Orochimaru barely needed to sense them to know the two approaching had to be Pain and Saro.
After all, the only people who liked coming to see him were Nagato and Yahiko, and Yahiko was gone now.
Knowing Nagato, Orochimaru had been sure he would come. That way, everything could seem just as it had before.
It was a way of deceiving himself, but Nagato clung to it willingly.
Orochimaru stood in the doorway, watching Pain and Saro draw closer, and sighed.
But by the time Pain arrived, Orochimaru had wiped the expression from his face.
Wearing his usual faint, unreadable smile, he asked, "Are you here to inspect my work?"
Pain's expression did not change. That alone left Orochimaru deeply unsettled.
Yahiko had always loved to smile, no matter what. Even when he was exhausted, his smile had been infectious.
That was why Yahiko had seemed like Amegakure's one rare ray of sunshine.
Now that its only sun had fallen, Amegakure might truly become a land of tears.
But Orochimaru kept those thoughts to himself. He would never say them aloud.
After all, saying them would change nothing. All he had to do was carry out his task.
Pain glanced at Orochimaru. "Do you have any suitable corpses?"
The question came so abruptly that even Orochimaru, who spent his days among corpses, looked stunned.
Saro was only a child; her face went pale at once.
Pain merely glanced at her, said nothing, then turned back to Orochimaru with an expectant look.
Orochimaru was about to ask what Pain meant by "suitable."
But Pain's expression changed in an instant. "It seems I won't need one for now!"
With that, he turned his gaze east. Orochimaru looked that way in confusion. There was nothing there.
A few seconds later, Orochimaru understood