Intelligence

At this stage, Orochimaru was still a normal ninja. Even so, his reputation on the battlefield was less than ideal... Coldness, even cruelty, was part of his very nature.

Yuzuru had no idea Orochimaru would take the blame for him. But even if he had, he wouldn't have cared. They were both connected to Ryūchi Cave, so helping each other was only natural.

The Amegakure ninja took the victim's strange corpse back with them, but they didn't realize that Natural Energy had reappeared on the battlefield for the first time in many years. This was far more significant than they could imagine.

The Three Great Sage Lands kept themselves hidden from the world, and the First was long dead. Knowledge of Natural Energy, Senjutsu, and Sage Mode had nearly vanished from the Shinobi World.

Of course, Yuzuru wasn't concerned with what any of it meant. When he performed the technique, he'd only wanted to see if the Summoning Technique would work... As it turned out, the "Blood Pact" might be more reliable than a contract written on paper.

After leaving the site of the battle, Yuzuru tried the Summoning Technique again. This time, he was careful about how much chakra he used, so he didn't need to summon a particularly large snake.

After several attempts, he finally summoned a Communication Summoning Snake.

On the one hand, he wanted to let Captain Torifu Akimichi know he was still alive. On the other, he hoped to use this method to establish some contact with Orochimaru.

If possible...

Looking at the little snake he'd summoned, Yuzuru took out a scroll and asked, "Can you understand what I'm saying? Next time someone summons a snake from Ryūchi Cave, respond to the summoning and give them this scroll."

The only person he could mean by "someone" was Orochimaru.

After hearing Yuzuru, the snake tilted its head in a surprisingly humanlike way, but it showed no further reaction. It didn't speak or anything like that; it simply stuck out its tongue and swallowed the scroll in Yuzuru's hand.

Well, it was a good thing that a snake was "not much of a talker." As long as it could follow orders, that was enough.

Once the snake had swallowed the scroll, Yuzuru relaxed. As far as he remembered, Orochimaru and the snakes he summoned liked to store things this way.

After swallowing the scroll, the snake automatically unsummoned itself.

This method of sending messages was rather passive, but there was no helping it. A low-ranking ninja like him couldn't use any other means to communicate with Konoha's front-line camp.

"I just hope the message gets through in time. It'd be ridiculous if I got back before it was delivered."

"But with how often the ninjas are fighting in the war in the Land of Rain, I doubt I'll be that unlucky. Orochimaru must have to summon beasts for battle all the time."

Orochimaru was still young, and his fighting methods weren't nearly as varied as they would be later.

With that detour over, Yuzuru continued on. Since he'd encountered Amegakure ninja earlier, he became even more cautious.

He removed his Konoha Forehead Protector and temporarily tucked it into his Ninja Tool Pouch.

By now, Yuzuru had more or less accepted that he wasn't a naturally gifted fighter. Put simply, even after improving his basic physical attributes through dungeons and gaining plenty of skills, he still wasn't particularly impressive on the battlefield...

He didn't think he was the kind of person who could turn a hundred points of combat ability into a hundred and twenty on the battlefield.

If a ninja really had excellent combat instincts, then in theory, he could use the Fourth Hokage's Body Flicker Technique to move freely across the battlefield. Yet in the last chaotic fight, Yuzuru hadn't even had time to use it before he was struck by an enemy's heavy blow.

In truth, Yuzuru was being too hard on himself. He'd gone from being cannon fodder to cannon fodder capable of holding his own on the battlefield in a remarkably short time.

Getting the Fourth Hokage's techniques didn't mean a ninja could actually become the Fourth Hokage... How did that saying go? Compared to the Fourth Hokage, every other ninja seemed lacking.

The sights in the Land of Rain were horrifying. Ninjas generally didn't attack civilian towns on purpose, but even collateral damage could kill hundreds or thousands of ordinary people. Both Sunagakure and Amegakure liked to use widespread poisoning and chemical warfare in this world war.

In a poisonous gas cloud, a civilian only needed to take one extra breath to never breathe again.

The war had caused far too many tragedies. It was no wonder the Akatsuki Organization would later emerge here, and no wonder it would transform from a peace-seeking group into an extremist one... "With Pain here, Konoha will be at peace"—was that really so hard to understand?

Just look at the Land of Rain now.

Night fell, and Yuzuru ran into no further trouble. In the second half of the night, he found a cave and decided to rest there for a few hours.

As the saying went, the more dangerous the environment, the less you could afford to rush. You had to rest and preserve your strength.

But he hadn't been resting for long when a roar like a natural disaster jolted him awake. He turned sharply and saw the cave entrance bathed in light as bright as day.

"What happened..."

The ground and the atmosphere were both trembling, and there was a blinding flash of light... Had someone planted a sun out there?

Yuzuru rushed to the cave entrance. The cold, damp air immediately cleared his head, and then he spotted the "ball of light" in the distance. He understood almost at once what had happened, because he'd seen this "phenomenon" before—in the "Nine-Tails' Rampage" dungeon.

"A Tailed Beast Ball..."

Someone was fighting a Jinchuriki. Based on the intelligence he'd received earlier, Yuzuru guessed what was most likely happening: Iwagakure's Jinchuriki was fighting Hanzō of Amegakure...

"Perfect!"

A battle on this scale would draw the attention of nearly every ninja in the area. Yuzuru could take the opportunity to escape the most dangerous zone, and at the same time bring back this major piece of intelligence for Konoha.

Yuzuru took out a scroll and quickly recorded the Jinchuriki's battle and his own deductions. Then he cut his finger and used the Summoning Technique again to summon a Communication Summoning Snake.

"Uh..."

Well, it was the same Communication Summoning Snake as before. It had indeed followed Yuzuru's instructions and answered the next summoning—but the summoner was still Yuzuru.

"The instructions are the same, but add one more scroll..."