Orochimaru is on the edge of breaking when someone unexpected pulls him back to solid ground. When the time comes, he returns the favor.

“Oh?” Orochimaru asks sweetly, trying to judge the room they're in. Some sort of military headquarters, predictably. “They let me keep my doctorates? How kind. But I assume this wasn’t a test of how many low-level guards I could put in the morgue—” “Three,” the younger soldier standing at Danzō’s shoulder cuts in, righteous anger darkening his features. “Three in the morgue, six in the hospital.” “Oh my, you caught me on an off day.” Orochimaru gives the young man his best flirtatious smirk. “Come back tomorrow and I promise, I’ll at least double both counts.” (Or, that Suicide Squad!AU no one asked for and no one wanted, but I wrote anyway. I'm not sorry.)

The first person Kakashi meets when he staggers out of the house, covered in blood, is Uchiha Obito.

Orochimaru, Mito has come to realize, has a good many of the qualities that made her brother-in-law so fearsome, and she’s glad for it.