333 The Unexplored Lands
"Victims? What do you mean?" Hidan asked as he looked at the blood on his scythe.
Yami walked toward Hidan and said "Before coming here I took a little detour and paid Yugakure a visit. I must say it is a pretty peaceful place but the stench of you cultists ruined my mood. I visited the catacombs that your cult resides in. Unfortunately due to the bizarre barriers that your people had in place, I couldn't go inside the catacombs but I was successfully able to lure some of the priests that would come out of it to get food."
"S-So this blood belongs to those priests?" Hidan asked to which Yami shook his head and said "No...no that would attract Yugakure's as well as the higher cultists' attention. I merely convinced them to tell me about those cultists who are residing in the Shinobi world. Luckily 7 of them were in the land of fire hiding as civilians and performing rituals in secret. This was the mixture of all their blood." Yami explained.
"What? How is that possible? I am sure you are bluffing." Hidan said. He didn't think that the villages knew what his power exactly did and planning something to such an extent beforehand was not something a kid was capable of doing.
Hidan wanted to refute more but then someone whispered a few names in his ear. Hidan got spooked due to that and looked back. Kakuzu and Sasori also didn't understand his behavior and looked back.
"When did he?" Kakuzu asked. He didn't understand how Yami was already standing behind them.
'I couldn't even sense him. How is this even possible?' Sasori thought. He wanted to jump farther away from Yami but he had the feeling that if he moved then he would become Yami's primary Target.
Hidan who got spooked quickly said "The names that you whispered are the names of those who left the catacombs a year ago. So it's true huh? this was the mixture of their blood?"
At the same time all over the land of Fire, 7 people had a slash on their chest, and their eyes were pierced and destroyed. Some of them were at their house when it happened but the rest of them were in public. Different places in the land of fire were right now in chaos due to what had happened a few seconds ago.
Hidan was quiet for a few seconds but then he looked back at Yami and said "It doesn't matter. Even if you have fooled me now, this was just one of my trump cards. There is nothing you can do about the others as only the bishops in the cult know about it. There is no way you can know what they are until its too late."
Hidan was right when he said this because in the anime, this is the only thing he used and they didn't know anything else that was in his arsenal. Yami had tried to lure out the higher-ups in the cult but he was unsuccessful.
"I know which is why I didn't waste my time only at the catacombs. My true aim was something else."
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Yugakure (1 week ago)
It had been 2 days since Yami had used genjutsu and extracted the information about the cultists outside in the shinobi world. He was sure that there were much more but for now these names would do.
'For now, I will only take the blood of those who are in the land of fire. As time passes I will take from the ones in the land of mist and the hidden mist island.' Yami thought.
In the past two days, Yami had managed to get a few drops of blood from the 7 cultists who were hiding in the land of fire. The stealth skill that Bora taught him was doing wonders.
Yami thought that there is still time for him to face Hidan. All he had to do was latch onto team Asuma and he would be able to face Hidan eventually.
After he finished collecting the blood, he used his genjutsu on some old locals who would know about the valley of hell. He didn't want to rush blindly inside the valley. The Chinoike clan had been there for decades and god knows what kind of protections they have implemented against the outsiders.
By talking to them he found that Yugakure has assigned 3 squads to guard the boundaries of the valley. Since the valley is too deep and dense, they don't know whether someone is alive in there or not. Since the shinobis from the rest of the shinobi world have no trade relations with Yugakure, no one tries to come near the valley. The most common rumor that Yami heard was that the Chinoike clan drinks blood.
By seeing the anime, Yami knew that it was just water that had become red due to the minerals in the valley, so he had nothing to worry about in this aspect. Yami completed his information gathering during the day and at night sneaked away to enter the valley of hell.
He didn't know how much time it was going to take to get complete his goal in the Chinoike clan. He had already sent 2 bats to spy on Yura. He knew that there would be an instance when Sasori would meet Yura personally.
As Yami started moving toward the valley, he sensed the Yugakure forces that were posted a kilometer prior to the valley.
"They posted their people a kilometer away? They must be really scared of these blood-drinking people." Yami muttered as he started to scout the guards. Most of them were chunin-level shinobis while a few were in between but Jonin level.
For a small village like Yugakure which has no problems with anyone, this is more than enough strength for isolating the valley. Yami easily slipped past 2 chunins and entered the area of the valley. As he kept going in, he saw a small stream flowing through the middle of the valley. The surprising fact was the water was coming from inside the mountain and it was red in color.
As Yami continued to follow it, after 15-20 mins he heard some voices. He quickly used his stealth and hid in the dense forest as he moved slowly toward the source of the voice.
"Why can't we just sleep? This is so boring just standing here in the night doing nothing." one of the men said.
The other one who was sitting on a rock nearby looked at him and said "I understand what you mean. I have been doing guard duty for 5-6 years now and no one except animals have come here."
"Father told me that no one from the outside world has visited our clan for the past few decades. Will we ever go out and see the world?" the first one asked. The other one shrugged and said "On such matters, even the elders of our clan have divided opinions so what can I say..."
Yami heard their talks for a few seconds but then proceeded to go deep inside the valley. The entire road behind the 2 guards was lit with burning wood stumps. As he continued to enter the area became brighter than before and very soon, Yami was just a few hundred meters away from an actual settlement. There were bamboo houses, some big some small but one of them which caught his eye was a big house with a pointed roof. Yami guessed that this must be the house of the clan head which could also be considered as their Kage.
Yami summoned a few bats and had them surveil the entire area. He only knew 2 people from the anime who belonged to the Chinoike clan. Yami didn't remember the name of the arms dealer he saw in the anime but he definitely knew the face.
After making the bats search for the face for a few hours, Yami eventually found him sitting outside a house in a remote location. Yami quickly reached the place where the man was sitting creating a small fire. Just as Yami was thinking about his next move, the house door opened and a beautiful woman in her 30s walked out of the house with a girl holding her hand.
"Father what are you doing?" the little girl asked as she crouched beside the man.
"Nothing Chino...just making a fire so that your mother can cook. Today's meeting took a lot of time." Oyashiro said.
"Alright, I will go to Hoshi's place and get some fruits as well." Chino said and left the house.
As she was gone, the woman stood beside Oyashiro and asked "You seem restless Shiro...is something the matter?"
"Yes...the situation is really dire. The clan head is trying his best to keep the clan peaceful but the 1st and the 3rd elder want the entire clan to go out into the shinobi world and exact revenge. They want to kill the Daimyo and wage war on the Uchiha clan." OyaShiro said as he sighed deeply. The sadness in his voice was evident and the women also patted his shoulder as if telling him to hang in there.
Why did Yami go to Yugakure? What was so important there that it was his first stop? Ans to all your questions are posted in my P@treon)
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