At the Root base, Danzo remained standing in the same spot as st time, like a statue.

  If not for the fact that he was certain the man wasn’t insane, Shirohebi might have suspected he had been standing there since their st meeting without moving an inch.

  "Under the cover of the leaves, weaving through the night in the forest, the snake strikes with venomous fangs, hunting one prey after another," Danzo's single eye revealed a trace of kindness and warmth.

  "I hear you've run into some trouble."

  Shirohebi: ?

  What’s with this act, trying to be like Sarutobi Hiruzen? His character doesn’t fit at all.

  Shirohebi politely responded, "Yes, the source of my spiritual energy has encountered a problem."

  "Oh?" Danzo appeared surprised, though his expression remained unchanged.

  "I see. This is indeed a tricky issue. But fortunately, I happen to have a solution."

  After Danzo spoke, the air fell silent.

  Nearly two minutes passed before Danzo seemed to lose patience and added, "Would you like to know what the solution is?"

  Behind his mask, Shirohebi’s expression was one of disdain.

  If I said I didn’t want to know, would this old man just make up some random story?

  "Yes."

  "I can give you this solution, but what can you offer in return?" Danzo squinted his one eye, his expression turning cold and stern once again.

  Shirohebi was left puzzled, unable to figure out the purpose behind his earlier show of kindness.

  Was he testing if he could earn loyalty with a smile, like the old monkey?

  "You saved my life, so everything I have is yours," Shirohebi said respectfully.

  "Even if... it affects your loyalty to Orochimaru?" Danzo took a step forward, the pressure of his superior status weighing heavily on Shirohebi’s shoulders.

  Shirohebi feigned hesitation, raising a hand to wipe away the nonexistent sweat from his brow beneath the mask.

  "This…"

  If Danzo really can save me, forget betraying Orochimaru. I’d betray even the great snake without a second thought.

  But the question is, can he?

  Shirohebi’s feigned uncertainty seemed to please Danzo.

  If Shirohebi, who was so loyal to Orochimaru, had immediately agreed to his offer, Danzo would have found it suspicious.

  "You can think it over, but don’t take too long. From what I know, patients with this condition typically have less than a year to live after their next episode."

  Danzo added more pressure, and before Shirohebi could respond, he immediately shifted the topic.

  If Shirohebi were an ordinary person, he would have deeply regretted not agreeing to Danzo’s offer right away.

  "I also came to you for another matter, which involves Iwa's spy."

  He tossed a photograph onto the table. It showed a young woman with dark blue-bck hair.

  "Kei-moku, a descendant of the hero who contributed during the Second Great Ninja War. Yet, somehow, she has aligned herself with Iwa—pitiful and ughable."

  Shirohebi gnced at the photo. He recognized the person.

  He had seen her during the capture of the Iwa spy.

  "After the Iwa spy was arrested, this person’s actions became increasingly suspicious. Finally, today, she managed to escape the vilge during the shift change at the Konoha vilge gate.

  "Your task is to kill her before Hiruzen, the former Hokage’s ANBU, finds her."

  While Konoha generally preferred a soft approach toward the descendants of those who had contributed to the vilge, even a traitor like Kei-moku would typically face only fifteen years in prison and the loss of her ninja status.

  Danzo clearly didn’t want a traitor to have such a soft ending.

  Even if this might anger his old friend, so what?

  Orochimaru was about to repce the te Minato Namikaze, who had died a year ago in the Nine-Tails attack, as the Fifth Hokage. Danzo and Orochimaru naturally shared the same views on traitors in Konoha.

  "I’m at your service, Danzo-sama," Shirohebi said, though he didn’t change his title, his tone and actions now far more respectful than before.

  Danzo nodded, satisfied with his manipution, "Go, quickly. I trust in your abilities."

  Shirohebi immediately set off, following Danzo’s instructions, with the help of Root members, "discreetly" leaving the vilge.

  Leaving the vilge "discreetly" meant a departure so secretive that even the Hokage wouldn’t know about it—it was more like a defection.

  Once outside the vilge, Shirohebi entered the forest and, following his memory, swiftly moved toward the Land of Earth.

  His speed was fast; he didn’t stop for three full hours until he needed a break.

  "Not a single person followed me," Shirohebi muttered, rubbing his palm where he had prepared explosive cy.

  His backup pn had been unnecessary, wasting some cy.

  He pulled out a kunai and casually ran it along his fingers, quickly forming hand signs.

  "Summoning Jutsu."

  He spped his palm to the ground, and smoke billowed up. A sparrow calmly stood at the center of the smoke, occasionally preening its feathers.

  There was no chakra emanating from it, almost like a normal bird.

  But the sparrow was a little unusual. Its body was marked with bck stitch-like scars, as if it had been torn apart and then stitched back together.

  Shirohebi took out a piece of paper from his ninja tool pouch and, using blood, quickly wrote a message:

  "Fire, joy, gold, hurry!"

  The paper was just big enough for these words, but any reader would understand its meaning.

  He slipped the note into the sparrow's leg scroll and sent it off.

  That's right, the direction he was headed wasn’t even towards the Land of Earth.

  Shirohebi had never taken Danzo's mission seriously; it was just an excuse for him to leave Konoha.

  He would do the task if it was convenient, but his real goal was to further perfect his disguise and gather any information he could about healing soul damage.

  After creating the illusion that he was heading towards the Land of Earth, he prepared to move forward.

  Suddenly, his expression darkened. A faint explosion echoed from about twenty meters behind him—his triggerable explosive cy had been set off.

  Shirohebi swiftly moved to a tree for cover, gncing behind with the corner of his eye.

  The figure approaching wore a mask and was dressed in the ANBU uniform—it was a Root operative.

  It took them this long to catch up?

  Had they seen what happened earlier? No matter. Whether they saw it or not, it was better to deal with it just in case.

  "It's me."

  As the Root operative’s gaze scanned the trees, Shirohebi stepped out in time.

  The Root operative didn’t expect this response, his voice tinged with surprise, "You know me?"

  The moment the words left his mouth, both of them realized something was off.

  Shirohebi narrowed his eyes. The person before him wasn’t from Root—he was an ANBU!

  What was an ANBU member doing this far from the vilge?

  No, the person in front of him could be…

  “Tch, exposed.”

  The "ANBU" sneered, raising his hand and unching a shuriken.

  He wasn’t from Root, nor from ANBU—he was a spy sent to eliminate pursuers and cover for his teammates' retreat.

  The reason for the ANBU disguise was to lower the pursuers’ guard, setting up an ambush.

  But this pursuer seemed to recognize him, revealing a fw in his pn.

  The spinning shuriken came at him, forcing Shirohebi to awkwardly take cover behind a tree.

  Suddenly, strong ropes designed to bind rogue ninjas or criminals flew from the other side of the tree, wrapping around him and tightening with several loops.

  A cold wind rustled through, and leaves cascaded down from the tree. Through the gaps in the foliage, the figure of the Iwagakure spy flickered in and out of sight.

  Shirohebi lowered his gaze, eyeing the iron chains that bound him and moved his arms.

  The sound of chains rattled as the ropes tightened around him.

  The figure rushed forward from behind the leaves, quickly closing the distance and thrusting a kunai into the exposed part of Shirohebi’s abdomen.

  "Ugh!" Shirohebi winced as pain shot through him, freezing his struggling movements.

  The Iwagakure spy gripped one end of the iron chain with his left hand, while his right arm pushed the kunai deeper into Shirohebi’s stomach.

  "Heh, this snake-faced mask isn’t a standard ANBU mask from Konoha. I know who you are—you’re Shirohebi, Konoha's special spy hunter, the one who killed my comrade."

  "Seems your strength doesn't match your intelligence. You're just as weak as they come."

  Shirohebi raised his forearm, holding onto the spy’s wrist to stop him from pulling the kunai out.

  "How do you know I killed your comrade? Is your spy network that well-connected? Or did you all come to the vilge together? Out for a little field trip?"

  The Iwagakure spy narrowed his eyes, his mouth opening as though to reply, but suddenly, his forearm muscles tensed, and he drove the kunai even deeper.

  "This doesn't concern you. Die!"

  Dead enemies were the best kind of enemies. A ninja never lowered their guard until the very end—this was a fundamental principle.

  Shirohebi’s body twitched in agony before his cold eyes locked onto the Iwagakure spy’s, as though he were trying to carve the man’s appearance into his mind before death.

  As the st leaves fell to the ground, Shirohebi’s head drooped weakly.

  The spy let out a breath, but the intense gaze in Shirohebi’s eyes just before he died sent a chill down his spine.

  He casually tossed the snake mask to the ground.

  "Hmph, my comrade was killed by someone like you…"

  The spy snorted and pulled back his right arm, attempting to withdraw the kunai.

  But it wouldn’t come out.