"I need to move faster…"
Orochimaru did not linger. His figure blurred into a streaking shadow once more, accelerating toward the Land of Grass. His hoarse voice drifted through the wind.
"I can't let my little treasure… be claimed by someone else first. Heh heh heh…"
The venomous serpent had already marked the not-yet-fully-grown "Demon Child" Karin as prey—his most precious experimental subject and source of power.
On the Heavenly Curtain, the scene followed Karin.
After completing a bloody pursuit, she stood alone on a field strewn with corpses. Dark red blood soaked her from head to toe. She looked like an asura returned from hell.
Yet she did not continue killing aimlessly.
Suddenly, she turned her head sharply.
Her red eyes—burning with hatred and annihilation—locked onto a specific direction.
It was as if she had sensed something.
A flicker of confusion and caution crossed her face. Then she began walking swiftly toward that point.
But when she arrived—
There was nothing.
Only wind stirring dry grass.
She paused, focusing as if trying to detect a lingering presence.
Nothing.
At last, she abandoned the search.
Without hesitation, she leapt into a nearby river. The current swallowed her small form, and she vanished beneath the surface.
Somewhere in the Shinobi World
"Yes! That's the spot!" White Zetsu waved his arms animatedly as he reported to the masked man seated atop a rock—Uchiha Obito.
"She almost noticed me back then! Good thing I slipped away fast! When she jumped into the river, she disappeared—I lost her!"
Obito listened silently.
Behind the spiral-patterned mask, his expression was unreadable. He gave only a faint nod.
But within, he was anything but calm.
Ever since the Heavenly Curtain revealed fragments of the Uchiha massacre—pointing directly at Konoha's elders and Danzō—Obito had felt an unprecedented sense of danger.
He had immediately tightened his concealment measures, severing unnecessary connections and hiding like a startled bird.
He was afraid.
If the Curtain could expose truths so deeply buried…
Would it one day reveal him?
Uchiha Obito—the man hiding behind the name "Uchiha Madara," orchestrator of the Nine-Tails' attack, architect of chaos in the shadows.
The thought unsettled him deeply.
Worse still, the shinobi world was spiraling beyond his calculations.
The Heavenly Curtain.
Divine techniques.
The serpent incident.
The Order of Divine Knights.
Now a mysterious force capable of instantly transforming a child into a village-destroying Demon Child.
Variables beyond his comprehension were multiplying, unraveling the carefully woven threads of his plan.
"A world with Rin…"
That dream—the sole reason he endured, the justification for destroying everything—now seemed distant.
Small.
Almost absurd.
For the first time, doubt seeped into his convictions.
What was real?
What was illusion?
Where was his path leading now?
He sat in silence, staring at the river where Karin had disappeared.
The waters of this world were too deep.
Deep enough to make even a self-proclaimed puppet master feel suffocated.
Back to the Heavenly Curtain
Karin emerged from the river.
The blood was gone.
She looked clean again—almost ordinary.
But in her red eyes lingered a depthless coldness, far older than her years.
She began wandering the shinobi world like a drifting ghost.
She was not harmless.
Any wandering shinobi, thug, mercenary—or even an entire bandit camp—that displayed hostility toward her, or merely irritated her, could find themselves abruptly "purified."
Killing had become routine.
Or perhaps—
A way to fill the emptiness within.
One day, after eradicating a group of bandits foolish enough to attempt robbing her, she sat casually atop their still-warm corpses, eating food she had taken from their hideout.
Then—
A figure appeared at the edge of her vision.
Silent as a phantom.
"Orochimaru!!"
Across the shinobi world, countless viewers uttered the name at once.
And many nodded knowingly.
"So this is where they meet."
"It all leads here. She follows Orochimaru, and eventually joins Sasuke's Team Taka."
"Bloody path—but the trajectory seems to return to 'normal.'"
On the screen, Orochimaru observed the surreal scene before him.
A delicate red-haired girl sat calmly among scattered corpses, eating without a care. The air was thick with the stench of blood.
Even for someone as seasoned as him, surprise flickered through his golden, serpentine eyes.
He studied her carefully.
That absolute indifference toward life.
This was no ordinary child.
Karin merely lifted her gaze.
She could sense that the man before her was strong. Dangerous.
But that was all.
She displayed no fear. No curiosity.
She looked at him once—
Then lowered her head and continued eating.
As if Orochimaru's presence mattered less than the food in her hands.
Being utterly ignored did not anger him.
On the contrary, it deepened his interest.
"Heh heh heh…"
Orochimaru chuckled softly, voice hoarse and coaxing.
"Little girl… it's dangerous to wander alone."
"And eating atop corpses… what an impressive appetite."
Karin's response?
Complete indifference.
She didn't even bother looking up again.
To her, he was nothing more than passing wind.
Orochimaru's smile widened.
"Heh heh heh… How interesting."
The curiosity in his eyes grew darker.
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