When Naruto Uzumaki arrived and saw that Sakura had brought him lunch, his grin practically stretched from ear to ear, and he laughed at the top of his lungs.
Everyone was speechless, including Sakura, who had brought the lunch.
Luo Mang's mouth twitched. He felt as though he could see Naruto's underwear right through his open mouth!
Finally, they waited for Kakashi to arrive. He used the same excuse-he had gotten lost on the path of life-and then they started taking missions.
Today, yes, they started first thing in the morning and kept going until the afternoon, taking about five B-rank missions.
With spring here, there were plenty of farming missions, and the work left them drenched in sweat.
Evening.
Having finished his ramen, Kakashi closed the Icha Icha Paradise he had been reading while eating and addressed the four beside him.
"All right, meet on the bridge at the same time tomorrow."
"Goodbye, Kakashi-sensei."
Sakura Haruno nodded obediently and said goodbye.
The other three, however, paid him no attention and focused entirely on eating. Today's work had nearly exhausted them senseless.
Kakashi did not mind. He waved to Sakura Haruno, then turned and left.
The four finished eating quickly too, then went their separate ways?
Luo Mang stretched as he walked home.
"I'm exhausted."
The missions were dull and a little grueling, but at least his life was not in danger. That still felt pretty good.
[The weather was beautifully clear today, and the sun was roasting my backside. I'm exhausted. It was dull and a little rough, but at least my life wasn't in danger.]
[The trip to the Land of Waves in ten days or a week won't be too dangerous either. With my strength, staying alive definitely won't be a problem. And judging by the scenes I've seen and my observations over the past few days, even if things differ from the prophecy, the differences probably won't be too big.]
[The only threats are Zabuza, a Jonin, and Haku, a Chunin. With Kakashi's strength, as long as he's a little careful, there won't be any danger.]
Kakashi, who had arrived at the foot of the Hokage Building, froze when he saw what had been written in the Diary.
His expression gradually soured, as though he had swallowed a whole swarm of flies.
A Chunin had snatched an unconscious Jonin right out of his hands. Had he really become that careless?
Sure, he had wanted to end the fight quickly, and using the Sharingan consumed a lot of energy, but that was no excuse for letting his guard down and allowing a Chunin to rescue a half-dead Jonin.
Because the explanation had been incomplete, Kakashi felt another deep stab in his heart.
He had come to the Hokage Building to check whether there were any missions to the Land of Waves. He planned to take one and redeem himself, while also getting his hands on the Kubikiribōchō.
[Well, the trip to the Land of Waves isn't much of a problem. The real concern is the plan to destroy Konoha.]
[I wonder whether Orochimaru has already infiltrated Konoha. What arrangements is he making?]
[That lunatic is joining forces with ninja villages from other great nations to attack his own village. There really aren't many normal people in the ninja world. I hope I can survive the destruction plan during the Chunin Ninja Exams.]
Jiraiya walked along the road holding the Diary as though he were reading an ordinary novel, his expression changing with its contents.
Because of the Diary's special nature, however, other people could not see it. Coupled with Jiraiya's shifting expressions, this made quite a few people along the way stare at him as though he were an idiot.
"So it really is Orochimaru. He's actually joining forces with ninja villages from other great nations to attack Konoha. He's beyond saving."
Jiraiya's brows were tightly knotted, and his gaze trembled slightly.
What he had read last night had been speculation, and speculation was all it had been. Now, looking at the contents written in the Diary, he still felt shocked and agitated.
He did not understand why the man who had once liked expounding lofty principles and lamenting human life and death would do something like this to the village.
"Looks like there's not much time left to investigate. I'd better hurry."
After muttering quietly, Jiraiya returned the Diary to his mind and quickened his pace.
He needed to find Otogakure's location quickly and launch a surprise attack. Capturing Orochimaru alive would be even better, but at the very least, he needed intelligence on him. He could not go in blind.
As for the Child of Prophecy, he already had a candidate, so there was no great rush. Konoha's situation had to come first.
[Still, I have my own means of staying alive, so my survival definitely won't be much of a problem. It's Sasuke and the others I'm worried about.]
[One is being watched by Orochimaru, and the other by the Anbu. If I take them away, will I get assassinated when I return?]
[But I can't just stand by and let them die. Both of them have called me their big brother a few times, after all, and they're not as crazy as they'll be in the future. I don't know what to do. Hopefully, I'll draw something good.]
[Speaking of the Chunin Ninja Exams, I think that's where Sasuke and Karin meet. He saves her life, and he's handsome, so she falls in love at first sight.]
Click~
Having just reached his front gate, Sasuke froze with his hand on the fence!
Then his face, too exhausted to smile before, slowly broke into a grin.
Finally! Finally, he's revealed something about the girl who'll help me by my side. So we meet during the Chunin Ninja Exams.
"A few months, then?"
In just a few months, he would meet the person who would patiently help him in the future. Sasuke could not help feeling excited.
Her healing ability and intelligence would both help with his future revenge.
He was especially moved to see that Luo Mang wanted to save him in the future. Was this what it felt like to have an older brother again?
A dense forest somewhere in the Land of Earth.
With his Mangekyo active, Uchiha Itachi sped through the trees!
The Spiral Mask wrapped around his face gently burst open, slowly forming a human upper body. White Zetsu Tobi spread his hands and complained to Uchiha Itachi.
"Hey, hey, Itachi, you really suck!"
"How could you let the Four-Tails get away? Did you do it on purpose?"
A little over two months had already passed, and the deadline agreed upon with Obito was over. They had only just found the Four-Tails, and their capture attempt moments ago had even failed.
White Zetsu Tobi could not help complaining.
"The intelligence was wrong in the first place. We wasted more than ten days for nothing."
Uchiha Itachi's Mangekyo spun rapidly in his eyes as he searched for traces of the fleeing Roshi.
"Come on, he's a wandering monk. He doesn't have a fixed place to train. We can only give you the places where he often trains. Isn't that perfectly normal?"
White Zetsu Tobi hurriedly spread his hands, refusing to take the blame.
Uchiha Itachi did not reply again, instead looking ahead intently. He was not going through the motions; he really wanted to capture him.
It was just that he had been reading the Diary a moment ago. When it mentioned Sasuke calling Luo Mang his big brother, his body had suddenly trembled, and he had gone briefly blank.
It had dragged old memories straight to the surface, and that momentary lapse had given Roshi the opening he needed to escape.
He really had been careless this time, and he had to find a way to make up for it quickly. Using Susanoo earlier had cost him next to nothing. Uchiha Itachi had already clearly felt how much Tobi helped his body.
As Uchiha Itachi continued searching, a ripple of space-time fluctuations emerged atop a tree, and Obito and Black Zetsu appeared there together.
"Madara, Uchiha Itachi seemed to space out just now. That's why he let him escape. Could he have done it on purpose?"
Black Zetsu tilted his head, his tone and expression both somewhat grave as he asked.
Obito Uchiha paused briefly, narrowed his eyes, and spoke after a moment's thought.
"Probably not. Maybe he hasn't adjusted yet. If he really did it on purpose, there would have been no need to injure him so badly. He could simply have pretended to retreat in defeat, then come back and say our intelligence was wrong."
Before you continue