The title is actually a play on the Japanese game of Shogi, where little wood chips make up the army. Orochimaru is such an interestingly…F'd up villain.
It was all going better than he would have thought possible.
The fall of the hokage, the fall of Leaf, the fall of Fire…the fall of the world. Let all his enemies, all his doubters – let the Third – see just how capable he was. He could move nations with his power. And soon - soon - he would show Leaf, let them overflow with regret at not having him on their side. They would regret not having made him the next hokage.
The attack on Konoha, the crippling – alas, not as devastating as planned – rampage of the nine-tailed demon through its streets flattening houses and village folk alike, beautiful. The death of that man's beloved student – village's beloved Fourth - sweet, sweet, sweet. Sweeter than the tang of blood from his kunai.
Only to have been pulled from the back of the Fourth himself could it have been more succulent.
Still, there had been no greater satisfaction than having forced the Third out from his retirement. Unexpected but delicious, watching him struggle with the ruins of a once proud and strong people reduced to pulling loved ones, friends, comrades from beneath their own houses. Gone were his days of lounging leisurely with a spoiled and undeserving grandchild. He would suffer.
Yes. Licking his lips now he could still taste it. Blood, the utter embodiment of chaos, memory ever as fresh in his mind as the violence sweeping across the countries before him, drip, dripping from his lips as shinobi did in the field. His little soldiers…
The secret weapon he was coddling in his lair, still growing, growing. But still not ready. No. Even now, Kabuto was helping him tweak this body, trying to get more from it until his weapon was. Then – then - he would show the world just how well he could lead them - all to their deaths. They would pay. He would pay.
The weapon's teacher…was still quite a threat, but he would not succeed. He would not. He'd long passed his prime for being a host. Yes, after having found out about his acquisition, he had considered the prodigy, even started mapping plans on seeding him. It would have been the closing grandeur of his revenge! Infecting the most prized student of his teacher's most prized student! The ultimate slight as he wrought havoc from within and brought the village so far to its knees they were buried in the earth!
But timing had not been in his favor. Circumstances had prevented him from actively pursuing the promising elite. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made. And then the Uchiha had come, had been taken in by the once possible host, absorbing the efficient lethal skills. There had never been a more perfect vessel. He'd gone out of his way to make time arrange itself so that he could be with the boy. He simply could not let another ideal pass him by.
The genius brat would not take his tool from him.
The demon-kin spawned by the Fourth would die at his teammate's hand.
And the tool? The tool would finish the last morsel held in his own before the other closed around his neck, cementing his future as his vessel and greatest weapon against Fire. And any would-be traitors, of course.
He stopped to take a deep breath and smiled, fear and violence and anarchy filling his nostrils, lungs and chest pushing out as he let it assimilate with himself.
The world was his.
Soon.
So very soon.