"If there is not a limit to how long you can keep a summons around, it might be a good idea to summon them again once we're in Snow so we can be sure they aren't gossiping."

"It's tiring, but doable for two their size. And I'm confident they won't tattle - but keeping them with us will also protect them from retaliation."

"Do they have to come when called?"

He shakes his head. "They can refuse, but some of the snakes are on Orochimaru's side."

"Ah, intra-snake retaliation. How does he acquire all this loyalty? Is he very charismatic? Does he make really good japchae?"

"He's charismatic when he feels like it, and good at bribery. He's also willing to take in people others aren't, which got him a lot of now loyal outcasts."

"Why were those people having trouble finding places to go?"

"Mist started prosecuting some bloodlines for no reason anyone could discover, Karin joined because she'd been a quasi-prisoner in Grass and Orochimaru gave her a place, some people have out of control bloodlines Orochimaru promised to help them master..."

"...and people aren't allowed to just move, at least if they have fancy ancestry. Right. How do all these interesting bloodlines start, they seem very consistently useful or at least survivable to be random mutation... unless you didn't mention the seventy percent infant mortality rate or something..."

"Nobody knows. Orochimaru's theory is either that our ancestors had advanced genetic editing, or we somehow interbred with aliens or spirits. Apparently it's possible to trace the origins of some genes, and bloodline genetics don't fit."

"There evidence of a previous advanced civilization that, uh, succumbed to ninja war or something?"

"There's a suspicious lack of evidence of any civilization older than five to seven hundred years ago."

"...it's weird if you have computers and have only had civilization for five to seven hundred years but I will do my history forensics once we have exited the supervillain lair. We should talk tactics on that, I know ideally we just walk out but if something goes wrong with that plan I'd like to know how best to be helpful, if you die I go back to Hell."

"...I'll try not to die then." Crap he's going to have to be actually cautious with his life, isn't he.

"Most shinobi are immune to most poisons, unless you have something really exotic. I can knock out most potential opposition fairly easily. The ones I can't are Yakushi Kabuto and Orochimaru himself. Yakushi is a medic, so if he touches you he can mess with your biology. Orochimaru has a broad spectrum of powers. I can just blast a hole in the ceiling, to allow a retreat."

"I might be invulnerable to any subset of ninja stuff, do you know a basic medical-type thing you could try on something I can replace? And something in the illusion department, which I'm less likely immune to."

"I know one very basic technique for stabilizing bleeds, but the same thing could let me try to cause bruising. I'm bad at placing illusions but do know some."

Cam extends a wing in his direction. "If you fuck up my wing I can cut it off and put it back. I have just administered some painkillers in case the thing you are gonna try hurts a lot."

He pokes the tip and tries to force the blood to clot when it really shouldn't.

It's non-effective.

"Excellent. Okay, I can stand between you and anything merely physically injurious, at least, try an illusion?"

His eyes start - spinning? There's definitely moving black flecks in his irises.

Also the lights are flickering, and there's vines moving around Cam, and Sasuke's fading out - 

"Yikes, okay, no, I see that, can you give me a rundown of mind-affecting shit I should look out for - it can't be bad enough to throw everyone into perpetual total Cartesian doubt but that doesn't imply that much of a ceiling -"

The effect stops. Sasuke's standing where he was. "Any illusion I know of needs a hook. If you can't perceive each other, they don't work, and they're harder if you're about a hundred feet away or more. I need eye contact, which is pretty common."

"Illusions are hard and even most experts flat out can't make them realistic, so usually they're used to disorient opponents and buy time. My brother is widely considered terrifying because he can make illusions indistinguishable from reality, though he's enough of a sadist he doesn't tend to for long. Try to avoid looking at him, but if he catches you - he'll probably mess up on stuff that's different from humans. If you're taking damage, it's probably an illusion."

"There's ways to dismiss illusions. Disrupting your chakra is the most common, causing yourself pain is the easiest, and you can disrupt illusions on other people. Shiromi and Kusana both know how to do that, if you don't mind carrying a snake everywhere."

"Okay, bite my lip if something weird is up, and I don't mind carrying a snake either. I could wear mirrored sunglasses?"

"That would foil me, though not every expert, otherwise there wouldn't be much point in illusions. Any sense can be used as a hook; sound's the second most common after sight, and has more specialists here. If someone looks angry and takes out a flute they're probably about to use an illusion."

"And destroy nearby flutes. Anything else?"