However, this jutsu of Futsu’s was not as powerful as the Mizukage’s. In which case, he had no need to fear it.
This time, Sasuke closed the distance he had opened up between them. Futsu trembled, as if aware of the eyes of someone other than Sasuke on him, and went to release his Solid Fog once more.
I don’t need to show him the sharingan. More than anything, his pride would not allow him to bring out the sharingan in this vulgar space.
“Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!”
White-hot flames shot out of his mouth. Although the technique was simple, the flames overwhelmed his opponent’s fog, and swallowed Futsu.
“Aaaaah!” Futsu cried out at the combination of the fog bouncing back on him and Sasuke’s flames.
“Victory to Sasuke!”
Just as he said he would, Sasuke finished the match in the blink of an eye. The people in charge at the Coliseum dealt with Futsu. Apparently, there was also a medical team. They probably couldn’t allow any serious injuries.
“Very nice work, Sasuke. Please come this way,” a member of the staff urged him, and Sasuke headed into the depths of the arena. Along the way, Orochimaru joined up with him.
“Just like you.”
“Mm.”
They were shown to a room with every luxury, furnished with gorgeous, gaudy items. The staff member urged them to sit, but they remained standing.
A little later, a man came in. “Ooh, you’re terrible! I thought I’d at least be given a glimpse of the sharingan. That’s why I took part! I can’t believe you didn’t even use it!”
Their interlocutor was an arms dealer. Sasuke had thought he would be a rather shady man, given what he had seen in Gato, but contrary to his expectations, this man was quite cheerful. He was perhaps around forty. Although he was tall with neat features, he ruined that with sunglasses of a strange design.
“You’re just awful, Orochimaruuu! And here I was taking part after who knows how many years. Being done in that quickly, well, it makes me lose some real face, doesn’t it?” The man fluttered about, whining, before shifting his gaze to Sasuke and smiling. “Hello! I’m Oyashiro En. A pleasure.”
Oyashiro extended a hand as if to shake Sasuke’s, but Sasuke did not respond. Even still, Oyashiro smiled like he was having a good time.
“Is this guy really Oyashiro En?” He was fairly different from what Sasuke had imagined.
But Orochimaru replied, “No mistake at all.”
“Ooh. And now I have to trade my precious Futsu with no compensation, hm? Well then, the contract—” Oyashiro began.
“There’s no need for that.” Sasuke stopped Oyashiro as he was about to press his seal against the contract that someone, apparently an intermediary, had brought.
“Oh? I wonder what that means?”
“There’s something I want to ask you,” Sasuke said.
Oyashiro snorted and settled deeply into a chair to one side. Then he urged Sasuke to continue. “Go ahead.”
“Do you know the Bright Lightning Group?”
Oyashiro’s eyes widened slightly behind his sunglasses. “I do. They came after my life any number of times.”
“Came after your life?”
“Yes. I mean, they just hate me.”
He had heard that Bright Lightning defeated crooked people, took their money, and distributed it to the poor. But did the reason they had ended up like that lie with Oyashiro?
“There’s a possibility their leader is kidnapping ninja, using genjutsu on them, and making them attack ninja villages. People have died.”
“Ooh! That really is just appalling behavior, even for Fushin.”
“Fushin?”
“That’s his name.”
So this was apparently the name of the leader of Bright Lightning.
“He was originally an outsider, that boy. I won him here, and he became part of my bodyguard detail. He was supposedly born in the Land of Water. That said, he’s not from the mainland where Kirigakure is, but rather one of the little islands around it, you see? The people of the island feared him, so he was sold and sent away when he was just a wee boy.”
“Sold and sent away?” Sasuke furrowed his brow.
“Isn’t that the way with kekkei genkai?” Oyashiro said. “For weak people, special powers are only something to be feared, you know? Just by being different, you’re suspect, people despise you, discriminate against you, and in the end, they try to get rid of you. It’s almost like you lose the fight the moment you’re born.”
Oyashiro’s eyes moved as if appraising Sasuke.
“I like them, though, kekkei genkai. I mean, after all, they’re strong, and that sense of rarity is nice, isn’t it? That’s why I bring all kinds together in my bodyguard detail. To increase the level of rarity, I’ve even had all but one person in a clan killed.”
He sounded like a child talking about his toys.
“Birth is birth, so many children push back against it. If I couldn’t use my medical ninjutsu, I would have starved, you see? Fushin was a relatively obedient boy, but one day, he suddenly took the other children and ran off. I do wonder why he ran away. I fed him every day; I even gave him pocket money. Well, when he ran off on me, that sort of spoiled the fun, and I stopped collecting kekkei genkai after that. They’re just hard to handle, you know? Kekkei genkai.”
Sasuke was chasing after a criminal who had attacked ninja villages, but he was starting to be uncertain about who was the bad one here.
“You’re a worthless human being.” The words came up out of him unconsciously.
Oyashiro narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses. “But Orochimaru helping you, you’ve got something rare here too. I wonder if you helped these people out?”
Now that he thought about it, Orochimaru had all kinds of rare experiment subjects. It wouldn’t be strange at all if he was taking advantage of this chance. When he killed Orochimaru that one time, he had freed the people imprisoned by him, but many had been sacrificed before that.
“Here’s what I think. If you look at it from the victim’s perspective, the perpetrator and a third party are the same. All the people who didn’t help them, they’re all lumped together. And you, now, are going to leave without stopping our little amusement. So? Are you not complicit, then? You can’t really say anything about anyone else.” Orochimaru’s words forced Sasuke into silence.
In the middle of the fight, Futsu had been concerned by someone’s gaze; he had probably been afraid of Orochimaru.
After thinking for a while, Sasuke made a decision.
“What kind of condition is your Futsu in?”
“Thanks to you, his life is in no danger.”
“So then, let me fight him again. I used my victory on information this time. I’ll win one more time, and liberate Futsu from your hands.”
Orochimaru had been sitting settled deep in his seat, but now he leaned forward. “Oh?”
“And the ones in the stands, too. I’ll take all comers. Anyone who wants the Uchiha eyes can just step up.” Sasuke swept out of the room.
“Oh my goodness! You’re all worked up, aren’t you?” Orochimaru said, teasing, as he followed after him.
“Shut up.”
“Are you really going to fight?”
Sasuke stopped and looked back at Orochimaru. “I’ll free them all.”
The discomfort he had felt in the stands. That had been from seeing the wealthy people gathered there, using the ninja not as people, but as mere tools. A tragedy brought about by this environment.
“I’ll end this soon enough.” So he would cut them loose.
The effect of the sharingan as bait was tremendous.
The rich patrons would do anything to get their hands on it; they inundated him, leaving him no chance to rest. However, he settled all the contests in a short period.
“What are you going to do with all these people?” Orochimaru asked, staring at the seals on the contracts.
Sasuke didn’t want to forcibly remove the ninja who actually adored their masters, but he did seek the freedom of most of them. “Yamato’s here somewhere, I assume. I’ll ask him to get Konoha to take them.”
Given that his role was to watch over Orochimaru, Yamato was probably hiding somewhere on the island.
Orochimaru laughed, delightedly. “He probably watched holding his head in his hands at the troublesome thing this has become.”
In order to consult with Yamato, Sasuke would have to leave Orochimaru temporarily.
“That was really something! And you didn’t let us see the sharingan in the end, either.” Oyashiro appeared behind him, but Sasuke kept his mouth shut. “Oh! Ha! Ignoring me! Surely we can talk just a little? As a thank you for you showing us something interesting, I am now in the mood to chat a little. … Perhaps about Fushin?”
Feeling some disgust at this apparently deliberate suggestive trick, Sasuke turned to look at Oyashiro.
“After Fushin left my mansion, all the residents of the island he was from were killed. After that, people avoided it; they said it was cursed. Finally, it ran wild, gradually disappearing from people’s memories.” Oyashiro smirked. “Doesn’t that sound like just the place for the missing Kirigakure ship?”
Sasuke gasped. “How much do you know?”
“It’s just imagination, just speculation. If you’ll indulge me in a little talk of my dreams, I’ll tell you where the island is.” Oyashiro called his attendant over and began to draw a map on a scroll.
“Does this mean it’s convenient for you if I take care of him?” Sasuke raised one eyebrow.
“Fushin’s killed all his owners before me. Well, even so, he did become a chivalrous thief, so it does seem that he wanted to be involved with people.” Oyashiro closed the scroll and handed it to Sasuke. “There was a time in the past when I seriously wanted to collect an Uchiha. It’s been an honor to meet you.”
Sasuke snatched the scroll out of his hand. “Once I take care of this, you’re next.”
The expression on his face unchanging, Oyashiro pushed his sunglasses up. “Sasuke, you should be careful of eyes.”
He probably meant the sharingan. Without replying, Sasuke turned his back on the man.