knew the smell carried no airborne poison, most venoms needed blood to enter the body, but the reek clawed at the back of the throat.
From beneath the stained dunes, Orochimaru emerged, smiling as if something had gone perfectly to plan. Not angered, not impatient, but quietly delighted. That bloodless face, that gentle crescent of a smile, made Rasa's skin prickle.
Orochimaru let his gaze travel over the battlefield, then murmured, "That should be enough."
He crouched, wove signs, and slammed his hands down.
"Summoning Technique!"
With a thunderclap and a mushrooming burst of smoke, a colossal purple serpent uncoiled from the haze.
"Again, Orochimaru," the snake hissed, "you call me. You know the price."
"Hehehe, do not rush, Manda."
Orochimaru's tongue traced his lip as he pointed toward the gray ranks of Sunagakure's army. "See those soldiers in drab vests, all yours if you can swallow them."
"Your offerings are right there, you would not expect me to feed you by hand, would you?"
Rasa shoved his hands into his sleeves and snorted. "Another big snake changes nothing. You will not break my technique."
"There is one troublesome man standing in the way," Orochimaru replied mildly.
Manda shot him a frigid glance. "I know you are using me, but that arrogant one offends me."
"I will forgive you this time, but when the battle ends, you owe me two hundred sacrifices."
"No bargaining."
Manda's body flashed violet and launched like a ballista bolt straight at the Kazekage.
"Come, I will, what?"
Rasa reached to command the gold, only to feel his control stutter. The sand did not move right. It dragged and clumped like wet clay. His eyes narrowed. The ground beneath Manda glittered darkly. The gold sand had been soaked in the serpents' blood.
He understood at once.
His magnetized gold had a fatal flaw, moisture. It flowed and changed with uncanny freedom, but it lacked the stubborn solidity of stone. Soak it with water, it grew heavy, brittle, sluggish. In the desert that weakness rarely mattered. Few shinobi could conjure water in a place with none. Orochimaru had never used a Water Style today, so Rasa had relaxed.
And Orochimaru had simply made his own water, with rivers of blood.
Too late to fix it. Rasa clawed for the few clean patches of gold, raising a meager barricade.
Manda smashed through them like paper screens. The serpent's skull crashed into Rasa, shattering the gold armor around his body. The force drove the air from his lungs, blood burst from his mouth, and he flew through the sky like a shot shell.
"The Kazekage's head, I will be taking it."
Orochimaru laughed, sprang from Manda's brow, and sprinted after Rasa, Kusanagi flashing cold and hungry in the sun.
Rasa hit the ground hard, but consciousness clung to him. He thrust up a gold pillar to intercept the pursuer.
Orochimaru's smile tilted. A snake uncoiled from his wrist, spiraling around the pillar, body a living thread for Orochimaru to spring along. He skimmed the coils and drove the sword forward.
"Die."
The blade struck true, but only into a gold-sand double, the real Kazekage having switched out in the heartbeat the pillar had bought him.
"Mm, we will let you go this time."
Orochimaru watched elite Sunagakure squads rush in to cover their Kage's retreat. He knew pressing would yield nothing more. With a shrug, he relented.
"But, someday, I will slide this sword into your heart."
Fugaku, watching from afar, could only nod to himself. For all his theatrics, Orochimaru was a man who kept his promises.
Though, given certain future rumors, by then that promise might be kept by a, her.
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