"Hiss-Uchiha brat, why have you come barging into my Dragon Release Village in such a panic?"
The White Snake Sage had shrunk herself, but she was still several meters long. Her vertical pupils fixed on the bedraggled Ryōta.
Ryōta jumped at the enormous white snake's sudden appearance, but then recognized her as the White Snake Sage of Ryūchi Cave.
"You... you're the White Snake Sage?"
Panting, Ryōta said urgently, "Please! Save my brother, Uchiha Onibi! A man in a spiral mask is hunting him down in the waters between the Land of Whirlpools and the Land of Fire!"
"Uchiha Onibi? The Akatsuki?"
A trace of understanding flashed through the White Snake Sage's eyes.
But Lin Ze had instructed her to keep a close watch on Konoha and the Akatsuki's movements without intervening.
Internal Uchiha affairs were especially sensitive.
"My master has ordered me not to interfere in the affairs of Konoha or its associated forces."
The White Snake Sage spoke slowly.
Ryōta looked as though lightning had struck him, his face deathly pale.
"No... you can't! Lin Ze and my brother... and I..."
He wanted to say they were on friendly terms, but remembering how he had behaved at the Ninja Academy, he faltered.
And although he had long anticipated it, hearing the White Snake Sage, ruler of one of the Shinobi World's Three Great Sage Lands, call Lin Ze her master made it all the clearer that they were no longer on the same level.
Seeing the despair in Ryōta's eyes, the White Snake Sage tilted her enormous head slightly.
Though loyal to Lin Ze's orders, she was not inflexible.
As far as she knew, Uchiha Onibi was on good terms with her master, and this involved the Akatsuki...
Perhaps she should let her master know.
"Very well."
The