By then, everyone had been transported back to their respective ninja villages, and Kakuzu, the loser of the duel, had paid out a large amount of gold.
After this, Kakuzu probably wouldn't want to remember today for the rest of his life.
Obito, meanwhile, had gained a great deal from the match, including how to use the Mangekyō Sharingan and perform various Ninjutsu.
Obito had also obtained some Ninjutsu as rewards, but he couldn't use them as smoothly as he had in his white-mask form.
As luck would have it, he had no missions today, so Obito decided to invite some classmates he was close to for a celebration.
Obito could now be counted among the richest of Konoha's young ninja. Between his previous missions and this duel, Obito Uchiha could afford to treat everyone to a little get-together.
Obito was wondering whom to invite. Kakashi was definitely on the list, and he seemed to be home today.
Then there was Might Guy, the guy who dressed all in green. Although Might Guy still occasionally forgot his name when he saw him, Obito was a man who would become Hokage. How could he hold something like that against him?
There was also Ebisu. Obito didn't know what the guy had been up to lately, though he seemed to be learning how to be a teacher.
Oh, he had to invite Kurenai too. They had parted ways without saying much during their last dungeon mission. Obito had actually wanted to say hello to Rin and the others, but that blue-haired girl had been a little fierce.
And there was Asuma. Since he was inviting Kurenai, that guy Asuma would definitely tag along shamelessly.
Right, he had to invite Anko too. He hadn't seen much of her lately and didn't know whether she still liked glutinous rice dumplings and red bean paste. He'd heard she had taken Orochimaru as her teacher.
As for Rin, Obito planned to invite her in person.
After settling on a list of classmates, he prepared to go find Rin and invite her.
Meanwhile, Mitarashi Anko was in Orochimaru's laboratory.
"Teacher, what are all these experiments for?" Mitarashi Anko asked curiously, pointing at the human tissue in Orochimaru's laboratory.
An ordinary little girl would have been at least a little frightened by a laboratory full of human tissue, but Anko was very interested.
Orochimaru looked at his innocent student. He had taken Anko as his student partly because her father had died for him, and partly to put his own teacher at ease.
Seeing Anko's curious expression, Orochimaru wasn't about to tell her that those were limbs resulting from Hashirama Cells being implanted into human bodies.
Orochimaru himself had been feeling somewhat lost lately. Having witnessed the deaths of too many people, he believed life was fragile. He believed the human body contained power that could not be used in a single lifetime, so he wanted to obtain immortality and thereby learn every Ninjutsu and master the truths of the world.
But everything that had happened lately had made him somewhat doubtful. Through research, he had discovered that the Sharingan he had previously obtained...
Whether in cell vitality or the Sharingan's functions, it was identical to the Sharingan of the Uchiha Clan.
Could he, then, obtain the meaning of eternal life through the Inventory System?
Lately, Orochimaru had gradually stopped the related experimental research. There were still things in Konoha that he could not bear to leave behind.
Looking at Anko now, Orochimaru thought of more things.
"Anko, didn't your classmate Obito Uchiha invite you to a party?" Orochimaru asked.
Anko hadn't expected her teacher to care about something like that. Usually, Orochimaru focused only on his experiments and rarely asked about her personal affairs.
"Yes. I was just planning to wait until you finished your experiment, then go find Obito." Anko was now Orochimaru's student and, in name, his assistant.
But Orochimaru hadn't allowed her to participate in anything related to the experiments. Unlike Kabuto Yakushi, Anko was too kind in that regard and wasn't suited to Orochimaru's work.
"In that case, go on ahead, Anko. There's nothing important for me to do here," Orochimaru told her.
"Really?" Anko asked excitedly. She wasn't very used to tinkering with these things in the laboratory either.
After receiving Orochimaru's approval, Anko happily ran out, while Orochimaru continued his experiment.
A while later, Orochimaru suddenly spoke out of the blue.
"The person's gone. Come out." As soon as he finished speaking, a member of Root appeared behind Orochimaru.
"Lord Danzo urges you to speed up your research into Sharingan transplantation," the Root member said without expression.
Orochimaru, meanwhile, wore a somewhat intriguing expression as he examined the Root member.
"Wasn't Root disbanded by the Third Hokage? Why are you still working for Danzo?"
The Root member acted as though he couldn't hear Orochimaru's question and didn't answer him at all.
Orochimaru was getting something of a headache. He had already decided to end the related research, yet that guy Danzo still dared to covet the Sharingan.
If he hadn't lacked research funds before, how could he have agreed to work for Danzo? Now that he no longer intended to conduct human experiments, Danzo was no longer necessary either.
Orochimaru then gave his signature lick of his tongue, and a snake silently appeared beside the Root ninja and bit downward.
The Root ninja died at Orochimaru's hands without noticing anything amiss.
Orochimaru looked at the research facility before him without the slightest attachment and burned it completely to the ground.
Just as Orochimaru was preparing to leave.
[Shinobi World Inventory, Kage Level combat power of the Shinobi World, TOP 17--Orochimaru]
Orochimaru hadn't expected to be the subject of this inventory himself. Things really were getting more and more interesting.