Samsara

Part VII

It takes two weeks before they are able to pick up Orochimaru's trail, and when they find him, it's in an underground base between the Land of Bears and the Land of Whirlpools.

Sakura is once again sweating through her winter clothes, practically gasping beneath an extra cloak. She doesn't remove it, though. Even without Sasuke's admonition that she should keep her pregnancy literally under wraps, she would have no intention letting Orochimaru see that she is expecting.

"I doubt he'll try anything," Sasuke mutters as they head into the cold, echoing underground chambers. "But still..."

"It's Orochimaru."

"Exactly."

"I'm hurt that you think so little of me," a sly voice whispers in the dark, and even though she has long since gotten over her nightmares of this shinobi, Sakura shivers.

She turns around, having to squint in the dark to make out the figure of Sasuke's former master. As he comes closer, she sees that he has once more stolen a body, this time of an unlucky teenager. His eyes are as cold as ever, however.

"My most heartfelt belated congratulations on your wedding, my dear Sasuke and Sakura," he says warmly, as if they are old friends seeing each other only after a few days instead of years. "I'm afraid my invitation never did arrive, but I don't hold it against you. Had I known you were in the area, I would have prepared a gift for you."

"This isn't a social call," Sasuke says, not bothering with a preamble. "What do know about past lives?"

Orochimaru chuckles. "So serious, as usual, my dear boy. And what a question...is your past history causing you problems perhaps?" Sasuke and Sakura exchange tense looks. Orochimaru's eyes narrow, catching the by-play, and his eyes light up. "Not my dear apprentice, but his lovely wife. That is something I would not have expected."

The way he looks at Sakura now reminds her of a snake preparing to consume a bird. She refuses to be intimidated by it, and takes a step forward.

"Sasuke might trust you, but let me make this abundantly clear to you," Sakura tells the Sannin, a hard smile on her face. Ten years of rage and resentment over what he did to her husband and to her in the Forest of Death build within her. "If you do one thing that strikes me as a threat, I will destroy you. You might not have a spine to rip out, but I will tear your nervous system out of you tissue by tissue if I have to."

Far from being insulted, Orochimaru appears amused.

"You still have the same fire as Tsunade. Far be it from me to encourage your, er, rather gratuitous imagination," he pretends to cough delicately, and then sighs. "Alas, there isn't much I can help you with. Not unless you happen to know where the remains of your esteemed former incarnation are located. In which case, I could summon her – or him – to you to ask directly." Sakura makes a disgusted face. "Ah, it is as I thought."

"Can a previous incarnation take over a current one?" Sasuke asks, finally voicing what has been worrying them both for weeks.

"Of the three of us, I imagine you would be in the best position to answer that, Sasuke my boy," Orochimaru purrs. "As you're the only one who has had concrete proof of living a previous life."

Sasuke frowns.

"From a strictly scientific standpoint, however, it wouldn't make sense," the older man continues. He gestures vaguely. "There are endless treatises on the subject of the soul, and yet the one thing that almost every one of these scholars would agree with is that it is immortal. Unchanging and immutable – a force that exists in continuity no matter what incarnation you inhabit."