Chapter 142: Orochimaru's Betrayal and the Aftermath

(After 3 weeks...)

The next few weeks were busy for everyone. Kaida spent most of his time after the hospital at Sora's house, practicing various sealing techniques under his guidance. The hardening seal was the first one he mastered, allowing him to increase the hardness of an object.

Like making paper as hard as wood or making wood as hard as steel, doing things like making wool as hard as stone was still not possible for him.

The heat and cool seals followed, enabling him to manipulate temperatures in a localized area. Also, Kaida found that if he applied those seals on a living person, their body temperature would be altered. Due to this, the mouse population in the Uchiha clan once again reduced in numbers.

At last, the concealment seal proved to be the trickiest, as Sora had warned. It required precise chakra control and a deep understanding of the seal's intricacies. Kaida struggled with it initially, but after weeks of practice and help from many shadow clones, he was finally able to learn the concealment seal as well, though it was not as effective as he had guessed.

The smell and noise of a person were not masked by this seal. The concealment seal just masked the chakra of the person or persons present in a specific area. According to Sora, that really helped in hiding from a sensor.

Meanwhile, Yomi's sensor training was progressing well under her mentor's tutelage. After more than two months of rigorous training, she could now detect chakra signatures from impressive distances and differentiate between various types of chakra natures. Her ability to pinpoint the exact location of multiple targets simultaneously was also improving steadily.

According to her sensei, she was ready for the next part of the training, and she could finally move to the next part. The first stage of her training was finally over.

As for Hae, her involvement with the bathhouse construction kept her occupied. She meticulously supervised every aspect, ensuring the work was up to her high standards. This was a really big project for her family, so she was really serious and strict about everything related to the construction.

As for Shisui, he had taken on several missions ranging from escort duties to reconnaissance tasks and much more. In just three weeks, he had completed more than ten missions, which included three A-rank missions as well. Due to this, he himself was able to earn more than 1.5 million Ryo.

This is one of the reasons why high-ranking ninjas never had to care about money. They could earn quite a bit of money in such a little time. This, combined with the money Kaida earned, was enough to fund the construction of the bathhouse fully.

Everything was going perfectly in Konoha, especially for Kaida and his family, until news circulated in Konoha.

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ENEMY OF THE VILLAGE ALERT

By decree of the Hokage and Konoha Council, Orochimaru of the legendary Sannin is hereby declared a rogue ninja and enemy of the Hidden Leaf Village.

Orochimaru has committed grave crimes against Konoha and its people through unethical and inhumane experimentation on residents, including children. His betrayal and violation of the ninja code cannot be tolerated.

Therefore, a bounty of 50,000,000 Ryo is placed on Orochimaru's head, effective immediately. All jonin, Anbu, and hunter-nin are authorized to use any means necessary to subdue or eliminate this S-rank threat on sight.

Civilians are strongly cautioned to avoid any contact with Orochimaru, as he is considered extremely dangerous. Any information leading to his capture must be reported directly to Konoha security forces.

Orochimaru's unforgivable actions against the Leaf have severed all ties. He is an enemy to the village's values and way of life. Bringing this traitorous criminal to justice is of the highest priority to preserve the safety of the people.

Issued by order of the Third Hokage

Threat Level: S-Class

Do not attempt to engage alone

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While civilians are only aware of the basic facts, clan heads and village officials have been briefed on the horrific extent of Orochimaru's acts against Konoha and its people.

The former Sannin conducted depraved genetic experiments and tortured human trials on dozens of subjects, many of them vulnerable children and infants abducted from orphanages.

His twisted goal was to pervert the human genome to induce accelerated evolution and manifest kekkei genkai abilities through unnatural means.

Interrogation of Orochimaru's accomplices revealed his obsession with achieving immortality and learning every ninja technique, no matter how unethical the methods.

During the investigation, Root ninja also tried to benefit from this situation. They shifted the blame of many of their own acts against various clans of Konoha onto Orochimaru.

Obviously, that was Danzo's plan, due to which many clans had generated an intense hatred against Orochimaru. However, the man himself didn't have any problem taking those blames since he didn't have to be in the good books of those clans. Now that the whole of Konoha was his enemy, he didn't care if someone was a little more thirsty for his blood.

And the person who knew most about this incident didn't have anything to do with the incident itself other than getting a day off.

Since every high-level ninja had to search for traces of Orochimaru's bases in Konoha, due to which both Kaida's and Yomi's teachers were busy for one day, even though both of them got a day off, they couldn't enjoy it because the environment of the village was not suitable for an outing at that time.

After one day, when most of Orochimaru's bases had been found out, Kaida and Yomi could once again continue their training.

Meanwhile, in the Hokage's office...

"You were also responsible for these experiments, right?" Hiruzen asked the only other person in the office.

"No," Danzo replied without any delay.

"You want me to believe that? So many children got abducted from the orphanages and slums, and Root didn't even have an idea about this?" Hiruzen asked.

"Just like how Root didn't have any idea how the Sarutobi clan developed so much in the last decade and how the businesses of so many smaller clans have been absorbed by them. Or how the bandits have increased in our surrounding when our village needed funds," Danzo said.

"Are you trying to blackmail me?" Hiruzen asked angrily.

"Of course not. Listen, Hiruzen, ideals and reality didn't go hand in hand. Like you, I also had to do things which are important for the village but can be morally wrong," Danzo said.

Sigh

"I have already told you once, and I am telling you once again, don't lay your hands on Konoha's citizens once again. Even though you have deviated the clans' anger onto Orochimaru for now, they are not fools. If you keep on these morally wrong acts, the internal condition of Konoha may get similar to that of Kirigakure," Hiruzen said.

"Don't worry, I am not planning to do anything anytime soon," Danzo said while standing up and leaving the office.

Hiruzen just shook his head and took out his smoking pipe and started smoking.