Orochimaru froze completely.
Watching his disciple die before his eyes made him question life itself.
Just as he was about to break down, a familiar voice suddenly came from behind him.
"You idiot! Didn't I warn you not to run around alone? Look, if I hadn't arrived in time, you would have been dead!"
Takeshi was truly furious. Just thinking about that scene earlier still filled him with lingering fear.
He hadn't expected that troublesome little Nawaki would sneak out while he was at the medical unit treating the wounded.
And then, just like in the original story, he put on a performance of stepping on an explosive tag.
Good heavens, fortunately, the Mangekyo Takeshi activated had time-related abilities, allowing him to expand and contract time to delay the explosion and accelerate himself. Otherwise, he might not have been able to save Nawaki.
If that had happened, Snake Aunt and Tsunade would have exploded with rage, directly ruining Takeshi's plan.
One could only say that Nawaki was truly a jumpy kid!
This death buff was also something else. He had been with him for so long without dying, but with just a moment's inattention, he almost croaked.
"But, my teacher told me to come..."
Nawaki hung his head, looking very unconfident, as he had indeed almost been gone just now.
If Takeshi hadn't arrived in time, he wouldn't even have had the chance to argue or explain.
"Your teacher told you to come, and you just came?"
Takeshi had repeatedly instructed him that he was absolutely not allowed to go out with anyone without his permission.
"Anyone" here definitely included his teacher!
"Shouldn't I have come?"
Nawaki was a bit confused. In his opinion, his teacher's words certainly couldn't be wrong.
"Of course you shouldn't have come, because your teacher's name is Orochimaru!"
"Huh?"
"Look, does that name sound like a human at all?"
Orochimaru: "?"
Orochimaru, seeing this scene, was slightly stunned, as if he feared he had fallen under a Genjutsu, still feeling disbelief.
"Uh..."
Takeshi noticed Orochimaru's gaze at this moment and immediately felt embarrassed.
He had blurted it out subconsciously just now, accidentally saying that someone wasn't human, which was indeed a bit offensive.
Although the Ninjutsu the other party used and his own name were all related to snakes, and in the original story, he could even possess others and undergo gender changes.
But if one were to set all that aside, purely in terms of physiological structure, he was indeed still considered a human.
"Uh, sorry, Lord Orochimaru, I just spoke without thinking and didn't mean to offend you."
Takeshi quickly explained.
He didn't want Nawaki's incident to not make Snake Aunt lose her temper, but instead, his own accidental remark just now became the key to her breaking down.
"Hehe..."
Orochimaru didn't care about what the other party had just said. Recovering from his shock, he just stared quietly at Takeshi's eyes and chuckled sinisterly:
"What you just used was the ability of your eyes?"
Takeshi froze, frowning involuntarily.
Could it be that Snake Aunt, just like in the original story, was suddenly interested in the Uchiha's Sharingan again?
To dispel his thoughts, Takeshi deliberately downplayed the Sharingan's abilities when describing them.
But even after hearing it, Orochimaru still smiled, sticking out his long tongue.
"Interesting, they are indeed a very beautiful pair of eyes."
"..."
Don't say that, the more I hear it, the more I feel something is off.
Takeshi shivered all over.
"Nawaki!"
Just then, Tsunade arrived.
This was, of course, arranged by Takeshi. Someone almost died on the battlefield; for such a big matter, he naturally had to contact the person's guardian.
"You idiot!"
Tsunade immediately launched into a scolding, "You just recklessly charged forward, heedless of what's ahead or behind. Don't you know to pay attention to the traps underfoot?!"
"But you're just as reckless..."
Nawaki muttered softly.
"What did you say?!"
Tsunade leaned down and poked his nose, commanding, "From now on, you are not allowed to go to the battlefield again. Get back to the Village!"
"Ah, Sis, I was wrong!"
Nawaki immediately knelt down, hugged Tsunade's leg, and cried profusely.
"Please forgive me this one time. I'll definitely be careful next time. You know, my biggest dream is to become Hokage. If I don't train on the battlefield, how can I achieve my dream?!"
"No!"
However, Tsunade was not going to budge this time, no matter what.
One must know that when she received the news that her younger brother had almost been blown up, she had nearly suffered a cardiac arrest from fright.
Now that Grandmother Mito had just passed away, and Kushina had become the Nine-Tailed Jinchuriki, with her personal freedom restricted, she truly didn't want any more accidents to happen to her loved ones.
With Nawaki's prone-to-foolishness personality, continuing to stay on the battlefield would lead to his demise sooner or later. It was better for him to return to the Village early.
For Tsunade, whether Nawaki became Hokage or not was unimportant; as long as he was safe, that was enough.
Nawaki naturally refused to go back and continued to make a fuss, but Tsunade would not let him stay, no matter what.
"Hehe, Orochimaru, you must have been scared by Nawaki too, right!"
When Tsunade received the news at that time, Jiraiya happened to be nearby, so he came along as well.
He ran to Orochimaru's side and nudged him with his elbow.
"Boring."
Orochimaru rolled his eyes at him, answering irrelevantly.
"Then I'll tell you an interesting piece of news."
Jiraiya seemed to have long been accustomed to his reaction and showed no signs of dejection. He covered his mouth with his hand, looking mysterious, and said:
"Actually, the reason Tsunade insists on Nawaki returning to the Village is because she received orders from the old man."
"Teacher's orders?" Orochimaru was surprised.
"Yes."
Jiraiya continued, "He told all of us to return to the Village to rest, saying that Danzo would take over our work afterward."
Orochimaru immediately frowned.
He wasn't a fool; wasn't this clearly a move to steal credit?
At first, when the battle was not going well, he didn't offer to help, but now that victory was almost in sight, he wanted to come.
What was this if not an attempt to steal credit?
Unlike the later Orochimaru, who was solely focused on research into immortality, the current Snake Aunt still had a strong career ambition.
Takeshi also felt surprised. Danzo was a cunning fellow who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals.
His sudden arrival at the front lines definitely meant he was up to something bad again!
Coupled with the fact that he had previously made Danzo look bad, Takeshi found it hard not to suspect that the target was him...