Chapter 125: Top Secret Intelligence
Within one of Orochimaru's secret bases in the Land of Rice Fields.
Still wearing a pale moon-white kimono, his slender figure stood silently before the desk. His demonic, dark-golden eyes, like a deep, unrippled pool, profound and mesmerizing, calmly watched the boy and girl kneeling before him.
The boy kneeling on the left was about seventeen or eighteen, wearing the base's uniform black open-shoulder training outfit. His face was ordinary and unremarkable, but his gaze towards Orochimaru was filled with intense reverence and admiration.
Kneeling on the right was a girl close to Orochimaru's age, around fifteen or sixteen.
Her youthful age and simple, grayish-white cloth clothing could not conceal the charming bloom of her burgeoning beauty.
Thin, brightly colored red lips, an elegant and delicate nose, and clear, dewy eyes held a natural seductive charm, making her mesmerizing when they moved. Paired with her developing, well-curved figure, the girl exuded a subtle bewitching beauty normally found only in mature, beautiful women in their twenties or thirties.
Like the boy on the left, the girl's gaze toward Orochimaru was also one of intense worship and respect.
Orochimaru scanned the two. He had some memory of both children, whom he had brought back during his travels over the past three years.
The boy on the left, Fukuro, was an orphan Orochimaru had taken in from the Land of Water on a snowy day. When Orochimaru found him, the boy was fighting a pack of stray dogs for a splinter of bone unearthed from a garbage heap, simply trying to survive.
The girl on the right, Yumi, was brought back three years ago when Orochimaru was consolidating the various forces in the Land of Rice Fields and was purging a remnant resistance group. At the time, the girl, only eleven or twelve, was covered in bruises and lash marks.
A segment of memory flashed through his mind. Orochimaru paused his gaze and looked toward Katō Ryūya, who was standing nearby.
Katō Ryūya calmly pointed to the boy, then to the girl, and said: "Lord Orochimaru, these are Fukuro and Yumi. Both children are the most outstanding of this training batch. Their talent is excellent, and their loyalty to you is beyond question. Both are qualified candidates to join the Golden Serpent Squad!"
Orochimaru returned his gaze to Fukuro and Yumi kneeling on the floor. After a moment of contemplation, his voice—calm, aloof, and laced with a hint of magnetism—carried a subtle power of temptation: "Are you willing to join the Golden Serpent Squad and dedicate everything, even your very lives, to me, Orochimaru?"
Yumi was the first to speak. Her pleasant voice held a faint softness as she said firmly: "I am willing, Lord Orochimaru!"
Orochimaru then looked at Fukuro, who remained silent.
The ordinary-faced Fukuro noticed Orochimaru's attention and respectfully said: "Lord Orochimaru, I request to join the Black Serpent Squad!"
"Oh?" A slight surprise was evident in Orochimaru's voice. "Are you certain?"
The boy nodded heavily.
Orochimaru smiled wickedly. He had established both the Golden Serpent Squad and the Black Serpent Squad over the past three years.
In that time, he had taken in and nurtured batch after batch of talented children. Through specific, rigorous brainwashing education, strict vetting, and layers of screening, he had obtained some of the most excellent and potential-rich elites.
The children of the Golden Serpent Squad were those with exceptional ninja talent and unwavering loyalty to Orochimaru. After the final step—personally implanting the golden Eight Branches (Yamata) Cursed Seal—they would be secretly sent to infiltrate the lower ranks of Konoha ninja, serving as a heavy piece in Orochimaru's future plans.
The children of the Black Serpent Squad had talent slightly inferior to the Golden Serpent Squad, but their personalities were far more resolute and decisive. They were a group of cold-blooded, composed assassination specialists.
The Eight Branches Cursed Seal Orochimaru implanted in the members of the Black Serpent Squad was not golden. It was a seal he had developed in recent years that rapidly increases a ninja's strength in the short term by overdrawing the host's life force. The price was that anyone implanted with the black Eight Branches Cursed Seal would not live past the age of forty at the latest.
Implanting either of the two seals required a considerable price from Orochimaru—a large amount of chakra and many precious resources. The selection criteria for both groups were extremely stringent.
Consequently, even after three years, the combined membership of the two squads was still a meager fifty-something people.
Orochimaru was not surprised by Fukuro's confirmed answer and nodded toward Katō Ryūya.
Katō Ryūya bowed and withdrew. A moment later, he returned, carrying a metal container draped with a black cloth.
Orochimaru lifted the black cloth, revealing two well-maintained syringes.
He picked up one, steadily plunging it into the back of Fukuro's neck, injecting every last drop of the black liquid into the boy's body.
The precious black injection fluid immediately caused a violent reaction in the boy. Even with his superior endurance, Fukuro's calm face instantly twisted with pain.
Orochimaru did not hesitate. With a thought, his pale, slender hands began weaving a sequence of complex and esoteric hand signs. Infusing them with chakra, Orochimaru rapidly transitioned through ten different sets of seals, taking several breaths to complete them. He then firmly clapped his hands onto the back of Fukuro's neck.
The pain in the boy's body instantly subsided. A mystical force rapidly converged at the site of the injection, forming a black Eight Branches Cursed Seal.
After the seal was set, Fukuro looked somewhat drained, and Orochimaru's chakra reserves were also slightly depleted.
After his chakra recovered somewhat, Orochimaru implanted the golden Eight Branches Cursed Seal into Yumi.
With the seal implantations completed, Katō Ryūya led the two away.
As she was leaving the room, Yumi turned back, taking a deep, lingering look at Orochimaru. Recalling the words Orochimaru had just spoken to her, she secretly whispered in her heart: "Yes, everything I am is yours. It has been for a long, long time."
After settling Fukuro and Yumi, Katō Ryūya was heading back to Orochimaru's office when a dispatch from an intelligence operative stopped him. The words "URGENT ENCRYPTED" written above the triple seals on the scroll stung his eyes.
Furthermore, this encrypted scroll bore a Konoha symbol that Katō Ryūya had become very familiar with over the past three years. This was clearly a top-secret intelligence report from Konoha.
Katō Ryūya's mind raced like lightning. A possibility Orochimaru had predicted half a year ago sprang to his mind, and he couldn't help but gasp in a low voice: "Could it be..."
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