[Yokuchi in the Land of Grass]

A tall, slender build female with ghostly pale skin with, beautiful long dark blue hair that goes down to her back, and Raspberry color snake pupil eyes. Who was wearing a purple and blue Kimono going down to her knees with matching blue pants and black ninja sandals was seen walking through a beautiful forest, looking at the deer drinking from a lake.

The girl was none other than a sixteen-year-old teenager named Tsuyumi Tsuchinoko, who had grown up a lot since she was left with her caretaker by her father, Orochimaru.

'So odd father's usually here by this time to train with me.' She thought as she looked at the sky seeing that it had gotten pretty late since she came outside for fresh air.

"It's way past morning, and we always train together after breakfast when he comes to see me," She muttered with her eyes narrowed in concentration, trying to figure out what was going on."Maybe Mitsuko-san know where he is. She seems to always get snake messages from him, but I haven't heard anything from her recently," Tsuyumi said, heading back towards the cabin she lives in with her caregiver.

'I just hope that everything is okay with my father. I admit we don't spend much time together, but when he does come to see me, it is always a great time. He doesn't say it often, but I can feel that he loves me.' She thought with a smile on her face until she suddenly felt a chill down her spine.

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Meanwhile elsewhere…

[Inside of Orochimaru Forest Hideout]

A pale skin man named Orochimaru was in his fifties with snake-like characteristics with golden snake eyes with slitted pupils, purple markings around his eyes, and fang-like teeth. He also had pronounced cheekbones and straight waist-length black hair with some locks framing his face to shoulders. 

The man was sitting in a bed wearing a red shirt with white snakes on the back and side shoulders of it. He started smiling and chuckling evilly until he felt a sharp pain in his chest and grit his teeth as he cuffed his hand against his chest in pain.

'The cost of reanimation is this pain. But it's nothing compared to the greatness that I am gaining.' He thought his body was shaking as he started laughing evilly again.

He stopped laughing as he brought a hand up to his mouth and started coughing. After a couple of minutes of coughing, he finally recovered as he looked up slightly with a hand close to his mouth, with blood dripping from one side of his mouth.

A bright blue  beam of light shaped like a sword stabbed through the door and right into Orochimaru's arms as he tried to block it 

'The nature of this Chakra… But I've never seen this change in Chakra Form before. Who is it?' He thought his body and eyes widened and shook from the pain his body was in. 

The door was sliced and cut open, revealing the mysterious figure on the other side of the brown door that was now completely destroyed and there stood was a tall sixteen-year-old male with black eyes and spiky black hair with blue tint hair that hung over his face and had bangs that framed his face perfectly. 

He was wearing dark blue pants, over which hung a blue cloth that covered him from his stomach to his knees, and he was secured with a purple rope belt. It was also complemented with a long-sleeved shirt kept open at the torso and black arm guards that covered his forearms, and one arm was pointed forward with the beam coming from it.

"So you came just like I thought you would, Sasuke," Orochimaru said with sweat running down his face from his pain and fever.

"I have no more use for you there, nothing else you can teach me, Orochimaru," Sasuke commented with a hardened expression on his face as he started to walk closer to Orochimaru, stabbing the beam blade further through his hands. "Orochimaru, you are weaker than me," He continued as half of his curse mark formed on his body and face.

Orochimaru grit his teeth from the painful sensation as he narrowed his eyes at Sasuke.

"You have a lot of nerve. You're still an Uchiha fledgling!" Orochimaru snapped, bearing the pain he was in.

"If I hadn't been a fledgling, you wouldn't haven't stood a chance with me, right?" Sasuke said with a smirk on his face.

"You," Orochimaru groaned."You're so wrong if you think you can take me down that easily or ruin my legacy by taking me down, you're so wrong," He stated, thinking about his daughter.

'I believe it might be about time I had Kabuto contact her to play her role in the plans, even though it might be sooner than I planned.' Orochimaru thought as Sasuke jumped forward, getting ready to bring his sword towards him. As he fired a mysterious figure out of his mouth, sending his body out cold, looking dead.

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Back in…

[ Yokouchi in the Land of Grass]

Tsuyumi paused in her tracks, returning home after a pleasant stroll through the beautiful oasis-looking forest she was raised in, the Land of Grass.

'What is this feeling?' She thought as she felt a sudden chill down her spine.

She looked around the area, trying to discover the source of her feeling, when she noticed the blood coming from a white snake that seemed like it had just recently been killed.

'That snake, I'm getting a horrible feeling about this.' She thought, looking at the snake before she swallowed nervously. As she started to make her way to the cabin to see, Mitsuko hoped everything was okay and that her father was here to see her and train and maybe even talk.

"Tsuyu, everything okay, snakeling?" A soft voice asked, snapping her out of her concerning thoughts.

"Hana, you startled me," Tsuyumi said with a sigh of relief, seeing it wasn't any danger as she saw a beautiful, fully grown black deer looking at her worry.

"I don't know, Hana, something just doesn't feel right," Tsuyumi said, rolling up her sleeve to reveal a purple snake wrapped around a sword near her wrist.

Her eyes narrow as she studies the unique curse mark her father gave her a couple of years ago, telling her it was a mark he made just for her.

"My young one, are you worried about your father because he hasn't shown up?" Hana asked, seeing the look on the face of her human partner assignment given to her by her Lord.

"Something just doesn't feel right. Is Mitsuko-san out here with you as well?" 

"Nope, just me, my mate, and our fawn, my human partner inside. Why?"

"I just don't, but something is not right. I got to go," Tsuyumi rolled down her sleeve as she glanced at the dead snake one more time before rushing back to the cabin.

'That girl is quite tense. Maybe something is wrong. There is a bad chill in the air.' Hana thought as she started to sense the drop in temperature before heading back to her fawn and mate and looked to see the sky was turning a bloody rain.

"The sky looks like blood. It seems that the snakeling is right. Something is not right," Hana whispered as she headed back to her family.

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Meanwhile…

[Orochimaru Forest hideout]

Kabuto was walking out of a room with tubes and a decaying hand inside of it. Walking down the rocky hallway, he noticed something was wrong as he saw the door missing from his Lord's bedroom.

His eyes widened as he rushed over there and crouched down near the edge of where the door should be and peeked inside, and there was a large body of the white snake and the human body of Orochimaru on the bed, not moving.

While a completely calm Sasuke was standing next to the snake's body.

'What is Sasuke doing here?' Kabuto thought, confused when he finally noticed the cast of the skin of the giant white snake.

'Does that mean the ritual has started? Is it already done? No, something doesn't feel right. What is going on here?' 

Kabuto gulped nervously.

"Kabuto, is that you?" Sasuke questioned.

Kabuto stood up and walked forward and stood right in front of the door as Sasuke walked towards the door and slowly passed him. As he started to walk away, Kabuto glanced at him and spoke up. 

"Which one… are you?" He asked in a severe tone.

Sasuke turned around and smirked at Kabuto. "Which one do you think, Kabuto?" 

Kabuto's eyes widened slightly. 'That smirk, no, it can't be him, not Lord Orochimaru.' He thought as he recalled Lord Orochimaru. If he did smile, it was pretty creepy. 

"You're not Lord Orochimaru," Kabuto said in shock, with his eyes shaking.

"That right, he went every ounce of him," Sasuke said, walking away as Kabuto looked at him live.

'Oh, Sasuke, you don't know how wrong you are. You might have killed him, but his rein still lives on. It looks like it is time to bring Lady Tsuyumi back home, but telling her this won't be easy.' Kabuto thought, looking at his Lord's body and the blood from the snake as he pulled a scroll from his pocket and stored away the dead body and snake.

"I'll clean this room up later. Need to visit Lady Tsuyumi," Kabuto whispered, pushing up his glasses before he grabbed a rolled-up scroll from the desk drawer and left the bedroom to held on out, getting ready to set to retrieve Lady Tsuyumi.

Hello, readers!

Here it is the first chapter of The Threat of A Unknown Serpent. I really hope you enjoy it and that you continue to read the story as more chapters come out.

I also appreciate the comment and votes from those who have read the prologue and enjoyed what has been published so far.

Thank you for reading!