Uchiha's personal opinion

"...What are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

Orochimaru's initial embarrassment quickly faded, and he said expressionlessly, "The village is currently exterminating unlicensed summoning beasts. If you don't want to die, don't come here on your own..."

"What license! What the hell is this license?! I am a direct descendant of Ryuchi-dong! Do you expect me to go through the blood-draining process to get a license like those lowly ninja cats and dogs?!"

"Wishful thinking! I'd rather never come to Konoha again! Even if I'm caught and chopped to death, I'd never get these shameful licenses!"

The little snake continued its relentless and angry rant.

"Keep your voice down... It's already night. If you disturb someone and the police come knocking, you'll be in big trouble!"

Orochimaru said with a frown.

"Sla~"

The little snake continued flicking its tongue, but its voice was noticeably lower, several octaves lower, "I'm not afraid of those red-eyed demons! I am a direct descendant of the Dragon Cave! A descendant of immortals!"

"...Your strength is too weak, you still need to be careful."

After Orochimaru easily shifted the focus, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Otherwise, the experimental tables and scalpels of the Uzumaki Research Institute will be your only refuge in Konoha..."

At this point, Orochimaru suddenly realized that although the little flower snake in front of him was weak, it was still a direct descendant of the White Snake Sage!

So... does it have Sage Chakra?

Do you have Sage Chakra?

Orochimaru couldn't help but stick out his tongue and wash his face, his vertical pupils glowing green as he stared intently at the little snake.

"What...isn't that something that all Ryuchi Cave bloodlines have?"

The little snake paused for a moment, then replied, "I'll have it when I grow up..."

"But most of the snakes in Ryuchi Cave don't even have chakra, let alone Sage Chakra!"

Orochimaru's heart skipped a beat, and he asked in a deliberately questioning tone.

"What are those trash compared to the noble bloodline of Ryuchi Cave? A bunch of reptiles can never compare to the noble bloodline of Ryuchi Cave!"

The little snake shook its triangular head, seemingly looking down on other snakes.

"...Is that so?"

Orochimaru seemed to be deep in thought.

Then why are the bloodlines of these so-called sacred land spirit beasts superior to those of snakes? Are heredity and ancestral blessings really that important?

Suddenly, Orochimaru felt a little annoyed.

But adults can still control their impulses. Orochimaru looked at the little snake again and asked, "Who let you come here?"

This was purely Orochimaru asking a question he already knew the answer to. In fact, if it weren't for the power of the so-called Three Goddesses of Ryuchi Cave or even the White Snake Sage, the other snakes from Ryuchi Cave wouldn't have been able to come to Konoha without him using a summoning jutsu.

"Princess Tianxin asked me to inform you that the White Snake Immortal wants to see you in three days. Be prepared!"

The little snake flicked its tongue and said, "I've already come all this way to deliver a message to you, where are the eggs? Where's the monkey heart? Bring them to me right now!"

Orochimaru, expressionless, tossed a few fresh, sterile eggs to the little snake to send it away, then returned to the living room to sit quietly in a daze.

Although he was in the dark, Orochimaru's eyes shone as if they were coated with a dye like luminous sand, though they appeared somewhat sinister and vicious when he squinted.

"If we could fuse the Sage Chakra of Mount Myōboku and Ryūchi Cave together..."

……

The Fire Gate Shogunate of the Grass Country.

The first thing Uchiha Himon did after waking up was to change into a Jonin uniform inlaid with armor plates and then go to the training ground to begin his daily basic training.

Around 10 a.m., Uchiha Hamon returned to the Shogun's office to begin handling official business.

Nine years have passed since I left Konoha in the thirtieth year of my life.

Over the course of those nine years, Uchiha Himon gradually came to regard the Land of Grass as his second home and wholeheartedly believed that this relatively poor country was the promised land of the Uchiha clan, a place to change the fate of his clan members being ostracized. Therefore, he did his best to hope that every clan member who was sent to guard the land could stay and spread the family line.

Even the conservative members of the Uchiha clan who had been exiled by Uchiha Tokumitsu were treated with the same attitude, and he hoped that they would stay and work with him to establish a branch of the Uchiha clan in the Land of Grass.

However, with the rapid rise of the Tokukō Shogunate in the Land of Whirlpools and even the Land of Water, the Land of Grass began to lose its appeal. In addition, the Tokukō Red Guards, which were originally stationed there, were mobilized on a large scale to fight, and fewer and fewer Uchiha clansmen were willing to choose to stay in the Land of Grass.

However, after Uchiha Tokumitsu killed the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi and completely dismantled the Hokage's forces, the Grass Country's original advantage as one of the two small countries controlled by the Uchiha clan, as a secluded paradise, vanished, and its appeal to the clan members was greatly weakened once again.

What troubled Uchiha Himon the most was that the conservative clansmen kept coming to him every day, demanding to end their "long-term stationing mission" and apply to return to the village.

What long-term stationing mission!

In Uchiha Himon's understanding, it was clearly exile! And a permanent exile with no end in sight! He had only used a seemingly neutral term to save face for these ungrateful clansmen, but why were they still so ungrateful?

"Knock knock!"

A government ninja gently knocked on the office door and then carried in a stack of documents.

"It's those same guys submitting the applications again?"

Uchiha Hamon frowned when he saw the application form at the top and the familiar name.

"Yes……"

The government official ninja chuckled twice, put down the documents, and quickly left.

Although his mother was a member of the Uchiha clan, she did not have any obvious Uchiha characteristics, nor was she proficient in Fire Release, and the Sharingan was completely out of the question, so she was not given the surname; naturally, she was also unwilling to get involved in the internal affairs of the Uchiha clan.

Uchiha Hamon casually picked up a document from a conservative clansman's application to return to the village. He glanced through it and found it was the same old story, the only difference being a changed application date. Annoyed, he tossed the document aside.

He casually flipped through the pile of texts waiting to be processed and found that nearly half of them were applications from his clansmen, which made him even more annoyed.

"A bunch of lazy bums!"

Uchiha Himon cursed and swore.

After thinking for a while, Uchiha Himon picked up the application form and wrote two words neatly.

"turn down!"

After finishing other matters, Uchiha Himon summoned the administrative ninja and handed over the completed documents for him to process.

The government ninja seemed unsurprised to see the "rejected" mark on the application, and after tidying up a bit, prepared to leave.

"and many more!"

Uchiha Himon suddenly called out to him as if he had just remembered something.

Then, all the conservative clan members who had returned to the village to apply were extracted from the pile of texts, and a paragraph was added to each of them:

"Send them to garrison a city in the eastern part of the Rain Kingdom!"

Then, after thinking for a moment, he added, "The deployment period is six months!"

Rather than having them spend all day in the Shogunate performing patrol duties, it would be better to send them to the Land of Rain, which the Uchiha ninjas hate the most, to rot away!

"That's settled, go and get it done!"

Uchiha Himon said with satisfaction.

The political ninja was taken aback when he saw the reply signed by Uchiha Himon, but quickly regained his composure.

He was secretly thinking to himself, "Those guys... they're really in deep trouble!"

Chapter 313 Piercing the Heart: The So-Called Holy Land Status

This is the second time Orochimaru has received an invitation from his contracted "holy land".

In the past, Orochimaru had generally kept a certain distance from Ryuchi Cave, except when he would summon snake-like summoning beasts such as Manda to assist him in battle.

The reason is simple: for Orochimaru, the process of unexpectedly obtaining the summoning contract scroll from Ryuchi Cave and making his first trip to Ryuchi Cave after signing the contract was not exactly a pleasant experience.

The belligerent, bloodthirsty, and ruthless snake-like summoning beasts of Ryuchi Cave are hardly a summoning beast partner that can support and help each other succeed. Therefore, Orochimaru and Ryuchi Cave are merely in a state of mutual exploitation. Even when summoning Manda, which has participated in the most battles, Orochimaru still needs to offer sacrifices to make it work.

However, Orochimaru was quite suspicious of Ryuchi Cave's recent attitude.

He clearly remembered that when he first learned about the existence of such a bug-level technique as Sage Arts, he had asked the White Snake Sage of Ryuchi Cave for it. However, after being bitten by the White Snake Sage, the venom injected by the fangs almost killed Orochimaru, causing him to fall into the snake's mouth. This experience left him with lingering fear of "Ryuchi Cave Sage Arts".

But when he accepted the White Snake Sage's summons to Ryuchi Cave the last time, the great white snake's attitude seemed to have changed again... at least it seemed to treat him like a normal person.

But could there be some other meaning or intention behind this? Due to limited information, Orochimaru couldn't determine anything further for the time being.

"An outlier is an outlier..."

Inside the Konoha Internal Affairs Department's directly affiliated research institute, Orochimaru absentmindedly fiddled with the test tubes and measuring cups on the lab table, still pondering the White Snake Sage's invitation to a meeting that the little flower snake from Ryuchi Cave had mentioned two days ago.

The other staff members in the laboratory were somewhat surprised.

Orochimaru, who is always so engrossed in his experiments, actually had a day when he was distracted and slacking off... It's like the sun rose in the west!

It's important to know that since the research institute directly under the Ministry of Internal Affairs is a public institution, the funds in its accounts come from the village's public funds. In addition, Uchiha Tokumitsu has relatively lax control over the use of such funds. Therefore, both the Uzumaki researchers and the original experimental personnel who were recruited like to create various pretexts to use public funds to start some boundless research projects for themselves and do some private work. Among them, Orochimaru has the most tricks for making money!

Orochimaru usually either stays in his own laboratory entertaining himself without going out, or he comes to the public research institute to slack off and make some extra money on the side. He basically doesn't have much free time, so no one has ever seen Orochimaru so lazy.

"What's wrong with Orochimaru, the Jonin?"

"He probably suffered some kind of blow..."

"Perhaps it's related to Jiraiya being listed as a rogue ninja~"

"...It's said that the two of them have an extraordinary relationship in private! Jiraiya even stayed at Orochimaru's Jonin house for over a month and didn't want to leave!"

Before long, all sorts of rumors spread throughout the entire research institute. Whether it was the newly arrived Vortex researchers or the existing experimenters, everyone was secretly discussing it, and the topics became more and more outrageous.

"Listen to me! The eldest son of my seventh aunt's classmate's neighbor works in the police department! I got reliable information from her!"

A lab worker with a gossipy look on his face squeezed through and mumbled something mysterious.

"...I don't think your family has any connection to the Uchiha clan, even for eight generations! And you call yourself a police department!"

Another researcher who knew him well disdainfully exposed his arrogance.

"Hey! Who says the police department has to be made up of Uchiha ninjas? Don't you know it's been reformed now?"

The gossip lab technician retorted defiantly, "This information came directly from Inspector Minato Namikaze, currently the most popular officer in the police department!"

"Explain in detail!"

Immediately, a group of idle people became interested.

Whether they were Uzumaki ninjas, Uchiha ninjas who came to participate in the apprenticeship, or old-timers from the laboratory, they all stared at the gossipy lab technician with shining eyes.