"Mm…"
"What is it, Orochimaru?"
When Orochimaru—who had been resting with his eyes closed—suddenly opened them and let out a faint, surprised sound, Aburame Ryūma, the Root operative sent by Danzō to liaise with their former colleague, immediately frowned. As he spoke, he subtly prepared to release his kikaichū, his gaze locked tightly onto Orochimaru.
"Relax, Ryūma. I'm not so insane that I'd turn on my hunting partners before the prey is even in hand…"
Orochimaru licked his cheek with his unnaturally long tongue and chuckled as he explained to his old Root comrade,
"I just realized that our prey didn't stumble into our trap completely unaware… that's all."
"Have we been discovered?" Ryūma decisively released his kikaichū, preparing to relay information to other Root members of his clan. "Didn't our intel say Kaguya Ren wasn't good at sensory techniques?"
"Any shinobi who has learned Sage Mode gains at least some degree of perception," Orochimaru replied as he stood up, his gaze filled with keen interest as he looked toward the flickering firelight deep in the forest. "One of my summons disguised among ordinary snakes was killed. He's warning me."
"Notify Danzō to tighten the encirclement. I'll go have a little chat with our prey first."
With that, Orochimaru's body slid soundlessly from the shadow of the tree like a hunting serpent, vanishing from Ryūma's sight in an instant.
Ryūma scowled unhappily and quickly sent out several waves of kikaichū to pass the message on, then followed with his insect jars close behind.
Although Root and Orochimaru were cooperating for now, everyone knew Orochimaru wouldn't hesitate to take all the spoils for himself if given the chance. Danzō had therefore issued strict orders: even for a moment, Orochimaru must not be allowed to leave Root's sight and make contact with the mission target alone.
…
At the edge of the flickering firelight, Kaguya Ren hummed a tune from his homeland while casually skewering washed, peeled snake meat and setting it over the campfire to grill.
About a day earlier, the frequency with which snakes appeared along Ren's route through the Land of Rice Fields had noticeably increased.
The increase itself wasn't dramatic—just from one or two a day to three or four—but for Ren, who was deliberately baiting Orochimaru, this minor anomaly was more than enough to signal his approach.
So when Orochimaru emerged from the shadows of the forest, Ren—still munching on grilled snake skewers—wasn't surprised in the slightest. He even had the leisure to wave the skewer in his hand and ask whether Orochimaru was interested in joining the barbecue.
"You don't seem surprised by my appearance at all, Kaguya Ren…"
Orochimaru ignored the blatantly provocative invitation, narrowing his eyes as he stared at Ren's young, powerful body with undisguised envy. Ren swallowed a bite of golden, fragrant snake meat and replied lightly,
"I came to repay you for that sneak bite last time. Should I really be surprised that you walked right into my trap, Orochimaru?"
"Hmph. Sharp-tongued brat. You're awfully confident in your own strength…"
Orochimaru would have liked to lecture the clearly young and immature Ren with the weight of his life experience, but seeing how calm Ren was—clearly not the type to fall for taunts—he abandoned the idea. Keeping his distance, he spoke in a chilling tone,
"But can that confidence really save your life?"
"Oh?" Ren stood up, tilting his head slightly to reveal the magatama-shaped wound on his neck sealed by the Four Symbols Seal. A mocking smile played on his lips. "But Orochimaru-senpai, your movements don't seem nearly as confident as your words."
"Could it be that even at this distance, you don't dare face me alone—the one you branded with a curse mark? If that's the case…"
"Then I won't hold back when I take your head."
A violent gust suddenly tore through the forest.
It was the shockwave from Ren stomping the ground and launching himself forward at full speed.
"Hidden Shadow Snake Hands!"
A veteran of countless battles, Orochimaru would never approach a taijutsu-specialist kekkei genkai user without preparation. The instant Ren moved, Orochimaru raised his hand and summoned countless massive venomous snakes, completely sealing Ren's path.
But in the blink of an eye, the lunging snakes were shredded into flying chunks of flesh by lightning-fast blade light. Before the blood rain could even scatter, Ren had already appeared before Orochimaru, slashing down at him mid-hand seal—
Splurt.
Orochimaru's body exploded into dozens of pieces, flying in all directions. Just as Ren expected, however, in the next instant an uninjured Orochimaru emerged slick with mucus from the mouth of a nearby snake, unleashing the jutsu he had prepared.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
"Fire Release: Great Flame Bullet!"
A massive chakra-infused gale formed a towering tornado that trapped Ren within it. From another direction, a gigantic fireball blasted straight into the vortex—wind fueling flame, instantly transforming it into a heaven-piercing fire tornado whose power multiplied explosively.
"Earth Release: Rock Lodging Technique!"
Another Root shinobi arrived, casting a powerful earth technique. A hollow earthen mountain fell from the sky, precisely pinning the fire tornado beneath it, compressing the burning space to raise the temperature and cause a violent explosion—intending to further damage the trapped Ren.
"Weak."
With that brief remark, the earthen mountain was cut cleanly in half. Ren leapt out from the ruptured "volcano" completely unscathed, swinging a grotesquely long whip backhand at the Root shinobi who had cast the earth jutsu.
"E-Earth Release: Hard—"
Crack.
The shinobi, who had attempted to rely on a pre-cast hardening technique, was snapped clean in two, exploding into fragments. By the light of the erupting "volcano," the Root operatives finally saw the true form of the whip in Ren's hand—
It was his hardened, elongated spine.
"Dance of the Clematis: Wild Thorns."
Before the gathered Root shinobi could even think of how to respond to such a bizarre weapon, Ren's "whip" lengthened with the wind, instantly extending dozens of meters. As Ren leapt high, he swung it wildly.
Each casual strike carved half-meter-deep gouges into the ground. Trees as thick as a man's waist didn't slow the whip in the slightest. In mere seconds, nearly a hundred meters of forest around Ren was flattened into barren ground, and the unfortunate Root members caught within were pulverized into clouds of blood.
"Truly troublesome… but only a body so utterly beyond reason is worthy of forcing me to play more of my trump cards."
Orochimaru licked blood—whose owner he couldn't identify—from his face, bit his finger, and slammed his palm into the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu! Come forth—Manda!"
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