It was a few minutes earlier, and Anko and Orochimaru were fighting each other in front of a hidden cave.

‘No, today will not be a good day.’

These thoughts passed through Orochimaru’s mind as one of Anko’s punches smashed into his crossed arms, sending him flying into a wall, leaving an Orochimaru-shaped hole in the wall.

‘What the hell is with this insane strength? I know that Sage Mode boosts physical strength, but this is ridiculous. Additionally, why does she power up to such a ridiculous degree every time I meet her? It’s not like Anko is a little brat that hasn’t gone through her growth spurt yet. Fully grown shinobi usually aren’t supposed to get much stronger after they have fully grown up, okay?’

Orochimaru crawled out of the hole in the wall with a vicious expression on his face. He didn’t hold the title of Sannin for nothing, so even if Anko was physically stronger than him, he still had a lot of tricks up his sleeve to get the upper hand.

He subtly controlled the nature chakra around him, allowing a small hole to form in the ground underneath him. A small snake stealthily slithered into the hole that led to Anko’s location.

Meanwhile, Anko was cackling in glee. After all, she was granted yet another chance to beat up Orochimaru. How great was that? At first, she was slightly disappointed since he was only an Edo Tensei, which wouldn’t feel any pain, but she quickly found out that whatever modification Orochimaru did on himself brought him to a weird state between being reanimated and actually being alive.

Moments later, a small snake burst out of the ground right next to Anko’s left foot. However, before it could bite her, the big crimson snake wound around Anko’s body moved, biting the smaller snake to death instantly.

“Hiss~”

“Hehe, is my little Akane getting jealous that another snake is approching me?”

“HISS~”

“*Tsk* Are you a sailor? That’s with all that foul language?”

Orochimaru clicked his tongue due to his plan failing. He really wondered where Anko got that crimson snake from. The last time they fought, it gave him quite a bit of trouble as well. As far as he could tell, such a snake did not exist in Ryuchi Cave. In fact, he had never heard of a snake that was capable of spitting fire.

Anko noticed Orochimaru’s gaze and chuckled in amusement. Her hand moved, and she immediately started petting Akane’s head, causing the large snake to squint her eyes in pleasure.

“Hehe, jealous of my cute, little Akane here? Too bad; you can’t have her since we are partners.”

“Hiss~”

Hearing Akane’s words, Anko’s smile broadened even further as she added chin scratches to her head-petting, almost causing Akane to melt in pleasure.

Yet again, Orochimaru clicked his tongue as he prepared his next jutsu. Frankly, he was a little excited using this.

“Wood Style: Deep Forest Emergence”

That’s right since Orochimaru enhanced himself not only with Hashirama’s cells but also with White Zetsu’s, he could now use wood style.

Anko chuckled in amusement when she saw Orochimaru’s attack.

“Considering it’s supposed to be some kind of legendary Kekkai Genkai, there is a suprising amount of people who can use it, isn’t there.”

“Hiss~”

“I know, I know~ I’ll stop playing around~

Anko clapped her hands together as obscene amounts of chakra gathered in her lungs while a ball of condensed white fire appeared in front of Akane’s mouth.

“Man Beast Flame Cultivation Combination Arts: Heaven Devouring White Inferno”

Anko shuddered in pleasure as the ridiculously long attack name left her mouth.

‘Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff.’

Orochimaru sneered when he saw that Anko used the same jutsu she used to defeat him during their last encounter. He was certain that this time, the outcome would be different.

The blazing white inferno and the rampaging trees collided, and… the trees were turned into dust pretty much instantly.

“WHAT!?”

Well, fire beats wood; that much is common sense. However, the trees generated by wood-style aren’t just some simple trees. Every single one of them is imbued with massive amounts of Natural Energy, making them almost impervious to normal fire. Unfortunately, Anko’s fire contained Natural Energy as well, off-setting what the trees had stored, reducing the contest to a fight of normal fire against ordinary wood.

The outcome of such a fight is pretty apparent, as Anko’s see of flames washed over Orochimaru, burning him to a crisp.

A light chuckle escaped Anko’s mouth as she approached Orochimaru’s body. Surprisingly, he survived the attack this time. Anko pondered the situation for a moment and quickly concluded that that had something to do with his body getting strengthened by Hashirama’s cells and Natural Energy.

“Hehe, seems like you are still alive, dear teacher~ Well then, time to finish you off for the third time.”

“*Uhm* Before you do that, could you give me a minute with him?”

Anko frowned when her fun was interrupted and glanced at the two people who were responsible. She could only raise her eyebrows when she saw Sasuke and Itachi standing next to each other. She also offhandedly noticed that Sasuke was transformed into a woman, but she decided not to ponder on that any further. Or rather, she already knew that that was Yuna’s fault.

‘Why is Sasuke paired up with Itachi? He is clearly reanimated, so the duo fighting together is rather weird. My first idea would be that Itachi convinced Sasuke to fight against Konoha, but considering how loyal Itachi was towards it, that is rather unrealistic.’

Anko shook her head to get rid of her idle thoughts and focused on Sasuke and Itachi.

“Very well, I’ll allow you to play with my toy for a minute, but you are not allowed to kill him. After all, that’s my favorite part.”

While Itachi agreed to those conditions, Sasuke had an ugly expression on his face.

‘This should be one of that monster’s harem members, right? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that those that are willing to pair up with that monster aren’t exactly right in the head either. However, for her to kill Orochimaru just like that, I really wonder where she managed to dig up this freak.’