Chapter 104: Danzō, King of the Wok
"Sorry, I'm not into men. I only like soft, pretty girls. If Orochimaru-san happens to swing that way—well, at least the Fourth Hokage is reasonably good-looking. I'm sure he'd be up for a lot of positions."
Ryū's scalp had gone prickly the moment he heard Orochimaru speak, and he'd fired off the response without hesitation.
Minato: "?!"
Orochimaru: "!?"
The two of them couldn't help but glance at each other—each finding in the other's eyes a complicated expression impossible to put into words.
Ptoo!
Ptoo!
Ptoo!
Both men immediately averted their gaze. Because whatever else Orochimaru and Minato were, their sexual orientations were perfectly, unambiguously normal.
Minato had a wife, for crying out loud.
And Orochimaru had long since ascended to what you might call a "sagely state"—he'd transcended caring about "sex" as a category entirely.
All he cared about these days was his research.
Back when he was younger, if he'd accidentally caught a glimpse of a girl bathing, Orochimaru might have blushed. He hadn't fully grown up yet.
But now, after everything he'd been through and everything he'd come to understand…
Forget accidentally catching a glimpse. You could put a girl in his bed, and Orochimaru would stare blankly at the ceiling and fall asleep until morning.
A man with no interest in women was certainly not going to have interest in men.
* * *
"Young man… that's not what I meant at all. I just heard Hokage-sama say you defeated Jōnin Kakashi without any ninjutsu. Does that mean you rely purely on taijutsu?"
Orochimaru collected himself, plastered on a distinctly "kindly" smile, and asked with composed curiosity: "If you can defeat Kakashi with nothing but taijutsu, then your body… must be rather unusual, wouldn't you say?"
Listening to Orochimaru's "kindly" tone, if Ryū hadn't known exactly how the plot played out…
He might genuinely have taken the question at face value.
So even Orochimaru's taken an interest in me.
Why does this feel a little off, though?
Honestly, Ryū wasn't afraid of Orochimaru. The problem was having a man's eye on him.
No—scratch that. It wasn't just one man.
There were two men eyeing him now.
Namikaze Minato. Orochimaru.
This is getting seriously uncomfortable!
Suppressing the weird vibes, Ryū cleared his head, stirred his noodles with his chopsticks, and said: "Probing into other people's secrets casually isn't a great habit. There's a decent chance it… rubs people the wrong way."
Orochimaru's face stiffened. A trace of gravity crept into his expression.
Because the moment Ryū finished speaking, a faint—almost imperceptible—sense of danger settled around Orochimaru's mind.
He couldn't say why, but his guard went back up immediately.
That much killing intent from a single throwaway warning?
Weak, yes. Not the kind of seasoned pressure that comes from years of accumulated combat experience.
But Orochimaru had felt it all the same.
His long, nimble tongue flicked across dry lips.
Orochimaru chuckled softly: "It's been quite a while since anyone spoke to me like that. You really are interesting, young man… Aren't you worried about getting on my bad side? I have a bit of a temper, you know."
* * *
Sensing the mood turning, Minato hurriedly coughed.
Orochimaru was one of the Sannin of Konoha. Ryū was also, technically, a resident of Konoha.
The last thing Minato wanted was for these two to clash.
If he accidentally pushed Ryū into defecting to Konoha's enemies, the damage would far outweigh any benefit.
He still didn't know Ryū's true power ceiling. But Hiruzen had warned him bluntly: Ryū's limits hadn't been tested yet. Not even close.
When he'd defeated Kakashi and Might Guy without a scratch, Ryū hadn't even been going all-out. He'd looked entirely unbothered, breezing through it with room to spare.
Which meant Ryū's real strength might be on par with his own.
That was why Minato had come here today hoping to publicly recruit Ryū into Konoha's shinobi ranks. He hadn't expected to be flat-out refused.
A refusal, on its own, wasn't a dealbreaker—Ryū was still a Konoha resident.
But if a clash with Orochimaru soured Ryū on the village… that would be catastrophic.
Konoha would suddenly find itself with a new enemy out of nowhere. One who was mysterious, dangerous, and absurdly strong.
That was the last scenario Minato, as Hokage, wanted to see unfold.
* * *
…
Meanwhile, in the Land of Fire, tucked away in a hidden corner of Konoha.
The place looked more like a sealed chamber than a room. The walls were swallowed in shadow, with only a few dim candles struggling to beat back the dark.
The overall atmosphere was… unmistakably sinister.
"Hmph… so Hiruzen's been keeping quite a bit from me. Not that I'm surprised—at this point, what intelligence has that man ever been willing to share? Yagami, was it? A suspected Kage-level powerhouse?"
Having finished listening to his subordinate's report, Danzō muttered to himself.
Right now, he wasn't wrapped in his trademark white bandages. Nor was his arm implanted with a row of stolen Sharingan eyes.
But the thought of exterminating the Uchiha clan was already crossing his mind.
…The Uchiha, however, could wait.
Yagami. A hidden master on par with the Hokage.
Danzō's brow furrowed deeply. He fixed his gaze on the Root operative before him: "You're certain this person isn't even twenty years old?"
"Absolutely certain. Not a day over twenty. He hasn't even grown a beard yet."
Danzō's brow furrowed deeper still.
A sub-twenty powerhouse strong enough to make Namikaze Minato that cautious—and strong enough that even Hiruzen was playing it passive. That alone was all the confirmation Danzō needed that the kid wasn't some pretender putting on airs. This was the real thing.
But when did Konoha produce a monster like this?
He'd never heard the name before.
And the kid wasn't likely to be an outsider, either—the Third Shinobi World War had only ended six months ago. The Land of Fire was still picking up the pieces. Who the hell would have time to take a sightseeing trip to Konoha during the reconstruction? Nobody had that kind of free time.
Danzō thought it over for a moment, then spoke: "Get to the village's population registry immediately. Pull every record of anyone named 'Yagami.' Parents, siblings, any relatives—bring me everything."
Danzō's mind was remarkably calm. No rash moves.
He was, after all, Konoha's most infamous shadow-dwelling schemer.
Without concrete intel on the target, Danzō wasn't about to commit to anything.
Too many powerful shinobi had been killed by weaker opponents precisely because they'd charged in without knowing who they were fighting. Danzō hadn't lived this long by making rookie mistakes.
So first, gather intelligence. Build a complete profile.
Then—arrange an encounter with this kid named Yagami.
See for himself whether the young man was as strong as advertised… or just a glorified paper tiger.
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