"Phew... phew... phew..."
Tsunade came running all the way to the morgue.
She received some bad news.
Orochimaru and Jiraiya stood at the entrance.
Orochimaru reached into his robes.
He pulled out a pendant.
Jiraiya draped an arm over Tsunade's shoulder.
"You'd better not look at his remains!"
Jiraiya's expression was extremely grim.
He had already seen the horrible sight.
Senju Nawaki... was dead.
"Heh heh heh, what does it matter?"
Orochimaru sneered.
"After all, once she sees it, there's no way she'll be able to tell whether that's really her little brother..."
Orochimaru's flippant tone was completely inappropriate between comrades.
In Hiruko's timeline,
Orochimaru had been Senju Nawaki's teacher, following the original storyline of the Hokage Ninja TV anime.
But in Hyuga Sho's timeline...
Orochimaru had nothing to do with Senju Nawaki, following the original Hokage Ninja manga storyline.
Therefore...
Even when facing Tsunade, Orochimaru, who had seen through life and death,
had no intention of indulging her.
"Stop it, Orochimaru!"
Jiraiya shouted.
But... Orochimaru had no intention of caring about what others thought.
"Because there's a war going on right now..."
That was, the Second Shinobi World War.
"Ninjas are all like this... because there are no doctors on the battlefield..."
Back when Tsunade was young,
there was no system of assigning "one Medical Ninja to every three- or four-man squad" on the battlefield.
"Still... children really do get carried away..."
Orochimaru took out the necklace.
"Especially the day after they receive a present."
Senju Nawaki was a Genin, so he indeed wouldn't enter the battlefield directly to fight the enemy.
His missions were only logistical tasks such as transporting supplies and carrying the wounded.
However.
The enemy's threats had never been limited to actual clashes on the battlefield.
Even peaceful roads hid all kinds of terrifying dangers.