A Toad Meets a Snake—Ill Omen

Some people considered Danzō an antihero like Alex Mercer, the protagonist of the first-generation The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi, but Wang Yan did not see him that way.

He believed Danzō was Konoha's biggest cancer, a typical Japanese **** villain—always committing the most unforgivable sins in the name of righteousness.

A man like that was not worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Alex Mercer.

Just look at what Shimura Danzō had done!

He extracted genetic material from the First Hokage's corpse and injected it into sixty infants for human experimentation, causing those babies to die one after another, their Genetic Mutations leaving them deformed before they perished miserably as something no longer human.

Of course, Orochimaru had done similar things.

But Orochimaru was not as hypocritical as Danzō.

Danzō's line—"You are Konoha, bathed in sunlight. I am the Root buried deep underground."—was nothing more than the final struggle of a cunning villain trying to whitewash himself before death.

Judge actions, not intentions. To see what a person was truly made of, do not listen to what they said—look at what they did.

When the Nine-Tails invaded, Danzō did not act, and the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, died in battle.

During the Konoha Crush, Danzō vanished without a trace, and the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, died in battle.

Why, when the Nine-Tails invaded, did they need to preserve Root and that old bastard Danzō rather than the Fourth Hokage, a man of limitless potential and unmatched charisma?

Why would he rather watch his comrades die than lend a hand?

One millisecond equaled one-thousandth of a second.

In that 0.001 seconds, Wang Yan's thoughts raced, filling his heart with indignation and rage.

Those emotions all surged brutally into Danzō's brain alongside his Spiritual Power.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Round bloodstains kept bursting across Danzō's bandage-wrapped arm, as though blood-filled water balloons were being crushed one after another by a mischievous child...

"Argh!"

An aged, agonized cry echoed through the basement.

The Root shinobi did not rush over to assist, because from their perspective, Wang Yan and Danzō were having a pleasant conversation in a harmonious atmosphere. There was no way they could be fighting.

Amid the piercing screams, the Root shinobi nodded from time to time or simply replied, "Yes, Lord Danzō," to a patch of air that was issuing them orders.

"They all betrayed me!"

With his mind severely injured, Danzō saw that no one had come to save him after quite some time, and despair welled up within him.

Soon, he realized something was wrong.

Danzō looked at Wang Yan with disgust and hatred, then screamed hysterically like someone suffering from paranoid delusions. "Genjutsu! You've been hiding Genjutsu power of this level all along... I was right! You really do have designs on Konoha!"

Emmm...

Although everyone in Konoha acknowledged, after he purchased his identity, that Wang Yan's family had been Konoha natives for three generations and that he had been born and raised here, Danzō believed Wang Yan had to be a spy from another village!

Evidence?

Was Wang Yan's powerful Genjutsu not ironclad evidence?

More importantly, Wang Yan had refused to submit to Danzō, the embodiment of justice. Did that not further prove his evil identity and intentions?

—No matter what others thought, at least Danzō had convinced himself of it. He even firmly believed that justice would prevail.

As Shimura Danzō spoke, Wang Yan sensed an obscure yet somewhat weak Spiritual Power fluctuation emerging from him.

This Spiritual Power was not weak, and it was extraordinarily stubborn, as though it would not rest until it bored into his subconscious.

"Uchiha Shisui's right eye."

Wang Yan's brow furrowed. "This is... Kotoamatsukami!"

The Genjutsu Danzō had used when they first met had merely been a minor trick he had developed himself.

What Wang Yan was seeing now was his true trump card.

Meanwhile, in Fuxing Town.

A tall man wearing a headband marked with the character for "Oil" was arguing with someone outside the Women's Bathhouse.

"I am absolutely not a lecher! I came here only to observe local customs and gather material for my writing!"

The man's white long hair reached his waist, and red markings lay beneath his eyes. As he spoke, his Red Coat expanded and contracted with his breathing, as if echoing his words.

His face flushed red beneath their questioning, and he seemed somewhat embarrassed and angered. "I am the author of The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi and Icha Icha Paradise, the Sage of the Toads! How could I do something so shameless? A writer's business... observing local customs... observing local customs does not count as peeping!"

After arguing desperately for a while, the man calling himself the Sage of the Toads suddenly noticed—the townsfolk who had surrounded him in righteous indignation had all scattered.

They moved with incredible speed, like frogs watched by a venomous snake or mice watched by a cat. Shivering, they fled one after another in a panicked rout.

"I found you, Jiraiya." A cold male voice sounded beside his ear, like a slick snake's tongue slithering past it.

The relaxed expression on the white-haired man's face quickly vanished, replaced by unprecedented gravity.

"Orochimaru!"

Jiraiya stared blankly at the lean, youthful man standing opposite him, momentarily lost in thought.

After all these years, he had aged beyond recognition, while Orochimaru still looked so young.

Perhaps Tsunade Hime was the same?

At that moment, Jiraiya felt a bleak desolation coil around his heart, leaving him unable to put his bitterness into words.

Watching Jiraiya sink into silence, Orochimaru smiled soundlessly.

As a rigorous scientist, he had conducted some interesting research specifically for this mission before coming here.

The mission target was "Jiraiya," but did that really refer to the Jiraiya among the Three Ninja?

Orochimaru had found five unwilling test subjects and used deep hypnosis to make them forget their former names. He made them believe, body and soul, that they were "Jiraiya," then used the Transformation Jutsu to turn them into Jiraiya's likeness. What followed was a series of inhumane physical and psychological tortures.

Unfortunately, no matter how despairing those people became, Orochimaru never received the notification that the mission had been completed. Moreover, the scroll of Scientific Ninjutsu still only allowed him to read the first half.

So, if he wanted to complete the mission, he had to find this idiot before him.

Former teammates who had not met in a long time, yet neither of them reminisced. Instead, both were thinking about other trivial and irrelevant matters.

"Explosive Flame Bullet!"

The first to snap out of it and attack was actually Jiraiya!

Boom!

The massive fireball, three meters in diameter, scorched the surrounding air with intense heat. Chakra granted it tremendous kinetic force, and in the blink of an eye, the flame bullet had reached Orochimaru.

"After all these years, your improvement has been almost nonexistent. What a disappointment."

Orochimaru waved his hand expressionlessly, and the highly destructive B-rank technique completely dissipated right before him.

"How is that possible?!"

Jiraiya's pupils contracted into dangerous needle-like slits. No matter what, he could not believe that Orochimaru had reached such a level.

If he had not sensed wrongly, what the other man had used just now was...

Wind Release? And at a very low level!

Using a seal-less D-rank Wind Release to extinguish a B-rank Fire Release?

Was he dreaming?

Jiraiya viciously pinched his own face, immediately grimacing in pain and sucking in a sharp breath.

"Why is it impossible?"

Orochimaru chuckled, looking thoroughly pleased. "The three elements of combustion: fuel, an oxidizer, and an ignition source. I used Wind Release to remove the oxygen from a small area. How could your Fire Release continue burning...?"

Although Orochimaru's progress seemed to far exceed Jiraiya's expectations, and the things he said made Jiraiya's head ache, one of the Three Ninja was still one of the Three Ninja. It took him only a single breath to adjust his mindset, and he decisively attacked again.

"Ninjutsu: Lion Dance of the Lion's Mane!"

Facing the white hair that could easily shred steel, Orochimaru expressionlessly took out a bottle of colorless, transparent liquid and calmly sprinkled it forward...