A mysterious figure hidden beneath a gray cloak drove a brown carriage into a secluded valley.
After parking the carriage, the mysterious figure stood respectfully beside it, waiting for the important passenger inside to emerge.
Clack! Clack!
The curtain across the carriage entrance was pulled aside, and another mysterious cloaked figure stepped out.
He climbed down from the carriage, gazed at the familiar valley before him, and pulled back his hood, revealing snow-white hair and a youthful face.
"Five years have passed, and I'm finally back in the Land of Fire. I wonder if my old friends will welcome me. Haha, haha, ha!"
He was overwhelmed with excitement, tempered by a little apprehension, but above all, he was happy to be home.
This man was Hiruko, whom Chihane had been searching for all this time.
Hiruko was a war orphan who had grown up on the village's subsidies and help from Tsunade and the others.
He had grown up alongside Tsunade, Orochimaru, and Jiraiya. Though they shared no blood ties, they were as close as siblings.
But as time passed, the gap between them had only grown wider.
Especially after Orochimaru, Tsunade, and Jiraiya became known throughout the shinobi world as the Konoha Sannin, Hiruko remained nothing more than an ordinary jonin.
That had made Hiruko feel the gulf between them even more keenly.
Unwilling to accept his fate, Hiruko understood the limits of his own talent. He knew that even a lifetime of training alone would probably never let him catch up to Orochimaru and the others, so he began considering a shortcut.
To compensate for his innate shortcomings, Hiruko secretly developed a fusion forbidden technique called "chimera."
This fusion forbidden technique allowed him to merge other ninja or summoning beasts into his own body and acquire their abilities.