Wearing his everyday Kimono, Orochimaru wandered through the major towns of the Land of Water, in search of anything that might interest him.
Because of Sasori, he can't leave the Land of Water as per their original plan, and because there is close to no enemy in the Land of Water that would require both him and Sasori to act at the same time to deal with, therefore he obviously didn't stay with Sasori.
The turmoil in the Mist Village has been going for quite a while now, and this turmoil has exhausted most of the vitality of the Mist Village.
Several of the Shinobi Clans with strong and famous Kekkei Genkai like Kaguya Clan is destroyed, Yuki Clan too is near destruction with the rest of the members alive living in fear and suppressing their Kekkei Genkai, even Hozuki Clan has very few of the shinobi left.
Most of the ninjas of the Mist Village defects because of the turmoil which has even led the Mist Village to create a special Hunter-nin unit in its Anbu department.
The 'Village of the Bloody Mist' has been too harmful to this shinobi Village.
The only good thing for the Land of water is that they are in an isolated state, surrounded by water, and neighboring Konoha Village and Cloud Village have their own issues to deal with in the peace talks so they simply don't have enough energy to turn towards the Mist Village, otherwise, even the survival of Mist village would become difficult.
As Orochimaru was passing through a street, a burly man carrying a sharp sword, stepped in his way and said with a crazy expression, "Hand over all the money you have!"
Seeing the person in front of him, Orochimaru stretched out his tongue and licked his lips playfully, as he said in a mocking tone, "An idiot who doesn't even realize what's good for him! It's really sad."
The burly man was furious at being mocked and raised his sword high to show Orochimaru who's the Boss!
… Ding…
However, before he can even strike at the person in front of him, the Sword in his hand fell on the ground, following which he also fell on the ground with foam coming off his mouth.
At this moment all he could see was a small green snake, thinner than a finger had bitten on his throat.
The snake crawled through his body and went back to Orochimaru who neither glanced at him nor did he take out his hands from the pockets of his Kimono from the beginning to the end and walked past him.
The burly man was already dead.
Orochimaru naturally didn't care.
Orochimaru continued to stroll around the Land of Water, in his travel, there were very few people who dare to make trouble with him because even the most incompetent ninjas could feel Orochimaru's Cold and vicious aura.
Only some of the most ignorant civilians would dare to step forward in front of him looking for death.
Passing through a corner, Orochimaru suddenly stopped and his gaze was directed towards a garbage pile on the corner of the street.
At the side of the garbage dump, a young child wearing dirty & torn rags was breaking the mouldy piece of bread into small crumbs and distributing them to a few skinny street cats that sat around him and affectionately nudged him or licked his cheeks.
Orochimaru was a little interested as he noticed that although the child was very young and extremely skinny, he has a good chakra, really good for his age.
Licking his lips, Orochimaru walked slowly towards the garbage dump.
The sudden arrival of Orochimaru terrified the child. He curled up in fear and wanted to run away from the dangerous aura he felt from the person, but thinking of the small cats that were trembling in panic, the child gritted his teeth and opened his arm in their protection.
Orochimaru curiously looked at the child's action, as he noticed the few pieces of bread crumbs lying on the side of skinny cats.
After a little stare competition, Orochimaru asked, "What is your name?"
Although fearful, the child replied meekly, "H-Haku!"
Orochimaru was a little thoughtful, he glanced at Haku's eyes, only to notice innocence and kindness within them, shaking his head in disappointment, he turned and started walking away.
Orochimaru can clearly see that the child is suffering from hunger and malnutrition, but he is still giving away all the food he has to the street cats.
Even if he has good chakra, that kindness in those eyes makes the kid unsuitable to be a ninja, that have to be heartless, so he left the kid to his own devices this is Orochimaru's twisted kindness for the innocent child.
But after taking just a few steps, he suddenly stopped and thought of the child named Jugo whom he took under his wing not very long ago.
Jogo is a child that can absorb Natural Energy, as such he is helpful for Orochimaru's research of the Cursed Seal.
Looking at Haku, Orochimaru murmured, "Such a pure child might be able to carry the power of Cursed Seal, he might even be able to harness Natural Energy for the Sage Mode."
While Orochimaru was considering this, Sasori appeared at his side.
Sasori slightly glanced at Haku, who was more horrified by the presence of both Orochimaru and Sasori, but Sasori didn't care about the other party's vigilance and directly turned towards Orochimaru as he stated, "Let's go, the target I am looking for has finally appeared!"
Orochimaru smiled slightly breaking through his thoughts and asked, "Are you certain you are looking for a person, not a corpse?"
Gritting his teeth, Sasori stated, "I will turn him into a corpse myself!"
Orochimaru rarely sees Sasori so annoyed, so he asked casually, "Who are you looking for anyway? I don't have time to run around with you."
"It's a ninja of your Konoha Village!"
…
Land of Wind
With Yamada's assistance, Kuroto finally found the traces of the descendants of the Roran citizens after a whole month of search.
Turning over to a sand dune, Yamada pointed at the oasis at the far end, and said to Kuroto, "The survivor of Roran that you are Looking for is there Mr. Mu."
As Kuroto looked over, he saw a circle of caravans parked around the small oasis. Some people were coming and going around it doing various tasks, like fetching water, looking after camels and sheep, some were involved in the cooking job, and etc., etc.
Kuroto frowned when he saw them and asked in a confused manner, "Why are there so few people in their tribe?"
The entire population of the tribe was three hundred people roughly, which is too less compared to his expectations.
Although there weren't many survivors left, they shouldn't be so few.
A local guide that a grass ninja found during their search hurriedly explained to Kuroto, "Ever since they abandoned the Roran City, the people of Roran have lost their livelihood, and most of their people died in their travels. These are the only ones left!"
Kuroto asked the guide, "Even if these people didn't settle in any town or another permanent settlement, were their lives so miserable?"
The guide shook his head, he was going to explain something, but suddenly something caught his attention and he pointed in that direction, "Look there Mr. Mu, and you'll understand the cause."
Kuroto and other Grass ninja looked in the direction where the guide pointed only to see two Sand ninjas came to the camp around the Oasis and started some sort of negotiations with the people.
The two sides naturally appeared to be discontent with this, and after a short quarrel, the two ninjas of the Sand village left the camp and gradually disappeared.
Kuroto asked, "So, why did the Sand ninjas appear here?"
The guide said with some pity in his words, "All I have heard is that the Sand Village is imposing taxes on the Roran Survivors. The two Sand ninjas should have been here for collecting the taxes."
After a little bit of thinking, Kuroto understood Sand Village's intentions.
How much tax amount could Sand Village obtain from a small nomadic tribe that has its own troubles in survival?
Tax collection is just an excuse to monitor the remnants of the Roran Survivors. Additionally, the Kazekage would have probably hoped that by succumbing to the economic pressure the people of Roran would move to the Sand Village.
If this happens, Sand Village can legally claim the Dragon Vein.
Kuroto shook his head with a sigh, he doesn't care about the small movements from the side of Sand Village.
It is natural for Kazekage to do such things for the sake of Sand Village, not to mention he would also be worried about the presence of such huge amounts of Chakra.
In fact, it would be too abnormal if he didn't do such things.
When Kuroto broke out of his thoughts, the Grass Jonin Yamada asked, "Mr. Mu, do I need to go over and check for the specific person you are searching for?"
Kuroto shook hid dismissively, "No need, just locating them is enough."
Yamada asked, "In that case, what about the task?"
Kuroto nodded, and directly handed over the leftover amount along with the seal of approval of the successful completion…
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