Chapter 348: Orochimaru's Problem
Chapter 348: Orochimaru's Problem
Sasori had returned to the Sand Village without receiving orders. The reaction within Akatsuki to his death was only lukewarm.
Neither Obito nor Nagato showed any emotion. No one said anything, only raising their evaluation of Ino. The last time she captured Konan, there was a sense that Konan had deliberately let her win. This time, killing Sasori in a head-on battle completely proved her strength. She was a strong enemy. That was all.
As for avenging Sasori? What a joke! Does our Akatsuki have that kind of cohesiveness?
He's dead, so he's dead. What can be done?
Over the years, people had come and gone in Akatsuki. Some ninjas defected, like Orochimaru. Some died in battle, like Jūzō Biwa. Now, another death, Sasori's, was no big deal.
Only Deidara, who was closest to Sasori, clamored to avenge his big brother Sasori. He looked at Ino's photo thoughtfully, then looked at himself in the mirror. Huh? He discovered a strange point. Before, he only vaguely felt something was wrong, but now, upon closer inspection, he found that this girl looked a lot like him!
Deidara was crazy and loved to stir up trouble. Both Obito and Nagato had heard rumors of "him" secretly running off to be a vigilante. To restrain him, Nagato sent Gaara out to team up with Deidara, replacing Sasori's previous position.
Sasori had red hair, and Gaara also had red hair. Sasori was from the Sand Village, and coincidentally, Gaara was also from the Sand Village. Sasori controlled the Third Kazekage to use Magnet Release, and Gaara, under Nagato's guidance, inherited his father, the Fourth Kazekage Rasa's, Magnet Release from his bloodline.
Both Sasori and Gaara were handsome pretty boys. Nagato and Obito felt there was no problem with this new combination.
Even someone like Hinata, who was single-mindedly focused on being a housewife, knew that a great war was about to begin in the ninja world, let alone Akatsuki.
If the ninja world went to war, Nagato and Obito would wake up laughing in their dreams. Fight! Fight as hard as you can! One less dead is one less!
At this time, you want Akatsuki to jump out and attract the hatred of the major hidden villages? What a joke!
They would continue to lie low and wait for the Great Ninja War to end, then Akatsuki would come out to clean up the mess.
Nagato's only order to Gaara was to restrain Deidara and absolutely not allow him to go to Konoha for revenge.
Konoha and the Stone Village did not fight directly. Both sides tacitly started a war of public opinion.
Konoha timely produced the human puppet of the Third Kazekage as a propaganda tool.
Look, your Sand Village's strongest Kazekage was made into a human puppet. Do you know who did it? It was Sasori! Do you know the relationship between Sasori and Akatsuki? Do you know the relationship between Akatsuki and the Stone Village? The Stone Village is our common enemy, you understand what I mean, right?
The Stone Village still adhered to the principle of "a thousand words are not as good as silence," but they pushed out the Sand Village's Elder Kōsa to fight the verbal battle.
Kōsa was extremely diligent, constantly dispatching people to spread propaganda everywhere.
What is Konoha Village? It's the cancer of the ninja world! Whether the ninja world is chaotic or not, Konoha has the final say. Look at how many rogue ninjas they have!
The Stone Village and the Sand Village are poor brothers. We are the real friends. You group of poor bastards from the Sand Village, making friends with a landlord like Konoha? Are you stupid?
The Third Tsuchikage didn't want to start a war now, but he didn't withdraw his troops either. Konoha had no choice but to continue the standoff with him.
After a month of confrontation, Kakashi brought Sasuke to the Land of Rivers. The master and student were both experts in Lightning Release, which was very effective against Kitsuchi's Earth Release. Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji, along with Asuma, were withdrawn from the front line to rest in the village.
Returning to the village, they found that the atmosphere in the village was also quite tense.
Ino took a stroll through the Konoha Intelligence Division, asked about the intelligence from the major hidden villages, went back to the flower shop to listen to her mother's nagging, and then went home to rest.
For the next few days, she gave herself a complete vacation.
She listened to Hinata talk about some battlefield precautions she had heard, went drinking with Tsunade, watched Shizune treat patients, and teased Tonton on the side.
"Miss Yamanaka." A masked Orochimaru, like a ghost, suddenly walked out of the small alley to Ino's right.
Behind him was Anko Mitarashi. Further back was Yamato, who used Wood Release, and three masked ANBU ninjas.
What's the meaning of this?
Ino wasn't familiar with Yamato or the ANBU ninjas, but she had eaten with Anko Mitarashi twice and knew that she had once been Orochimaru's disciple. By calculation, she was of the same generation as her and Minato Namikaze, but was screwed over by Orochimaru and had given up on herself for more than ten years.
She gave Anko Mitarashi a look, as if to ask, What's the situation?
Reuniting with her teacher after more than ten years, to be honest, Anko Mitarashi's heart was quite complicated.
When she was young, Orochimaru was like a god in her heart, omnipotent. But she was cast aside like a worn-out shoe by this god. What was the meaning of leaving me in Konoha when you defected? Do you know how many times they interrogated me, how long they monitored me?
Anko Mitarashi turned her grief into appetite. Exercise? Non-existent! Eat! Eat to her heart's content!
She was already prepared to live her life like this, but a few days ago, Jiraiya came to have a heart-to-heart talk with her and told her a horrifying thing: Orochimaru had been reborn through her body. Orochimaru also bluntly stated that he just wanted to leave the beautiful, or relatively beautiful, qualities and memories in Anko's body, and then resurrect himself.
Anko Mitarashi had been living in a daze lately and didn't know what she was thinking. Now, even seeing her favorite dango couldn't arouse her interest. Recently, she had been taking on this mission of monitoring Orochimaru, just wanting to keep an eye on this "man" at all times.
At this moment, facing Ino's question, she coughed. "Little Ino, this guy…"
She pointed at Orochimaru, her face full of disgust. "He says he has something to talk to you about. It's not a village order, it's his private matter. It doesn't matter if you agree or not."
Ino looked at Orochimaru and sized him up for a couple of seconds. "You're in much better shape than a few days ago. Did you absorb chakra from the human puppet? Your chakra is really unique."
Ino saw Orochimaru's chakra as something similar to a curse mark, incorporating some sage art characteristics. He could bestow it, and he could also take it back.
Other ninjas couldn't do this. Once a ninjutsu was released, it was released. It was impossible to say, "I'll release a Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave, and after the fight, I'll drink the water back." There was no such operation.
The process of merging physical and spiritual energy into chakra, and then adding nature or shape transformation, was irreversible.
Through the mask, Orochimaru's expression couldn't be seen. He asked very bluntly, "I didn't expect my corpse to fall into Sasori's hands, and then come back to me after a detour… The human puppet you brought back is very damaged. I want to ask, do you still have any fragments of that human puppet?"
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