Naruto slapped his forehead. He remembered: the old man Third Hokage was still locked in a fierce battle with Orochimaru!
He scanned with his senses—good heavens! Their chakras were still clashing!
He had been fighting for half an hour, which was absurd enough, but these two were still going at it?
Whose troops are these?
Seeing that Kakashi and Jiraiya were still stuck in their existential crises, Naruto clapped them both on the shoulder, "Both of you, no time to explain, get in the car!"
Swoosh!
He activated the Flying Raijin! The three of them instantly vanished.
Kakashi's vision changed. Under his feet was now the rooftop of the Chunin Exam stadium.
It was exactly where the Third Hokage and Orochimaru were fighting!
He looked around again. The three of them were now inside the barrier!
The other Jiraiya scanned the battlefield, his gaze instantly locking on Orochimaru!
And the other one was the old man!
At this moment, the two had just separated from a clash and were catching their breath.
Naruto, with his sharp eyes, saw them both take out a familiar pill from their ninja pouches and "chug" it down.
"Carefree Pill?!" Naruto immediately solved the mystery—no wonder they could fight for half an hour!
A normal ninja's high-energy battle = a five-minute "real man."
These two = a half-hour "drug-fueled god of war"!
He looked at himself, who had been fighting for half an hour on pure strength...
Then he looked at these two...
Strength?
No, they relied on a "durability buff"!
Looking at it this way, the Great Physician Xiong should change his slogan: "Carefree Pill—Fight until dawn!"
With that new slogan, it probably wasn't just ninjas who would buy it!
"Orochimaru!"
Jiraiya, with his brother in mind, completely forgot his disciple. He launched himself like a cannonball to the Third's side, his gaze on Orochimaru filled with complex emotions.
"Heh, long time no see, Jiraiya."
Orochimaru's face was still all smiles on the outside, but he was cursing internally.
He had been deceived.
This thought had already taken root—he had tried to summon the First and Second Hokages countless times in the past half hour, but they hadn't responded at all!
Sure enough, those two "jonin" were a problem!
Who was the culprit?
He had too many enemies.
Even the ones he trusted could not be ruled out!
His golden eyes coldly swept over the trio who had just arrived.
The lingering power of the great battle from afar was still present. He could sense that bone-chilling aura of destruction from dozens of kilometers away. Now, the outcome was decided: the Leaf had won.
Who was the victor?
Excluding Jiraiya and Kakashi...
His gaze settled on the only blond-haired boy: most likely, this kid won.
After all, this kid was the one who took the First and Second Hokage away.
If he remembered correctly, this kid was Sasuke's teammate, a mere genin of twelve or thirteen years old participating in the Chunin Exams for the first time.
He had thought that suppressing the rampaging One-Tailed Shukaku was astonishing...
Only now did he realize that his understanding of the word "genius" was far too shallow—like a precise instrument that had underestimated the limit of a certain dimension's existence.
The moment the three of them appeared, especially the blond boy, the truth was laid bare.
Without any extra information, the "Leaf Village Destruction Plan"—was now irrevocably terminated.
What was even more troublesome...
He would probably find it difficult to escape from the Leaf's encirclement.
Even if the old man Hiruzen was soft-hearted, that glaring blond boy would never let him off the hook so easily.
In the face of such an absolute power gap, there was no chance of his survival.
"Orochimaru!"
Jiraiya's voice was filled with suppressed heartache and confusion, "Did you do all this? Why?"
He couldn't believe that all of this was Orochimaru's doing!
Even though Orochimaru had done so many evil things before, killing his own master... he couldn't imagine Orochimaru becoming such an emotionless monster!
In Jiraiya's eyes, filled with complex emotions, there was even a hint of humble hope.
"Heh, this fool is still so foolishly naive."
Orochimaru sneered inwardly, lamenting that this worthless person had not progressed at all over the years.
However, seeing this, a plan formed in his mind. Perhaps this could allow him to survive.
When it came to lying, he was a master at toying with people's hearts!
He slightly tilted his head, his golden snake-like eyes locking onto Jiraiya, his voice low and clear, every word meticulously crafted.
"Heh, why?"
"Jiraiya... what do you think I started this storm for? Why did I summon the dead and challenge our master?"
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the shattered rooftop and the chaotic stadium below, his voice suddenly rising, carrying a hint of a blustering, "righteous" fervor:
"It was all for the sake of the Leaf Village!"
"Look at the Leaf Village now!"
"It's stagnant, decaying, and standing still! It's like a pool of dead water, completely devoid of vitality!
Where are the Leaf's fangs? Its former sharpness is all gone!"
"What's the reason for all this? It's our master's foolishness, his compromises, his policy of peace. It's this ridiculous weakness... that has dragged the Leaf into its current dead end!
The Leaf needs a baptism, a cataclysm that can tear away the old flesh and scrape the bones to heal the poison!"
"I summoned the First and Second Hokage and challenged our master to make them see, and to make everyone see!"
His gaze became "passionate," "Only in the face of true disaster and pain can new branches tear through the decaying bark!"
He looked Jiraiya directly in the eyes, with a twisted "sincerity": "Everything I've done... was simply to inject a powerful medicine into this giant, stagnant tree! Tell me, Jiraiya, isn't this... the deepest form of protection?"
"Pfft hahahaha—!"
Naruto, who was watching from afar, burst into an unrestrained laugh.
If Orochimaru had followed that with, "If you understand, give a round of applause!", this scene would have been legendary!
But this person was definitely a talent. Perhaps he could be of use to me!
"Hey! Naruto, you—"
Staring at Naruto, who was sitting on a small stool, legs crossed, and spitting out watermelon seeds, Kakashi's dead-fish eyes twitched furiously.
"Want some, sensei?"
Naruto grinned, offering the bag of seeds to Kakashi.
A line of black marks appeared on Kakashi's forehead.
He wanted to remind his disciple that this was a battlefield.
But, remembering Naruto's current strength, he gave up.
In stark contrast to the lightheartedness in this area, the air on the other rooftops seemed to solidify, with only the venomous, cold tone of Orochimaru's final words echoing.
"What's wrong, Third Hokage?"
Orochimaru's golden snake-like eyes narrowed, as he leisurely admired Hiruzen Sarutobi's face, which was covered in heavy wrinkles, "You have no retort to my 'accusations'?"
As one of the Sannin, the secrets he had access to were far beyond what an ordinary person could imagine.
Was he just making things up with his accusations against the Third Hokage?
No!
He, Orochimaru, truly wanted to save the Leaf Village!
"Do you want me to tear open the scars beneath this rotten facade, one by one, and show them to you and the entire Leaf Village?"
There was no response.
Hiruzen Sarutobi's silence was like a heavy block of lead.
Orochimaru's peripheral vision subtly swept over the white figure in the distance, and he decided to drop his first bombshell.
"Nine years ago..."
His voice suddenly rose, "That 'shameful transaction' of the Hyuga clan! Do I need to remind everyone of that memory right here, right now?"
Boom—
This phrase was like a forbidden curse, instantly tearing through the deadly silence!
Hiruzen Sarutobi's body trembled almost imperceptibly.
The Hyuga clan? A shameful transaction?
An alarm immediately blared in Naruto's mind—this was a super juicy piece of gossip!!
Where were those seeds from before?
Throw them away! They weren't satisfying enough!
In full view, or rather, with no one paying attention, Naruto, with lightning speed, "swooshed" out a watermelon the size of a basin from his ninja pouch!
His palm was like a knife. With a sharp "splat," he sliced it open!
With a "slurp," he picked up a large chunk of the red fruit, his eyes intently fixed on Orochimaru like a professional gossip-monger. His face was practically screaming:
Elaborate! Please elaborate in detail!