"I'm really fed up. What is Jin doing? He sensed the Divine Tree Fruit's presence, along with some abnormalities. He should have returned long ago," Ōtsutsuki Zen said.
"Yeah. At this distance, I returned over a day ago, yet there's still no news from him," Ōtsutsuki E said.
"Could he have discovered something and defected?" Ōtsutsuki Zen said again.
"Shut up!" Ōtsutsuki Yo said angrily.
"It would be one thing if ordinary clan members left the group because they wanted an easy life, but surely you know what we're fighting for. Hope is right before us. The King is about to become a god—how could anyone defect?" Ōtsutsuki Yo said.
"Sigh! True, but if it's not that, why hasn't he returned after so long? Don't tell me Jin ran into some enemy. That place is so remote, filled with nothing but inferior lifeforms," Ōtsutsuki Zen said again.
"We'll know once we find him. Maybe he encountered some dangerous place," Ōtsutsuki Yo said again.
"A dangerous place?" Ōtsutsuki Zen said again, but there was no longer any response.
Kitahara Kaede returned to the Land of Waves once again, but she did not stop. Instead, she headed straight for a nearby village. From the information provided by those wealthy merchants, she had finally learned the locations of the Kekkei Genkai users.
She had not expected it to be not far from Orochimaru's Otogakure. What a stroke of luck—she had searched everywhere without success, only to find it with no effort at all. Because of this, she had specifically contacted Orochimaru.
Unexpectedly, Orochimaru had known about the place long ago. Their conversation had gone like this.
"Orochimaru, it seems your control over the surrounding area isn't all that strong. You didn't even know there was a place like this nearby."
"Lord Kitahara, I