Orochimaru casually stepped over the fractured stone as the treeline thinned, his movements smooth.
The explosions from Ryusei's clash with Ashura and Minato rumbled in waves through the sky, each shockwave bending the light for an instant.
Orochimaru's vessel absorbed the natural energy drifting through the air, the excess settling into him with practiced ease.
The pale green-white aura around him tightened, turning sharp and serpentine.
The small horn at his forehead darkened as the blend of Dragon Sage Mode and his refined Snake Sage evolution surged through his body.
His skin shifted subtly, faint white scales gliding under the surface, while dark markings moved like ink trying to follow some unseen rhythm.
His eyes changed next, the vertical pupils folding into a glowing ouroboros loop, an endless circle turning inside his irises.
The chakra around him warped into something transparent and sinuous, bending the air like a heat mirage.
Behind him, spectral serpent shadows stirred, a multi-headed Orochi shape coiling once around his frame, testing its boundaries before sinking back into him.
The forest grew silent in a way no ordinary chakra user could cause.
Something alive in the chakra, but dead in the flesh. Calm, steady.
Orochimaru stopped walking.
Branches parted as Hashirama Senju stepped out, Edo's body stabilized to the point where he walked almost like a living man.
His expression was firm, the kind of steady calm that belonged only to someone who had influenced the world countless times.
His eyes tracked Orochimaru and his leaking serpentine senjutsu chakra, fusing with nature, for a moment, sharp and assessing.
There was no recognition, only caution, and the instinct to protect the village behind him.
"So you are Orochimaru. One of the primary threats attacking the village," Hashirama said, his voice level and controlled this time.
"Instead of using the last war to strengthen the village, you turned it into a chance to pursue your own power and become this... miscreation."
"Tobirama briefed me on your abilities. You and the Senju boy are causing significant instability around the barrier now."
Orochimaru tilted his head, golden slit pupils sharpening with mild amusement.
The black Mangekyo-like pattern within them rotated slowly, studying Hashirama as if dissecting him cell by cell. After all, he now also carried the man's direct essence too.
"Power was the only language this village ever respected..." Orochimaru said quietly.
"I simply stopped pretending otherwise. Helping Konoha was never my duty, and becoming what they wanted would have left me forgotten. I chose evolution instead, even if you prefer to call it corruption."
Hashirama didn't respond to the remark.
His aura thickened, the ground reacting subconsciously to his presence as roots shifted underfoot.
Above them, a massive ripple of natural energy tore across the clouds.
Ryusei and Ashura collided again.
The sky brightened with bluish light, then darkened as something like compressed storm-pressure radiated outward.
Hashirama's eyes lifted slightly.
"He adapts as he fights. His chakra shifts every moment. It is… unsettling, but impressive."
Orochimaru's voice lowered, almost thoughtful.
"And you are standing between him and what he seeks."
Tree bark cracked.
Roots tensed.
The entire forest tightened around Hashirama without him even forming seals.
Hashirama looked back at Orochimaru, the calm in his eyes replaced by something heavier.
Duty. Resolve.
"I stand for Konoha, my family. And I cannot let you move any further toward it."
His chakra surged.
Orochimaru's aura flared in response.
The ground trembled beneath both.
The next moment belonged only to violence.
Orochimaru stepped forward slowly.
Black and incomplete Mangekyo-pattern traces spread across the golden iris.
Hashirama slammed his hand down without seals.
Massive wooden arms erupted beneath Orochimaru.
Orochimaru dissolved into motion, body dropping into Ophidian Shadow Merge.
He became a serpent-shaped blur of dark chakra sliding through the ground, reforming behind Hashirama in one smooth motion.
Hashirama turned, a wooden fist bursting from the soil to intercept Orochimaru's strike.
Their attacks collided, blowing a shockwave through the forest.
Orochimaru skidded back, and dozens of spectral snakes burst from his shoulders, each carrying senjutsu venom.
They rushed like a storm toward Hashirama.
Hashirama answered with a wave of his arm.
Deep Forest Emergence shot upward, giant trees swallowing the serpents in a surge of roots and branches.
Orochimaru shed his entire body layer, Serpent Shedding Rebirth peeling off his frame and leaving a new, undamaged form standing behind the discarded skin.
Hashirama blinked once, eyebrows rising.
"That regeneration…"
Orochimaru moved again.
His Sharingan rotated, golden with black patterns, analyzing the chakra flow inside the forest like a surgeon reading a diagram.
He saw every wood construct, every chakra branch, every movement path before it happened.
Hashirama brought his hands together.
Wood clones sprouted from him instantly, dozens filling the battlefield, all moving with perfect coordination.
The real Hashirama leapt backward as the clones moved forward in waves.
Orochimaru opened his mouth, the air condensing into a beam.
Sage Art: Basilisk Fang.
The senjutsu venom-beam tore through three clones in a straight line, disintegrating their upper bodies before they could strike him.
Four more clones closed in.
Orochimaru twisted his arms unnaturally, bones bending like serpents, and his strikes cut through two more.
Another clone attacked from behind.
Orochimaru's aura flared.
White Snake Aura surged outward.
The clone froze mid-motion.
The real Hashirama staggered for half a heartbeat as the paralyzing field touched him, his Edo-enhanced regeneration fighting the effect.
Hashirama recovered instantly.
"You have developed an unnatural resonance with senjutsu. You are not ordinary."
"And your Wood Release is not ordinary either," Orochimaru replied, golden eyes sharpening.
Hashirama clapped his hands together.
The air shook.
Sage Art: Myojin Gate.
Crimson torii gates descended through the sky.
Orochimaru's Reflective Molt activated instantly, senjutsu scales forming across his body.
The gate slammed onto him, pushing him into the ground.
A shockwave cracked the earth.
Orochimaru's scale layer shattered, but he slid backward under the rubble, body twisting like a serpent to escape the full weight of the gate.
He reformed in a crouch, chest rising sharply, tongue flicking out in a brief taste of the air.
Orochimaru blurred forward.
His Sharingan pattern spun, and the tendrils of his aura curled inward.
Spectral snakes shot forward.
His chakra molded into shapes around him.
But he avoided using Susanoo, knowing it would strain his vessel too early.
Hashirama slammed both palms down again.
Wood Dragon rose from the ground, coiling across the battlefield in a wave.
Orochimaru jumped, twisting mid-air, and sent hundreds of natural-energy snakes down onto the dragon.
They clashed violently, senjutsu venom eating through the wood while the dragon crushed serpents with each coil.
The two titans continued to clash:
Orochimaru cutting through wood with senjutsu beams.
Hashirama overwhelming him with living forests, dragons, and roots.
Orochimaru slipping through matter, shedding skin, and bending space with shadow-slithering.
Hashirama reading the flow of nature itself, countering with Sage Mode precision.
At one point, a distant explosion from Ryusei and Ashura tore open part of the sky.
Both combatants paused for a second, sensing the violent energy swirling above.
Hashirama spoke first.
"That is no ordinary battle. Nature trembles around them."
Orochimaru's lips curled slightly.
"If Ryusei survives it, he will be the strongest being walking this world."
Hashirama's tone remained even.
"Then I must make sure he does not reach the village so easily."
Orochimaru straightened his back.
"And I must make sure you do not interfere."
They collided again.
The ground cracked under their feet.
Trees fell, regrew, and fell again.
The air hummed with senjutsu.
Neither side gained ground.
Neither side faltered.
Their abilities pushed each other to limits neither expected.
Orochimaru's wood release was too weak to challenge Hashirama's.
His senjutsu was too strange for Hashirama to counter purely through force.
Hashirama's forests were too massive to be overwhelmed by simple offense, yet Orochimaru slipped through all of them like water.
The clash reached a natural equilibrium.
Both landed on opposite sides of a clearing, breathing evenly.
Orochimaru's pupils narrowed. "You really are troublesome."
Hashirama wiped a line of dust from his cheek, expression steady.
"And you are far more dangerous than even your reputation suggests."
Neither moved for a moment.
Both understood the truth without saying it.
They were pretty evenly matched.
For now, at least.
Because, in the end, Tobirama and Hashirama were still fundamentally Edo Tensei with truly endless chakra.
Just improved ones.
And since Hashirama was too powerful to be sealed directly, he would eventually win.
Whether it took minutes, hours, or even days didn't change the outcome.
And Orochimaru knew that.
So his gaze drifted toward Ryusei in the distance, hoping he had another plan ready to overturn the situation like he always did.
The two of them stood on opposite sides of the clearing soon, breathing steadily, each evaluating the other with a new weight.
The ground between them was torn apart, regrowing in patches, then torn apart again by residual senjutsu.
Then the forest shifted.
Hashirama didn't move his hands.
His chakra simply deepened, spreading outward in widening waves.
The air thickened around Orochimaru's feet.
This was no ordinary Wood Release.
Orochimaru's eyes sharpened.
He recognized the pull immediately.
Hashirama wasn't just in his unique Sage Mode; he was drawing in natural energy with a purity and ease that even Orochimaru's perfected vessel couldn't match in an instant or in such a short span.
Hashirama's voice carried across the battlefield, calm but edged with something heavier now. "I gave you warnings. You chose not to listen."
He stepped forward once.
The ground ruptured behind him.
Thousands of colossal wooden arms rose upward, tearing through the canopy and shaking the air with their sheer size.
They formed a ring around Hashirama, each hand thicker than the largest summons, the entire clearing drowning under their shadows.
Sage Art: True Several Thousand Hands.
The statue towered above everything, its face serene, its presence crushing.
Orochimaru felt the pressure hit him like a wave.