"I told them Yauma's body was my experiment. As long as I have blood, I can curse them and drive them mad."
Orochimaru poured the blood into the sand.
These Genin possess Kekkei Genkai; how could they possibly lose to a brute-force maniac like Yauma?
Akaba watched them leave, barely holding back a chuckle.
They must be terrified by now.
Still, he thought for a moment before speaking again, "This alone will only scare them temporarily. Later on, they might not obey when needed."
"Mm."
Orochimaru didn't argue.
They're all still too young to be useful for now.
Even if they started building influence, it would take years to bear fruit.
Once he finished his task, he asked, "Where's the scroll?"
"The craftsmanship is identical. You can't tell real from fake."
Akaba tossed two scrolls over.
The Sand ninja scrolls weren't as refined as Konoha's, but they still met the minimum standards—the techniques and codes made it impossible to judge authenticity at first glance.
"Find several more teams."
Orochimaru stood up, bit his thumb, performed hand seals, and summoned dozens of small snakes.
Soon, the snakes scattered.
Akaba sat in the shade beneath some sandstone, scanning the area as he said, "We'll split up next. I'll search for scrolls while keeping an eye out for Kekkei Genkai for you, and you continue with your work."
Orochimaru nodded and handed him a small snake.
It was his Snake Clone.
"If something happens, just wake it up—I'll feel it right away."
"Don't worry. If you're safe even when I'm in trouble, I'll be fine."
Akaba waved dismissively, though he still accepted the sleeping snake.
Looking at it, he glanced up and asked, "If I keep it inside my shirt, won't it suddenly wake up and bite me?"
...
Orochimaru paused briefly, then silently turned and walked toward the direction where his summoned snakes had found people.
He clearly hadn't heard the fable of The Farmer and the Snake.
Akaba shrugged and tucked the sleeping snake away, heading in another direction.
The main objective of the second exam was to locate the scroll positions, yet scrolls could be genuine or fake, indistinguishable by appearance alone.
Therefore, identifying authenticity required gathering multiple samples for comparison.
Hence, the second exam naturally encouraged team battles, even murder.
With no fixed paths across the desert, Akaba roamed randomly while carefully sensing nearby Chakra fluctuations.
Before long, he saw a corpse nearly buried under the sands.
Judging from the surface appearance, it seemed poisoned.
A Sand ninja judging by the attire.
Akaba took one look, then stood and carefully surveyed his surroundings.
His powerful spiritual energy gave him perception far beyond ordinary ninja. Not long after, he detected some subtle movement.
Following the sound, the noise gradually grew louder.
"Hand over the scroll and tell us where Yauma is, or you won't survive!"
"What scroll? We don't have anything!"
"Yauma, we've been searching for him too — he abandoned the team and didn't travel with us."
Those two Taki ninja?
Not many Taki ninja entered the Chunin Exams, and only those three passed the first round.
He still had quite a favorable impression of them.
After thinking for a moment, he canceled his Transformation Jutsu and then pulled out his tools.
With quick strokes of ink, he completed a drawing not long after.
The image showed Gaara's Sand Waterfall Funeral in full detail.
As his chakra drained away, the Genjutsu simultaneously took effect.
Two Sand ninja ahead were manipulating their puppets when suddenly they felt something strange happening around them. Then they saw thick yellow sand cascading like a waterfall toward them.
"What's going on!"
Both of them were only Genin — though they possessed the strength of elite Genin — they'd never seen a technique like this before.
One bolted away in panic. The other froze for a moment, then shouted, "This is a Genjutsu! Use the breaking seals — snap out of it now!"
Then, he drove a kunai into his own palm.
However, the pain from the wound shot through his hand like fire.
He thought he had escaped the illusion, but when he looked up, he dazedly saw the sky once again filled with rushing yellow sand.
The next second came a thunderous crash that drowned everything.
In reality,
The two Taki ninja only saw the puppet being manipulated into the cave suddenly stop moving before collapsing completely.
A short while later, screams of extreme agony echoed from outside the cave.
"This... this..."
They were barely teenagers — seeing that scene nearly scared them to death.
Akaba walked out from behind.
The two remained frozen for a moment before recognizing him — the Konoha ninja whom Yauma had provoked earlier.
They dropped to the ground in sheer terror.
"If I wanted to kill you, I would have acted already. Search their bodies. See if there are any scrolls or things like that."
Akaba approached; his illusion affected people directly, so weapons like kunai and forehead protectors on the Sand ninja's bodies remained intact.
"O-Okay, sure."
The two quickly scrambled over to the corpses, hurriedly searching through them.
Though still trembling in fear, they flipped through every part of the bodies.
Soon enough, two scrolls, several shuriken, and pills lay neatly arranged before them. They then retrieved another scroll from themselves, making a total of three scrolls altogether.
Akaba wasted no time, taking the scrolls and pills before asking, "What about your teammate Yauma? What do you know about him?"
"You're looking for Yauma too?"
They blinked in confusion before continuing, "Yauma's just rude-mouthed. Please don't take it seriously. He really isn't bad..."
Akaba knew they misunderstood and waved his hand dismissively, "No, I mean — did you know he worshiped an evil god?"
"Evil god?"
The two exchanged confused glances, clearly puzzled.
Obviously, they hadn't known anything about this.
"Haven't you noticed anything unusual in the Hot Spring Country?"
Akaba grew increasingly suspicious.
Weren't these guys teammates? How could they miss such obvious signs of worshipping an evil deity!
"While Yauma might be hot-headed and aggressive, wouldn't it be exaggerating to say he worships an evil god?"
One of them turned pale.
"How did he get along with others in your village?"
"Their parents died in the war before. Since our Yunagakure advocates peace, people here never liked his personality," another person answered.
No wonder they were targeted by the Yashin Cult.
Akaba pondered for a moment and quickly understood. Not everyone truly believes in peace. The rules of Yunagakure would probably drive aggressive or vengeful people to extremes. People with such psychology were naturally the perfect targets for recruitment by the Yashin Cult.
If Orochimaru wanted to find the Yashin Cult, perhaps he could try his luck in Yunagakure.
"Your teammate has killed many people. I suggest you abandon this exam and go explain things clearly to the Sand ninjas," Akaba advised, then stood up and left.
Meanwhile, he just cross-referenced everything. There were five scrolls altogether. Two of them pointed toward the same location, while the codes on the other three indicated completely different places.
"Sakumo's group must have obtained some as well. Let's meet up and see," he thought as he put them away.
He put away the scrolls and set off toward Sakumo's location, planning to hunt for food along the way.
As for those two Taki ninjas, he had already said what needed to be said. Whatever they decided to do next was their problem now, not his.
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