Chapter 312: Verbal Confrontation
The waves rippled and swayed on the sea surface.
Wave after wave surged to Sakura's feet. The crest of the waves submerged her delicate ankles. The spray poured into her black sandals, splashing whitely on her flawless, fair feet.
She took a step forward.
"Those punches were just a lesson for your reckless talk," Haruno Sakura said, looking at Orochimaru calmly. "Angry from embarrassment? I have no need to be angry about something groundless."
"As for you, to be beaten like this and still dare to talk nonsense," the expression on the girl's face was unperturbed, and she said faintly, "It seems you really have a foul mouth!"
Faced with Orochimaru's aggressive words, Haruno Sakura did not retreat.
However, in Orochimaru's view, not answering his question directly was in itself a form of retreat.
Although...
She appeared aggressive, and the presence in her words was still cold and awe-inspiring.
"Groundless? Hehe... Do you really think I can't guess?"
"Of course, you are much more cautious than I imagined," Orochimaru said, spreading his hands, as if he had seen through her. "You didn't conduct human experiments directly in Konoha, but ran to a foreign country, establishing a base in a country so remote that only its name is shown on the map. It's very hidden, much more cautious than I was back then!"
"Back then, you kidnapped innocent people for human experiments and killed so many people... Now your biggest regret is that your experiments were not hidden and cautious enough?" Haruno Sakura frowned, looking at him with disgust. "Sorry, I don't think I'm a fellow traveler with you. Your evil path only makes me feel sick and disdainful!"
Orochimaru's face showed no expression of guilt. Instead, he laughed loudly.
"You really are naive! But you will soon realize that this boring sense of morality will only bind your progress..."
His voice suddenly dropped low.
"The reason you can still maintain this naive concept is simply because you haven't seen the truly cruel world... You think you've seen the darkness of the world, no, when the whole world is filled with the smoke of war, after a new round of ninja world wars begins, after everything you cherish is destroyed in the flames of war, you will truly realize what darkness is, what true cruelty is! And at that time, you will understand how childish your naive thoughts are!"
Haruno Sakura sneered, snorting with disdain.
"Are you the only one in Konoha who has experienced war, pain, and darkness? You, who blame your psychological abnormality on the world's mistakes and cannot face your own heart, no matter how strong you are, you are just a weakling!"
The man in the kimono did not speak, but smiled coldly.
He looked at the girl in front of him, standing tall, with a proud and awe-inspiring aura, and eyes full of confidence.
How much she looked like his younger self!
At that time, he had also thought he would inherit the Will of Fire, proudly believing that he could become the Hokage.
"Hehe... when you defect from Konoha too, you will understand my feelings," Orochimaru said faintly, not angered by Sakura's words.
"Wishful thinking!" Sakura said with disdain.
"Is it really wishful thinking?" Orochimaru smiled playfully. "Perhaps you think you've done it covertly enough that the people in the village don't know, but what if someone exposes you?"
"At that time, will you surrender without a fight, or will you flee the village in a sorry state? I've said it long ago, we are the same kind of person. One day, you will walk my old path!"
These words, Orochimaru had said them back when the two first met in the Forest of Death. (See Chapter 41)
The wind suddenly quieted down.
Orochimaru's words seemed to hide a deadly poison. Haruno Sakura knew that there must be Orochimaru's deepest spies hidden in the village, silently collecting intelligence, perhaps waiting for a suitable opportunity to launch a sudden attack on her!
And then, force her onto another path.
Haruno Sakura looked at him quietly. Under the calm surface, her heart was undulating. Orochimaru really could do this kind of thing that harms others without benefiting himself. For him, using one or two spies to get Sakura to defect seemed to be a very interesting thing!
However, Orochimaru had, after all, left the village for too long.
He did not know that Tsunade, as a medical ninja, did not oppose this kind of experiment purely like the Third Hokage. If the experiment itself did not harm Konoha and its people, but was instead beneficial to Konoha, then she supported it.
For example, Yūgao's heart from before.
She was seeking a new consensus: human experimentation is not inherently evil. At least medical experiments should be allowed, such as recruiting volunteers to test new medical methods, drugs, and ninjutsu. This is because, whether in her previous life or in the ninja world, the development process of new drugs must go through extensive and strict human experiments, using volunteers to test the drugs, before they can be successfully developed. It was just that the item of "recruiting volunteers" had been ruined by Orochimaru and his gang. Back then, they had directly abducted innocent ordinary people and even ninja for experiments, completely stigmatizing human experimentation. In order to set things right, the village had strictly banned human experimentation.
And now, this overcorrection has led to some new, more serious problems.
As Tsunade's prestige grew, she began to be able to touch upon such sensitive topics. Although everyone's thoughts were still stuck on the idea that human experimentation was an evil thing, the Fifth Hokage was gradually changing their views.
Perhaps before long, Haruno Sakura's experiments would be able to be conducted openly in the village.
Orochimaru's spies probably couldn't access these subtle movements at the upper levels.
"There are still your spies hidden in the village, right? You want them to collect evidence of my human experiments and then report me?" Haruno Sakura smiled brightly, a smile that in Orochimaru's eyes had a hint of fearlessness.
He frowned slightly, realizing that the girl in front of him was a little harder to deal with than he had imagined.
"Last year when you went out on a mission, you were actually secretly conducting your human experiments in the Land of Snow, right! This kind of thing, as long as one investigates a little, you will be exposed," Orochimaru said calmly. "Don't think you can muddle through!"
No, quite the opposite.
Haruno Sakura's meticulousness was far higher than he had imagined... With Sakura's arrangements, even if they investigated with all their might, her base would not be exposed!
What's more, who would treat the current Hokage's personal disciple, a rising star of Konoha, like this?
Her whereabouts during that four-month-long mission were the only flaw; but she had already reported this to the higher-ups.
With Tsunade's cooperation, she had grafted the matter of traveling through time and meeting the masked man who called himself Uchiha Madara onto that mission. In this way, she had reasonably conveyed that person's intelligence to Konoha.
During the debriefing report.
"An Uchiha proficient in space-time ninjutsu?" At that time, the Third and the two Hokage advisors sitting on the side were all startled.
They and Tsunade sat in the conference room next to the Hokage's office, looking at Haruno Sakura, astonished by what she said.
"Yes, and an Uchiha clan member who has awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan," Sakura said calmly. She glossed over the entire mission, saying that she had first gone to a remote country, focusing on the masked man.
She actually hadn't told a single lie. Going to a remote country was true, meeting the masked man and fighting him was also true, it was just that the time was misplaced. Using conversational skills, glossing over it, even if the Yamanaka clan's secret technique was used, it could only verify that what she said was not false.
The lowest level of lying is clumsy and full of loopholes. The middle level is nine truths and one lie, a mix of truth and falsehood that is hard to judge.
And the highest level is to tell the whole truth, but lead people to draw wrong information.
The Third and the others indeed did not waste time on those trivial details, but focused on the intelligence of the masked man. After listening to Sakura's account of the battle with him, the crowd was silent for a while. The Third Hokage let out a long puff of smoke.
"It should be this person. He was the one causing trouble in the Uchiha clan annihilation incident back then!" The Third Hokage said heavily. "Such bizarre and powerful abilities. No wonder I sent out three Anbu one after another to negotiate with Fugaku, and they all died silently, without any news coming back! At that time, I thought it was the Uchiha clan who did it... I should have gone to talk to the Uchiha personally at that time!"
Before the Uchiha clan intended to set off a wave of rebellion, the Third Hokage had sent capable Anbu as envoys to the Uchiha clan many times, trying to communicate with them, but the result was like a stone sinking into the sea! Every Anbu sent out died silently...
In this situation, it could only be concluded that the Uchiha clan did not accept the Hokage's goodwill, was unwilling to communicate with the village, and even killed the envoys. They were hell-bent on rebelling!
Of course, at that time, the Third also felt that something was fishy, but the situation was urgent and there was no time to verify it. He had absolutely no evidence. To this day, the Third Hokage finally knew that behind the annihilation incident back then, there was a mysterious powerhouse who had been fueling the flames, pushing the village and the Uchiha step by step into the abyss of opposition!
"Perhaps Fugaku also sent people back then, wanting to communicate with us... It's just that we never saw that person," Advisor Utatane Koharu also sighed and said helplessly.
"After the messengers were intercepted two or three times, the Uchiha clan must have thought that we had made up our minds to get rid of them. No wonder they made the most violent resistance..." Mitokado Homura took off his glasses and tapped the table.
"If he really is Uchiha Madara, it wouldn't be difficult to do this to this extent," the Third lowered his eyelids, looking at the floor, his tone heavy and mixed with a trace of confusion. "But why did he do this? To take revenge on the clansmen who abandoned him?"
Everyone shook their heads, expressing their lack of understanding.
The topic naturally turned to the history of that year.
After obtaining the intelligence on the masked man, the many strange points of the Uchiha annihilation incident back then finally had a reasonable explanation. An enemy who possessed the Mangekyo Sharingan and was extremely familiar with Konoha's intelligence had been acting in the dark, erasing all efforts by Konoha and the Uchiha to try to coexist peacefully. This was an important reason leading to the occurrence of the annihilation incident.
It might even be the biggest reason!
In short, the value of this intelligence brought back by Haruno Sakura was very high. In the eyes of the several advisors, finding this intelligence in more than four months was considered quite efficient.
The intelligence that Sakura and Tsunade had been having a headache over how to report to everyone was presented to the village just like this.
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