[Grass (a type of exclamation), that cliffhanger]
[I knew it]
[Probably have to wait for the next chapter]
[I'm different—I've been waiting for Hanabi the whole time]
[Waifu, waifu~]
[Lmao]
"Orochimaru—you aren't the kind of man who acts out of hatred." The Third Hokage regarded Orochimaru with a grave expression. "You have no purpose and no motive."
"Oh, I have purpose. When I see something moving, I find it interesting. When it stops, it's boring. A windmill that doesn't turn—sometimes it's nice to look at, but mostly it has no value." Orochimaru tossed aside the Kazekage's hat. "And right now, I want to use the 'wind' called 'destroying Konoha' to make that windmill spin."
"In simple terms: this man craves change and finds Konoha's stagnation a form of rot. So he wants to make a big splash—shake things up, force Konoha to evolve. Or to put it yet another way, he's a man who loathes stasis and hungers for transformation, even if he has to create it himself."
Hanabi provided color commentary from the sideline.
—Nobody would think you were dead if you just kept your mouth shut.
Orochimaru found this woman genuinely insufferable.
"Though I'd say Hanabi-san herself is hardly a person content with tranquility." Kabuto smiled.
"The world advances through constant revolution, spiraling ever upward. Being able to catalyze change—of course that's a wonderful thing." Hanabi tilted her head. "It's just that Orochimaru-sama's visit isn't nearly that simple, is it? Let me think…"
[Here it comes]
[Hanabi-style Secret Technique: Shrimp-Hearted Kill!]
[Lmao]
[Hanabi-style psychoanalysis is commencing]
Oh—the viewers had called it.
"Orochimaru-sama, the real reason you came here—you say it's to blow the wind, but subconsciously, it's to prove yourself in front of the Third Hokage-sama, isn't it."
"Hmph. What nonsense." Orochimaru recalled certain unpleasant precedents.
Engaging this woman in debate had a tendency to end badly.
Put simply—it was easy to get tilted.
"Because you were once defeated by the Sharingan, you want to take Sasuke-kun's body. Because you were once driven out by the Third Hokage-sama, you want to prove yourself before him. 'Ahh, the path I walk is the one true path—look, if you'd chosen me to be Fourth Hokage, I wouldn't have come to destroy Konoha. I would have been the one leading Konoha's transformation.' …Something along those lines, I imagine."
"Is that true, Orochimaru?" The Third Hokage found Hanabi's analysis surprisingly compelling.
"Defeated by the Sharingan? Him?"
Outside the barrier, several nosy Anbu seemed to have overheard something rather significant.
"A small fry like him getting beaten by the Sharingan—isn't that perfectly normal?"
Hikari's Shadow Clone was stationed at the other battlefield, while her main body stood near Hanabi's position—also spectating from outside.
If things went sideways, one Tsukuyomi at Orochimaru and the fight would be over.
From Hikari's perspective, though, this was just being parked on the sidelines as a bystander—unable to do more for Hanabi. She was a little restless.
"Come to think of it, who exactly are you?" The Anbu were equally baffled.
This woman had helped a bit, but who was she?
She seemed connected to the Hyuga girl somehow? A friend, or…?
"Just an ordinary good villager passing by. Is that a problem?"
Hikari looked thoroughly unimpressed.
"Uh…"
The Anbu were lost for words.
[Just your average passing Hikari-san]
[How is she a "lady"—she's clearly a life-winner]
[Pretty sure this qualifies as yandere]
[Not my business, I'm just a bystander]
[Ancient meme]
[This long-running series really does bring out the internet elders]
The chaos-gremlin audience cracked up at Hikari's one-liner, and Hanabi raked in a nice pile of popularity along with it.
"Wind… can be seen as your philosophy of life. You want to be the one who makes the world turn. You don't care about Konoha, you don't care about politics—what you care about is discovering and understanding life and the world itself. For example… possessing a healthy body. For example… Sasuke."
"Nani?!" The audience hadn't even recovered from their shock when the Third Hokage beat them to it. "You mean that forbidden jutsu?! Wait—Hanabi, how do you know about this?"
"It's simple." Hanabi said. "Because the legendary Sannin Orochimaru is supposed to be a man, right?"
The Stage helpfully supplied footage of the time Hanabi had given Orochimaru a massage.
"Heh heh… ha ha ha… HA HA HA HA!"
Orochimaru peeled away his own face, revealing the visage of the woman whose body he had taken via Living Corpse Reincarnation.
A young woman—but absolutely not Orochimaru.
[Grass (a type of exclamation), it's an otokonoko!]
[Nah, that's body-swapping]
[We're talking transformation, TSF body-swap, plus skinsuiting]
[Road to Ninja really does go there]
[Wait, what are you people even saying?!]
[Ew ew ew, you've all corrupted me (crying)]
"I am a bit curious, though—Orochimaru-sama, did you specifically choose a female body because it suited you better, or because you wanted to experience a different gender?"
Mm, she was genuinely curious about this.
A question she'd wanted answered since the original series!
"The wind always blows through all manner of places. Some things are simply more enjoyable when experienced firsthand."
Orochimaru said nothing explicit—yet somehow said everything.
"I see." Hanabi satisfied her little curiosity. "Let me think—your goal certainly isn't just taking Sasuke. In fact, that might not even be a secondary objective. Judging by the pieces you've positioned here, your ultimate goal for this operation was to come for the Third Hokage-sama, wasn't it?"
Everyone on the rooftop was locked in a standoff, which gave Hanabi room to keep running her mouth.
Might as well keep courting death while the window was open.
"But even you couldn't plan for every contingency," Hanabi said.
"And yet a brat like you saw through all of it—you even got the Sand ninja to turn on me," Orochimaru said.
"But killing the Kazekage—that, I genuinely didn't see coming…" Hanabi paused briefly. "…Mm, the Kazekage-sama was just too weak."
[Lmao]
[Hanabi: That guy was so weak I didn't even factor him in]
[Why do I feel like that was a diss]
[Lmao, a character so minor he died before even appearing]
[Fair point—he did show up in Gaara's flashbacks at least]
[Baki was definitely the real deal when he reported back to Sand]
The audience was roasting the Kazekage while Hanabi pressed on: "A plan this massive—even swapping out that many Anbu for Sound ninja—couldn't have been done without inside help. In other words, Third Hokage-sama, there are bad guys in Konoha!"
The Third Hokage's mind immediately jumped to a certain Scapegoat King: "Could it be—Danzo?!"
Not easy getting here, but after all this time, that name had finally been spoken!