"Orochimaru, are these two teeth on the ground yours?"
Only then did Orochimaru realize how physically tough Hongshi was. After his two fangs snapped, he spat the Kusanagi Sword out of his mouth. "A hardening ninjutsu? Then try the Kusanagi Sword!"
Orochimaru slashed the Kusanagi Sword across Hongshi's chest. Hongshi felt a stab of pain as the blade left a... white mark... on his chest. "You actually dared to hurt me!"
"Even the Kusanagi Sword can't break through your defenses?" Orochimaru was shocked. The Kusanagi Sword could ignore defenses. "Very impressive!"
"But I don't have time to play with you." Orochimaru released over a hundred venomous snakes from his hands, trapping Hongshi. "Hidden Shadow Snake Hands! We'll meet again if we get the chance!"
With that, he tried to flee, only to suddenly find himself unable to move again. The venomous snakes around Hongshi turned into clumps of white flame and vanished. "You really are disgusting."
With that, his right eye lit up, and Orochimaru's body stopped in midair, as though time had frozen.
Hongshi slowly walked up to Orochimaru. "Orochimaru, this is my right eye's ability, Absolute Stillness. Unless I release it, you'll remain completely motionless like this until I die."
Hongshi pressed his right hand onto Orochimaru's head. "Now your knowledge belongs to me. Nuclear Release: Thermonuclear Lightning Armor. Human Path: Mind Layer Diving."
An enormous surge of chakra came from Hongshi's body, and his thinking speed rose rapidly.
Mind Layer Diving was an extremely powerful mental ninjutsu that allowed the user to search the target's mind for the information they wanted. It was extremely fast and forceful.
"Human experimentation... Ryūchi Cave... cursed seals..." Hongshi maintained this state for an hour, copying a vast quantity of memories from Orochimaru's mind before lowering his hand.
"Orochimaru, you really have committed countless atrocities in your lifetime. All right, I've gotten what I wanted. I really want to kill you, but the upcoming plot needs you, so I'll spare you. State restored."
"Whoosh!" Orochimaru shot into the forest, unaware of anything that had just happened.
Hongshi walked over to Naruto and the other two and looked at the cursed seals on their necks. "Cursed seals can force you into Sage Transformation, so they're a way to increase your strength, but they also make it easy to lose yourself in that power. I can't interfere with Sasuke's path for now. Naruto has a strong will, and with the Eight Trigrams Seal in place, he should be fine. Sakura's will may be weak, but her control is very good. She should be able to control it."
Just then, Naruto slowly sat up. His eyes turned blood-red, and his voice became much deeper. "Brat! What's your relationship with the old man?"
Hongshi said, "Oh! It's Kurama. Me? You could say I'm Six Paths' dad. Yep, hahahahaha, because I'm stronger."
"What?!" With the Eight Trigrams Seal in place, even speaking through Naruto's body was difficult for the Nine-Tails. "What proof do you have?!"
Hongshi pointed at his eyes. "Aren't these ten tomoe Rinnegan pretty good proof? Oh, right. Naruto's been given the Cursed Seal of Heaven. Keep an eye on it."
The Nine-Tails was silent for a long time. "I don't believe you, but I'll keep an eye on it. After all, if he dies, I die too."
Without another word, the Nine-Tails sank back down, and Naruto fell unconscious again.
Hongshi created two clones to heal the three of them. Once the healing was done, the clones did not disappear. Instead, they used Flying Thunder God and went somewhere unknown.
Hongshi looked at Sakura. "Hmmmm, the wheels of fate have begun to turn. Let me give you some insurance."
He pressed his hand onto Sakura's cursed seal. "Sealing Jutsu: Preta Path. Four Symbols Seal: Sealing Technique: Absorption Seal. You were weakened far too much in the original. I won't do that. I'm going to train you to the same level as Naruto and Sasuke."
The Four Symbols Seal surrounded the cursed seal and then disappeared.
With Hongshi's help, the three quickly adapted to the Cursed Seal of Heaven's energy, and their vital signs began to stabilize. Hongshi wandered around the area.
Early the next morning.
"Ugh..." Naruto and the other two slowly woke up, clutching their necks.
"Where's Orochimaru?! Huh, Hongshi?"
The first thing the three did after waking was look for signs of Orochimaru, but instead, they found Hongshi sitting with his back to them.
Hongshi was covered in blood, sitting cross-legged on the ground with his head lowered. His posture had lost its usual straightness. He was hunched over and completely motionless.
Sakura screamed, "H-Hongshi-kun!"
Sasuke slowly stood and examined their surroundings. The trees and ground were ravaged, with black smoke rising from them. A great battle had clearly taken place. He was deeply shaken. "Did Hongshi protect us?"
"Hahaha!" Naruto laughed, walked up, and patted Hongshi. "You drove Orochimaru off, didn't you?! You're amazing!"
Hongshi: "..."
Naruto seemed to sense something, and his heart tightened. "Hey! Stop sleeping!"
Two minutes later, Hongshi had not reacted at all.
Sakura suddenly felt that something was wrong. She swallowed, stepped forward, and shook Hongshi. "Hongshi-kun, Hongshi-kun, stop sleeping. It's time to get up."
Naruto went around in front of Hongshi and seemed to see something horrifying. His face turned deathly pale. "Hey! H-Hongshi, don't scare me!"
Hongshi's eyes were slightly open, but there was no light left in them. He still clutched two badly chipped kunai in his hands. Countless wounds covered the front of his body, and a little blood had trickled from his mouth and nose. Blood stained his brown ninja clothes and the ground before him, long since dried and clotted.
Hearing this, Sasuke panicked too. He stepped forward to look at Hongshi, and his body jolted. Tears blurred his vision. "Hongshi! That bastard Orochimaru was actually this strong!"
Sakura knelt on one knee and hugged Hongshi's right arm. Feeling his icy body, she could no longer hold back her tears. "Hongshi-kun! Waaah..."
Naruto's eyes filled with rage. "Damn it! We're still too weak! Hongshi actually died protecting us! Damn it!!!"
"Aah!" Sasuke shouted. The cursed seal on the back of his neck slowly changed, its flame-shaped markings gradually spreading.
The same happened to Sakura, except her markings were shaped like water droplets, while Naruto's cursed seal markings were sharp, straight lines.
The chakra within all three grew increasingly dense. Naruto was not affected by the cursed seal and instead calmed down somewhat, while Sasuke and Sakura's demeanors grew much colder. Sakura in particular had water-droplet-shaped pupils and looked cold and merciless. "Orochimaru."
The three searched the surrounding wreckage of the battle for signs of Orochimaru. "Orochimaru! I'll defeat him!"
Sakura's cursed seal markings spread the fastest, but just as they were about to cover her entire body and enter the second state, the Four Symbols Seal appeared on the back of her neck. The cursed seal markings receded like an ebbing tide and soon vanished.
The Nine-Tails inside Naruto destroyed the cursed seal's chakra. A cloud of smoke rose from his body, and the cursed seal disappeared.
Sasuke relied on his own will to calm himself, and his cursed seal slowly receded.
Sakura said, "Huh? What happened to us just now?"
Naruto said, "It felt like something entered my body."
The Lord God said, "Terrible phrasing."
Sasuke said coldly, "Orochimaru must have done something to us. Those strange markings were consuming all of us just now. That's probably why Orochimaru let us go."
Sakura had calmed down by now too. "Hongshi-kun died protecting us. What should we do? We're nowhere near strong enough to beat Orochimaru!"
Naruto flew into a rage. "No! We have to find him right away and avenge Hongshi!"
Sasuke gritted his teeth. His right eye had actually become a mitsudomoe. "Naruto, calm down. Even Hongshi died at Orochimaru's hands. There's definitely no way we can beat him as we are now. Finding him now won't help."
Naruto said, "Then what do we do?!"
Sasuke had no answer either. After all, he understood the gap between Hongshi and the three of them.
Just then, a beautiful woman in a white yukata slowly emerged from the darkness between the trees, followed by a child of seven or eight.
They were Yuhan and Hieimon. Hieimon was holding two scrolls, Heaven and Earth. They had already collected a complete set.
Yuhan walked toward Naruto and the other two with a smile. "Naruto-kun, so Hongshi was here with you."
Hieimon looked at the wrecked surroundings. "Oh! Awesome! You guys had one spectacular fight!"
Looking at the beautiful Yuhan, Naruto began to cry again. "Big Sister Yuhan, Hongshi... Hongshi, he..."
Yuhan walked in front of Hongshi and saw the state he was in. "What happened to Hongshi?"
Sakura shook her head. "We ran into a ninja called Orochimaru. He was incredibly powerful. After we passed out, Hongshi sacrificed himself to protect us!"
Gritting his teeth, Sasuke walked aside and turned his back to Yuhan, his hands in his trouser pockets as he secretly shed tears.
Yuhan smiled. "Hongshi did give up some things to protect you, but isn't having you live on and grow stronger exactly what he wanted to achieve?"
Naruto's heart trembled as he remembered what Hongshi had said when he was about to take Teacher Tetsukado down with him. "He once told me, 'Don't stop! Get stronger! Keep getting stronger! Don't die here! You have to become Hokage, the greatest Hokage!' I'm definitely going to become the greatest Hokage!"
Sasuke's body shook uncontrollably. Hongshi was one of his few childhood playmates. Although he had always complained that Hongshi was slow, now that Hongshi had left him, he was so heartbroken. "That idiot. He was so weak, yet he fought Orochimaru anyway. He was asking to die!"
Sakura crouched on the ground. "We were too weak!"
"Hehehe, we finally found you."
Three people approached from a distance. They were the Sound Ninja trio: Dosu in the lead, along with Kin and Zaku.
Dosu clearly had ill intentions as he exposed the armor on his right arm. "Sasuke, it looks like you just went through a big battle."
Zaku laughed beside him. "Oh? Is that big guy dead?"
Dosu glanced at Hongshi. "Hehehe, good riddance. He was a troublesome one too."
The more Sasuke heard, the darker his expression grew. "I'll give you one chance. Apologize to Hongshi."
"Hehehe." Kin pulled out several senbon. "Why should we apologize to a dead man?"
"Then die!"
"Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!"
"Dragon-Rat-Tiger-Boar-Snake. Earth Release: Multiple Earth Spikes!"
"Snake-Ram-Monkey-Boar-Horse-Tiger. Great Fireball Technique!"