Eerie laughter echoed through the halls of one of the many hidden bases inside the Land of Sound.

"Kukuku, finally! I FINALLY CAN USE MY HANDS AGAIN!!! YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME, YUNA UZUMAKI!!!"

The person who spoke these words was Orochimaru, who finally managed to remove Yuna's ice from his arms after multiple years of effort.

Moments later, Sasuke appeared next to him, and when he saw that Orochimaru could use his hands again, he sighed in relief.

"It seems like you can finally use your hands again. When will you remove the modifications Yuna did to my seal?"

Orochimaru couldn't help but choke on his own laughter when he heard Sasuke's question. He was so focused on removing the ice that he totally forgot about the changes Yuna made on Sasuke's seal.

Despite that, he quickly gathered his bearing and nodded at Sasuke with a confident expression.

"For now, give me a few days to get used to moving my hands again, and then I will take a look. It will be too risky to remove the modifications without adequately analyzing the seal first, which will also take some time. Who knows what kind of hidden traps that girl built into it."

Although Sasuke wasn't entirely satisfied with that answer, he knew that there was nothing he could do about it. He had basically no knowledge about seals, but what he knew was that carelessly adding or removing parts would usually cause an explosion.

So, without saying another word, he nodded his head and walked away, causing Orochimaru to frown.

'He's as arrogant as always. If it weren't for Yuna's damn seal, I would have taken possession of his body a long time ago. Should I just pluck out his eyes and use Hashirama's cells to increase my control over the Sharingan as Danzo did? No, only the body of an Uchiha can display the Sharingan's true might. I'm not willing to compromise on that, so I have to either get my hands on the body of another Uchiha or unravel that damn seal Yuna slapped on Sasuke.'

While Orochimaru was grumbling about his future plans, space in front of him started twisting, which caused Orochimaru's eyes to widen in shock as he jumped back and pulled out the Sword of Kusanagi.

A moment later, a man wearing a black robe with red clouds and an orange mask with a single eyehole appeared in front of Orochimaru.

"Finding you is quite the chore, Orochimaru."

Orochimaru squinted his eyes when he saw a member of Akatsuki that he didn't know about appearing in front of him. Although he couldn't feel any hostile intention from the man before him, he nonetheless prepared himself for combat.

"That's how I like it to be, but it seems that didn't stop you from finding me anyway. Has Akatsuki finally sent someone to get rid of me after I betrayed you?"

"Usually, that would be the consequence of betrayal, but I believe the better choice would be to mend the relationship between you and Akatsuki and face a common enemy instead."

Orochimaru squinted his eyes when he heard the masked person's words. His ability to gather information has been drastically reduced after losing Kabuto and the Sound Four, so he had no idea who that potential common enemy could be. In fact, except for Yuna Uzumaki, there were very few people he truly considered to be his enemy.

"Who exactly are you talking about? Right now, there is only a single person I would be willing to forge an alliance against."

The face behind the mask twisted into a grin when the masked man heard Orochimaru's words.

"It's Yuna Uzumaki, isn't it?"

Orochimaru's eyes widened in surprise when he heard that question before his face twisted in glee.

"That's right. As long as our target is her, I'm willing to become your ally."

"Good, I heard that you could use the Edo Tensei. With my ability to freely travel through walls and other restrictions, I will be capable of collecting a lot of powerful people for you to use. No matter how abnormal she is, even she cannot beat an army of immortal, Kage-level shinobi."

Orochimaru nodded his head while his face twisted into a bizarre smile.

"Kukuku, I can't wait to see her face twist into despair when she faces a force she cannot beat. I might as well destroy Konoha while I am at it. Oh, I almost forgot about that; after she is dead, I want to have her corpse."

The masked man tilted his head in confusion before shrugging his shoulders in indifference.

"Sure, as long as we get the Kyuubi, you can have the corpse. But, I want you to teach me how to use the Edo Tensei and especially how to cancel it as well."

Despite the additional condition, Orochimaru's eyes shone in excitement when he heard the man's words. The secret of how Yuna could use ice has been keeping him on his toes for a long time now, and now he finally got a chance to find out about it. Also, he had to reveal how the Edo Tensei worked, he wanted Yuna's body no matter what, so revealing information about the jutsu was a risk he was willing to take.

'Kukuku, I can't wait. After I'm done dissecting her body and analyzing her bloodline, I will have a much better understanding of how a new Kekkei Genkai is born. I might even be able to artificially create my own after analyzing Yuna's. I can't wait.'

While the masked man, Obito, and Orochimaru were becoming allies, Anko sat crosslegged deep inside the Uzumaki compound inside a vast hall that only very few people knew about.

There was not a single speck of space on the ceiling, walls, or floor that was not adorned with massive amounts of minuscule seals, and the Natural Energy in the room was so thick that an average person would turn into stone just by breathing the air inside the room.

Over the years, Yuna had significantly increased her repertoire of seals that interacted with Natural Energy. By now, she was capable of creating something similar to the cultivation chambers of her previous life, so she naturally installed a few of them to help the people she taught cultivation to increase their pace.

Massive amounts of Nature Energy was currently swirling around Anko and was steadily being absorbed into her body.

After a long time of staying like this, she opened her eyes, and an elated expression appeared on her face.

"I finally did it!"

A massive grin appeared on Anko's face that seemed to split her face in half and resembled the grin of a certain shameless woman.

"Time for a snake hunt."