This person, relying on his own sensory abilities, had remained hidden in the shadows, clearly intending to ambush Uchiha Nagi. However, Nagi now possessed the Beast Perception ability from the little boar boy. While his long-range senses might not match theirs, at close range, his perception was even stronger.
"Nagi-sensei, are you alright?"
Kimimaro jogged over to support the swaying Uchiha Nagi. Because he hadn't been heavily involved in the fighting, or perhaps because his Shikotsumyaku had a higher resistance to the nano-insects, Kimimaro was still able to move, despite his pale complexion.
Nagi shook his head. "I'm fine. I just need to neutralize the poison as soon as possible."
He then grabbed the ninja trapped in his genjutsu and brought him before the dying Aburame Torune.
After laying out a scroll and smearing some of Torune's blood on a kunai, he began the jutsu.
"Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation!"
"Aaaargh!"
"Aaaaargh!"
Two screams rang out simultaneously—one from a man torn between death and life, the other from a man suffering a fate worse than death.
A moment later, scraps of paper talismans flew up and plastered themselves onto the Root ninja from the Yamanaka clan. He then began to slowly transform into the spitting image of Aburame Torune.
"Ah… huff… huff… What's happening? I… wasn't I dead?" The newly resurrected Aburame Torune was still disoriented.
"Long time no see. No, I suppose it's nice to see you again, Aburame Torune." Uchiha Nagi smiled. "I told you, there's no jutsu that can't be undone. See? Problem solved."
"This is…" Torune stared in horror at the familiar corpse on the ground—his own. "The Second Hokage's Edo Tensei? How did you learn it? Wasn't that jutsu left incomplete?"
"You don't need to know that. Now, undo the nano-insects for me," Uchiha Nagi said calmly.
"Don't even think about it! I'll die before I help you! I will eliminate you for the sake of Konoha!"
"That's not up to you," Uchiha Nagi sneered, picking up a kunai with a sealing talisman tied to it and plunging it into Torune's brain.
With that, Aburame Torune was completely under his control. Under the caster's command, he obediently dispelled the nano-insects from both Kimimaro's and Nagi's bodies.
"Let's go." Uchiha Nagi prepared to leave with Kimimaro. Before they departed, he went to check on the old guide.
To his surprise, he found that the old man was not dead, but was just sitting there numbly, cradling a child's body.
His grandson, Saburo, had had his throat slit by the Root ninja, but the old man himself had been inexplicably spared.
Perhaps in that moment, Aburame Torune had a pang of conscience, or what was left of it, and stopped his subordinate from killing the old man. Or perhaps he felt they had already been exposed and couldn't be bothered to kill him. In any case, the old guide had been lucky enough to survive.
Uchiha Nagi sighed and said to the old man, "I'm sorry such a tragedy has occurred. This job ends here. I will give you ten times your payment as the only compensation I can offer."
Little Kimimaro silently looked at the child, who was the same age as him. In that moment, the world of shinobi seemed so heartless.
When Nagi had ruthlessly performed the Edo Tensei on Torune, Kimimaro had just watched in silence. Since he was his sensei's enemy, he was his enemy. Kimimaro felt no pity for Torune.
But for this innocent child, his own age, he couldn't help but feel a flicker of something different.
After a long silence, the old guide, his world shattered, finally stirred. "I'm sorry, sir," he said sorrowfully. "I will take Saburo back to our hometown."
"However, I will tell you about the map and the dangers along the way."
The guide took out his map and pointed out the dangerous areas of quicksand and the places prone to sandstorms, explaining everything in detail.
"Excuse me, do you know of a place called Roran?" Uchiha Nagi suddenly asked.
"Roran? I do. Many years ago, when I was little, my grandfather told me about it. It used to be a small country affiliated with the Land of Wind, very prosperous. But later, it was swallowed by a sandstorm…"
The old guide slowly recounted the history of Roran to Nagi. Long ago, much like the Land of Waves was to the Land of Water, its geographical location meant that Roran could only be a vassal to the Land of Wind, paying tribute year after year.
Then one day, for some unknown reason, the entire country vanished. To call it a country was perhaps an overstatement; it was more like a large area with many oases. After all, the Land of Wind was the largest of all the countries.
After its disappearance, the Land of Wind had sent people to investigate, but even ninja were powerless against such a supernatural disaster. They couldn't excavate the oases buried under the desert, and eventually, the matter was forgotten.
All that was known afterward was that a portion of Roran's surviving civilians roamed the lands.
As for Roran's location…
It was a small country to begin with, even smaller than the Land of Waves. And with the Land of Wind's unpredictable sandstorms constantly shifting the landscape, without the oases as landmarks, its location was gradually forgotten by most.
"However, even after all these years, Sunagakure must still have a detailed map of Roran."
"Alright. Thank you."
Uchiha Nagi did not go back on his word, nor did he have any intention of silencing the man. He simply activated his Sharingan and quietly altered the guide's memory of his and Kimimaro's appearances.
When it was time to kill, he would not be merciful. But he would not kill ordinary, innocent people, even if they might pose a risk to him. This was one of the few principles he had left as a human being.
Some lines, once crossed, will be crossed again, and before you know it, you've fallen into depravity.
Two days later, a squad of ninja wearing Sunagakure headbands arrived in the small town. A massacre in a town on the border of the Land of Wind naturally required an investigation by Sunagakure.
Although it was only a small town of a few hundred people, it had caught their attention. It could be a surprise attack by an enemy nation.
"Captain, we've found signs of a battle nearby," a Suna Anbu reported.
"Let's go. Everyone, let's check it out." The squad leader waved his hand, and the group of ninja vanished, heading towards the location of Nagi's battle.
Upon arrival, they first saw the merchant caravan that had been wiped out by the Root ambush of exploding tags. Then they found the site of the battle between Uchiha Nagi and Aburame Torune.
"Be careful. The bodies seem to be poisonous…"
In the desert, a gentle breeze blew, kicking up not only sand but also the invisible nano-insects.
A few of the nano-insects silently attached themselves to the exposed skin of two of the Suna ninja.
Afterward, the Suna Anbu squad left the bodies and returned. It wasn't that they were careless—they had used clones to inspect the scene. They had simply assumed the bodies were coated in a conventional poison, never imagining they were dealing with nano-insects.
As they returned to Sunagakure to report to the Kazekage, one of the ninja suddenly coughed a few times.
"Hey, hey, you alright?"
"I'm fine. The temperature difference between night and day in the desert is probably just giving me a cold."
"Hahahaha, or did you expend too much energy with a woman?"
"Shut up. Am I that kind of person? I can handle ten women with ease."
"Braggart…"
Unbeknownst to them, with his every cough, the nano-insects began to spread within Sunagakure. In ancient times, there was a word for this sort of thing: a plague.