Chapter 89: A Kindhearted Child

Chapter 89: Chapter 89: A Kindhearted Child

Orochimaru, dressed in an ordinary kimono, wandered alone through the various towns and cities of the Land of Water, an amused look on his face.

Because of Sasori, he hadn’t left the Land of Water according to his original plans. And since there was currently almost no one in the Land of Water who required both him and Sasori to deal with, the two weren’t traveling together.

The turmoil in Kirigakure had already been going on for a long time.

And this upheaval had nearly exhausted all of Kirigakure’s strength. Several of the village’s famous kekkei genkai clans, such as the Kaguya Clan and the Yuki Clan, had been wiped out one after another. Members of ninja clans possessing kekkei genkai had either died or fled, scattering throughout the land.

Fortunately for Kirigakure, the Land of Water was isolated in a remote corner of the world, while its neighboring powers, Konoha and Kumogakure, were currently locked in a standoff and peace negotiations, leaving them with no energy to concern themselves with anything else.

Otherwise, whether Kirigakure itself would even continue to exist was an open question.

Suddenly, a burly man wielding a blade blocked Orochimaru’s path and snarled viciously, "Hand over your money!"

Orochimaru extended his long, slender tongue and lightly ran it across his lips. In his hoarse voice, he said, "A fool who can’t even sense danger... How pathetic."

The burly man flew into a rage.

"You’re courting death!"

Clang...

Before the burly man could even finish speaking, the blade slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground.

With great difficulty, he lowered his head to look, only to suddenly discover that at some point, a green snake no thicker than a finger had sunk its fangs firmly into his throat.

Orochimaru walked right past the man without so much as slowing down. From beginning to end, his hands had never even left his pockets.

Behind him, the burly man collapsed to the ground, lifeless.

After wandering through the Land of Water for so long, very few people had dared to cause trouble for Orochimaru. Even the most incompetent Kirigakure ninja could sense the cold, sinister aura surrounding him—an aura that practically screamed for strangers to stay away.

Only an ordinary civilian thug like this man would be foolish enough to walk up and throw his life away.

This also showed that the turmoil in the Land of Water was no longer limited to the ninja world. The lives of ordinary civilians had been severely affected as well, and the entire country could only be described as being in complete chaos.

After rounding a corner, Orochimaru suddenly stopped.

His gaze had been drawn to a pile of garbage tucked away in a corner.

In front of the garbage heap, a ragged little child was crouching on the ground. The child held a small piece of blackened bread, tearing it into pieces and sharing it among several skinny stray cats.

The kittens meowed softly, rubbing themselves affectionately against the child.

"Oh?"

Orochimaru’s eyes lingered on the child.

"What excellent chakra..."

Orochimaru licked his lips and slowly walked toward the garbage heap.

The sudden approach of Orochimaru frightened the child. He shrank back, wanting to hide in the corner, but when he remembered the stray kittens at his feet, he gritted his teeth and spread his arms, placing himself protectively in front of them.

Orochimaru looked over the skin-and-bones child before him, then glanced at the bread crumbs he had been feeding to the stray cats.

"What’s your name?"

The child answered cautiously, "My name is Haku."

Staring into Haku’s pure, innocent eyes, Orochimaru shook his head, then turned and walked away.

The child was already emaciated from hunger, yet he was still willing to share what little food he had left with a few stray cats. Even though he possessed excellent chakra, a child this kindhearted simply wasn’t suited to becoming a ninja.

And so, after just a single look into his eyes, Orochimaru abandoned the idea of taking the child with him.

But after walking a few steps, Orochimaru suddenly stopped.

He had remembered another child—Jugo.

Jugo was a child capable of absorbing natural energy. It was precisely because Orochimaru had obtained that child that another experiment had been added to his research projects—one known as the Curse Mark.

Turning back to look at Haku, Orochimaru murmured, "Perhaps a child this pure... might actually be capable of bearing that kind of power."

Just then, a figure landed beside Orochimaru.

It was none other than his partner—

Sasori.

Sasori briefly glanced at the small, skinny Haku in the corner, but his gaze didn’t linger. Turning to Orochimaru, he said, "Let’s go. The person I’ve been looking for has appeared!"

Orochimaru smiled. "Are you sure the one you’re looking for is a person and not a corpse?"

Sasori gritted his teeth. "I’ll turn him into a corpse!"

It was rare for Orochimaru to see Sasori this furious, so he deliberately asked in a casual tone, "Just who exactly are you looking for? I don’t have the time to follow you around aimlessly!"

"A ninja from your Konoha!"

Land of Wind.

With the assistance of the Kusagakure ninja, Hyuga Kagami finally managed to track down the remnants of Roran after an entire month.

After crossing a stretch of sand dunes, Ryuran, a Kusagakure jonin, pointed toward a conspicuous oasis in the distance and said to Kagami, "The Roran survivors you’re looking for are over there!"

Kagami looked in the direction he was pointing.

A ring of large caravans was parked around the outskirts of the oasis, while scattered figures moved back and forth between the wagons. Some were drawing water from the oasis, some were tending to camels and flocks of sheep, while others were starting fires and preparing meals.

Kagami frowned.

"Why are there so few of them?"

Even counting every single person in the caravan beside the oasis, there were only two or three hundred people at most.

That was far fewer than Kagami had expected.

In his estimation, there might not have been many survivors of Roran, but surely their numbers shouldn’t have dwindled to a mere two or three hundred.

A local guide hired by the Kusagakure ninja hurriedly explained to Hyuga Kagami, "Ever since Roran was abandoned, these survivors lost their means of making a living. Some left, some died... and now, this is all that’s left."

Kagami asked, "Even without their city, their lives shouldn’t have become this miserable, should they?"

The guide was just about to explain when he suddenly noticed something and pointed into the distance.

"Look over there!"

Kagami followed the direction of the guide’s finger and saw two Sunagakure ninja approaching the oasis. They soon began negotiating with the Roran survivors there.

The exchange didn’t seem particularly pleasant.

After a heated argument, the two Sunagakure ninja left the oasis, their figures gradually disappearing into the windblown sand.

Kagami asked, "Why would Sunagakure ninja be out here?"

The guide sighed. "I’ve heard that Sunagakure has been taxing these Roran survivors all this time. Those two were probably here to collect the tax."

Kagami thought it over briefly and immediately understood Sunagakure’s intentions.

How much tax could possibly be collected from a caravan of only two or three hundred people?

Sunagakure was doing this for two reasons.

First, taxation gave them a convenient excuse to keep the Roran survivors under surveillance.

Second, they were probably hoping to use economic pressure to force the Roran survivors into completely submitting to Sunagakure.

Once that happened, Sunagakure would have a perfectly legitimate excuse to claim possession of the Dragon Vein.

Kagami found Sunagakure’s little schemes perfectly understandable. After all, with an enormous source of chakra like the Dragon Vein sitting there, it would have been far stranger if Sunagakure wasn’t interested in it!

Ryuran of Kusagakure asked, "Mr. Ki, do you need us to go over there and confirm whether the person you’re looking for is among them?"

Kagami shook his head. "There’s no need."

Ryuran then asked, "In that case, what about the remainder of the payment for this commission?"

Without saying anything more, Kagami simply handed Ryuran the remaining payment...