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Chapter 130n
🕑 Added 2025-08-15 19:03:15 +0000 UTCChapter 130n
2-in-1-chapter
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The leaden clouds blocked out the sun, and the cold mist dampened the hem of his coat. Although it was just past noon, the gloomy sky gave the impression that night was about to fall. Uchiha Shisui walked along a sparsely populated street, pulling his coat tighter around himself as his eyes swept over the shopfronts. He had already gone halfway down the street before spotting a set meal shop with its door open for business.
At this point, there was clearly no room to be picky.
His stomach gave a hungry growl.
After days of eating in the open and sleeping in the wild, he found himself missing a steaming bowl of sweet red bean soup with rice cakes and a plate of fried udon noodles.
The shop’s interior was not large, perhaps fewer than ten seats in total. The dim amber lighting lent a touch of warmth, and the floors were swept spotless. There was no noisy chatter—only two customers sat quietly in the far corner, eating their lunch.
Shisui pulled out a chair at an empty table near the door and sat down.
“Welcome. What would you like to order?”
The server was a short young girl with bright, round eyes. She was probably the owner’s daughter—small shops like this were often run by an entire family, their income too modest to hire outside help. Whether in the Land of Water or the Land of Fire, ordinary life was equally hard and unrelenting.
It was not only the little girl working as a server; an elderly man with a head of snow-white hair was also moving carefully between the tables, wiping down furniture that was already spotless.
Shisui accepted the menu and opened it. He was lucky—fried udon noodles and sweet red bean soup with rice cakes were both listed. “Do you have everything shown here?”
“Yes, we do. What would you like?”
The girl’s voice was clear and bright.
“Let’s see… please give me fried udon noodles and sweet red bean soup with rice cakes.” Shisui patted his growling stomach, deciding to treat himself today. His eyes wandered over the menu again. “Also, one order of grilled pork and a fried chicken cutlet.”
That morning, in his hurry to travel, he had only eaten a cold plum rice ball for breakfast. By now, that meager bit of food had long since been digested, leaving nothing in his stomach.
He could not help sighing at his own softness.
Back during the war, there were times when he went a day or two without a single hot meal, gnawing on ration pills as if they were rice. Now, if his stomach rumbled, his first thought was of food. Skipping one meal left him feeling empty. A comfortable life truly could wear away one’s edge.
The wait felt long.
His thoughts began to wander, turning to the mission of finding the Six Paths ninja tools. The information Rēn had given him was overly brief, with only a few islands of various sizes circled on a map of the Land of Water. When Shisui arrived, he quickly realized that the circled areas on the map covered far more ground than they appeared to at first glance.
On the map, an uninhabited island might look no bigger than a sesame seed, yet crossing from one end to the other could still take a lot of time, and that was when it was measured by a Shisui’s pace, no less.
And to find several tools whose exact locations were unknown, possibly tucked away in some forgotten corner, he could not simply run from one end of an island to the other and call it done. He had to search every inch of land. After combing through two small islands without finding anything, he realized he could not continue like this. He would have to think of another method.
Only, no better plan had yet come to him.
It had been decades since these tools were last seen. If they were easy to find, they would have been discovered long ago. Many of these islands were deserted; there was not even anyone to ask for local tales or legends. He could only search the ground, inch by inch.
“Where could they be?”
Shisui rubbed at his brow in frustration.
The sooner he found the Six Paths tools, the sooner he could return. But judging from the current situation, it would be difficult to finish this mission quickly. It might well drag on until his allotted time ran out, with nothing to show for it. A task like this, like looking for a needle in the ocean, was exhausting to the spirit.
“Are you looking for someone? Or for something?”
The hoarse, low voice that reached his ears made Shisui shiver suddenly.
Greedy malice coiled around his ankles like a serpent.
But—
Shisui remained seated, unmoving.
“Who are you?”
He had only asked a single question.
In the deepest corner of the shop sat two figures, one large and one small. Uchiha Shisui, seated with his back to the entrance, could clearly see the smaller one—a boy of no more than seven or eight years old, with a head of white hair, emerald-green eyes, two crimson dots on his brow, and delicate, handsome features.
The person facing the boy had their back to Shisui, most of their body obscured by a protruding column. What Shisui could see was a cascade of black hair that fell all the way to the waist. From the moment he had entered the shop, Shisui’s habitual scan of the surroundings had revealed something unusual—the boy had already refined chakra, and in quantities impressive enough that even Shisui could not help but silently acknowledge him as a prodigy.
As for the other person… they stirred in him a faint sense of danger, along with a trace of familiarity.
Until now, that individual had shown him no hostility.
Shisui, who had no taste for unnecessary trouble, had no intention of provoking them. Unfortunately, it seemed the feeling was not mutual. After restraining it for some time, the other finally let that deep malice spill forth.
“Shisui-kun, I saw you when you first joined the ANBU. Have you already forgotten me so soon?”
The man, still facing away, twisted his neck one hundred and eighty degrees. A pale face drained of all color came into view, its golden, slit-pupiled eyes like a serpent’s, brimming with excited, cruel killing intent. Purple eyeshadow extended to the sides of his nose, and two blue-green magatama-shaped earrings swayed lightly by his ears.
This man—
“Orochimaru?!”
Shisui’s expression grew sharp and grave.
He had not expected to run into Orochimaru here, the highest-ranked missing-nin on the village’s wanted list. It was hard to say whether this was good fortune or misfortune. When Shisui had joined the ANBU, Orochimaru had not yet defected, and they had met several times. That lingering familiarity without immediate recognition was, under the circumstances, only natural.
“What are you doing here?”
Shisui’s eyes turned scarlet as he locked his gaze on Orochimaru.
“Is it strange for a missing-nin to wander?” Orochimaru replied. “The real question, Shisui-kun, is what you are doing here. This is neither Konoha nor the Land of Fire. In a place like this… what are you searching for?” His tongue flicked across his lips, curiosity on his face entirely unmasked.
Though he had left Konoha, Orochimaru—one of the legendary Sannin—still had enough loyal followers within the village to supply him with information. And with Danzō as a collaborator, he had remained fully informed of Konoha’s affairs. That is, until his partner Danzō abruptly fell, followed soon after by his own teacher, Sarutobi Hiruzen, being ousted from the position of Hokage.
This unexpected string of dramatic events drew Orochimaru’s attention back to the Uchiha clan, which had been sinking into decline.
What truly caught his interest was an intelligence report from one of his village informants mentioning a “deep crimson, skeletal giant.” It brought to mind notes left behind by the Second Hokage concerning the Uchiha—records that spoke of the Mangekyō Sharingan and of Susanoo.
At the time, however, no one in the Uchiha clan had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, and their three-tomoe Jōnin were formidable enough that provoking them risked serious trouble. Orochimaru had set aside his investigation of the Mangekyō Sharingan, sealing it away for a later, more opportune time.
That opportunity came far sooner than he had imagined. Uchiha Rēn, before the eyes of many, revealed the divine power of Susanoo.
Orochimaru was already in the Land of Water when the report reached him. Just as he was preparing to return to the Land of Fire, another message arrived—Uchiha Rēn had led a Konoha army into a major battle against the Mist-nin on the eastern border. Orochimaru chose not to leave the Land of Water, instead continuing his search for two corpses.
At last, he unearthed the remains, still yielding usable tissue, along with several strange ninja tools. With no other matters to delay him, he set out for Kirigakure, intent on witnessing firsthand whether the Mangekyō Sharingan was truly as formidable as the Second Hokage’s notes had described.
But before he could get far—still some distance from Kirigakure—he crossed paths here with another Uchiha.
“This has nothing to do with you, Orochimaru. You should be thinking about how you’ll confess your crimes once you’re in Konoha’s prison.”
Shisui pushed back his chair and stood, drawing the short blade from his back and assuming a battle stance.
Had his opponent been a missing-nin from the Mist, Stone, Sand, or Cloud, Shisui might not have bothered to intervene. But Orochimaru was a traitor to Konoha. Having encountered him here, Shisui’s nature would not allow him to turn a blind eye.
Moreover, Orochimaru had clearly no intention of letting him go. Before facing Uchiha Rēn, testing himself against another Uchiha Jōnin of three-tomoe caliber would refresh his memories of sparring with the clan—and, with luck, perhaps yield him a matched set of Sharingan.
“Confess?”
Orochimaru’s smile was mocking. “Such things have no meaning to me. Shisui-kun, why don’t you leave those eyes here for me?”
“How interesting. You don’t want to make your move here?” Orochimaru’s golden slit-pupiled eyes followed Shisui as he used the Body Flicker Technique to leave the shop. A cold, faint smile curled at his lips, but when his gaze shifted and caught the extra stack of ryo left on the table by the door, his pupils narrowed slightly.
If it were only a matter of Body Flicker speed, he would not have been impressed.
But to use the Body Flicker Technique and still take the time to leave the meal payment behind in that instant—Orochimaru knew this meant Shisui’s mastery of the technique already surpassed his own. The Uchiha clan’s elders might be worthless, but it seemed that some of the younger generation had real ability.
Unfortunately, no matter how fast the Body Flicker Technique was, it still had limits in range and distance.
If not for his unwillingness to drag Kimimaro into the middle of chaos, Orochimaru would have struck immediately. Kimimaro was a vessel he had gone to great lengths to find, an exceptional container that was far from easy to replace. If he were damaged in the heat of battle, Orochimaru would feel genuine regret—such a perfect vessel was not something one could simply acquire again.
“Kimimaro, do not get too close in the next exchange,” he instructed the boy beside him.
The coming clash with Uchiha Shisui was unlikely to end quickly. Even if Orochimaru did not believe Shisui could escape the palm of his hand, the Uchiha’s Sharingan and Fire Style were no small matters, and Shisui had already shown exceptional skill with the Body Flicker Technique. Moreover, reports sent back from Konoha mentioned that Shisui had once fought Aburame Ryōma to a draw.
He could afford to sound dismissive aloud, but inwardly, he was taking no chances.
Having spent time in Danzō’s Root and access to their intel, Orochimaru knew very well how formidable Shisui Uchia was—an opponent even he had to treat with caution.
