Sasuke advanced alone through the forest, his expression indifferent as he moved towards the enemy position. On his wrist, a small white snake pointed the way with its head from time to time, keeping him on the right course.
The snake was a Jugo's Snake Clone, sent just in case. Sasuke took this mission as a challenge and didn't want help from anyone else.
It didn't take long for him to find the opposing group, 15 ninjas with animal-shaped ANBU masks appeared and both sides stopped as soon as they saw each other.
The ninja in front didn't have an animal mask, instead, he had a mask that covered his entire face, leaving only his mouth exposed. Jugo's clone recognized him as soon as he saw him: Aburame Torune, one of Danzo's confidants.
The snake clone spat out its tongue slightly, looking at the opposing group with interest, but didn't warn Sasuke. At most, it would save him if he were poisoned, Sasuke didn't want to be warned, he preferred to fight a real fight.
The next moment, Torune spoke. - Uchiha Sasuke, you are not our main target, but you are also one of our priority targets.
He raised his hand and spoke to the group behind him. - Don't kill him.
The group advanced directly towards Sasuke as soon as they received the order, a flurry of kunai and shuriken flying towards him from all sides.
Sasuke calmly dodged as he stepped back, his eyes opening to the three-tomoe Sharingan as he placed his hand on his sword. Facing so many anbu ninjas at once, Sasuke wouldn't hold back now.
The ninjas advanced rapidly, coming from all sides, even from the ground.
Sasuke soon found himself in direct combat, weapons, taijutsu, ninjutsu, he dodged with ease, a smile slowly growing on his lips.
The current Sasuke wasn't the Sasuke from Shippuden, his mentality wasn't as calm due to having to hide his emotions from Orochimaru all the time. Instead, he was still surrounded by a noisy team, so Sasuke's personality hadn't changed much.
His smile only widened as he stopped dodging, his blade unsheathed as a head flew into the air.
Each ninja there was elite, at least elite chunin, but one of them lost his temper in just a moment. Sasuke wasn't just dodging, he was also learning the attack patterns of these guys.
The ninjas paused for only a moment, surprised by Sasuke's power, but the next moment, their Root training took effect, even if they had to sacrifice themselves, the mission had to be accomplished.
Sasuke continued to navigate through them, frequently dodging, cutting when he had the chance, but he wasn't the only one learning the patterns. The ninjas' attacks were becoming increasingly tighter. Sasuke stopped holding back for a moment, his blade was surrounded by lightning, his cells were activated by the Chidori, making his speed accelerate even further. In the next moment, two more heads flew.
Sasuke's smile only grew more animated, but at that moment, Torune stepped forward, without gloves, his hand already completely purple, almost brushing against Sasuke.
Sasuke's eyes fixed directly on Torune, his sharp vision easily keeping up. His body moved the next instant, and with a Shunshin, he fled away, looking at Torune's hands with a slight frown.
-Poison?- He whispered, deciding to stay away from Torune.
The ninjas didn't give him time to adapt, a fireball flew directly at him. He dodged to the left, but the wind style came from the right, catching the fire style and changing its trajectory directly towards Sasuke.
Sasuke, still on air so couldn't dodge, he threw his sword upwards while performing his own hand seals at high speed. - Fire Release! Great Fireball Technique!
Sasuke's fireball was ten meters in diameter! The enormous fireball directly engulfed the enemy's fire and surged toward the Anbu, two cries of pain rang out as two of them were carbonized to death in mere seconds.
Jugo's Snake Clone can't help but want to applaud, it's not every day that you can to see someone dies with a fire style.
Sasuke didn't even look at them again, picking up his falling sword and smiling once more. The lightning chakra surrounded his sword again as he advanced, the smile on his face completely animated.
When the clearing finally fell silent, Sasuke looked at the surrounding bodies without much concern, instead noticing that the poison ninja had vanished, and not only that, but the snake on his wrist as well, Sasuke hadn't even noticed when it left him.
His lips pursed, but he was used to it by now, months of being attacked randomly had made his heart extremely resilient to this kind of inexplicable thing.
Shaking his head, he didn't care, taking out a scroll, the cursed seal regressed back to his neck, having been released in its first stage at some point. He began to seal the bodies of his enemies, ready to return to Otogakure.
On the other side, Torune, with a cut wound on his chest, was fleeing quickly, enduring the pain.
He knew the mission had failed, and not only that, but Uchiha Sasuke had reached a Jonin-level of strength, he needed to tell Danzo-sama this information.
But as he was running away, a figure appeared in front of him, leaving him shocked.
Jugo smiled slightly at Torune, raised a hand, he waved. - Yo!
//-//
Torune's fate was to be transformed into a werewolf and become a guinea pig for Orochimaru, this type of microscopic insect is truly interesting.
Danzo should have been very unhappy to realize that the entire team had been "decimated", but that wasn't Jugo's problem.
On Kiri's side, they were terrified by more than ten giants that made them look like ants.
On Kumo's side, their balls must still be hurting, quickly fleeing back to where they came from.
From Konoha's side, no news was sent back. Jugo considered this a satisfactory outcome.
Sasuke was also very happy with the progress, to the point that his "emo" look was less "emo" when he returned.
Sasuke's strength grew so much because of the Sharingan. With frequent fights with Kimimaro and the others, Sasuke copied, replicated and assimilated everything into his own style. Sasuke's only current limitation is his chakra control and his own chakra, but with the cursed mark, this can be mitigated.
He only used the first stage to deal with the Konoha group, which shows extreme progress. Jugo felt that he was already close to Sasuke Shippuden's strength much earlier.
Ranmaru, Suigetsu, Karin and Kimimaro also advanced quickly.
Karin became increasingly forward with him, but her age was far too high for Jugo, so he ignored the little girl.
Kin and Guren knew about each other and while Guren didn't care, Kin was unhappy whenever she saw the woman. She even increased her training level, all to defeat Guren and secure her position as "first".
Jugo didn't mind at all, as long as the two didn't go too far, he would look away. To him, there was affection for them, but he wasn't the romantic type of guy who sent flowers.
Shaking his head, Jugo began to think about the development of his religion, with the number of believers he currently had, it was more than enough to move forward.
Of course, it was difficult to get a thousand people to follow his "doctrine" wholeheartedly, but fortunately for Jugo, he could slowly corrupt them with the Tenebrous World. What was difficult for others was very easy for him, most of his followers, if not all, already completely followed the teachings of his bible.
It had been quite some time since he'd been scattering toys around the world, he felt he could begin to recover his memories. At that moment, his potion would digest extremely quickly.
Thus, he could finally move forward.
Deep in thought, he made up his mind, separating the snake clones and letting them wander the world to undo the curses placed on the clones. Unfortunately, he couldn't do it from afar, but the snake clones could do it for him.
As for finding the dolls? He could sense the curses he himself had placed as long as they were close enough, plus if he used the Tenebrous World as a source, he could sense every curse he had ever placed and where it was, so he wasn't worried about forgetting any toys lying around.
The clones jumped away, it was harvest time.