Only to be met by a blow to the stomach, from Orochimaru moving too fast for even the sharingan to track.

He rolls with it, teleports to the side, and tries to take a deep breath. That's... Going to bruise.

Chihiro puts herself in Orochimaru's way to buy time for Sasuke to recover.

He jumps over her head -

And is met by a very messy, very angry swarm of blond clones.

He's now behind Sasuke, the clones destroyed. "So you survived my snake. You didn't hurt her too much, I hope."

He's not taking them seriously. Has no reason to take them seriously. Hence the banter. That's maybe they're only chance, to try to exploit his lack of attention. She strafes left, charging up for a low sweep-

And her teammates catch on. Sugira took his breath to cast true strike, spins and lunges in with lightning licking up his blade - maybe he'll be able to distract the man - 

And Naruto comes from on high, wind scything ahead of him, cutting off another route of retreat - 

Chihiro's strike is redirected into a tree, Sasuke's into the ground, and Naruto's just thrown off to the side.

He's too good. But retreat isn't an option, and neither is surrender.

Naruto exchanges glances with Sasuke, realizes the other is planning something - possibly to do with spells, he has that doing-math-recklessly look in his eyes - and rushes Orochimaru with clones. It's probably fairly blatantly a ploy...

Orochimaru just idly bats clones away, apparently content to wait for their plan.

Sugira jumps to the tree well above Orochimaru, and starts stringing together memories he doesn't need.

This is so fucking incredibly stupid - 

He points down, incants something that makes the air twist, and then pain rockets through his skull as his vision whites - 

And a lightning bolt, five feet across, bursts from under Orochimaru's feet, terminating at Sugira's fingers.

Sugira proceeds to half collapse.

This is as good as they'll get-

She transofrms into a copy of Naruto, changes her sword to look like his (it'll only last until she hits something but that may be all she needs), leaps in, switches with a clone mid-air-

Orochimaru's tongue catches her around the middle and then slams her into a broader tree branch. She probably won't be any worse off than a few cracked ribs.

His hair appears to be slightly frizzy, and he's grinning. "You three are starting to impress me."

She groans, attempts to stand.

Sugira's doing the same.

"Enough to tell us what you want?" he grits out.

"You to come to me, of course. Not that you haven't already guessed."

"Fuck you."

He puts a hand over his heart. "You wound me."

And then he's behind the real Naruto, hand on his shoulder beside his neck. "Loyal to your friends, are you?"

Naruto tries and fails to jerk away, and there's something stopping him from using his techniques - 

No-

Almost before she realizes what she's doing, she's cast a replacement on herself with Naruto.

"Oh, a volunteer, how cute."

And snakes wind around her, immobilizing her and cutting off her chakra, fangs resting lightly against her pulse points.