“Leave it to me,” Yamato said, stiffening up when Sasuke entrusted him with the freed shinobi. “I’m no stranger to this either, after all.”
In these words, uttered so nonchalantly, Sasuke felt like he had caught a glimpse of the other man’s strange constitution and checkered destiny.
When you make these kinds of connections, you learn about the other person, and the world inside you gets just a little bit bigger. He keenly felt this link, and Naruto naturally came to mind.
Naruto had grown up as a ninja, supported by all kinds of people. Just how big exactly was his “world?” What would happen in the future Naruto was aiming for?
Sasuke thought of himself. About exactly what he wanted to see happen there. But it was hard to look into the future with these eyes that had stared only into the darkness for so long. And as he traveled the world like this, those eyes only picked up on the darkness in people. But he couldn’t just stand still, either.
Sasuke left Orochimaru and headed to the forgotten island by himself. He himself honestly didn’t know for whose sake, or what purpose. He just had the feeling deep in his heart that he had to resolve this matter.
He checked Oyashiro’s map and strained his eyes. “Is that it?”
A small island came into view in the middle of the ocean. There was a mountain in the center of it, surrounded by forest. Rotting houses lined the coast; there was no sign of human life.
But Sasuke’s eyes caught it. A boat anchored at the island’s port. Big enough for a hundred people, probably. He looked at the ship with his sharingan, and discovered the mark of Kirigakure carved into it.
“So that’s the missing ship.” He looked at the island once again with the sharingan. “There.”
Beyond the rotting village, in the woods, there was a human aura.
Kneading his chakra, Sasuke got out of the boat and stood on the waves. The aura disappeared, and he quietly approached the island.
First, the Kirigakure ship. He kicked at the waves, and leapt onto the ship’s deck. There was no sign of any struggle. Not a drop of blood had been spilled there. He jumped down from the ship, and landed on the port. There were several other boats tied up there. But unlike the Kirigakure ship, they were basically all small boats.
“The Kirigakure ship stands out. Did they anchor it here and move around in the smaller boats?”
He went through the port and walked around the desolate village. Perhaps the houses had been hit by a storm; all the roofs had been blown off, and the windows and doors had also been destroyed. He passed through the village, and was faced with the woods spreading out before him. The forest was hot and humid, making his skin sticky. The trees were twisted, and enormous flowers grew in abundance; the place was difficult to move through.
But he felt the presence of another person up ahead. He brushed aside the vines, and stared ahead intently.
He saw someone lying in his path of progress in the center of the woods. And not just one person; there were several. Right beside them were two people apparently keeping watch.
His eyes were already sharingan. Sasuke took a short breath, and approached them, preparing those eyes.
“Who’s there?!” One of the guards looked around to try and spot Sasuke.
But this was actually good for Sasuke. He caught his opponent in a genjutsu with the sharingan. The man fell easily, and Sasuke leapt over his body to close the distance to the other man, who was weaving signs.
“Ngah!” The man brandished a fist. Sasuke couldn’t let it touch him. He intuited this instantly, stepped on a root popping out of the ground, and leapt in the exact opposite direction from the one he had been proceeding in.
The man’s fist cut through the air in vain, and punched the ground.
Boom! A huge explosion echoed through the woods, and the fist gouged out a hole in the ground. The technique resembled the Explosive Style Deidara of Akatsuki had used when they fought in the past.
“… In which case …”
Sasuke pulled out a kunai, infused it with chakra, and flung it at his opponent.
“Ngh! Lighting Style?” The kunai plunged into the man’s arm, and the chakra contained in his fist disappeared like it was fleeing. The man tried to pull the blade out, but before he could, Sasuke closed in on him and launched a roundhouse kick at his head.
“Hnrk!” The man bounced back against the earth. Sasuke looked down on him, and caught him with the sharingan. And with that, both of the guards were unable to move.
Sasuke ran over to the ninja lying on the ground, clad in the uniforms of Kiri and Kumo. They were breathing, but they were sleeping like the dead, not so much as twitching. According to Kakashi’s letter, the people who attacked Konoha had had foreign chakra flowing through their bodies. Sasuke used his sharingan to check inside these ninja.
“None … hm.” He couldn’t seem to find any of the foreign chakra Kakashi wrote about. Sasuke tried a counter-genjutsu on the Kirigakure ninja before him.
“Mm … Unh.” The Kirigakure ninja regained consciousness. “Wh-where …”
“Can you do a counter-genjutsu?” Sasuke asked.
The man, dazed, pressed a hand to his forehead. “Counter-genjutsu?”
“You were captured and placed in a genjutsu.”
“Oh, ohh. … Right. I was on watch on deck … and then this small boat approached us …” the man said, seemingly remembering as he spoke.
“Tell me later. Our priority right now is to get away from here,” Sasuke said.
The man looked at his surroundings. He caught sight of his comrades lying next to him and finally seemed to understand the situation. “C-counter-genjutsu, right? I can do that.” He moved to undo the genjutsu cast on his comrades.
“Aaah!” the Kiri ninja suddenly cried out as a small chakra sword pierced his body, sending blood scattering. “O-ow!” He pressed a hand to the left side of his chest and squatted down like he was going to fall on top of his comrades. Someone had thrown the blade at him from behind.
Sasuke felt a gentle breeze from that chakra sword. He had encountered this before.
“I never thought I’d see you again in a place like this.” A man emerged from the woods. He had a relaxed demeanor and a familiar voice.
“… It can’t have actually been you …” Standing before Sasuke was the ninja he had met in the village of Takeno, Nowaki. And behind him, with an indecipherable expression on her face, was Chino.
“What do you mean, ‘It can’t have actually been you?’” Nowaki asked.
“You’re the former leader of Bright Lightning, and now the one making the ninja under genjutsu attack shinobi villages, Fushin,” Sasuke said.
Nowaki pulled another chakra sword out of his bag, putting Sasuke immediately on guard, but he simply cut his own wrist with the tip of the sword. Ignoring the blood spilling out, he cut the opposite wrist as well.
Sasuke gasped.
Nowaki began to grow lumpy and transform. Once muscular, his body now became slender, and he shrank slightly as well, becoming a slender youth, about the same height as Sasuke.
Sasuke stared at the blood that had spilled out. He sensed a strange chakra in that blood. Perhaps the young man had released a special chakra into his blood and transformed his body. So, had he applied this technique to create human beings who exploded when they received an external injury?
“I thought this might turn into a hassle when we met you in Takeno. Even though I managed to kill Karyu, who had a real possibility of being linked with me.” Nowaki cracked his neck.
“You’re going to spill everything—right here, right now.”
“Am I, though?”