As Akaba's teammates, Shishio and Sakumo fully trusted his abilities.
But in the desert, being alone carried extreme danger.
However, the strength of a Sakuma clan genjutsu ninja lay precisely in their eerie, hard-to-resist abilities.
Unless engaging directly in open combat, Akaba was nearly invincible in the fishpond. Plus, this time he wasn't truly going alone.
"Orochimaru's team is at Exit 18, yeah? Must be this direction."
After parting ways with his team, Akaba figured out his direction and set off toward Orochimaru's position.
Midway through his journey, he used Transformation Jutsu to alter his appearance.
Ahead stood another squad.
"Yauma, don't act like this. We're just going through the motions anyway."
"What over? You're all too cowardly, lacking even the guts to fight for positions. I'm going solo—stop following me!"
A loud argument broke out—clearly, Yauma was clashing with his teammate again.
"Yauma!"
"Forget it. Let him go."
Yauma's teammate seemed helpless. In terms of combat power, indeed, the Tonin didn't hold much advantage.
They knew their place—they were just a minor ninja village.
According to their plan, they wanted to lay low somewhere until everything ended and then return home peacefully.
Yet...
There were always those who refused to stay quiet within the village—Yauma was one such example.
Witnessing this scene, Akaba ignored his meeting point with Orochimaru for now and instead pursued Yauma discreetly from behind.
He found Yauma interesting—the way he deliberately caused conflict to separate from his team.
In such circumstances, something suspicious must be happening.
Akaba silently followed. With his ability to conceal his presence, Yauma couldn't possibly detect him.
After walking quite a distance, they reached a deserted area.
Standing on top of a sand dune, Yauma muttered under his breath with his eyes shut, "Letting an ordinary man become Kage! I've grown sick of this stupid, rotting village for far too long!"
Standing still, a manic and bizarre grin spread across his face.
"Suspicious... Hmm, seems like there's a Sand ninja hiding over there. Let me watch further."
From behind a distant boulder, Akaba watched Yauma like a hawk.
Familiar with the terrain, Sand ninjas certainly had advantages in deserts.
That guy had buried his entire body into the sand, revealing only both hands. As he manipulated his fingers, a puppet quietly approached Yauma.
Getting closer, controlled by the Sand ninja's fingers,
Whoosh!
A sound rang out as the puppet fired poison needles from its mouth, instantly piercing Yauma's chest.
Though missing the heart, the injury proved severe enough.
The Sand ninja jumped off the dune, flinging a shuriken from afar.
The next second, Yauma turned around and caught the shuriken bare-handed.
"What?"
The Sand ninja was shocked—who could endure pain like that without reaction?
He hesitated momentarily but immediately attempted to retreat, though it was already too late.
Yauma pushed off with his legs, bursting forward to intercept him.
One punch!
The Sand ninja coughed painfully as he tried to run, but Yauma slammed a kunai into his leg.
"Hahaha! Offer yourself to Jashin-sama!"
Yauma laughed maniacally, stabbing kunai after kunai.
He didn't kill him outright — instead, he shattered the Sand ninja's four limbs one by one, savoring every strike.
As he tortured the man, he cackled madly, shouting, "Jashin-sama!"
A cult? Akaba was stunned — so early, and a cult already existed?
He observed closely and saw Yauma's wounds healing rapidly, covered in eerie spell-like markings crawling across his body.
"What the hell kind of cursed power is this? How does it even work?"
Akaba couldn't quite grasp it.
In his previous life, Hidan could be torn into pieces and still wouldn't die.
This guy didn't seem nearly that powerful, but judging from how one punch crippled the Sand ninja, his punching strength might be terrifyingly high.
"Whatever. Capture first, ask questions later."
Akaba pulled out his Sketchpad and got to work.
Against such an abnormal ninja, ordinary genjutsu probably wouldn't work. He immediately activated a technique from the Sakuma clan.
Chakra-infused, his chakra brush automatically produced ink.
As the painting unfolded, the genjutsu activated.
"What? What the hell is going on!"
The moment Yauma fell into the Illusion, he instantly felt something was off.
It wasn't because he had especially strong perception or detected the illusion right away, but rather because he suddenly lost the endless power flow from Jashin.
"Not much enhancement in mental strength."
Akaba felt no resistance while casting the technique, quickly understanding Yauma's condition.
With Jashin's power, he gained considerable physical enhancement.
But this enhancement was nowhere near as powerful as Hidan's Immortal Body.
Still, Akaba hadn't delivered a killing blow.
Such a perfect experimental specimen would definitely interest Orochimaru.
After briefly thinking it over, he simply maintained the Illusion.
After all, since the opponent's spirit energy was weak, maintaining the illusion required minimal effort.
Before long, Orochimaru arrived at the scene from another direction.
He didn't know Akaba was here — he just followed the thick scent of blood and found a brutally murdered Sand ninja and another unconscious ninja lying on the ground.
This ninja...
"The Taki ninja named Yauma. What exactly is on his body?"
Orochimaru showed some confusion. Approaching slightly, he discovered Yauma's Chakra was still flowing.
Clearly, this wasn't normal unconsciousness.
"Anyone there?"
He glanced around cautiously, calling out.
"Not the real one."
Akaba stepped out from hiding, unable to resist teasing a bit.
Orochimaru gave him a glance, not fully understanding what that meant. Without dwelling on it, he squatted down to examine Yauma.
After checking him up close, he muttered suspiciously, "This guy is strange. There's foreign Chakra inside him. If we remove it, his strength might drop drastically."
"Yeah, he was performing some kind of ritual."
Akaba recounted what he had witnessed earlier. After hearing this, Orochimaru's eyes practically lit up. He circled Yauma repeatedly, occasionally poking him with a kunai.
Initially, Yauma's body healed rapidly after each stab.
However,
later on, his regeneration slowed significantly.
At the same time, the markings covering his body and the foreign Chakra within were also rapidly fading.
"It seems connected to his Chakra."
Orochimaru said excitedly.
"Uh, I think we should move somewhere else first. There's another corpse here."
It was Akaba's first time being directly involved in Orochimaru's experiments, and the whole atmosphere made him uneasy—he wasn't used to dealing with someone quite this unhinged.
"You first release him. I want to take another look."
Orochimaru said.
"That harsh?"
After hearing that, Akaba couldn't help but feel sympathy for Yauma. Falling into Orochimaru's hands—this guy really caught a bad break.
"His chakra doesn't belong to him. According to your description, it might come from a specific torture ritual technique. However, after repeated injuries, this chakra is nearly depleted. Therefore, I want to find out exactly what it is."
Orochimaru explained excitedly.
To Akaba, this wasn't a difficult task. After all, this guy lacked any mental enhancement, making him very easy to handle. Besides, Akaba himself was also quite curious.
If Hidan relied on chakra to survive, he'd have died hundreds of times already. So Yauma's situation was clearly different.
Then, the two quietly left, applying Genjutsu Release on Yauma.
Yauma woke up, completely stunned for quite a while.
He must have definitely fallen victim to an illusion just now, but
he looked around and found nothing unusual.
As he stood up, he noticed slight wounds on his body.
That instantly reminded him of the creepy doctor in the illusion who stabbed at him repeatedly with a scalpel.
"What the hell happened!"
Confused, Yauma stood still for a while before slowly getting up and walking off.
Elsewhere,
Akaba and Orochimaru were behind, not rushing to follow immediately.
"Earlier inside the illusion, you made me leave the group during the second match to join you. What was that about?"
"I wanted to acquire secret techniques from other ninja villages, collect blood samples from those possessing Kekkei Genkai, and then recruit people from smaller villages to form my own organization. So, I hope you'll cooperate with me."
"Cooperate?"
"Yes. I know you're trying to promote manga. Once I've developed some influence outside, I'll help you smuggle and distribute them."
Orochimaru was smart and sharp-minded.
Thinking about it, Akaba found this task simple enough for him.
"Looking forward to working with you."
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