Saint of Thieves

Yuhara, who had been singled out, followed Orochimaru to the command tent at the camp, while his teammates had already set out again to carry out their mission less than half an hour after entering the camp.

After arriving at the tent, Yuhara casually surveyed the surroundings. How should he put it? In any case, it looked quite a bit like a place where people lived. If possible, he actually would have preferred to carry out that reconnaissance mission with his teammates. Although reconnaissance missions were always high-risk, he really did not want to stay with Orochimaru. An ordinary person simply could not understand what Orochimaru was thinking or what he planned to do.

There was no one else in the tent besides the two of them.

Orochimaru did not beat around the bush. He immediately said, "Yuhara, I have a mission for you."

That opening line was a little better than Yuhara had expected. He had thought Orochimaru would say something like, Don't say anything yet. Draw a tube of blood first.

"Please, go ahead. I'm listening."

Although Yuhara felt that, as a background character, he would be better off doing things befitting his role, as a "Konoha Ninja," he had no way to refuse the orders of the front-line commander.

"..."

Yuhara's attitude made Orochimaru feel somewhat strange, but for the moment, he could not quite figure out what was strange about it.

"The requirements are simple. I want you to search a certain place for a certain thing. Based on the intelligence I've gathered over the years, there are several suspicious locations. You'll be responsible for one of them." Orochimaru got straight to the point.

As he spoke, he handed Yuhara a detailed map with several points marked on it.

Yuhara looked over the map and found that the marked location lay beyond an area where Konoha and the Cloud Hidden Ninjas frequently clashed. It was also actually within the territory controlled by the Cloud Hidden Ninjas. On that basis alone, the mission was extremely dangerous.

"Orochimaru-sama, shouldn't such an important mission be given to someone more reliable?"

After thinking it over, Yuhara decided to tactfully remind Orochimaru.

"Because of a small misunderstanding that happened not long ago, the village is watching me quite closely. In fact, I'm somewhat short on personnel I can use. Under these circumstances, you count as someone trustworthy," Orochimaru said.

Yuhara: "..."

What did he mean by a small misunderstanding? Yuhara understood now. Orochimaru was carrying out secret work behind Konoha's back, and the things he wanted to find were certainly for all sorts of inhumane experiments.

When it came to things like this, Orochimaru truly never tired.

"Orochimaru-sama, if you send someone like me, who has no ties to Konoha, to carry out this mission alone, what if I never come back?"

Yuhara was somewhat curious. Orochimaru was entrusting such a private matter to him—was he not afraid that Yuhara would simply run away?

Trust? Would Orochimaru trust anyone else?

"The brutal Ninja World War is still raging. The Five Great Shinobi Villages are in a miserable state, but the small villages are even more wretched than the great villages. As for the Rogue Ninjas? Their condition can only be described as tragic. In this tiny world, there is simply nowhere to hide from the flames of war... Where do you think you could go?"

Orochimaru's words struck home. He chuckled softly a few times before continuing, "Yuhara, there's no need to doubt it. You're a Konoha Ninja now."

As he spoke, he handed Yuhara another item.

Yuhara stared at it for a few moments, then had no choice but to reach out and take it... It was a Konoha Headband. Although they could be seen everywhere, Yuhara had never owned one before.

"The specific requirements of the mission and the characteristics of the item you're looking for are written on this scroll. However, you can only open it after reaching the vicinity of the mission location.

"Also, if you're lucky enough to actually find the mission item, you can use another scroll to store it."

Orochimaru produced two more scrolls, one a mission scroll and the other a storage scroll.

Yuhara took them. "A storage scroll...? Is it useful? How do I use it? Can you give me a few more?"

"..." The three shameless questions left Orochimaru stunned.

"You really don't know the meaning of politeness." While telling Yuhara how to use the storage scroll, Orochimaru reluctantly stuffed several empty scrolls into his hands as well.

After explaining the mission and paying a small price, Orochimaru urged Yuhara to set out as soon as possible, then waved for him to leave.

Orochimaru seemed genuinely confident in handing the mission to Yuhara, but Yuhara himself had no confidence in himself. As for whether he should carry out the mission, naturally he had to. A ninja had no right to refuse a mission. However, that did not mean Yuhara could not drag his feet.

Orochimaru had also said that there were several suspicious locations, and there might not even be anything at the one assigned to Yuhara. Even if there was something... who could prove it?

In any case, when it was time to go through the motions, he still had to make a show of it.

Carrying Orochimaru's mission orders, Yuhara obtained some supplies from the camp's logistics department. After wandering around several times, he finally had no reason to stay any longer, so he left the camp and began moving northeast.

After roughly leaving the monitoring range of the Konoha camp, Yuhara immediately stopped. Without a word, he took out the mission scroll and unrolled it.

Could it only be opened after reaching the mission location? They were all reliable adults here. Where was there any trust between people?

Then Yuhara understood what Orochimaru was looking for... corpses.

The corpse of the Second Hokage of Konoha, and the corpses of the Kinkaku and Ginkaku brothers of the Cloud Hidden Village.

After seeing this, Yuhara's first reaction was, Wasn't the Second Hokage cremated in time? Then he thought about it again. That seemed to be a mistaken impression.

And then his second reaction was...

"Got tricked."

After understanding Orochimaru's objective, Yuhara suddenly no longer wanted to drag his feet. He genuinely wanted to search that suspicious location. Leaving aside the Second Hokage, that stingy old man who had left all the good stuff to Konoha and arranged his final words before dying, if Yuhara remembered correctly, the Kinkaku and Ginkaku brothers should have dropped a whole pile of equipment when they died.

After Kinkaku and Ginkaku died, the only divine weapon left in the Cloud Hidden Village was the "Amber Purifying Pot." That meant the rest of the items had been carried away by the brothers at the time.

Yuhara wanted to pick up the equipment. After all, there was a living example right before him: there had once been a Sand Hidden puppet technician who became a winner in life by following the creed, "Let your teammates fight while you loot the corpses."

After little hesitation, Yuhara made up his mind. He decided to give it a try, because this matter was truly worth attempting. The fact that Orochimaru and his lackeys could simultaneously perform Impure World Reincarnation on the Second Hokage and the Kinkaku and Ginkaku brothers meant that someone had indeed found their corpses before.

As for why Orochimaru had not obtained the ninja tools of Kinkaku and Ginkaku, the reason was easy enough to guess... They had been taken, just like Yuhara intended to do.

In any case, Orochimaru only wanted the corpses. He had no information about the ninja tools.

So the question was, how could he quickly reach that location and immediately retreat, whether or not he managed to pick up the equipment?

This kind of job clearly required getting in and out fast.

Soon, an idea surfaced in Yuhara's mind.

He decided to be a little bolder and borrow (steal) something to cross the battle lines.

What should he borrow? Naturally, it had to be a "reputation" capable of intimidating Cloud Hidden Ninjas when necessary.

So what could make Cloud Hidden Ninjas who had endured countless battles wet their pants in fear? The answer was four words:

The Yellow Flash.

This showed that the Three-Body Technique really was a divine technique. After all, Transformation Jutsu equaled Flying Thunder God.

No one had ever done something this ridiculous before. First, it would confuse the information on the battlefield and easily cause chaos for both sides; second, it could backfire and leave him surrounded by enemies; third, it would be difficult to explain to the person involved; and fourth, it was simply too shameless...

Therefore, he still had to be extremely careful about how he carried it out. Yuhara's best option was to sneak to the mission location without anyone noticing.