A night passed in the blink of an eye.
In the town's guest room, Tsunade had been worrying about funds for her gambling capital just yesterday.
Today, she gambled as she pleased and drank as she pleased, squandering her very last bit of money and feeling immensely pleased with herself.
Miki Yūya stayed right there with her as well. Tsunade grandly called it waiting for a final, in-depth follow-up examination to monitor the lingering effects of hidden injuries, but in reality, it was basically just a way to make Miki Yūya stay a bit longer while charging all those days to the medical expenses.
Since no Konoha Ninja came to inspect anyway, Tsunade would just bullshit her way through it when the time came, claiming she had handled various tricky problems during this period and so on.
She only needed to casually fabricate a few difficult problems to fool those medical-nin.
With both harboring their own hidden agendas and fleece-shearing Konoha from two directions, they lived exceptionally comfortably.
Until noon of the next day.
Two cold figures appeared silently at the doorway.
An eerie and sinister aura permeated their entire bodies, and the air dropped several degrees in an instant.
They were none other than Orochimaru and Kabuto Yakushi.
Orochimaru's condition at the moment was extremely poor.
During the battle of the Konoha Crush Plan, the Third used the Reaper Death Seal on him, completely sealing and severing the soul of one of his arms.
While his physical body looked intact, the damage at the soul level was incurable by anyone. That arm lost all sensation completely, rendering it unable to channel chakra and leaving it like a useless limb.
Orochimaru's cold and gloomy face carried barely concealable exhaustion and sullenness.
Kabuto followed closely behind Orochimaru, his gaze scanning the surroundings cautiously.
Orochimaru swept a calm gaze across the room, spotting Miki Yūya at first glance.
He paused slightly.
He looked somewhat familiar.
He vaguely remembered that on the day of the Konoha Crush, when the village was in utter chaos, there seemed to be a villager who had no fear of death and directly threw stones at him just for fun.
It was this very fellow before him.
Yet that was all.
Just a low-level Konoha villager, an ant-like character, whom Orochimaru couldn't even be bothered to look at, feeling that even talking to him was a waste of energy.
His gaze slipped directly past Miki Yūya, landing on Tsunade as his voice rasped, cold and gloomy:
"Tsunade."
Tsunade raised her eyes, her expression plain, with hardly any ripples in the depths of her gaze.
The bond of the former Sannin still remained, but things had long since changed; she had long since lost the desire to meddle in the Shinobi World's conflicts and Konoha's grudges.
"Why have you come?"
Orochimaru walked over slowly, lowering his gaze to look at his drooping, paralyzed left arm as he spoke bluntly:
"The sequela of the Reaper Death Seal-my soul arm was sealed."
"The whole hand is ruined, unable to gather chakra."
Kabuto added in a timely manner:
"Lady Tsunade, currently in the Shinobi World, only your original medical senjutsu has a chance to repair soul-level damage."
Tsunade remained silent for a long time. Out of old affection, she finally ended up casually asking a couple of routine questions:
"Orochimaru, does your arm hurt?"
"Is there still any sensation?"
The atmosphere for a serious medical consultation between the two was maxed out.
As a result, Miki Yūya, listening from the side, could no longer hold it in. Although this wasn't Konoha and no one was protecting him, he genuinely couldn't take it anymore.
"What sensation? Doesn't it hurt? Of course it hurts!"
"Lady Tsunade, to put it plainly, isn't this just a broken hand?"
"Let's keep it simple and easy to understand for us normal people, and drop those high-and-mighty terms."
Miki Yūya gritted his teeth. He was terrified that Orochimaru would straight-up finish him off, but if he didn't say it, he felt terribly stifled inside. Ah, blame the system; it was the system that controlled him, after all.
Wasn't Orochimaru right now the spitting image of a Power Buster template?
He could totally switch careers to play a professional top-laner in the Shinobi World, how great would that be!
One-handed operation, a descent of heavenly gods! One versus five! Top-lane research and development!
Not to mention, Orochimaru really was someone who dabbled in scientific research.
Aigo, how could it be like this? Sigh, blame this system.
Miki Yūya suffered all kinds of inner torment.
Yet the moment Miki Yūya spoke those words, the corners of Kabuto's mouth twitched violently.
A flash of pitch-black, bone-chilling gloom swept across the depths of Orochimaru's eyes in an instant.
[Ding! Conqueror's Haki +1]
[Ding! Conqueror's Haki +2]
Miki Yūya didn't notice Orochimaru's expression at all and continued running his mouth.
"During the Konoha Crush earlier, you, Orochimaru, were holding the Impure World Reincarnation of both the First and Second Hokage!"
"With dual Hokage in hand, that's a proper trident lineup!"
"And now look at you, reduced straight to a broken-handed retirement, your professional career is over! What a pity, why even bother getting treatment like this? Aren't you able to use that thing... Impure World Reincarnation? Why don't you just reincarnate yourself and become a zombie already."
Dead silence filled the entire place.
Kabuto was stunned numb.
He never in his wildest dreams expected that someone would actually dare to mock Orochimaru so brazenly right to his face!
The cold, murderous intent surrounding Orochimaru exploded instantly, the killing intent in his eyes surging as he locked a deadly stare onto Miki Yūya, who was merely a commoner!
[Ding! Conqueror's Haki +5]
[Ding! Conqueror's Haki +6]
The system prompts appearing continuously finally made Miki Yūya feel refreshed inside.
As for Orochimaru, he genuinely understood this time. This fellow, a mere commoner, actually dared to ridicule and mock him wantonly to his face?!
Right at that moment.
"Orochimaru!"
Tsunade let out a cold shout, rising instantly with her aura fully unleashed, stepping directly in front of Miki Yūya to block him.
She stared at Orochimaru, her tone harsh and refusing to brook any argument:
"Orochimaru, he is my patient."
"Under my roof, no one touches a single hair on his head."
Old affection was old affection, and seeking medical treatment was seeking medical treatment.
He wanted to kill someone under her protection? In his dreams!
Orochimaru glared darkly at Miki Yūya, suppressing the surging killing intent as he smiled with chilling coldness:
"Tsunade, you really are becoming more and more fiercely protective of your own."
"However, I won't bother bickering with a commoner either... How could I ever raise a hand against a villager?"
Orochimaru spoke the truth. In Naruto, Orochimaru was the most pure-minded Ninja; his sole grievance was his conflict with the Third. He didn't possess that many emotional attachments, and even if he were mocked, he wouldn't feel any particular way about it.
He had experienced numerous wars and witnessed the fragility of life, yet he never hated anyone.
He only wished to pursue ninjutsu and the limits of life. Villagers like Miki Yūya held zero research value in Orochimaru's eyes.
Yet Miki Yūya on the side didn't care about any of that.
"A broken hand is a broken hand, and yet he still claims he won't raise a hand against me? Heh!"
Orochimaru's aura plummeted completely to an icy extreme, too lazy to waste another half syllable on this brainless, uncultured mob because he genuinely wanted to make a move now.
What the hell!!! Who could endure this? Even if this guy possessed zero research value, he still wanted to strike him down and kill him.
Ultimately, however, Orochimaru held back. He turned his gaze back to Tsunade, reined in his killing intent, and said in a deep, solemn voice:
"Tsunade, I know the greatest obsession of your life."
"I can help you perform the forbidden technique to resurrect your younger brother and resurrect your lover."
Tsunade's entire body jerked violently, her pupils contracting sharply!
This was her life's greatest emotional knot, her life's greatest regret!
Orochimaru spoke calmly, tossing out the most enticing bargaining chip:
"I'll give you a week to consider."
"A week from now, I will come for you again."
With those words, Orochimaru clenched his fists, cast one deep look at the eyesore that was Miki Yūya, and lingered no longer, turning to leave with Kabuto as their figures slowly vanished into the far end of the town.
The surroundings grew quiet.
Leaving only a relieved Miki Yūya and a Tsunade whose thoughts were thoroughly thrown into turmoil.
Miki Yūya stroked his chin, clicking his tongue in commentary:
"Resurrect her lover?"
"Who does Orochimaru think he is? Losing a hand and he dares act like a vegetable; watch out or that vegetable Tang San will come straight at you with a Blue Silver Entanglement."
Miki Yūya looked over at Tsunade, whose expression was looking very poor.
"Lady Tsunade, you wouldn't actually believe him, right? If worse comes to worst, we'll head back to Konoha tomorrow to get your head properly checked. There's a saying that big breasts come with no brain, and I reckon-"
Bang!!
Before Miki Yūya could even finish his sentence-before he could even look properly-he went flying backward straight away. This single punch brought Miki Yūya's entire flash-forward of his life flashing before his eyes.
His Observation Haki had foreseen it, and his Armament Haki defense had kept up, but his physical body simply couldn't react in time.
His Armament Haki was too weak, resulting in physical capabilities that weren't strong enough, making dodging utterly impossible.
Boom!
Miki Yūya's entire body flew through the air, slamming heavily into the distant wall and cracking it all the way through.
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