Chapter 292: The Gap Between Him and the Sannin
"I-I'm just a little girl passing by to pick mushrooms. I heard some noise here, so I came in to take a look…"
Hiruko raised his voice into a thin, timid tone, trying to muddle through by acting cute.
To be fair, in his usual bandaged appearance, he really did resemble a white-haired loli. It would be easy for someone unaware to misunderstand and be thrown off.
As for Hiruko's real gender and appearance…
That was another matter entirely.
"Hiruko? Is that you?"
Sarutobi Hiruzen suddenly stared in astonishment and pointed at him, recognizing him.
"Sarutobi Hiruzen, are you doing this on purpose?"
Hiruko instantly switched expressions like a Sichuan opera face-change. He glared viciously at Hiruzen.
First pretending not to recognize him, giving him hope.
Then waiting until he started pretending to be a little girl before suddenly calling him out.
So he had deliberately waited for him to embarrass himself first?
"Hiruko? Monkey, was he your subordinate during your tenure? A rogue ninja?"
Senju Tobirama, seeing that Hiruzen had recognized him, spoke up to ask.
Upon hearing this, Senju Hashirama began cracking his knuckles.
He was actually quite reasonable.
A rogue ninja wasn't necessarily a bad person.
What if there had been circumstances beyond his control?
Like Madara running away from home.
But if there weren't any extenuating circumstances…
Well, that wasn't a big problem either.
As long as you could survive a Wood Golem elbow strike, forgiveness was still possible.
Caught between the First and Second Hokage, each pressing down on one of his shoulders, Hiruko truly felt like a Konoha loli, trembling and not daring to move.
However, the First and Second didn't care much about his reaction. They were both staring at Hiruzen, waiting for their disciple's explanation.
It was better to hear from someone trustworthy than to listen to Hiruko ramble.
"It's like this," Hiruzen sighed. "Hiruko was in the same class as Tsunade and the others. But his talent was inferior even to Jiraiya's. In pursuit of power, he practiced the forbidden technique, the Chimera Technique."
"I discovered it by accident and sent the Sannin to pursue him. He managed to escape, and after that there was no further news."
"I never expected that after all these years he would still be alive. Judging from his condition, it seems he succeeded in cultivating it."
Hiruzen let out a long breath, "First-sama, Second-sama, this is another mistake from my time in office."
"It's fine. You were in office a long time. More mistakes are understandable. We've already scolded you for the previous ones."
Tobirama was used to it by now.
After something as shocking as the Uchiha clan's extermination had happened, something little like this couldn't move him.
"This story sounds a bit familiar."
Hashirama scratched his head and tilted it in thought.
"Familiar?"
Hiruzen was taken aback.
He had never told anyone about Hiruko's past.
Hiruko had always been a marginal figure, merely skilled at escaping. And when the Sannin pursued him, they had likely spared him out of old classmate sentiment.
So Hiruzen had never paid him much mind.
If Hiruko hadn't appeared today and been captured, Hiruzen probably wouldn't have remembered him even in his life flashing before death.
Oh right. He was already dead.
When he was killed by Momoshiki, Hiruko hadn't appeared in his flashback at all.
"Oh! I remember now!"
Hashirama clapped his hands together, eyes lighting up, "Isn't this Orochimaru's story?"
"…"
Well.
It really did resemble Orochimaru's story.
Though technically, Orochimaru had copied Hiruko's path, hadn't he?
After all, Hiruko defected earlier. At that time, Orochimaru had still been part of the Sannin sent to pursue him.
"The Chimera Technique? Is practicing a forbidden technique enough reason to defect?"
Tobirama suddenly noticed something.
"Huh?"
Hiruko, who had been trembling in fear, froze when he heard that.
But upon thinking it over, the man had a point.
More than half of the forbidden techniques in the Scroll of Seals had been developed by Tobirama himself.
Among them was even the Impure World Reincarnation, which the Third had once condemned as desecrating the dead. Yet after taking office, the Third had never purged Tobirama or stripped him of political rights for life.
"I'll go fetch Orochimaru."
As soon as Tobirama finished speaking, he vanished.
Before long, Orochimaru was brought over.
Seeing his former classmate, Orochimaru chuckled, "What a pity. Whether in fusing kekkei genkai or developing power and influence, you fall far short."
The reason it was described as "before long" rather than "instantly" was because Orochimaru had also asked Tobirama to bring along Hiruko's three subordinates, whom he had been monitoring.
Three bound ninjas were thrown onto the ground.
Their names were simple: Ichi, Ni, and San. Written in numerals as One, Two, Three.
One of them was even a woman in a skintight outfit.
"Orochimaru! The winner takes all, the loser takes the blame. You don't need to mock me!"
"Damn it, I never expected the First, Second, and Third to be summoned by your Impure World Reincarnation. I only wanted to chase after your shadows. What did I do wrong?"
Stimulated by Orochimaru's words, Hiruko could no longer hold back.
The most fragile part of his heart was being told he was inferior to the Sannin.
It was an inferiority complex he had carried since childhood.
"Did I say anything incorrect?" Orochimaru replied calmly, "You defected earlier than I did. Yet after all these years, you have only these three pitiful subordinates."
"I joined the Akatsuki first, and only afterward established Otogakure in the Land of Rice Fields. Its scale far surpasses yours."
"Oh, right. As a rogue ninja, you were never even recruited by the Akatsuki. That shows your level is truly somewhat lacking."
Orochimaru spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, which shattered Hiruko even further.
Lies do not hurt. Truth is the sharp blade.
Just as Hiruko was about to explode and fight desperately, he suddenly realized he could not remove the bandages on his face.
Shiromo was standing nearby, holding a roll of tape. At some point, he had wrapped several layers around Hiruko's face.
When Hiruko looked over in confusion, Shiromo put the tape away and explained, "The way you look without the bandages is too ugly. It might scare the children."
Too ugly.
Scare the children…
Hiruko shattered once again.
Decades had passed.
He had failed to catch up to the Sannin in strength. He had failed to build any significant influence. Even his appearance had become grotesque, monstrous.
He almost felt like tying a rope indoors and swinging from the ceiling.
Just as Hiruko collapsed into despair, Orochimaru suddenly made a move.
He unrolled a scroll on the ground.
Small jars were neatly arranged across it.
"Go on. Weren't you trying to complete five kekkei genkai? Pick one."
Orochimaru said to Hiruko.
"?"
Hiruko stared at the jars on the ground. In one of them, he even saw the Sharingan he had long coveted.
Was this the gap?
Was this the gap between him and the Sannin?
He had spent decades painstakingly gathering four somewhat decent kekkei genkai and fusing them into himself.
And here, Orochimaru was offering a buffet?
(End of this chapter)