Jing Xiu had not expected that wielding the Totsuka Blade with only the power of his divine soul, without drawing on the ocular power of the Mangekyō Sharingan, would leave him unconscious for so long.
Although he very much wanted to see Konoha's Scroll of Seals.
He still had many things to do and did not want to come to Konoha at this particular moment.
"Orochimaru, if I wanted to leave the village for a while, you would help me, wouldn't you?"
Orochimaru looked at Jing Xiu with a faint, ambiguous smile. "So you've grown disappointed in this rotten old tree too, Jing Xiu?"
Naturally, Jing Xiu understood what Orochimaru was implying. "It was never the tree itself that was rotten."
"No organization is inherently the problem. The problem always lies with the people in it."
"What do you think, Orochimaru?"
Orochimaru fell silent for a long while before letting out a hoarse laugh. "You've hit the nail on the head, Jing Xiu."
"Even if this tree were destroyed, once a new tree had weathered the years, rotten people would still emerge."
Orochimaru watched Jing Xiu with interest. "I do happen to have a mission that would let you leave the village."
"The question is whether you'd be willing to accept it."
Jing Xiu looked at the mission scroll Orochimaru handed him and remained silent for a long time.
A cold smile appeared on his lips. "Such petty political tricks really aren't fit to see the light of day!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi had watched Jing Xiu's influence in the shinobi world grow ever greater, his prestige even approaching that of the White Fang of Konoha in his day.
He and the current Yellow Flash were known together as the Twin Stars of Konoha.
Minato Namikaze's political show had lost much of