Intercepting Orochimaru's Negotiation

Inside the casino.

Jiraiya swallowed hard.

"Are we really doing this?" he asked in a low voice.

Chenshu Senju shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked him irritably.

"Quit whining. If I tell you to go, you go. It's an honor to sacrifice yourself for the Senju Clan."

Jiraiya steeled himself and headed toward the gambling table.

Before he could even greet that pair of heaving waves—

Bang!

The casino doors were suddenly shoved open with tremendous force.

A bone-chilling, nauseating killing intent instantly swept through the entire smoke-filled hall.

The gamblers around them all shuddered.

Orochimaru entered, dragging his crippled purple-black arms behind him, his face deathly pale.

Kabuto Yakushi followed behind him, pushing up his glasses.

That distinct aura of a perverted serial killer immediately silenced the previously boisterous casino so thoroughly that a pin could have been heard dropping.

Even Jiraiya, standing before the gambling table, abruptly halted, his gaze turning razor-sharp.

"Orochimaru..."

Orochimaru did not spare Jiraiya so much as a glance. His eyes were locked firmly on Tsunade.

Or rather, on the massive pair that looked ready to burst through her collar.

Orochimaru had no interest in women, though. What interested him was Tsunade's unparalleled medical ninjutsu.

Tsunade narrowed her eyes and set down the bottle in her hand.

"Orochimaru, looking half-dead like that, shouldn't you be hiding in a sewer somewhere? What are you doing coming to me?"

Orochimaru pulled his lips into a sinister smile.

With a hoarse voice, he laid out what he believed was an offer she could not refuse.

"Tsunade, let's make a deal."

"Heal my hands, and I'll help you revive Nawaki and Dan."

The moment those words fell—

It was as if even the air in the casino had frozen solid.

Tsunade's furious expression instantly stiffened. A rare, violent tremor flashed through her amber eyes.

Revive.

The two names she could never let go of in her life had been casually spoken by this snake-like man.

Even Shizune at her side went pale with fright.

Jiraiya frowned, just about to stop him.

Then, at that moment—

A voice dripping with mockery suddenly rang out in the silent casino.

"Orochimaru, your skill at selling pipe dreams isn't even as good as the old lady outside selling grilled cold noodles."

Everyone turned their heads in unison.

With one hand in his pocket, Chenshu Senju strolled out from behind the crowd.

He looked Orochimaru up and down, his eyes as though he were looking at a severely deranged mental patient.

"What age are we in, and you're still pulling that Impure World Reincarnation stunt of summoning people out of coffins?"

"What, did all that diarrhea a few days ago shrink your brainstem?"

Chenshu Senju mocked him with a perfectly serious expression.

He also swept a glance over Tsunade's unfathomable cleavage.

So it really is a G-cup.

At that size, if she put on Tayuya's slightly smaller maid outfit, one deep breath would probably turn the buttons into concealed weapons and shoot out Orochimaru's two useless eyes on the spot.

At the words "diarrhea."

A sickly iron-green tinge visibly appeared on Orochimaru's pale face.

He stared fixedly at Chenshu Senju, the killing intent in his eyes nearly solidifying.

It was this little bastard.

He had drugged that chakra seed, forcing Orochimaru to squat on the toilet for three days and three nights straight, nearly vomiting up his gallbladder.

And now this little bastard actually dared to swagger right up before him.

"It was you..." Orochimaru ground out through clenched teeth.

Chenshu Senju ignored Orochimaru's impotent rage entirely.

He walked straight to the gambling table, casually pulled out a chair, sat down, and tapped the tabletop.

"Lady Tsunade, don't listen to this freak's nonsense."

"Once you heal his hands, the first thing he'll do is kill you to silence you."

"The sacrifices for Impure World Reincarnation all have to be freshly killed. Do you really expect a venomous snake to keep its word?"

Chenshu Senju snorted disdainfully.

For some reason—

Tsunade found that the black-haired boy who had suddenly appeared before her made an oddly good point.

Even though his gaze kept drifting toward her chest every now and then.

That calm, domineering presence of his was impossible to ignore.

"Who exactly are you?" Tsunade asked coldly.

Chenshu Senju leaned back in his chair.

"Chenshu Senju."

"By seniority, you might have to call me cousin."

The corner of his mouth curled up as he directly played his trump card.

"Rather than work with a freak who toys with the souls of the dead."

"Why not make a deal with me, a legitimate Senju?"

"I'll help you completely overcome your hemophobia, and cure the trauma of losing your brother and your man while I'm at it."

"And you won't have to betray the Hidden Leaf Village, nor will you need to trade your body or skills for it."

Tsunade froze.

She stared blankly at Chenshu Senju, so stunned by his outrageously arrogant words that she could not speak for a moment.

Overcome her hemophobia?

Something even Jiraiya, her old friend of decades, had failed to accomplish—and this brat dared to guarantee it?

And he had just said he was a legitimate Senju?

"You little punk, you sure talk big!"

Tsunade slammed a palm onto the table, making her proud, full breasts shake violently.

Chenshu Senju swallowed.

Damn, was this the legendary built-in shock absorption system?

Amazing.

Yet his expression remained perfectly composed.

"Don't believe me?"

Chenshu Senju gave a faint laugh and slowly raised his hand.

In that single instant—

An overwhelming vitality, so immense it was suffocating, erupted from his palm without warning.

Azure Wood Release chakra wound around his fingertips, radiating a pressure even more domineering than Orochimaru's chilling aura.

It was power that truly belonged to the First Hokage.

Tsunade's pupils contracted sharply.

Jiraiya sucked in a breath.

Orochimaru stared dead at Chenshu Senju's hand, greed and jealousy nearly burning away the last of his sanity.

"This is Wood Release."

Chenshu Senju looked at Orochimaru and mocked him without mercy.

"You dare call those defective products you tinkered up in your laboratory Wood Release?"

"Orochimaru, times have changed."

"Now, I call the shots around here."

Orochimaru completely snapped.

The successive humiliations, along with the provocation of old and new grudges alike, utterly shattered what little reason he had left.

He could endure Jiraiya stopping him.

He could endure Tsunade rejecting him.

But he absolutely could not endure some brat barely out of puberty rubbing his face into the dirt in front of all these people.

Even if his hands were crippled and he could not form hand seals.

"Kabuto!" Orochimaru let out a beast-like roar.

Kabuto Yakushi, who had been pushing up his glasses, instantly understood.

He bit his finger, formed hand seals at incredible speed, then slammed both palms heavily onto Orochimaru's purple-black arms.

He acted in place of the summoning.

Boom!

The casino's hard marble floor exploded instantly.

Countless enormous venomous snakes, each as thick as water barrels, hissed as they frantically burst out from underground.

The ceiling collapsed, and the gambling tables shattered.

The once lavish casino became a terrifying snake pit churning with serpents in the blink of an eye.

Screams erupted everywhere as the gamblers scrambled and crawled toward the exits.

Orochimaru stood atop a snake's head, extreme madness and killing intent flashing within his golden slit pupils.

"Chenshu Senju... Today, none of you will leave here alive!"

A chaotic battle was about to erupt.