When someone was sad, it showed.
As Akihara Kagura told his story, he looked deeply sorrowful.
At that moment, the youngster did not resemble someone consumed by jealousy and hatred at all. He simply looked like an abandoned child.
"..."
Kabuto Yakushi remained silent.
Kabuto Yakushi had thought his own fate was already full of hardships.
In the past, to bring more funding to the orphanage and keep Yakushi Nonō from being put in too difficult a position, he had willingly sacrificed himself. He chose to join the Root Organization, becoming a spy ninja whose life was always at risk, constantly walking along the edge of death.
Yet compared to Akihara Kagura...
Kabuto Yakushi felt unbelievably fortunate.
Because his sacrifice had been worthwhile. Dean Nonō had always worried about him, and that concern had even made another child with the same fate grow jealous.
"I... don't know."
Kabuto Yakushi lowered his head slightly, his expression hesitant and uneasy. "Over the past few years, I've never received any word from the dean. I haven't even seen her..."
Kabuto Yakushi hesitated for a moment, seeming to feel that he had to apologize to the youngster. "I'm sorry. I never knew about any of this."
It was like pity from someone above toward someone below.
Kabuto Yakushi had never considered himself someone above others.
But before this youngster, forgotten by Dean Nonō, Kabuto Yakushi felt as though he were a lucky man who had inexplicably received a treasure, while the youngster was someone who had struggled desperately to obtain that treasure and gained nothing.
It made Kabuto Yakushi feel like a thief...
At that moment, guilt arose in Kabuto Yakushi's heart.
He had clearly done nothing to wrong Akihara Kagura, yet because of Dean Nonō's excessive care for him, while Kabuto Yakushi felt warm and happy, he also felt ashamed toward this forgotten youngster.
Though he felt somewhat ashamed and apologetic...
Kabuto Yakushi truly felt happy now.
However...
A person's happiness might be easy to obtain, but protecting that happiness was not so easy. It often required enduring hardship.
"You know nothing."
A mocking smile appeared at the corner of Akihara Kagura's mouth, as though he were looking at someone utterly ignorant. "What a coincidence... Dean Nonō knows nothing either."
"What?"
Kabuto Yakushi's mind went blank, and he instinctively pressed, "What do you mean? What does it mean that the dean knows nothing too?"
"Kabuto."
Akihara Kagura asked a deadly question. "When you joined the Root Organization several years ago, you were even younger than I am now..."
"Yet you spent over four years in the Root Organization. You're thirteen or fourteen now, right? We grow quickly, and our appearances change from when we were little... Do you remember how long ago you said you last saw Dean Nonō?"
"Since I entered the Root Organization..."
Kabuto Yakushi faintly sensed that he and Dean Nonō had fallen into a conspiracy.
"So..."
Akihara Kagura looked at Kabuto Yakushi and gently guided him with a question. "Would you like to guess how Dean Nonō wanted to see you?"
"Photographs!"
A cold glint appeared in Kabuto Yakushi's eyes as he practically gritted out the answer. "Dean Nonō must have asked for photographs of me after I grew up, but you had them give her fake photographs..."
Kabuto Yakushi was very intelligent. He immediately recalled Akihara Kagura mentioning photographs at Training Ground Nine.
In an instant, Kabuto Yakushi understood the conspiracy aimed at him and Dean Nonō. A photograph of him after he had grown up was enough to create a problem!
"You really are smart. You guessed right again!"
Akihara Kagura looked at Kabuto Yakushi with open admiration, then corrected him. "But I wasn't the one who gave her the fake photographs. Lord Danzō gave them to her... I'm just a child. What decisions could I make in the Root Organization?"
"That may not be true..."
Kabuto Yakushi shook his head and replied, "All the Root ninja fear you. That proves Shimura Danzō values you greatly. Whatever you wanted to do, he wouldn't oppose it."
"Because you were jealous of Dean Nonō's concern, having Shimura Danzō hand false photographs of me to Dean Nonō would be perfectly normal..."
"Tch..."
Akihara Kagura sighed, neither speaking to refute him nor denying it, and continued slowly, "One thing you said is indeed right. Dean Nonō really does care about you. She kept asking for your photographs, wanting to know that you were safe..."
"Honestly..."
"She was always thinking about you..."
"Yet she never once asked about me."
"To ensure that Dean Nonō would continue providing intelligence to the Root Organization, Lord Danzō gradually replaced all your photographs with fakes. The person Dean Nonō gradually began seeing in those pictures was a fake. She had no idea what you really looked like."
"If it had stopped there, it would have been fine. Just one fake would have been enough to make Dean Nonō keep providing intelligence to the Root Organization..."
"However..."
"You, the real one, were still alive."
"Lord Danzō repeatedly sent you out on dangerous missions, hoping you would die during them, but you survived every single time."
"What a lucky life you had..."
"Successfully completing mission after mission..."
"Until Lord Danzō finally acknowledged your talent and wanted you to become a spy who would serve the Root Organization forever, only to find that he had to confront a problem."
"If he wanted you to remain in the Root Organization, you and Dean Nonō would meet sooner or later. When that happened, every lie would be exposed."
As Akihara Kagura said this, he suddenly added, "That's not strange. Since it was a lie, it was bound to be exposed one day."
"But..."
"Lord Danzō does not make mistakes."
"So he would certainly dispose of his mistake."
"So..."
Kabuto Yakushi pushed up his glasses and said quietly, "You don't want me to live long enough to see Dean Nonō, or you don't want Dean Nonō to live long enough to see me."
"That was originally what Lord Danzō intended."
Akihara Kagura folded his arms and sighed. "Lord Danzō favored you more, because he believed Dean Nonō had never been loyal enough. So he had always been considering when to kill Dean Nonō..."
"..."
Kabuto Yakushi's body trembled slightly.
A feeling of panic, born from having the most important thing in his life beyond his control, swept through his entire body.
Kabuto Yakushi's fingers dug tightly into his flesh, and a layer of cold sweat gradually seeped across his forehead. He felt as though he had guessed something. "You... why are you telling me this? Do you... want me to kill myself now, so Dean Nonō can live?"
"That was what I originally thought too."
Akihara Kagura raised his brows and continued indifferently, "But I heard something... Dean Nonō had always wanted to make a deal with Lord Danzō. She could do anything Lord Danzō asked, as long as you could leave the Root Organization and be free."
"Kabuto..."
"I'm even more jealous of you."
"Why had she never thought of saving me?"
"Why, when I was sent to Root's base and used as material for human experiments, had she never thought of saving me?"
First update!
Beautiful journeys were often painful...
Before you continue