'Cos this has been in my head for a very loooooog time.

Does Kishimoto, at any point, in the manga or otherwise, explicitly state that Sasuke went off to follow Orochimaru. I'm not talking about implied comments, or the mass fandom agreement, I'm talking about textual evidence. This is important, because honest to god, I can't for the life of me remember it being said, in the text, that Sasuke followed Orochimaru.

And if it was mentioned, point me to the issue, or at least tell me who said it, and what was said.