Chapter 26 Part 3
They lived here. Always had lived.
The trees.
The grass.
The streams.
They are here. They are always.
Sometimes, others come.
Bigger. Angrier.
Cruel.
But there are many of them. This is their home. Always home.
Sometimes, others come.
Strange ones. Big ones.
Restless ones.
They hide from them. Conceal themselves. Watch with curiosity. Sometimes play. Prank unseen.
Fun.
He is different. Big. Strange. But different.
Smell of the Sun.
He spoke with them. He played with them. He helped them.
Courteous. Good. Pleasant. Kind.
Friend.
Friend Who Smells of the Sun.
He was kind. Very kind. Played with them. Was courteous. He helped them. Helped much.
Sometimes, he asked. They helped him.
Such a trifle. Not hard. Pleasant to help.
Recently, Friend Who Smells of the Sun asked for their help. Friend Who Smells of the Sun wanted them to protect someone. Someone important to Friend Who Smells of the Sun.
Their home filled with many Restless People. They are noisy. Fussy.
Interesting. Curious.
So many of them. Very many. Who must they protect? They searched. They watched. They listened.
They found.
Angry Red-Eyed Woman. Noisy Yellow Woman. Funny Pink Man.
They smell of Friend Who Smells of the Sun. They have something from Friend Who Smells of the Sun.
They will help Friend Who Smells of the Sun.
They drove beasts away from those who smelled of Friend Who Smells of the Sun. Soothed the hungry plants. Warded off the angry insects.
But great trouble came.
Evil. Cruel. Frightening.
Disgusting. Vile.
Snake Woman. Evil Snake Woman in dead skin.
Alarming. Frightening.
Snake Woman hunted those who smelled of Friend Who Smells of the Sun. Herded them like game. Tormented with flying iron, summoned Wicked Snakes.
Loathsome. Frightening.
Evil.
Evil.
Those Who Smell of Friend Who Smells of the Sun tried to flee. They could not flee. They tried to fight Snake Woman. But Snake Woman was strong. They could not flee, they could not fight.
They will die.
Cannot. Impossible. Unacceptable. Intolerable.
Evil Snake Woman must not kill Those Who Smell of Friend Who Smells of the Sun!
They whispered. They reasoned.
They resolved.
They will protect Those Who Smell of Friend Who Smells of the Sun!
Orochi was having fun. Amusing little children, capable ones. At least two out of three. First, naturally, was the Uchiha. Oh, of course it was her! Just like her older sister. Ah, what a splendid specimen, Itachi Uchiha! Such a pity it had never worked out to acquire her for herself. Still, Sasuko wasn't quite as talented as Itachi, but Orochi could forgive that. On the other hand, she was younger and still had all her potential yet to unfold. A young, healthy body of an Uchiha clan member, its potential unspent. No matter how you looked at it, nothing but advantages! She would be an ideal vessel. It just needed to be "prepared" correctly, and then!..
But first, she should deal with the annoying fly.
"Kh... Pi-ss off, y-you viper-snake!" Naruko rasped, clutching Orochi's wrist with her hands. Even strangled with one arm, she kept trying to reach her enemy.
The second decent specimen, a blond nuisance who was already starting to grate. Two summoned snakes had proved insufficient to dispose of her, and all because she produced Shadow Clones on a truly industrial scale. With some effort, the White Snake's trained brain recalled something curious about her. Well now, she held a jinchuriki in her hands! It seemed her demon was still imprisoned, but its mere presence, apparently, had made the girl unusually tenacious and resilient. And Uzumaki blood, moreover... A pity, of course, that the Uzumaki had no genome worth extracting. Merely thinking about the list of possible experiments made Orochi lick her lips, predatory. Yes, such a pity... Though, of course, one could also examine the jinchuriki herself...
A kick to the face tore the woman from her sweet dreams of a cozy laboratory. It seemed someone didn't know when to stop! Twitching her cheek in irritation, the disguised woman squeezed her fingers, making her victim thrash erratically in a fit of suffocation. Naturally, she wouldn't kill the girl. It wasn't in the White Snake's interest to quarrel with that old woman. For the time being, so to speak. When the time came, she would destroy that flabby mummy too, but only once their collaboration ceased to be profitable.
"Naruko!!! Damn it, just die already, you monster!" The Uchiha shouted, furious, launching a dozen shuriken into the air. The throwing stars traced a wide arc, converging on the Sannin from two sides. It was indecently banal: Orochi didn't even shift from her spot. With a few swift motions, she deflected those flying directly at her body, and the rest she evaded by simply bending her body in the necessary places.
"Hm?.." Something suddenly caught Orochi's eye. "In the shadow?!"
The White Snake's eyes widened in surprise when, beneath the shuriken that had flown before her face, another one appeared. Their rotation was perfectly synchronized, so the second shuriken's presence had remained a secret until the very last moment. But that wasn't all: from the opposite side flew another shuriken to which Orochi hadn't paid much attention. But not anymore: colliding at the midpoint of their flight, all three shuriken ricocheted off one another and scattered in completely unexpected directions. Two embedded themselves in the Sannin's arm, and the third flew straight at her face!
"Kuu... not bad!" The White Snake internally commended the Uchiha's actions, managing at the last moment to catch the iron star between her teeth. "A sudden attack on an open zone from an unexpected position. That requires precise calculation and perfect kinetic vision... To pull that off in combat... Kuu! Yes, and all thanks to those eyes! Soon, very soon, they will become..."
fshh—BOOM!
The explosion that thundered engulfed Orochi's head in a cloud of smoke. The explosive tag, wrapped inside the shuriken's inner ring, had detonated. The disguised woman's body was hurled back against a tree, and the grip of her fingers, at last, released its victim.
"Naruko! Are you okay?!" Sakurai dashed up, barely catching the falling girl in time. Freed at last, the blonde curled in on herself, gasping for air.
"KHHHHhh!" Naruko coughed convulsively, spraying droplets of blood onto the young man's face. "Kh-khh-khh!!"
"J-just... I'll help now..." Haruno muttered, agitated, feverishly trying to recall which direction their former shelter lay. Because all their things were there, including the large first-aid kit. For... who-knows-how-long, the genin had been desperately darting around the area, trying to survive. "Sasuko-chan got the bastard! Now we'll get back, and—"
"Khu-ku-ku-kuuu!"
"Impossible! What kind of monster are you?!" Sasuko screamed, unwilling to believe it, as the body slumped against the tree rose and stood firmly on its feet. Their opponent's face was disfigured by the explosion and slashed by shrapnel. But they were still alive!
"How inventive. Yes, you're good! As expected of an Uchiha." The voice that sounded was different from before. The pitch, the timbre, all of it was different. And it no longer resembled a man's hoarse baritone in the slightest. "Just like your older sister! But that's not enough, ku-ku-kuuu... You're too weak!"
"You... who are you?!" The Uchiha cried, trembling. The press of dread and bloodlust bore down on the genin again. Their bodies, tormented by numerous shallow but plentiful wounds, refused to obey. But what shocked the girl most were the words spoken. Uchiha Sasuko's older sister, Uchiha Itachi. The one she had sworn to find and kill with her own hands. The mention struck Sasuko like a barbed whip.
"My name is Orochi." The "man" spoke, tearing off their disfigured face with a single motion. From beneath the scorched and bloodied flesh emerged pale, nearly perfectly white, and unnaturally smooth skin. "If you want to become stronger, you will find me. But for that, you must survive. This will be your personal exam. I'll spare you now, but soon, my people will arrive: shinobi of Sound. They will come with the intent to kill you. And if you surv—gh?!"
The White Snake's eyes flew open in surprise as, from the bark of the tree behind her back, flexible branches and thorny vines began rapidly sprouting. They lunged forward, predatory, constricting the woman's body in a death grip, while the grass that shot up instantly tangled her legs.
"What is this?! What?! Mokuton?! No, impossible! The only living specimen is!.." The Sannin's thoughts raced through her head, striving to find the source of the sudden attack, yet there was no one around except her and the genin. Nevertheless, the berserk plants continued their assault, turning the woman's body into a writhing cocoon of grass and wood. "Kuh! I've no time left for games!"
Forming a seal with her fingers, the White Snake activated her technique. Her elongating neck tore free from the wooden vise and shot straight toward the genin frozen in stupor.
"GAAH!!!" The Uchiha cried out in pain as sharp teeth sank into her neck, as if injecting a potent acid beneath her skin.
"You will seek me out yourself," the woman hissed, slithering free from the arboreal bonds like an eel. "To obtain greater power."
"AAAAAA!!!" Sasuko screamed from the agonizing pain, clawing at the bite mark with her fingers until they drew blood. The pain was so intense that the girl's mind simply could not endure it, and she found salvation in oblivion, losing consciousness. But even unconscious, her body continued to suffer the incredible torments inflicted by the Cursed Seal of Heaven, which, like a lethal contagion, was gnawing out a place for itself within her.
"Bii..."
HSHHH-BOOOM!
A branched lightning bolt struck the twisted cocoon of branches and vines! The wind spirits had teased their elder kin, the thunder spirits who frolic in the heavens. In answer to the offensive mockery, those had expressed their displeasure with a lightning discharge.
"Kuu! That was dangerous! What madness is happening in this accursed forest?!" The nukenin thought, irritated, having at the very last moment managed to dive into the earth with an "Underground Swimming" technique.
"Consider this my gift." The White Snake threw out, mocking. Surfacing from the ground at a decent distance from the genin, she continued her farewell speech as if nothing had happened, slowly dissolving into the surrounding darkness. "Struggle, Uchiha! Fight for your life! Survive! And seek me out! Ku-ku-ku-ku-kuuuu..."
Orochi vanished, leaving behind only darkness and the sound of rain. The sole one remaining conscious, Sakurai glanced around, hunted, searching for danger. The young man was utterly shattered, bewildered, stunned, and demoralized by the events of this long night.
"What do I do?! Kami-sama, what am I supposed to do?.." The wounded teenager whispered, lost, in shock. Both his comrades were out of commission; a terrifying man/woman/thing had nearly killed them and then tossed them aside, as if bored with the game. And Haruno Sakurai simply didn't know what to do.
Somewhere overhead, lightning flashed. The rain was slowly turning into a downpour.
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Thanks for reading the chapter!
I started a new translation and I would be very happy if you decided to check out my new translation for a rather rare fandom. It's a crossover based on Mondaiji (Problem Children Are Coming from Another World, Aren't They?)
This story has a somewhat similar style to my other translation for this fandom (same author, after all), but it's completely different from any other fanfic I've come across for this fandom! It's set thousands of years before the original novel/anime, and the MC literally plays a part in shaping the backstory of this world. I really enjoyed it—hope you will too!
Mondaiji: I Really Didn't Want to Become God https://www.webnovel.com/book/36945944200410205