She touches him for a brief moment, shifts, and then steps back and out of his space.

"Welcome, I suppose."

"Are you going to try to kill him? He's very unlikely to let you leave."

"I have no idea of the full extent of his abilities. And I'm still stuck in this place, presumably surrounded by his army."

"He's fast. Faster than you can perceive, likely. He can't be killed conventionally - his body is extremely durable, and even if you killed him anyways he has fall-backs that his mind could be restored into. He knows a tremendous number of techniques, from 'breathing fire' to 'summoning giant snakes.' His army is a mixture of fanatically loyal, with him because he's bribing them, and prisoners. He's not above torturing people to get what he wants. He's playing along with you because you're new and he's easily bored."

"I could trap him in here. He can't hurt me in this place and if he tries to get into my head to try and get back -- if that's even possible -- he's going to have a bad time."

"I wouldn't discount most shinobi techniques." She's very likely vulnerable to illusions, for one. And Orochimaru is good enough to give even Sasuke's sharingan pause. "And he's fast enough to kill you before you drag him here, and - you trapping him here might actually not stop him from instantiating one of his backup bodies."

"Could you kill him?"

"I'm ten months out from an ideal opportunity. Your technique pauses time? If you let me train here, I might be able to bump that up, though the fight will be messier."

"Twenty-three days equals one second in real time. Define messy. Also what happens in ten months?"

"The surrounding landscape getting destroyed. At least a few hundred feet, likely several miles at a minimum. In ten months his current body will have decayed enough that he'll be forced to jump bodies; he'll be weak before and during that." Sasuke would like to avoid having to gamble on being able to fight off Orochimaru in the midst of a hostile takeover of his body, which had been his fallback if he can't get to the snake's level in time.

"Are you very attached to this evil lair? But I suppose that might also kill everyone in the blast zone."

"It would. I prefer to avoid unnecessary killing."

"If I give you this time to train, however long you need, would you be able to hold him long enough for me to bring you both here? That way if you destroy everything... it has no bearing on your world."

"If you need contact to bring him here? Probably. Definitely if I spend long enough at it. That might take a while, though, and the best way to do that would be refining my illusions. Are you thinking we do this now? He'll be expecting it, but he'll always be expecting it, and he doesn't know yet how long you can hold this world for. And if I get slowly more powerful over time he'll have more warning."

"First you will need a way to protect your mind, this place will worm it's way in and mess you up."

"I'm resistant to most ways something from here could do that. Does time in the real world reset that?"

"Doubtful. Once it's gotten into your head, there's really no way to reverse it. None that I know. Well. I suppose you could trigger, like I did. But I don't think you have that potential."

"I can spend a short while, until I notice the effects. The integrity of my mind is second to my goals."

"It's your choice. You should come find me once you've figured something out. And you have a free couple of hours, I suppose."

"I will."

"Wanna show me how to unlock these doors? I promise I'll stick around."

"They don't all unlock the same way. I don't know how to unlock all the ones between here and the outside; my usual method for escaping if I absolutely needed to would look like blowing the roof off. And I'm not sure you can without chakra, or being keyed into the seals."

"Annoying." She pauses and hmms. "We should probably get on with it. Me communicating like this is only going to exacerbate the problem."

"Alright. If Orochimaru remains curious enough about you, he'll probably assign someone to help you with the language."

"Any tips on how to keep him interested?"