Chapter 153 – Grand Escape
The conservatives on Might Duy’s side nod with agreement, fully eager to put Orochimaru in jail for whatever reason. They wanted him executed back then when they found him experimenting on the citizenry. Meanwhile, the moderates and progressives want the full story. Most of those present are moderates.
Orochimaru sticks his finger in his mouth to place the Ring on it. He experimentally charges it with chakra to find that it accepts chakra into it. When he takes a look at it though, no change has occurred to the ring. His chakra falls into what seems like a bottomless well. The chase is still on and Orochimaru could have made it out of town, but he circles back inward to give himself more time. With a full 15% of his chakra now deposited in the Ring, Orochimaru makes the safe choice to stop feeding it. He will be doomed if he runs out of chakra.
He comfortably makes this choice because he discovers the other function of the Ring that he had seen apply to Naruto also applies to him even without it being fully saturated with chakra. Weaker onlookers take no notice of him! Most of the conservatives go from speaking badly of Orochimaru and arguing with the progressives only for the sake of arguing to asking what is going on! All of those at peak-t2, including Tsunade, Fugaku, and Hizashi, who are still on the chase, notice the shift in dialogue. Danzo, mid-argument, is also confused and senses something is extremely off, but cannot put his finger on it.
Fugaku shouts, “Orochimaru, stop! Return that Ring and cease this devilry! We will be lenient!"
Orochimaru does stop, but the place he stops is within a throng of Uchiha elders who ignore him. Fugaku pulls back Hizashi and Tsunade also stalls. Not only do the losses of attacking far outweigh the benefits since it would be impossible to capture Orochimaru in one bout, Fugaku would be going against all concepts of filial piety and responsibility as expected of him as the clan head if he were to injure or kill one of his elders in the ensuing melee. They soon realize that Orochimaru can repeat a makeshift hostage situation even if they tell the Uchiha elders to move or spread apart now that he has this functionality of the Ring activated.
The veins on Tsunade’s forehead bulge once again. Nothing has gone right today! “Spit it out, Orochi. What will it take for you to give us that Ring?”
Orochimaru smiles and says, “I cannot give it back even if I want to.. It is stuck on my finger.” He demonstrates trying to pull it off and even tries to pry it off with a kunai, causing him to bleed slightly, but it doesn’t work.
“How’d it come off Naruto so easily?” asks Tsunade.
Fugaku has a good idea why. Naruto had already set a ‘law’. He also can easily guess what Orochimaru plans to do. He shouts with anger, “Even if you find out how to brainwash the citizens to follow some law, we can still hunt you down if we don’t like it!”
“Don’t worry.” Replies Orochimaru, confirming Fugaku’s suspicion with a sly smirk, “The law I plan for will not harm the interesssts of Konoha.”
The heads of the major shinobi clans and factions hop down next to Tsunade and request an explanation for the situation now that it has re-entered a stalemate.
Tsunade ignores them and squints her eyes at Orochimaru with boiling anger. She menacingly threatens, “I’ll make sure you never get a day of peace to do experiments if you abuse my trust, Orochi. I PROMISE YOU THIS!”
Orochimaru’s formerly composed countenance cracks and sinks into visible consternation. His greatest goal in life is to pursue scientific knowledge of all kinds and it’s true that he needs long periods of relative peace to do his experiments in pursuit of that goal. That is why he had to join Danzo and the progressive faction in the first place.
It’s also true that neither of the Ring’s effects work on Tsunade and the others at her level. Running away from Konoha powerhouses for the rest of his life? That would impede his goal immensely! Moreover, Lo and Li can probably track him down no matter where he goes with their innate abilities!
“Fine. You win, Tsunade. I won’t make any power grabs.” Orochimaru offers a compromise. “But I want access to be able to look at all the longevity techniques and jutsus in Konoha. I’m the only one at my level without the support of a clan with a long history. I never got any handoutsss.”
Tsunade groans and says, “I would have made them available to you if you didn’t have a criminal record, you idiot! But fine! I agree, as long as your law or whatever doesn’t give me headaches.”
She then gestures for Fugaku to explain what is going on to all the spectators. Of course, they find it nonsensical and unbelievable at first, but the stronger ones see the effect it can have on others while the weaker ones uncontrollably feel as though Orochimaru is just behaving normally. Their conviction that he is behaving normally is so strong in those of mid-t2 and lower that most of them rationalize his behavior to be entirely lawful.
Tsunade feels extreme disgust for this particular effect of the Ring. Fugaku explains everything and presents all the logic, but these people, who she knows are smart and logical in a typical situation, all of a sudden think it’s ok for Orochimaru to make up some random law no matter how much power he would then have over them. At most, they cleanse their brains with chakra a few times and think that it is impossible for all of them to be that deep in an illusion. It would take much less chakra for a would-be aggressor to only place Tsunade and those at her level under an illusion.
‘The power of the Dao..’ Tsunade thinks while shaking her head.
Only Minato, Danzo, Inoichi, and Shikaku are sweating and struggling in their own minds with fear whenever they think about Naruto’s supposed law or look at Orochimaru. Tsunade sighs with relief that they have some degree of resistance to the Ring.
Overall, however, it is still a shitshow. The majority of the crowd stare at Tsunade with displeasure for persecuting Orochimaru for what they believed to be normal actions, even though before she explained it, they thought it was entirely normal for him to be chased down and treated like a criminal. Logic and reason are absent!
Still, Tsunade and the others at her side are too strong for them to oppose directly, so no one stands up to fight. The few idiots that do try are held back by their people or knocked out by Hizashi. Only the minority of conservatives that wanted to see Orochimaru punished for any reason whatsoever from the very beginning approve of Tsunade’s actions.
Orochimaru charges the Normality Ring with his chakra in the meantime. He doesn’t care about the opinions of the crowd. Tsunade’s threat rings true. Unfortunately, he senses no change even when he puts 100% of his current chakra capacity in it. It would take Naruto months to insert as much chakra into the Ring as he had done. Just before he can get frustrated and start calling out the law he wants enacted into the Ring even before it is full, Naruto shows up with Kushina and Hinata. The chakra strings sealing his mouth are gone and he looks healthy enough for normal movement after his mom’s medical help.
Naruto also happens to be furious. He shouts, “Orochimaru is keeping me from having sex with Hinata! Everyone attack him!”
Unfortunately for him, he clearly has not thought things through. Hinata giggles and Kushina smacks the back of his head. The angry mom says, “There’s no one preventing you from having sex with Hinata on the spot, dumb kid! Quit embarrassing me in public.” Kushina then turns to Tsunade and shouts, “What’s the big deal, Tsunade! Why did you leave my son mutilated and tied up in the town square?! It was barbaric!”
Tsunade massages her overheating forehead. She has no patience for this so she gestures to Minato to pacify his wife. Orochimaru looks at Naruto with bright eyes and before anyone can react, he slithers from the Uchiha elder crowd to right behind Naruto. Placing a kunai against the back of Naruto’s neck, he pushes him against Hinata, knocking them both down while maintaining the gentle pressure of the kunai against skin.
Minato reacts immediately, but Kushina is slow on the uptake. Her first thought is that Orochimaru’s actions are normal, after all. Minato forces himself to a stop after the kunai pierces Naruto’s skin. He is struggling with his own mind. Half of his thoughts think that Orochimaru’s actions are normal and the other half have full awareness of reality and are horrified by their own mind’s state of being brainwashed. His love for his son propelled him to dismiss the Normality effects for a brief moment, but his sane mind pulled him to a stop, since he stands no chance to help Naruto or hurt Orochimaru even if he goes forward.
Naruto is scared halfway to death. No one has directed this much killing intent at him in his entire life. Even though he thought he would die several times during the course of this day since he got injured by Azula, caught by Tsunade, and tied up by Orochimaru, he still thought he would make it through unscathed since they only wanted to know what was going on.
Now though, he can feel it. Death is looming over his shoulder. Orochimaru even made sure that Hinata was underneath him so that his crotch was against her butt. Even if he had 1000x more guts, there is still no way he can claim Orochimaru is preventing him from having sex with Hinata in order to get help.
Tsunade, for one, doesn’t even care at this point. Naruto is the entire reason they are in this mess. Ironically, ero-sensei Jiraiya stands up strongly for his disciple, Naruto, in this instance. He probably realized that the other situation did not involve any serious danger to Naruto, unlike now. He crosses his arms and says, “Orochi, you’re playing with fire here, mate.”
“Hahah..” Orochimaru replies, “I’m almost done.” Then he whispers directly into Naruto’s ear, “Tell me how to activate the Ring.. or else.” He pokes the kunai a little deeper.
Naruto is scared shitless and decides to wash his hands of this matter entirely. He is never going near that Ring again! He shouts, “I poured all of my chakra until I went dry to activate it and then said [It is NORMAL for me to fuck Hinata whenever I want!] and it worked! It was practically an accident, I swear!!”
“Bassstard!” Orochimaru is so angry he almost kills Naruto on the spot! ‘This fucking idiot really told everyone the secret! I wasn’t expecting him to be this much of a coward! Not only that, I have to be on zero-chakra to set a law.. I would have never discovered this with how cautious I am. I suppose it’s good news that Tsunade and I have an agreement. Well, whatever. I don’t care how they use the Ring after I set my law.’
After Naruto makes that declaration, the upper echelon of the shinobis present realize that this Ring is not for the Dao of Law, but rather revolves around the concept of ‘Normal’. Everything clicks for Orochimaru regarding the mechanism of the Ring as he pours his chakra unceasingly into it.
Tsunade is actually glad that Orochimaru had gotten Naruto to cough up that bit of information. She almost laughs out loud! She already knows the first rule she will set up herself once Orochimaru is forced to give it back. [It is NORMAL for Kages to do none of their paperwork!] That’ll force her subordinates to do it for her and they will not even complain.. kekeke.
Lo and Li arrive together on a nearby rooftop. Li is carrying a strange device on her back. They wait patiently along with everyone else. Naruto whimpers while Orochimaru finally bottoms out on chakra. None but the peak-t2 shinobi notice, because Orochimaru’s spiritual pressure is flaring up to pressure everyone else. One second after he puts the last of his chakra in the Ring, it glows to display the text, ‘Normality Ring, Heaven-tier.’
He excitedly says out loud, “It is NORMAL for me not to exist!”
The Normality Ring flashes, and the eyes of everyone under a certain threshold of power glaze over for a moment.
This had definitely not been his first choice, but this is the rule that he wants the most out of those that Tsunade would find acceptable. Even more than the emotional relief of not having most of the citizens of his Konoha hate him anymore, he wants to improve the controls for his experiments. If his test subjects ignore his existence, that would improve the quality of his experimental data and provide more accurate results. Also, even an elephant can be killed by ants. With this rule, he cannot be swarmed to death by numerous weak enemies.
While Tsunade and the others are looking around to see if it had worked, Lo and Li dive down. With her eyes closed, Lo senses Orochimaru’s existence with her innate ability alone, since she cannot rely on her other senses to reliably pinpoint Orochimaru’s existence. She can sense people whose virginities she had taken with uncanny accuracy even across hundreds of miles. Getting a cheap shot with her foot on Orochimaru’s ribs is easy work for her.
Li pulls Naruto off the ground and straps the device she had on her back onto his, then slaps it. The device turns out to be a jetpack that shoots off into the sky in a pre-programmed flight path at high speed. Tsunade could probably catch up, but who cares about Naruto? She is more concerned about the Ring. Kushina shouts, “Oi! What the hell was that for?”
Orochimaru, despite only recovering a tiny amount of chakra, suffers almost no damage from Lo’s Gate-enhanced kick, other than getting knocked back. Even though he had been caught off guard, he ultimately had more Gates activated than her at the time. But before he can even get around to considering why they had attacked him, he freezes in shock to see nothing on his fingers! “The Ring?!”
Tsunade whips her head to Orochimaru and also sees nothing. She practically growls, “Lo and Li! What did you do?! I need that Ring!”
Li replies in a sagely tone, “No you do not, little sister. For you and Orochimaru, it is a paltry convenience. For him, its owner, it is a curse. A curse that he must bear.”
(A/N: Nani!?)