Orochimaru waited.
Days passed, and the familiar Chakra signature he had expected never appeared.
The sensing technique he'd woven into the scroll finally transmitted a response—but it wasn't from Roshi.
So, Orochimaru lost interest.
He had a lot of patience, but it was obvious that the young man on the other end wasn't someone whose will was susceptible to some tempting offers. Roshi had surely already combed through the data, traced its implications, and reached his own conclusions.
Neither the information nor the truth behind it had swayed him.
With the bait recognized and ignored, continuing to linger was meaningless. Orochimaru knew when to wait—but more importantly, he knew when to pivot. With a flick of his sleeve, he led the few Root operatives Danzo had left behind and departed.
Instead of diminishing his curiosity, Roshi's refusal only increased it.
A boy with Senju vitality and Wood Release, advancing from "promising" to "problematic to deal with" in mere months…
If the Senju side produced this, what heights could the Uchiha side reach?
And Roshi had returned to the village almost immediately after discovering Orochimaru's intentions. That implied confidence—not recklessness. It meant that, in his judgment, the Uchiha team still on the eastern front possessed enough strength to deter Orochimaru.
The extremists Danzo wanted killed? Orochimaru knew them well.
They were not capable of such a thing.
Only one candidate remained: Uchiha Shisui.
Konoha had become so much more entertaining during his brief absence.
Leading the Root unit, Orochimaru headed toward the eastern coastline. Just before they arrived, a Root member knelt.
"Lord Orochimaru, there are battle traces ahead."
The Sannin knelt beside a churned patch of earth.
"Wood Release… and Lightning, Wind, Fire. Quite a lively exchange," he murmured, lifting a charred splinter between two fingers. "Roshi-kun, it seems your guests were rather formidable."
A few dried flecks of blood stained the overturned soil.
Likely not Roshi's—but worth collecting.
"Never know when fortune smiles," he whispered as he sealed the samples away.
Blindly searching along the coastline would be inefficient; the intelligence Danzo had provided before his confinement was already stale.
"Head for the Land of Waves."
Orochimaru's voice slithered through the mist, and the small squad shifted direction without a sound.
After infiltrating the island, they swept through the remnants of several camps. What they found were half-erased tracks, abandoned supplies, and extinguished fires—the remnants of a hasty withdrawal.
"The entire force pulled back?" Orochimaru verified the findings himself, tapping a finger against his chin in thought.
This was… strange.
Behind him, a Root operative was already kneeling, quickly inscribing coded reconnaissance notes. Orochimaru didn't stop him. Root might be tasked with assassinating Konoha's own, but they would never ignore intelligence they believed useful to the Village.
Danzo's brainwashing was efficient in that regard.
After dispersing most of the Root members to widen the search radius, Orochimaru remained alone in the collapsed camp, sifting through the battlefield's leftovers for patterns the others would miss.
About a hundred meters away, the earth cracked open, and a pitcher plant-shaped humanoid slid upward with unnatural ease—half white, half black, voice echoing from two timbres at once.
"That's Orochimaru. Konoha's S-rank rogue."
"What's he doing here…?"
"Hehehe… but isn't this convenient?" the white half whispered.
"Didn't our Mizukage want to hire some capable Missing-nin? This Sannin fits the bill perfectly."
The black half chuckled, darker.
"And perhaps… he's more useful than the Hidden Mist's own shinobi."
—
The Hokage succession ceremony itself was simple; what truly mattered was the approval of the Jonin corps.
But after jointly hosting the Chunin Exams with other nations, stabilizing Konoha's external situation, achieving a breakthrough on the long-festering Uchiha problem, and given her own towering reputation, Tsunade's nomination as Fifth Hokage met almost no resistance.
Her only potential opponent was conveniently "busy" performing a top-secret mission somewhere far from the Village.
Although the official ceremony was still two days away, the real transfer of authority had already begun the moment Tsunade started handling state affairs in advance.
Naturally, changes followed.
Shizune was formally transferred from Konoha Hospital to the Hokage's office to serve as her secretary, helping her handle the now-overwhelming administrative load.
Originally, Tsunade wanted two secretaries.
But the other candidate had stubbornly refused—and was currently sitting across from her.
Becoming the Hokage's secretary meant spending the next several years buried in paperwork inside the Hokage Building.
Remaining a Jonin squad leader meant wandering the Ninja World on missions, enjoying fresh air, freedom… and the occasional two-month vacation.
The choice was obvious.
Roshi's stance was ironclad.
"To lighten your workload, why not build a support division out of trained administrative shinobi?" Roshi suggested, tactfully redirecting the conversation.
Before, when she was transitioning into leadership, she'd had no choice but to personally oversee everything. Now that she was Hokage, she didn't need to shoulder everything alone.
Tsunade pinched the bridge of her nose.
"The political department already handles everything that can be delegated! What lands on my desk involves either village-level secrets or issues only the Hokage can authorize."
She tapped the enormous stack of documents in front of her.
"Even with sealing barriers, confidentiality is hard to maintain if the handlers aren't strong enough. And the shinobi who are strong enough for this? They're either temperamentally unfit or too busy with actual missions."
Roshi considered this.
"As the village stabilizes, the need for pure combat shinobi may eventually plateau. Instead, research-oriented, analytical, and administrative specialists will become the new backbone supporting growth."
He continued, "When ordinary civilians no longer participate in wars, the world advances rapidly. You saw that yourself, Lady Tsunade—from the Warring Clans to the Ninja Village era, it took only a few decades for wireless radios, electric ranges… technology keeps accelerating."
Tsunade glared at him, annoyed by how reasonable he sounded.
"If you have that many ideas, then stay here and help me implement them!"
"There are too many pending matters—resource allocation, departmental restructuring—we can't overhaul everything overnight."
Roshi wisely fell silent. He had merely offered the concept; whether it happened tomorrow or years from now didn't matter.
Seeing him refuse to take the bait, Tsunade clicked her tongue in irritation.
"Fine, fine! If you don't want to be my assistant, then forget it."
Roshi wouldn't abandon a mission—that much she knew.
But letting him slip away from clerical work so easily poked at the little grudge in her heart.
She shoved the towering stack of documents toward him, the corner nearly brushing his nose.
"We'll discuss the future later. For now, help me survive this mountain of paperwork. And don't even think about leaving until you've read every single one!"
Roshi looked at the documents.
Then at Tsunade.
Then back at the documents.
Faced with the Hokage's "go ahead and try refusing me" expression, he exhaled quietly and accepted his fate.
"Yes, Lady Tsunade."
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