"Yes, you've heard of him?" Konan asked, her expression didnt change from her deadpan however from the tone of her voice, Kazuo could tell that she was curious.
"Just a little, Him and I share a somewhat similar passion of sorts for… certain ninja arts." Kazuo replied as he released a soft chuckle and turned around to head off.
"We've found you a partner, someone that has joined us recently, a fellow leaf shinobi." Nagato spoke up as Kazuo was about to leave.
"You will be doing the mission with him." Konan continued as she pointed towards the left door where the sound of sandals on metal could be heard, someone was walking towards them.
'A fellow leaf shinobi? Is it… there really is only one person who I can think of.' Kazuo thought as his expression froze for a moment as he turned his head towards the door, and there coming out of the darkness of the hallway, with long brown almost black hair, yellow slitted eyes with purple eyeliner that seemed to only further accentuate their piercing gaze and skin as white as snow.
'Orochimaru.' Kazuo thought as his expression hardened further, his pupils narrowing slightly.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, though we belonged to the same village, we never really had the chance to talk Kazuo." Orochimaru said, a smile on his face as he walked towards Kazuo, his voice itself seemed to embody a snake, it somehow felt slimy.
"There was no need for us to do so, I was merely a jonin when I left, not something a sannin such as yourself would have any work with, though I must say… your past partner really did annoy me quite a lot." Kazuo replied as his lips turned upwards, making a cold smile.
"Ah yes… Danzo and you didn't exactly have good relations from what I've heard. You were quite the annoyance in his side." Orochimaru replied as he now stood infront of Kazuo.
"Sure… a thorn in his side, you could call me that. Let's get going, there isn't anything for us to talk about, atleast not anything that would interest me." Kazuo spoke as he turned and continued to head towards the hall Orochimaru had just come out from.
"So cold Kazuo-kun, should lighten up a little." Orochimaru said with a smile as he turned and started following Kazuo.
'Dont add kun to my name you damned snake pedo.' Kazuo thought to himself as he almost shivered from disgust as he continued to walk.
The two of them soon disappeared into the darkness of the hallway.
"Do you think It was a good Idea to pair them together?" Konan asked, her eyebrows scrunched slightly as she gazed at the door.
"It's the best way to keep an eye on Orochimaru, we still can't be guaranteed that he wont betray us. And Kazuo is more than strong enough to survive or even kill him if something does happend." The masked man said as he was leaning on a pillar at the corner of the chamber room.
"He's already at the level where he can fight a sannin and possibly win?" Nagato asked curiously as he released a hum.
"Yes… and thats with only what he has shown during the missions, I'm sure he has quite a few cards up his sleeve that he's managed to hide from us." The masked man replied as his body started turning into fog before quickly disappearing through the small crevices in the metallic walls.
Meanwhile on the other side of the ninja continent, a Iwagakure ninja was currently inside a large chamber situated inside one of the stone mountains surrounding the stone village.
The chamber was made entire of stone with several pillars holding up the ceiling.
The entire ground was filled with hundreds of different clay dolls, ranging from small centipedes, to birds, to other insects and even animals, some where regular looking whilst others were shaped to resemble creatures from fantasy like dragons and the sort.
"Another failure, this is nowhere near enough to be perfect art, its mediocre. I have to find it, I have to perfect my art. My glorious art!" A yellow haired boy sat at the center of this chamber, surrounded by the hundreds of clay dolls, in his hand was a white ball of clay that he was currently shaping up to look like a dragonfly insect. His voice was high pitched and his tone resembled that of a faithful zealot who was worshipping some kind of god.
"Deidara! Are you still holed up in here? The Tsuchikage told you to go and meet him yesterday!" A voice said as a stone ninja headed inside the room.
"Tell that old man that I dont care, I'm perfecting my art, he can go to hell for all I care about!" Deidara, replied as he threw the clay that he held in his hands away, smashing it against a pillar, causing its form to break as it fell down with a slopping sound.
"Crazy bastard." The stone ninja muttered as he turned around and walked out, Deidara was a well known shinobi in Iwagakure, well known for both his strength aswell as the fact that he was most definitely completely insane, he was obsessed with his so called art.
Clay dolls that he could explode with his explosion release kekke genkai. To Deidara, the clay dolls were not the art, no the only thing that he called and respected as true art was the explosion that followed after he used his chakra on the dolls.
"More… more explosive power. How do i concentrate more chakra into the dolls." Deidara muttered to himself, having already gone back to concentrating on another batch of white clay in his hands.
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Here's the chapter, thanks for reading. Ill be doing a mass release today, expect another 2 chapters in here and another 6-7 chapters on Patreon.
Thanks for the support. I finally completed all my college exams for this semester so yeah, lot more time.
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NarutoAuthor