Chapter 23
In a secluded part of the Land of Sound, Mask was finished with most of his work and did a last minute chakra sensing scan before calling it a night. Mask paused as he sensed somethings or someones that shouldn't be there. How troublesome, the group was approaching his little hamlet. It seems like he wasn't quite done for the night like he had hoped. Not one to dawdle, Mask made his way to investigate the group of chakra signatures, preparing himself for the possibility of combat. The former Hokage was not in the mood for conflict at the moment but it was likely there would be combat... The sooner he finished investigating and dealing with the group, the better.
A man with snake-like features was leading a team of people. The snake man was a Konohagkaure shinobi but he was leading a sort of expedition out in the Hidden Sound. One of the members of his team had silver hair and wore round glasses, undoubtedly a leaf shinobi. The rest of the group seemed to be civilians. Unusual. What was their purpose? Why were they skulking about at this time of night?
How intriguing.
Mask kept himself hidden in the trees above. He was following them and observing them. There were only two shinobi in the entire group. There is a high possibility of the snake shinobi being one of the legendary sannin taught by Hiruzen. What brings such a famous face to his part of the Land of Sound? Assassination? Highly unlikely due to the civilians accompanying him. This didn't strike him as being a hostile force but that's part of the reason why Mask was confused and also one of the reasons why Mask was curious.
There's something somewhat familiar about that snake shinobi's chakra. I can't quite figure out what it is though.
Mask was curious and the best way to get answers would be to have a conversation. That's why he stopped putting in effort to conceal himself. How long would it take for the sannin to notice his presence? Was he testing the student of his student? Possibly.
It didn't take too long at all, apparently. It only took a short amount of time for him to be called out by the sannin. Mask carefully dropped down from the tree and landed on his feet. Here was the demon of the Land of Sound, the shinigami or Masked Ghost, whatever people were calling him these days-- here he was willing to talk to them. Nothing too scary, right? At least, he shouldn't have come off as threatening. The masked former Hokage stood a few feet in front of the snake sannin who was presumably the leader of the team here. Then suddenly, someone decided that they wanted to scream their head off. Mask glared over the sannin's shoulder to see the woman responsible for the screeching that resounded throughout the night.
The former Hokage was justified in judging that the woman was annoying, seeing as the scream was grating at his patience. Some of the other civilians in the group were trying to calm her down but she seemed to be in a state of panic. Mask knew his fearsome reputation preceded him but he felt this was somewhat uncalled for, considering he hasn't attempted to attack.
A few minutes had passed before the woman finally fell unconscious from her own panic. That was rather unexpected. At least now, a conversation could occur.
Orochimaru of the Legendary Sannin was here to build a lab and do research. That was something I did not expect. It seems our mutual interest in science and experimenting makes us colleagues.
However, I still do not understand why his chakra signature is familiar to me when I have never met the man before. There are a number of possible reasons why this could be the case but a good portion of those reasons are impossible. I do find the matter intriguing, and that is a small part of the reason why I allowed him to build his lab here. I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me in the future.