"Crack."
The sound was sharp and clean, with an echo that almost set one's teeth on edge. It rang out harshly through the otherwise quiet desert wind.
Rasa's body, which he had forced to hold upright in an attempt to preserve the last shred of his dignity as Kazekage, suddenly went rigid.
The complicated emotions from their conversation still lingered in his wide eyes.
Yet the instant a cold, tremendous force snapped his neck, all those emotions froze, turning into permanent emptiness and the shock of a man who had died with his eyes open.
Orochimaru slowly withdrew his right hand. Pale and slender, it had just ended the life of a Kage-level fighter in an instant, using a seemingly gentle motion that actually held terrifying precision and chakra.
The movement was clean, without the slightest hesitation, as though he had merely brushed aside an unsightly fallen leaf.
"Information?"
Orochimaru glanced at Rasa's rapidly cooling body. His golden, slit-pupiled eyes held no emotion, only the detached scrutiny of a researcher examining valuable material.
"Naruto, remember this. What someone like Rasa tells you will be a mixture of truth and lies, substance and misdirection. You cannot trust it all. Rather than wasting effort sifting through information that may have been deliberately misleading or watered down..."
He paused, his voice frighteningly calm. "...it is better to focus on the value he himself possesses. To a researcher, the intact, fresh body of a Kage-level fighter who wielded the rare Magnet Release kekkei tōta is far more valuable than information whose truth is difficult to verify."
As he spoke, he took a specially made black scroll from his loose sleeve, its surface covered in complex sealing formulas.
As he deftly formed hand seals and undid the scroll's seal, an invisible force drew Rasa's corpse