"Cough, cough, cough!"
A violent fit of coughing. Yukimaru had never been this close to death before; that brush with oblivion left a chill in the air.
"How was it? What does dying feel like? Have you grasped the true meaning of living?" Kiyosuke crouched down to meet Guren's eyes. Even after she'd used a crystal to cleave his head in two, his smile hadn't faded.
"You're disgusting." Guren said.
Her subordinates didn't dare move, afraid Kiyosuke would kill them. Even though the curse marks were already on their bodies, under Kiyosuke's pressure they didn't dare so much as twitch.
Kiyosuke said, "Shino, Kiba, Hinata — hold them down. If any of them make a move, kill them on the spot. If you try to resist, it'll be ugly for you."
He scanned the group; his gaze was icy and frightening.
That look alone cowed them into submission. They deactivated their curse-mark modes and gave up resisting.
Guren watched their reactions but wasn't surprised. After all, apart from the elites, most of Orochimaru-sama's followers were a bunch of power-hungry lunatics. Faced with someone far stronger, they froze — because they knew the smiling man before them would actually kill them.
With resistance gone, Shino and the others subdued them easily. They would be sent to Konoha; what happened afterward was no concern of theirs. Kiyosuke knew, but he wouldn't pry — their fates were not his problem.
He asked Guren, "Where's Kabuto?"
"He left after summoning the Second Mizukage back. He said he had other, more important matters to handle. Hmph! Even after gaining Orochimaru-sama's power, that man's still the same."
Guren was annoyed; she'd been defeated as soon as they met — the gap in strength was just too large.
Is this the disciple Orochimaru-sama carefully raised?
She wasn't willing to accept it.
She wasn't going to lose to him like this; she wanted to avenge Orochimaru-sama!
Her face filled with hatred, which made Kiyosuke frown.
"Don't look at me like that. Orochimaru deserved to die a hundred times over."
What Orochimaru had done — human experiments, the assault on Konoha — truly made him deserving of death many times over.
"You—"
Blackness crept in and Guren fainted. Kiyosuke withdrew his hand and said,
"All right, Shino, use your insects to notify Konoha's people to come pick them up. We'll wait here for them, then take you to Kirigakure for a few days of fun. How about it?"
Kiba shouted happily. Akamaru's tail wagged so fast it looked like a propeller.
Hinata smiled and agreed to a few days in Kirigakure. Shino released his insects to inform Konoha's people to come collect the group.
"All right, kid, what's your name?" Kiyosuke looked at the little boy who'd rushed forward and asked.
"Yukimaru. Are you going to kill Guren?" Yukimaru asked nervously.
"Oh, Yukimaru, don't worry — Guren won't die. She'll just be staying in Konoha. Are you one of Orochimaru-sama's test subjects?"
"Mm."
"What did he do to you?"
Yukimaru shook his head.
"Orochimaru-sama and Kabuto didn't experiment on me. They only needed me to draw out the Three-Tails."
"Draw out the Three-Tails?" Kiyosuke asked, puzzled. "What ability do you have to draw out the Three-Tails? Use you as a sacrifice? You're too small for the Three-Tails to feast on."
"No. My chakra can resonate with the Three-Tails. If handled correctly, I can control it. Orochimaru-sama told me that, so he's been waiting for me to grow up so I could control the Three-Tails." Yukimaru explained, bluntly stating Orochimaru-sama's reasons for raising him.
"Control the Three-Tails? Really? That's a Tailed Beast!" Kiba couldn't believe such a little kid could control the Three-Tails.
Kiyosuke considered for a moment.
"Maybe. Orochimaru never misread people — perhaps Yukimaru can do it. If so, this child would be a natural Three-Tails jinchūriki, an ideal one; he might not even need a seal to suppress the Three-Tails."
If Yukimaru truly could control the Three-Tails, he would be the best candidate for that beast, possibly even more suitable than Karatachi Yagura, who was already a near-perfect jinchūriki for the Three-Tails.
Orochimaru sought to use Yukimaru's power to control the Three-Tails. Tailed beasts are walking catastrophes — capable of flattening a city. If a village suffered a Tailed Beast Ball, ordinary villages couldn't withstand it; even the Five Great Shinobi Countries would pay a heavy price.
In the previous Konoha Nine-Tails incident, if Minato hadn't used Flying Thunder God to transport the Nine-Tails' Tailed Beast Ball away, the Hokage Rock would have been destroyed.
Whatever Orochimaru's motive for controlling the Three-Tails, it wasn't good.
Kabuto also wanted to control the Three-Tails; no one knew why.
But precautions had to be taken. Right now, Deidara had probably already blown up the Three-Tails and handed it over to Tobi (Obito) to report to the Akatsuki.
That left the Six-Tails, Eight-Tails, and Nine-Tails.
The Six-Tails belonged to a rogue from Kirigakure — decent strength, but against Pain it would only meet defeat and ruin. Rest in peace.
Ultimately there were just Killer Bee and Naruto left.
Naruto could take care of himself; no worries there. Killer Bee, though as reckless as the Raikage, wasn't stupid — he'd run if things got dangerous.
Kiyosuke wasn't going to fuss over this further, and he had no intention of handing Yukimaru to Mei Terumi. After all, Orochimaru had raised him; leaving him in Kirigakure would be dangerous. Better to send him to Konoha to live a normal life.
Danzo was gone, and Tsunade now held sway over Konoha. Those two elders could only do menial work now. Hiruzen Sarutobi had long since retired and was living a peaceful old life, leaving Konoha's messes to others.
So Kiyosuke kept bringing people into Konoha, absorbing Orochimaru's former subordinates.
He stretched, produced a small scroll, and wrote down Yukimaru's information on it.
A small snake slithered from his sleeve, opened its mouth, swallowed the intelligence, then slipped into the grass and disappeared.
"Next, it's your turn."
One by one, snakes fell from his sleeves and crawled toward those men, clamping down on their bodies with their mouths.
A paralytic venom released and everyone collapsed, faces frozen in dumb, "aba-aba-aba" expressions.
Kiyosuke said, "This snake venom won't kill you, but it will stop you from running. You'll be in this state until Konoha's people arrive. Don't worry — you won't die."
He wrote another scroll and sent a small snake to Kirigakure to tell Mei Terumi that Konoha's ninja were coming to take custody. After all, this was the Land of Water — Kirigakure's territory — and Mei Terumi needed to be told to avoid trouble.
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