"I have a mission to assign to you alone." Only after Hayato had finished reading the intelligence on Hidan and Kakuzu did Sarutobi Hiruzen speak unhurriedly.
"Just me?"
"You know the Chunin Exams are about to begin. The village will be short-handed then, so it'll be impossible to have an entire team protect Naruto and Sasuke. This mission can only be carried out by you alone."
"Sasuke is one of the people I'm protecting?"
"That's right. And Sasuke is the priority. Intelligence indicates that an extremely dangerous individual has set his sights on him."
That extremely dangerous individual had to be Orochimaru.
Orochimaru had been making moves in secret, and there was no way Sarutobi Hiruzen had failed to notice entirely.
When Sunagakure proposed holding a joint exam, Sarutobi Hiruzen had guessed that Orochimaru and Rasa were surely in cahoots. He simply hadn't expected Orochimaru to kill Rasa outright and appear in his place.
Rasa knew that his cooperation with Orochimaru was merely a matter of mutual exploitation. He just never understood why they weren't supposed to stab each other in the back only after defeating Konoha.
The food hadn't even been served yet, so why the hell had he flipped the table?
Rasa must have been thinking, Orochimaru, aren't you a lunatic?
If Orochimaru knew what Rasa was thinking, he would probably flash a wicked smile and give him a thumbs-up. "Bro, you're right."
If Sarutobi Hiruzen knew too, he would probably mock Rasa. "You tried to cooperate with a lunatic. Aren't you the fool?"
But none of that mattered to Sarutobi Hiruzen. What mattered was that he knew Orochimaru would appear. Once Orochimaru showed himself, all the necessary conditions would be in place.
This was a show, a political show in the world of Naruto.
The stage was