I turned out to be both right and wrong at the same time.
There was a shinobi in the room with the child—a jonin, at the very least. And ten puppets with him. But he didn't stay there long. While I was observing him through my shadow snake and thinking about my next move, a loud explosion somewhere a couple of corridors away forced him to leave his post. Apparently, things weren't going too well for the Sand shinobi, so they were committing their reserves.
Didn't I say I was absurdly lucky today?
I think I did.
The only question is what I'll have to pay for it.
"Well then… hello, kid," I whispered softly, looking at the sleeping red-haired child—barely a year old. "You can start cursing me now."
I made a small cut on his arm and waited for a little pool of blood to gather.
Niku Seicho no Jutsu—another technique of my own creation.
In truth, it was a failed attempt at creating a snake clone, which had turned out to be surprisingly useful. Under its effect, the affected subject's cells begin to divide uncontrollably. Very convenient when you're short on original material—which, in my case, is almost always.
The blood flowing from the boy's arm instantly boiled and swelled, forming a shapeless mass of dark flesh, veined with fragments of bone, tendons, and stray clumps of hair. The technique was imperfect and would likely never reach the level of true cloning.
Unfortunately, I only had enough chakra to create a lump weighing about half a kilogram. Not much—but hopefully, no one would look too closely.
Ryu no goon!
A powerful infrasonic blast tore the mass apart, splattering the opposite wall with a uniform layer of fine crimson droplets and shredded flesh.
With a bite, I injected a small amount of medical chakra and a sedative into the boy, then carefully placed him into a wooden tub I had unsealed from a scroll. By a twist of irony, I had to use a sealing scroll I'd bought from the Uzumaki for this. Though, to a one-year-old kid, that hardly matters. What matters is that the container is just the right size for him.
Clapping my hands together, I forced my exhausted chakra to move.
Kuro Mujin!
Placing my hands over the wooden tub, I set a barrier on it—one that would mask it from sensory techniques and keep the child in a comatose state. Good thing the sealing target was small; there's no way I could've applied the Black Mist Seal to anything larger on my own.
That's it. Time to get out!
Too bad I didn't have the strength left for a snake-based Body Replacement. I'd have to wait until my chakra recovered—or until things settled down, the barrier was lifted, and everyone went their separate ways. The latter was more likely. I simply didn't have enough chakra left for proper use of techniques like Body Replacement. Right now, they were only viable in peaceful conditions—or for covert operations like this one.
And the Chameleon Technique keeps draining chakra nonstop. Good thing I didn't use Hiding in Surfaces—it consumes even more. And there's no guarantee the shinobi of Uzushiogakure wouldn't detect it.
Fortunately, I managed to slip out of the completely destroyed estate after about half an hour.
And no one noticed!
Well, that's something I can brag about to the Second Tsuchikage—if anyone ever brings him back to life. Though when that gloomy fellow showed up and started probing everything with metallic dust, I'll be honest—I was right on the edge. I still didn't have the chakra for Hiding in Surfaces, so I had to make a run for it before my luck ran out.
I stayed in Roran for a little while longer, playing the part of a genin who had suddenly remembered that money doesn't grow on trees and had started looking for work. That is—pale, gloomy, and slightly on edge.
Of course, not a single suitable caravan turned up. And after the Serpent Replacement, I no longer had my previously stolen face. I had to rely on the emergency extraction route prepared by Konoha's ANBU for agents in the city. Wandering the city under a Henge was getting too risky.Sand shinobi were combing the streets, checking everyone.
Even if I'd still had my old disguise, I doubt I could've left Roran by legal means.
Long story short, I got to experience all the delights of the sewers again. The rest was just a matter of technique. Using the same soft modification technique, I turned my legs into something resembling a snake's tail and sped across the desert, free as the wind! And reeking like the sewage of a fairly large city. If Suna had anyone like the Inuzuka, they'd have tracked me down in no time. In the end, I only managed to clean myself up on the fifth day—by using Serpent Body Replacement once again.
Not intentionally, of course.
I'm not that much of an idiot—to use a technique like that just to take a bath. It just so happened that while I was zigzagging through the desert, the Second Shinobi World War began.
Just like that. As if the First had never really ended.
No one formally declared it, and there were no full-scale battles yet—but the number of shinobi on the borders had grown beyond all reason, and skirmishes had already begun.
By the time I finally made it out of the Land of Wind, January was coming to an end. Chaos reigned in the Land of Rivers—people were simply waiting for their homeland to be crushed between hammer and anvil: Suna and Konoha. You wouldn't envy those small buffer states somehow surviving between the Great Countries.
How they even made it through the First War is beyond me.
After that, the road was uneventful, and I reached Konoha quickly.
The problems started the moment I entered the village. Right at the gate. A single sentence from a chunin overturned all my plans.
"Orochi… I'm sorry it has to be me telling you this, but you'd find out anyway. Better now than later…" he began, hesitating—before delivering the blow:
"Your mother is dead."
(End of Chapter)
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