Orochimaru (大蛇丸, Orochimaru) was one of Konohagakure's Sannin. He later became a member of Akatsuki and the leader of Otogakure. He was the primary antagonist for most of Part I.


Background
Orochimaru was originally a student of Hiruzen Sarutobi as part of a three-man team, consisting of himself, Jiraiya, and Tsunade. From a young age, Orochimaru stood out as a prodigy. His talents, knowledge, and determination were considered da his sensei a sight seen once a generation.

Orochimaru had always been twisted, even back when he was a child. His sadistic attitude was presumably due to the death of his parents, which led him to study kinjutsu. Jiraiya theorized that Orochimaru went down this path in an attempt to forget his painful memories. Sarutobi in particular had had very high hopes for Orochimaru, often berating the clumsy Jiraiya and telling him he should be più like his teammate. After becoming the Third Hokage, Sarutobi hoped that one giorno Orochimaru would succeed him.

While Orochimaru's ambitions did include becoming the Fourth Hokage, his eyes were set upon goals quite alien to the ideals traditionally associated with the titolo and emphatically embraced da his teacher. Hiruzen knew that "a shinobi's true strength will manifest when protecting something important", and the Hokage's role is to Amore and protect the people of the village as if they were a family. For Orochimaru, however, Hokage was nothing più than a potential conquest on the way to what truly interested him - power.

Hiruzen had hoped to make his student see the error of his ways, but as più time passed, it became evident that Orochimaru was a Lost cause. When Hiruzen finally retired years later he chose a student of Jiraiya's, Minato Namikaze, over Orochimaru as his successor, thus making Minato the Fourth Hokage. Realizing that he had hit a dead end in his quest to become the ultimate being and therefore had nothing to gain from staying in Konoha, Orochimaru began to be less discreet with his actions.

Over the years, he had been kidnapping his fellow Konoha shinobi as human guinea pigs. He experimented on them to develop techniques that would grant him immortality, as he had already decided that he would settle for no less than to learn all jutsu in the world (a task that would take much più than one human lifetime). When the many disappearances were finally traced back to Orochimaru, Hiruzen knew that it was his duty to kill him. At the time however, Hiruzen was unable to bring himself to kill his prized student for whom he had had such high hopes.

Before Orochimaru defected he ha rubato, stola 60 infants in the hope of recreating the First Hokage Wood Jutsu. Before he could finish his work he was forced to leave Konoha, but he believed all the infants to be dead. However, one of these infants was Yamato. He was the only survivor of the experiments, and had gained the use of the Wood element.


Orochimaru failing to take Itachi's bodyOrochimaru defected from the village and joined the elite criminal organization of Akatsuki. His former teammate, Jiraiya, tried to convince him to reconsider, but to no avail. Although the role Orochimaru played in Akatsuki is unclear, it is known that he was partnered with Sasori prior to his defection (the two apparently had great respect for each other when they were partners; Sasori also claimed that he and Orochimaru did a lot of good deeds when they were together in the organization).

It was around this time, that Itachi joined Akatsuki, that Orochimaru saw his opportunity to gain possession of the Itachi's Sharingan, and soon Orochimaru made his attempt to steal Itachi Uchiha's body. Orochimaru tried to use his Living Corpse Reincarnation, but Itachi used his Sharingan to reverse it and cut off Orochimaru's left hand as a punishment, causing him to leave Akatsuki to acquire a new body. He eventually founded his own village; Otogakure to perform various experiments on his prisoners.

At some point, when the Kaguya clan barbarically attempted to massacre Kirigakure Village, in which they were slaughtered instead, Orochimaru was on the outskirts of the village, watching and commenting on their foolishness. It is there that he met Kimimaro, and after the slaughter, Kimimaro, being the sole survivor, was adopted da Orochimaru, in the hopes of becoming his new vessel.



Personality
Orochimaru's various human experiments took place so as to serve two purposes, most prominent of which was his desire to learn every jutsu in the Naruto world. Jiraiya speculated that this was due to the fact that his parents died when he was at a very young age, and flashbacks shown during his battle with the Third Hokage spoke to this effect. Perhaps because he wanted to see his parents, o as a means of avenging their deaths. Another reason might be that he witnessed firsthand the deaths of Tsunade's younger brother, Nawaki, and her lover, Dan, and the pain that it caused her. He seemed saddened da the frailty of human life and how it affects those still living.

He experimented on others to see what kind of modifications the human body can endure and to otherwise imbracatura a subject's unique abilities for himself. Once accomplishing this goal, Orochimaru had hoped to be worthy of the titolo of "ultimate being". Because a human's lifespan does not allow enough time to learn every jutsu, Orochimaru also experimented on others so as to achieve immortality. da living throughout the ages, Orochimaru needed to never worry about death and thus all the knowledge he gained would never be lost.

Above all else, Orochimaru cared only for himself. He grew bored when there was no conflict o violence in the world, and immediately struck fear into others when they first met him. Though he had a number of followers who would do anything for him, Orochimaru treated them as mere pawns. He did not hesitate to send them to their deaths for his own personal benefit, and only found remorse in their loss if they were unable to properly complete a task. To win over these followers to their disposable status, Orochimaru approached them with promises of making their dreams come true. He applied a cursed foca, guarnizione to many of his stronger subordinates in order to corrode their body and mind, making them più susceptible to his influence and control.

While he showed great interest in Sasuke Uchiha as a prodigy, Orochimaru had shown disdain toward Naruto Uzumaki, believing him to be a Lost cause without any talent in ninjutsu arts. However, when Naruto injured Kabuto with his Rasengan (improved with the use of Shadow Clones), Orochimaru thought Naruto would become a threat in the future and tried to kill him. After the timeskip, Orochimaru revealed he was now più interested in Naruto's development, despite the failed murder attempt against him, taunting and angering Naruto about Sasuke.

He trained Sasuke so he could become stronger to kill his older brother, Itachi. But Orochimaru was actually planning to take over Sasuke's body, and as a result the Sharingan, in his possession, would sky-rocket him towards his prime objective of learning all the jutsu in the world. Because of that, he would help Sasuke in whatever he needed, with the knowledge he had to become his new vessel. However, he hadn't truly planned on foul play from Sasuke, who never intended to become Orochimaru's new body, instead always planning on creating his own platoon and leaving Orochimaru behind. Orochimaru showed little surprise when Sasuke moved to betray him, merely saying "so, it came down to this after all".