Orochimaru

"I haven't seen Cangyue in days. I wonder what he's doing now."

"I heard he went on a mission. I wonder if he's safe."

Naruto kept his head lowered, carving a formula onto a kunai.

All the while, he muttered about his best friend.

"You could die and he'd still be safe," Sasuke cut in from beside him.

"You smug jerk, Sasuke! Do you dare fight me?"

Naruto had long been fed up with Sasuke. When Cangyue was around, Sasuke stubbornly refused to admit he was his student.

Once Cangyue was gone, he called himself the senior disciple every single day.

Naruto was clearly the first student Cangyue had taken in.

"Tch. Anytime."

Seeing the two at each other's throats again, Sakura stepped forward with a helpless sigh and separated them.

"All right, all right. Stop arguing."

Tazuna glanced at the unperturbed Kakashi and suddenly felt this trip might get him killed.

Now there was infighting too?

Were these people really reliable?

With Sakura intervening, the two refrained from further clashes along the road.

Until...

"Ha ha! I did it!"

Naruto suddenly shouted, startling Tazuna so badly that he nearly dropped his bottle of sake.

"You little brat! Are you trying to scare me to death?"

"I finished carving the Flying Thunder God Formula!"

Naruto proudly held up his kunai.

A crooked spiral was carved into its surface, looking more like a mosquito coil.

Tazuna stared at it for two seconds.

"What is that thing?"

"Heh heh. Something good!"

Naruto took out another kunai, lowered his head, and continued carving.

Then a puddle appeared beside the road.

Sasuke's steps briefly faltered.

A faint sense of danger pricked between his brows like a needle.

Naruto also raised his head.

It hadn't rained today, yet there was standing water on the road.

The top-tier genius Naruto had already seen through everything.

The two exchanged a glance. Nothing needed to be said.

They didn't warn the others. One merely gripped his sword hilt, while the other tucked his freshly carved kunai into his palm.

Kakashi lowered his book slightly.

They both noticed?

He didn't intervene.

He also wanted to see just how far Kambara Sogetsu had brought these two students.

Just as Tazuna passed the puddle, two dark figures burst out of the water.

A barbed chain instantly unfurled, whipping toward his body to rend him apart.

Sasuke drew his sword.

His iron sword struck the chain, sending up a shower of sparks.

He lunged toward the source of danger, tilted his head to dodge an iron claw, and drove his knee into the enemy's elbow.

The iron claw flew from the man's hand.

The blade followed immediately.

Splat!

Blood sprayed.

The Mist Ninja fell, clutching his throat, disbelief still lingering in his eyes.

This guy was blindfolded!

The other man had already slipped past Sasuke and headed straight for Tazuna.

Naruto hurled his kunai.

"You're not getting past me!"

"A mindless attack?"

The Mist Ninja sidestepped it. His lips had just begun to curl into a smile when Naruto vanished.

The next instant, Naruto appeared beside the kunai.

His arrival point was a little off again.

But that didn't affect the overall result.

"Flying Thunder God Punch!"

Naruto gathered Nine-Tails chakra into his fist and slammed it down.

Boom!

The air erupted with a violent shock wave.

A cloud of bloody mist burst from where the Mist Ninja had stood, then dissipated.

Naruto's eyes widened, and he hurriedly looked around.

"What kind of escape technique was that? How was he so fast?"

Kakashi, who had watched the entire thing, couldn't help twitching at the corners of his mouth.

An escape technique? What damn escape technique?

You fucking punched him into a cloud of blood!

"Idiot. He's dead," Sasuke reminded him from the side.

Then he explained what had happened.

"Huh?"

Naruto froze and looked down at his hands.

Was he really that strong?

Less than three seconds had passed between the Demon Brothers' appearance and their deaths.

Sakura looked at Naruto, then at Sasuke, who was flicking blood off his sword. Her eyes quickly lit up.

"Sasuke, that was amazing!"

"Hey, hey! Wasn't I amazing too?" Naruto squeezed his way over.

"Of course. You were amazing too, Naruto."

Sakura gave him a thumbs-up as well.

Only then was Naruto satisfied.

Tazuna, however, stood frozen in place.

"These... these are genin?"

Kakashi didn't answer.

After giving up his sight, Sasuke's danger perception had instead grown sharper, and his sword strikes were far more decisive than those of an ordinary genin.

Naruto's Flying Thunder God was still unstable, but it was already usable in actual combat.

And his left hand was strong, while his right hand was also strong.

Dealing with small fry like these was child's play.

A few months ago, this would have been utterly impossible.

Cangyue hadn't directly taught them how to defeat their enemies.

He had changed the way they fought.

Kakashi closed his little book and turned toward Tazuna.

"Now it's time for an explanation."

"An ordinary escort mission wouldn't draw ninja from Kirigakure."

Tazuna's face went pale.

After a long silence, he finally told them the truth.

Gato controlled the Land of Waves' shipping, colluded with gangs, and crushed anyone who dared oppose him.

Once the bridge was completed, Gato's monopoly would be broken.

That was why Tazuna had to die.

Tazuna didn't have enough money, so he had concealed the mission's danger level.

"If you turn back now, I won't blame you."

Naruto wiped the dirt off his kunai and slipped it back into his ninja tool pouch.

"We've already run into this. How could we turn back now?"

"Cangyue said that anyone who chooses to bully others should be ready for someone to come knocking."

Sasuke sheathed his sword and continued onward.

Kakashi opened his little book again.

Sakura sighed and followed them.

Watching the four walk away, Tazuna's eyes reddened slightly. He quickly lowered his head and hurried after them.

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away.

A streak of purple sword light swept over the forest.

Kambara Sogetsu stood on the Flame Sword with his hands behind his back. The Thunder Sword hovered beside him, occasionally crackling with blue-white arcs.

Gato certainly had plenty of money.

The question was where he hid it.

Still, that wasn't much of a problem. Cangyue had two lie detectors and plenty of ways to make Gato obediently cough up the money.

As Cangyue pondered this, the ground beneath him suddenly exploded.

A giant snake dozens of meters long shot into the sky, its gaping, bloody maw nearly swallowing both him and the Flame Sword.

Cangyue glanced down.

The Thunder Sword instantly vanished.

Blue-white lightning pierced the snake's mouth.

The giant snake stiffened, then split from head to tail into countless neatly cut chunks of flesh that crashed into the forest.

Before the blood could reach Cangyue, his sword intent pushed it to either side.

Not a single drop touched his clothes.

[Valor points +10]

Cangyue halted the Flame Sword and looked down.

A deathly pale man with shoulder-length black hair stood in a clearing.

Cangyue recognized him.

Orochimaru, one of the Konoha Sannin.

Orochimaru tilted his head back, his slit pupils brimming with interest.

"Cangyue, I've heard so much about you."

Whoosh!

The Thunder Sword suddenly plunged down, pierced Orochimaru's chest, and pinned him to the ground.

[Valor points +30]

"So you like greeting people this way."

Orochimaru looked down at his chest. Rather than growing angry, his gaze burned even brighter.

When that giant snake attacked, Cangyue hadn't even turned around.

The sword had protected its master on its own, cutting the giant snake to pieces.

And this time, Orochimaru hadn't seen how the Thunder Sword had pierced him either.

This power was already beyond the scope of ordinary ninjutsu.

Orochimaru's body gradually turned to mud.

A snake beside him opened its mouth, and he slowly crawled out of it, completely unharmed.

Cangyue frowned.

"The way you make an entrance really ruins my appetite."

Orochimaru paused briefly.

Faced with the Orochimaru-Style Substitution Technique, some people were frightened, some wary, and others amazed.

Cangyue was the first to complain that he spoiled his appetite.

"You seem to know quite a bit about me, Cangyue."

"There can't be many people in the Shinobi World who can crawl out of a snake's mouth."

Cangyue raised his hand and recalled the Thunder Sword.

Orochimaru looked at the two swords hovering beside him again and licked the corner of his mouth.

"Controlling flying swords from a distance, Sleep Training, and swordsmanship that suddenly underwent a fundamental transformation."

"I'm growing more and more curious about you."

Cangyue's gaze turned slightly cold.

"Watch how you look at me."

"The last person who looked at me like that still owes Kakuzu for stitching his head back on twice."

Orochimaru chuckled softly.

"Relax. I'm not here to fight you today."

"I merely wanted to invite you to visit my base, Cangyue."

Cangyue didn't answer right away.

Pain had only given him three days, and he still had to hurry to the Land of Waves to collect money from Gato.

But Orochimaru was one of the Sannin, and he could probably yield a considerable number of Valor Points.

In other words, this guy was another high-value target.

"Is your base far?"

"Not far."

"Will you feed me?"

Orochimaru's smile faltered slightly.

"Yes."

"Do you have a welcome gift?"

Silence fell over the forest for a moment.

All the probing questions and carefully prepared words Orochimaru had ready suddenly became useless.

"Yes."

The Flame Sword beneath Cangyue's feet slowly descended.

"Let's go."

"I'm pretty curious about the most mysterious of the legendary Sannin myself."

Orochimaru turned and walked into the forest.

Cangyue followed behind using Flying Sword, in quite a good mood.

I'm collecting Gato's money.

And naturally, I'm not missing out on Orochimaru's welcome gift either.

Maybe I can cash in twice on this trip.