"You're going to find Orochimaru, aren't you?" Naruto changed the topic.
"Yeah."
Tsunade didn't deny it. Her face turned serious. "Are you going to stop me?"
"No."
Naruto shook his head. "I'm not going to stop you from meeting Orochimaru, but I want to make a deal with you."
"A deal?"
"Yeah. Orochimaru wants to use your brother and your lover to make a deal with you, right? Then how about we make a similar deal?"
"How do you know…"
Tsunade paused, then remembered Naruto had been following them all along. It wasn't strange for him to overhear their conversation.
"You know that forbidden jutsu too?" Tsunade asked.
"I don't, but Orochimaru does. So if I capture him and make him use that jutsu to bring them back, won't that work?" Naruto said calmly.
"Catch Orochimaru? That's not so easy." Tsunade chuckled softly.
She had thought Naruto had some clever plan, but it turned out to be such an unrealistic idea.
"Even if you can beat Shizune, the Legendary Sannin are on a different level from ordinary ninja. They're not someone you can just…"
Before Tsunade could finish, Naruto suddenly appeared in front of her, one foot raised, less than a centimeter from her cheek.
"I don't think the Sannin are that untouchable. What do you think, Lady Tsunade?"
Looking at Naruto's confident and somewhat handsome face up close, Tsunade froze.
At that moment, she finally saw a shadow of that man in him.
The same golden hair, the same confident smile.
The Yellow Flash of the Leaf!
"Hmph, Jiraiya… should I say it's no surprise he trained a student like you?" Tsunade lowered her head with a smile, her respect for Jiraiya growing.
"That pervy sage didn't teach me much at all."
Naruto put his foot down. "So? Want to try my way? Even if I fail, you can still go make your deal with Orochimaru. You lose nothing."
Thinking about it, that was true.
Whether Naruto succeeded or failed, it made no difference to her in the end.
But… should she really let this kid take such a risk just for her own selfish wish?
A genius like him was rare for the Leaf as well!
After hesitating for a moment, Tsunade asked, "Why? Why are you helping me?"
"Want the truth?" Naruto asked back.
"Yeah."
"The truth is, I want you to be the Fifth Hokage, then help me get promoted to Chunin, and maybe give me a little special treatment on missions later."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"…Hahahahaha!" Tsunade was stunned for a moment, then burst out laughing. "If that's all, I really feel like agreeing to it."
Naruto shrugged. "Compared to destroying Konoha, you'd rather protect the Konoha that Dan and Nawaki believed in, right? If you betray Konoha just to see them again, when they're revived and see you, they'll be disappointed too."
Naruto's words pulled Tsunade into her memories of Dan and Nawaki, so she didn't notice the hole in his story—how he even knew about them in the first place.
After a long silence, Tsunade said seriously, "Alright, I'll agree… but you have to win!"
Naruto gave an OK sign. "Relax. I'll win for sure."
…
As the sky began to brighten,
Naruto and Tsunade arrived at the ruins of Tanzaku Street.
"Are you sure it's okay not to wake Jiraiya?" Tsunade asked.
Before they came, Tsunade had wanted to bring the still-drugged Jiraiya along, but Naruto said it wasn't necessary.
"What's the point of bringing someone who can't even form a hand sign for a shuriken? To slow us down?" Naruto said calmly.
Although Tsunade could detoxify Jiraiya, it would take time.
Naruto didn't think it was worth wasting that time.
Tsunade knew it might cause trouble, but for safety's sake, she thought taking more time wouldn't hurt.
But since Naruto insisted there was no need, she could only choose to trust him.
After waiting a while,
Orochimaru and Tsunade finally arrived.
The two of them were a little surprised to see Uzumaki Naruto there along with Tsunade.
"Uzumaki Naruto? I didn't expect to see you here~"
Orochimaru stuck out his tongue, a flash of greed in his eyes. "Did you come here to join me? If that's the case, I'd be very happy."
"Orochimaru-sama, sorry to spoil the mood, but I don't think you should be so optimistic. This Uzumaki Naruto has no reason to join us," Kabuto said at an awkward time.
Orochimaru glanced at Kabuto but didn't deny what he said. "Then what's your purpose here, Uzumaki Naruto?"
"Just to complete a deal."
As Naruto spoke, a golden light formed in his hand, which he threw into the air. The golden light flew upward and then shot out countless golden rays, trapping Orochimaru and Kabuto inside.
Light Release Barrier: Birdcage!
"Not here with good intentions, are you?"
Orochimaru and Kabuto's faces stayed calm, as if they didn't care much about Naruto's technique.
But the next moment, the entire golden barrier began to shrink!
Everything around them was sliced apart by the golden laser lines as they slowly closed in!
Seeing the power of this laser barrier, the two of them finally showed slight changes in expression.
Kabuto threw a kunai to test the strength of the barrier.
The moment the kunai touched it, it was sliced cleanly in half!
"This could be trouble."
Kabuto frowned slightly, planning to use Earth Release to escape.
But there were lasers underground too—the birdcage's three-dimensional shape was an oval that extended a kilometer below the ground!
In other words, once inside this barrier, there was no way to escape!
"Kabuto, try those gaps!"
Following Orochimaru's orders, Kabuto threw another kunai to test one of the openings between the birdcage's beams.
But just as the kunai was about to pass through, the entire birdcage suddenly rotated once, slicing the kunai in half!
"So there really is no way out, huh?"
Sweat dripped from Orochimaru and Kabuto's foreheads—they could no longer stay as relaxed as before.
Meanwhile, Tsunade was already stunned by what she saw.
She had thought Naruto would need a hard fight to win against Orochimaru, but she never expected him to trap Orochimaru with just a casual barrier jutsu.
With this kind of strength… even the brilliant Fourth Hokage couldn't compare, right?
At just 12 years old, easily crushing one of the Legendary Sannin?
"Alright, tell me your terms."
Orochimaru saw that Naruto only trapped and threatened them instead of killing them, so he guessed Naruto wanted something.
"Not going to struggle a bit more?" Naruto teased.
He still wanted to test the limits of this new move, which was inspired by Doflamingo's technique, but Orochimaru and Kabuto didn't seem able to cooperate.
Orochimaru's hands couldn't form seals, and Kabuto's strength wasn't enough to put up much resistance.
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