Goodbye Old Acquaintance.

"Orochimaru! Orochimaru! Wake up! A letter came from Minato!"

Although they say the best time to plan the day is in the morning, this is far too early.

Lin Zi had just opened his eyes when he saw Jiraiya's magnified face hovering right by his pillow, one hand frantically shaking his shoulder.

"...Jiraiya." Lin Zi buried his face back into the pillow, his voice muffled.

"Didn't we sleep in separate rooms last night? Why are you barging into my room? Don't you know how to knock?"

"Oh, don't worry about such trifles!" Jiraiya laughed heartily, clutching a scroll in his hand. "Minato wrote back! It's good news!"

"What kind of news has you this excited?" Lin Zi struggled to prop up his upper body, his golden slit pupils half-closed, his face full of morning grumpiness.

"We can send those two spies back!" Jiraiya slapped his thigh. "Minato said Kakashi's squad is nearby on a mission and can swing by to pick them up. Once they're dragged back to Konoha for interrogation, we'll know everything about those shady dealings in Kumogakure!"

Lin Zi waved a hand and flopped back onto the bed. "Fine, you go handle the hand-off. I'm going to sleep a bit more. Call me when you get back."

"You're not coming?" Jiraiya's eyes widened.

"Are you sure you want me to go?" Lin Zi pointed at his own face, his pale fingers tapping his cheek.

"Look at this face—an S-rank missing-nin. If I stand at the handover site, are you trying to make those two female spies think someone is here to break them out of prison?"

Jiraiya scratched his head, looking indifferent. "Just go, what are you afraid of? I'll just say you're a tourist, my brother from another mother, just traveling together on the road."

"...You really are thick-skinned." Lin Zi sighed.

"It's hard for me to carry two kunoichi by myself on the road. We'll each take one and fly over."

"Fine."

Jiraiya leaned in, lowering his voice. "Besides, it's not easy for me to parkour while carrying two women at once. We'll each tuck one under our arm; it'll be faster. Hurry up, don't dawdle!"

Lin Zi stared at him for two seconds before resigning himself to crawl out of bed. "Fine, fine, I give up on you."

He threw on some clean clothes, walked to the next room, and hoisted the two still-unconscious female spies up, one in each hand. He gave the back of their necks a quick chop to ensure they stayed dead to the world.

Then, he pushed open the window. He and Jiraiya leaped onto the rooftops one after the other. The morning wind whipped against their faces as the two of them, each carrying a figure, leaped rapidly across the tiles.

They arrived at the handover point, the edge of a desolate forest.

The two men tossed the female spies onto the ground. The Kumogakure kunoichi let out muffled groans as they slowly regained consciousness.

Upon opening their eyes and seeing their surroundings, then spotting the "Oil" forehead protector on Jiraiya's head, their complexions turned ash-gray instantly. The flicker of hope in their eyes was extinguished completely.

"It's over..." the tall kunoichi bit her lip, her voice trembling. "We're really being dragged back to Konoha..."

The other one simply buried her face in the grass, too despairing to even muster the strength to curse.

Not long after, a sudden roar erupted from deep within the woods.

"Lord Jiraiya! Where is the enemy! Youth is now!!!"

The volume was so loud it startled the birds in half the forest and shook the leaves down in a rustle. Immediately after, a green figure shot out of the bushes like a cannonball—thick eyebrows, large eyes, and a bowl cut. Upon landing, he grinned at Jiraiya, flashing two rows of pearly white teeth.

It was Might Guy.

Guy's voice had arrived before he did, and before his feet even touched the ground, his eyes had already locked onto Lin Zi's pale face and golden slit pupils.

"Orochimaru?! An S-rank missing-nin!!" Guy's pupils constricted, his muscles tensing instantly as he assumed his signature stance. "Lord Jiraiya! I, Might Guy, am here to assist you! Eight Inner Gates!"

"Fourth Gate, Open!"

Chakra exploded outward, the shockwave sending patches of turf flying.

Might Guy slammed toward Lin Zi like a green cannonball. The air pressure from that kick plowed a trench into the ground, his speed so great he was nothing but a streak of green light.

Lin Zi didn't even blink; he simply held his right hand up in front of him.

With a loud boom.

Guy's flying kick slammed hard into the suddenly manifested earthen wall. The surface instantly spiderwebbed with cracks, and stone fragments flew everywhere.

Lin Zi stood behind it, unmoved, not even the hem of his clothes fluttering. There was even a hint of boredom in his golden slit pupils.

"Is that it?"

Guy's pupils shrank. Before he could change his move, two giant pythons shot out from Lin Zi's sleeves, coiling around his waist and arms. He swung him around and slammed him into the ground with a thud, shattering his Fourth Gate state and leaving Guy dazed and confused.

"Guy!" Kakashi's voice came from behind and to the side.

A blue-white bolt of electricity tore through the air, the screeching of the Chidori aimed straight for Lin Zi's heart.

Lin Zi didn't even turn his head, simply slapping his left hand onto the ground.

"Summoning: Rashomon."

A miniature Rashomon gate rose from the ground behind him, perfectly blocking the Chidori.

With a crackling sound, the blue-white current slammed into the gate, shattering into a sky full of electrical sparks.

Kakashi froze in mid-air, his dead-fish eyes wide, the Sharingan in his eye socket spinning frantically, yet he couldn't push forward even half an inch.

Lin Zi clapped his hands, and the Rashomon dissipated into smoke, leaving only a stumbling Kakashi behind. He still held the starting pose of the Chidori, but he looked completely stunned.

"Enough, enough!" Jiraiya jumped over quickly, slapping Guy on the shoulder and pinning Kakashi's head down. "Friendly fire! Friendly fire! Stop fighting!"

Guy lay sprawled on the ground, the green aura still fading from his body, his face clearly reading: Who am I, and where am I?

"J-Jiraiya-sama... this, this is..."

Kakashi looked down at his hand where the Chidori had completely vanished, then looked back up at Lin Zi's deathly pale face; for the first time, his dead-fish eyes betrayed an emotion akin to "seeing a ghost."

He opened his mouth, and a single name squeezed out from his throat: "...Orochimaru?"

Before he could wait for Lin Zi to nod, Jiraiya immediately threw an arm around Lin Zi's shoulder, grinning with smug pride.

"How about it? My brother from another mother, isn't he handsome?"

Guy: "...Huh?"

Kakashi: "...Ha?"

In a few short sentences, Jiraiya explained Lin Zi's origins.

"In short, he shouldn't be the Orochimaru you know, so don't ask about anything else for now."

Guy and Kakashi exchanged a look, their eyes clearly screaming, Are you kidding me?

But out of respect for Jiraiya, and given that there had been no further hostilities, the two reluctantly suppressed their guard and accepted the situation.

Kakashi's dead-fish eyes raked over Lin Zi several times, but in the end, he said nothing, merely nodding to signal Guy to step forward and take over.

"Alright, alright, business first." Jiraiya clapped his hands. "Hurry up with the handover; we still need to make it to Tanzaku Town."

Kakashi and Guy stepped forward and began to re-bind and inspect the two kunoichi. As their hands worked, their gazes drifted toward Lin Zi from time to time; it was clear that their guard had not been lowered in the slightest.

Lin Zi crossed his arms, his golden slit pupils fixed on the profile of the tall kunoichi. He suddenly spoke, his voice low but as cold as a snake crawling down one's spine.

"She has something in her molars. As the Fourth Hokage's guard, Kakashi, are you not going to check her mouth?"

Kakashi frowned instinctively, while Guy scratched his head and muttered to the side.

"We already searched her, didn't we? Didn't you and Jiraiya-sama check them already?"

Lin Zi did not respond, merely watching coldly, his snake-like eyes unblinking.