No one knew how much time had passed.
When the scar-faced ninja finally woke from unconsciousness, the intense pain in his wrist twisted his face, but he also saw the four figures standing before him.
"Damn it! You're not ninjas from the Rain Village at all!"
Now fully awake, he lifted his head from the ground and shouted, "No matter who you are, let me go right now! The patrol squad will be here soon!"
He had been tightly bound, wrapped from head to toe like a worm, writhing and struggling.
But everything he did was useless. His voice couldn't reach outside at all.
'Damn it! How long has it been? Why hasn't anyone come to save me?'
'There was such a huge commotion back then, and so many people saw it, don't tell me no one reported it?'
"Stop yelling."
Kakashi picked at his ear, his dead-fish eye fixed on the scar-faced ninja as he "kindly" explained, "We walked out openly. The tavern owner even personally saw us off, so no one's coming to save you."
Even Kakashi couldn't help but smile a little after saying that, as if finding it absurd. The usually expressionless Tenzo also showed a strange look, glancing at the silent Arata.
"…What?" The scar-faced ninja froze, blurting out, "Have those people gone crazy? They didn't inform the patrol squad and just watched you take me away?"
Kakashi didn't bother explaining further. He simply said, "Talk. Tell us everything you know."
"No way!" the scar-faced ninja roared. "I won't betray-"
"Let me handle this."
Before he could finish, Arata stepped forward, smiling gently. "Don't worry. I'll do it just like before, slowly crushing your bones one by one until you tell us what we want to hear."
Hearing that, Kakashi and the other two exchanged glances, then looked at the scar-faced ninja with pity before silently leaving, giving the space to the two of them.
Seeing Arata's smile, the scar-faced ninja shuddered violently. His face turned deathly pale as he shrank back.
"D-Don't come closer… you… AH!!"
After a while, the three waiting outside heard the piercing screams and wails gradually fade, replaced by a terrifying silence.
Click.
Arata stepped out of the abandoned house. Facing the probing looks of the three, he nodded. "Got everything out of him."
The interrogation had gone smoothly. Under his methods, the scar-faced ninja spilled everything, Rain Village's current state, Hanzo's situation, stationed personnel, weapon stockpiles, pouring it all out like beans from a bamboo tube.
By the end, he was even confessing to peeping on a neighbor girl bathing as a child. If Arata hadn't stopped, he might've gone on to describe his wife's personal preferences.
Kakashi walked in, took one look, and saw a body whose bones had been almost entirely crushed, reduced to something barely human, like a heap of flesh.
His expression didn't change. Ninjas were never kind, and ANBU least of all. He simply set the body ablaze, reducing it to ashes.
"Now we can confirm it," Kakashi summarized. "Rain Village has indeed undergone some kind of upheaval, just as we suspected. Hanzo has changed drastically, and the root cause is an organization called Akatsuki."
Akatsuki.
Unfortunately, those who knew anything kept their mouths shut. Even Hanzo himself avoided the topic. The scar-faced ninja didn't know much, and neither did the other three.
"Wasn't the main objective of this mission to investigate Hanzo and Rain Village's current strength?" Tenzo asked.
"Yes," Kakashi said calmly. "But that's only under the assumption that Hanzo and Rain Village are the only threats present."
The mission wasn't truly about assessing their strength, it was about determining how much of a threat the Land of Rain posed to Konoha.
As the war expanded, Sunagakure and Iwagakure might intervene. If that happened, the Land of Rain would become the shortest route for invasion into the Land of Fire.
Konoha had to understand the situation before anyone else.
For ninjas, intelligence was everything.
Just like how, in another case, if someone had known the abilities of the Six Paths of Pain beforehand, the outcome could have been very different.
Or how a dangerous ability with a fatal weakness could be countered, knowledge made all the difference.
In the ninja world, there was never a rigid rule that genin lose to chunin or chunin lose to jonin.
With enough intelligence and proper planning, even a genin could kill a jonin.
"So, Kakashi-senpai thinks this Akatsuki might affect Konoha's future war situation?" Arata asked.
Kakashi nodded.
Another ninja frowned. "It's just a group being hunted down by Rain Village, barely surviving remnants. Is it really worth this much attention?"
"I think Kakashi-senpai is right," Arata said with a smile.
"Hanzo's reputation is real, earned through countless battles."
"Even if he's grown old, he shouldn't have become this cowardly."
"For something to push a man like Hanzo into such fear… this 'Akatsuki' is definitely not simple."
Hearing that, Tenzo and the other ninja nodded thoughtfully.
"So what do we do next?" Tenzo asked.
Kakashi pondered for a moment, then said, "Given Hanzo's current personality and situation, his attitude toward Konoha might not be as hostile as before. We can try negotiating with him."
"While gathering information on Akatsuki, we can offer to help eliminate this threat, and propose an alliance. If successful, the Land of Rain could become a buffer protecting Konoha from Sunagakure and Iwagakure."
He paused, then added, "Of course, only if the Third Hokage approves. We must not act on our own."
Arata nodded in agreement.
But at that moment, his gaze suddenly paused.
He felt something.
The scroll he had given to Orochimaru… had been triggered.
In other words, Orochimaru had met the conditions to unlock it, and could now see the contents beyond the seal.
'So, you've finally developed the Living Corpse Reincarnation?'
A faint smile appeared in Arata's eyes.
'I've been waiting a long time, Orochimaru-sama… don't disappoint me.'
After all, he had left something interesting in that scroll.
Or rather, a lie.
Or perhaps… a "rule."
Arata was no longer content with manifesting jutsu or objects.
He wanted to implant fundamental "rules" into the ninja world itself.
A grand deception, one that could make the entire world dance to his tune.
Meanwhile, at the border between the Land of Grass and the Land of Rain, inside a hidden laboratory within a cave,
Orochimaru's pale face looked especially cold under the dim light, yet his expression burned with madness and excitement.
"Finally… finally completed! Living Corpse Reincarnation! I-"
"Hiss!"
Before he could finish, a forked tongue flicked from his mouth, and his voice shifted into that of a woman, mocking him:
"Useless Orochimaru… even if you've created a technique to change bodies, can you really abandon this one, the one capable of using senjutsu?"
"Hiss… whatever you gained from Ryuchi Cave, you must pay the price. You'll never escape, "
"Shut up!"
Orochimaru's voice snapped back, his expression twisting with hatred. "Tagorihime… sooner or later, I'll devour both your body and your soul!"
With that, he turned toward the scroll on the table.
Or rather, he slithered.
His legs were gone, replaced by a white serpent's tail.
That day, to survive, he had made a deal with the White Snake Sage.
And this was the price.
His body fused with one of the three snake princesses of Ryuchi Cave, Tagorihime, granting him the power of senjutsu, but binding him to their control.
Still… it was worth it.
"Hiss…"
Orochimaru flicked his tongue, eyes burning as he looked at the scroll.
The contents he could never access before now opened easily at his touch.
"As expected… only by mastering the soul and natural energy can one unlock the seal."
His gaze grew even hotter as he eagerly scanned the newly revealed text, but after reading the first few lines, he froze.
{"When all living things perish, their destinations are not one."}
{"When the body dies and the soul departs, it may dissipate into the wind, return to the Pure Land of the Six Paths… or fall into my Void Realm."}
{"The Void Realm is the resting place of souls, a domain suspended between the living world and the Pure Land, shrouded in eternal night…"}