Orochimaru's Despair

Hearing Danzo's words, Jiraiya shrugged and said calmly, "Understood, esteemed advisors."

With that, he turned and left.

As Jiraiya departed, Utatane Koharu glared at Danzo and gave a cold snort before leaving with her personal guard.

Mitokado Homura stayed behind to take charge, preparing for the memorial service and arranging support for the affected civilians.

As for those unlucky Genin?

Sorry, but your luck was bad. You'll have to take the exam again next time.

After making sure everyone had noticed him, the fake Danzo left with the Root members.

Outside Konoha, Uchiha Yan had been searching for any trace of Orochimaru.

Fortune favored the persistent. At last, Uchiha Yan spotted signs of Orochimaru and his companions on a tree branch.

He followed the trail, just as he'd expected, Orochimaru and the others hadn't gone far.

After following it for about half an hour, he spotted several of Orochimaru's subordinates supporting their master as they pressed onward.

Orochimaru seemed to sense something, too.

He suddenly turned to look behind him and saw Uchiha Yan.

Orochimaru stopped right there. Anyone who could find him and had the nerve to pursue him alone must have been confident they could capture him. Rather than struggle pointlessly, he might as well accept a dignified end.

After all, he still had plenty of trump cards. He could escape whenever he wanted.

Seeing Orochimaru stop of his own accord, one of his subordinates asked in confusion, "Lord Orochimaru, do you want to rest? Please wait until we've left the Land of Fire before doing so."

"No." Orochimaru shook his head.

"Go on without me. I'm not going back."

Only then did his subordinates turn their attention to Uchiha Yan.

At some point, Uchiha Yan had taken up a position in a tree.

The Uchiha Gunbai crest on his back stood out clearly.

His crimson Sharingan glowed with an eerie light as he looked down at them, his expression amused.

"An Uchiha brat?!"

The men gritted their teeth and reached for their weapons.

The chakra around them began to stir.

To them, a young Konoha Jonin—even one bearing the Uchiha name—was being absurdly presumptuous.

"Stand down," Orochimaru said in a chilling tone.

His subordinates were confused, but they lowered their weapons anyway.

Leaning against the tree trunk, Uchiha Yan said coolly, "A wise choice, Orochimaru."

"Since you know what's good for you, I'll spare your subordinates."

Orochimaru didn't get angry at Uchiha Yan's arrogant words.

He simply turned to his men and said, "Go. If you die here, no one will prepare the Reincarnation Ritual for me."

The men exchanged glances, but still obeyed Orochimaru and left.

Uchiha Yan couldn't be bothered to chase after them.

Orochimaru had been his target from the start.

He leapt from the tree and walked slowly until he was about three meters away from Orochimaru.

"Orochimaru, are you coming with me, or do I have to make you?"

With his hands hanging at his sides, Orochimaru replied, "I'll go with you."

Uchiha Yan seemed to have expected that answer. "At least you know what's good for you."

With that, he took out some wire to tie Orochimaru up.

The instant Uchiha Yan drew close, Orochimaru's eyes turned vicious.

His neck stretched out at once, lunging straight for Uchiha Yan's throat.

As one of the Konoha Sannin, Orochimaru wasn't about to surrender without a fight.

He'd coveted the power of the Uchiha Sharingan ever since he'd been in Konoha.

As he bit into Uchiha Yan's neck and successfully marked him with a Cursed Seal,

Orochimaru's eyes shone with excitement. "Haha, it worked! I'll take your body for myself."

His wild laughter echoed through the silent forest, sending startled birds fleeing from the treetops.

Orochimaru's face was alight with delight.

The Cursed Seal on Uchiha Yan's neck was spreading rapidly.

He could already picture this vessel, brimming with vitality and possessing pure Sharingan blood, becoming his completely.

"An Uchiha's body... It's finally mine... Heh heh heh..."

But Orochimaru's laughter abruptly caught in his throat.

He suddenly realized that the scene before him was becoming terribly unnatural.

The black Cursed Seal markings spreading over Uchiha Yan's neck had turned into a swarm of ink-black tadpoles, floating eerily through the air and vanishing.

His vaunted Heaven Curse Seal hadn't touched anything solid at all.

Even the surroundings began to warp and overlap violently, like ripples spreading across the surface of water.

"What is this...?!"

Orochimaru's golden snake eyes narrowed to slits.

A nauseating sense of helplessness engulfed his entire body.

"Orochimaru, you laughed too soon—and your laugh was awful."

A mocking voice came from directly above him.

Orochimaru jerked his head up.

Uchiha Yan was still leaning against the same tree trunk as before, arms crossed as he looked down at Orochimaru. His crimson Three-Tomoe Sharingan was fixed on him.

When Orochimaru looked down at himself, he saw that countless strands of wire had him bound tightly to a wooden post, leaving him unable to move.

From the moment he'd first seen Uchiha Yan—no, to be precise, from the second he'd thought of fighting back—he'd already been trapped in an illusion.

"When did I fall under the genjutsu?"

Orochimaru's face turned deathly pale. He'd always believed his mental strength was formidable.

Besides, he'd only looked directly into Uchiha Yan's Sharingan for a moment.

He hadn't expected to fall into a genjutsu just like that.

What humiliated him most was how easily he'd been subdued.

Uchiha Yan had dispelled the genjutsu himself. Orochimaru hadn't broken out of it.

He'd simply watched the show and ended the illusion himself, looking down at Orochimaru as if he were an ant.

For someone as proud as Orochimaru, it was a terrible humiliation.

Yet the look in his eyes as he gazed at Uchiha Yan grew ever more feverish.

Was this the terrifying power of a Kekkei Genkai?

"Heh heh heh... Hahahaha!"

Orochimaru didn't beg for mercy. Instead, he gave a low laugh.

The fear in his golden snake eyes faded, replaced by a fervor that was almost worshipful.

"A Kekkei Genkai... So this is a Kekkei Genkai! You don't need to spend decades practicing Hand Seals like an ordinary ninja. You don't need to seek enlightenment in the flow of chakra on the edge of life and death. Just one look, and you can toy with an ordinary ninja in the palm of your hand."

"It's... so beautiful, and so maddeningly enviable, Yan-kun."

Looking at Uchiha Yan, Orochimaru couldn't help thinking back to the past.

In the eyes of others, he was Konoha's "genius," one of the renowned "Sannin" who had made a name for himself throughout the Shinobi World.

But only he knew how much despair and helplessness he'd faced on his quest for the truth.

All his life, Orochimaru had sought to master ninjutsu, learn every technique in the world, and become stronger than anyone else.

But as time passed and his horizons broadened, he began to realize how naive he'd been.

His teammate Tsunade was the granddaughter of the First.

She hadn't inherited the First's Wood Release, but with her monstrous strength alone, she'd already reached the same level as him.

Their other teammate, Jiraiya, had been a dead last.

But he seemed to be blessed by the heavens. While practicing the Summoning Technique, he'd somehow reverse-summoned himself to Mount Myoboku, one of the Three Great Sage Lands, where he learned senjutsu.

And what about him, Orochimaru? He had nothing. No, that wasn't quite true. He still had the distinction of being hailed by the old man as a once-in-decades genius.

The White Snake Sage of Ryūchi Cave had deemed his mortal body unable to withstand perfect Senjutsu Chakra. The forbidden techniques he'd painstakingly deciphered were as flimsy as a joke before the power of true bloodlines.

It wasn't that he envied his teammates. He was simply furious at how unfair it all was.

Some people seemed to be heaven's favorites, born with Kekkei Genkai that ordinary people could only dream of possessing.

What had truly driven Orochimaru to despair was an account in a secret Konoha document.

It recorded the battle between Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama.

Orochimaru's thoughts returned to the night before he'd been granted permission to enter Konoha's archive of classified documents.

"Yan-kun, have you heard of the Valley of the End?"

Orochimaru's voice was hoarse, touched by despair. "Most people think it was nothing more than an ordinary duel between two of the Shinobi World's mightiest warriors."

"But when I opened the report on the 'Battle of the Valley of the End' between Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara, recorded by the Second himself, I felt what true despair was for the first time.

"What it described wasn't ninjutsu. It was a miracle. A calamity!"

"Uchiha Madara used some incomprehensible technique to control a chakra giant clad in armor, riding atop the strongest Tailed Beast, the Nine-Tails."

"The shock waves from the chakra blade in his hand could flatten an entire mountain range."

"To counter him, Senju Hashirama joined his hands and summoned a Thousand-Hand Giant Buddha dozens of times larger than the Nine-Tails!

"What an absurd level of power..."