Feeling the faint power he had absorbed, Yuto curled his lip. Pathetically weak.
Glancing at the stunned Dosu and Zaku, he raised a hand and flicked it casually.
The Decapitating Airwave he had absorbed moments before, with a little "seasoning" added, blasted back out.
Boom!
A colossal arc of chakra tore through the air, more a titanic slash than a wave.
The two Oto shinobi froze, eyes wide with a single thought—Run!
They leapt back without hesitation.
A thunderous crash split the ground where they had stood, gouging a crater meters deep.
Their faces blanched, hearts pounding.
Yuto only snapped his fingers. The sound-based jutsu he had absorbed erupted outward.
Unlike the visible slash, the soundwave was insidious—unseen, almost undetectable.
Dosu and Zaku staggered, blood bursting from their lips before their eyes rolled back. They collapsed, unconscious.
Yuto dropped lightly from the branch, strolling into Otogakure as though on a walk.
He smiled faintly. He didn't believe for a moment that such noise had gone unnoticed.
———
In a shadowed underground chamber.
Orochimaru's serpentine gaze fixed on a nail-sized scrap of flesh floating in green fluid.
It was the fragment his snake had stolen from Yuto's body back when he was still sealed in death.
Immortality.
Two characters that consumed Orochimaru's very soul.
He had witnessed it himself—the man who had revived after decades entombed in nothingness.
The shock, the rapture, had nearly undone him.
Sharingan, Hashirama's cells—worthless in comparison.
Even his vaunted reincarnation technique paled, a toy against true eternal life.
So when he returned to Oto, he abandoned all else, devoting everything to this fragment.
In cell research, none surpassed him. Even Hashirama's power he had twisted into tools.
Yet for the first time, he doubted his genius.
The cells seemed… ordinary.
Impossible.
His tongue slid over his lips, eyes cold and hungry.
"Wrong approach? Or simply too dead, too inert?"
It had been a corpse's tissue, after all. A dead fragment.
If it had been living, perhaps…
But the thought of facing that man in the flesh made even Orochimaru's heart shiver.
He narrowed his eyes. That man had been alive again for some time now, yet the world was calm. Even the Mist seemed quiet.
Two possibilities:
His strength hadn't returned.
Or he was biding his time for something greater.
If it was the second, Orochimaru welcomed it. A peaceful world suffocated men like him.
If it was the first… his tongue darted out, a cold smile twisting his lips.
———
A voice trembled behind him.
"Orochimaru-sama… that man has entered the village."
Tayuya's voice shook with fear. She remembered the pressure that had crushed all four of them into the dirt.
"Is that so? Then you four will go greet him. And bring Kimimaro to me."
Orochimaru's laugh was low and cruel. His gaze turned on the kneeling Sound Four.
They flinched as one, terror flashing across their faces.
"What is it? A problem?" His smile was soft; his tone was knives.
"N–No, Orochimaru-sama!" they stammered, cold sweat soaking their backs.
Better to face the legend outside than defy the master here.
With four sharp flickers, they were gone.
Before long, footsteps echoed again.
A boy entered, pale hair falling long with crimson dots marking his forehead.
"Orochimaru-sama!" Kimimaro's voice burned with fervor.
"You've come. How is your body?"
The harshness in Orochimaru's face eased as he looked upon him.
"It is fine, Orochimaru-sama!" Kimimaro answered quickly, eyes blazing with devotion.
For his master, he would give everything.
"Good. Come. I'll show you someone."
Orochimaru's tongue traced his lips, and he smiled.
———
Outside.
Yuto strode through the Sound Village, his expression faintly mocking.
Compared to the Mist, this wasn't a village—just another den.
"Orochimaru always builds underground. I wonder if one stomp could shake him out," he mused with a smile.
"Oh? Since you're already here, why hide?"
He pressed his foot down.
Boom!
The ground split apart in a roar.
Four figures burst upward, scattering.
Yuto grinned at the sight. "Well, well. You four again."
The Sound Four froze, trembling at his voice.
Sakon gritted his teeth. "Forgive us!"
Their chakra flared, dark and sinister, as they transformed into their Level Two states.
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