Chapter 53
Chapter 53
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 0
Chapter Title: Ruins of Uzushio Village
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While Menma's shadow clone was playing house with Naruto and Hinata,
Menma's main body had already left Orochimaru's base. Using the Flying Thunder God marker he had left earlier at a certain coastal spot in the southern Land of Hot Water, he teleported directly there.
This was a dock warehouse in a coastal city of the Land of Hot Water. After being purchased by Gato Company, it had been sealed off.
Menma checked the Flying Thunder God kunai in the warehouse's secret room, along with some warning items set by his subordinates nearby. After confirming nothing had been triggered, he set off along the coastline toward the ruins of Uzushio Village.
Following the coastline, he soon found the island where the Land of Whirlpools had once stood.
In the ruins of Uzushio Village, the faint glow from several campfires illuminated one corner of the wasteland.
When Menma arrived, clad in a black robe and wearing a white three-eyed fox mask, he immediately caught the attention of the pirates and rogue ninjas holed up there.
"Where'd this kid come from?" Several pirates were the first to approach, hefting machetes, spiked clubs, and other weapons.
The Land of Whirlpools had been destroyed during the Second Great Ninja War, around Konoha 37—seventeen years ago. Some lush green trees had already sprouted across parts of the island.
Under the campfire light, weeds choked the ruins, while bushes concealed the outlines of buildings left from the destruction seventeen years prior.
After the fall of the Land of Whirlpools, most of Uzushio Village's assets had surely been carved up by other nations.
Even this site had likely been guarded by ninjas for years back then, scouring every inch in search of the Uzumaki Clan's secret treasures.
But seventeen years later, it had devolved into a den for pirates and rogue ninjas.
"Hey! Kid, I'm talkin' to you!" The pirates swaggered right up to Menma, one of them hawking a glob of spit.
Whoosh—
A sharp whistle cut the air, and the pirate's head tumbled off like a ball.
Blood fountained from the severed neck, splattering the surrounding pirates.
"Aaaah!!!" The pirates had never witnessed anything so gruesome; they scattered in terror, crapping and pissing themselves as they fled.
The other rogue ninjas, seeing this, knew the intruder meant business and drew their weapons.
The Death God, scythe slung over his shoulder, drifted down from the darkness like a specter.
He swung his scythe, unleashing countless wind blades that cut down every pirate trying to escape.
"Who the hell are you?!" bellowed a man who looked like the leader of the rogue ninjas.
But the slight tremble in his kunai grip betrayed his fear.
"Hidden Mist defectors?" Menma noted the line scratched across the Hidden Mist Village symbol on their forehead protectors.
These rogue ninjas had scant chakra, though—the leader barely scraping mid-chunin level, the rest mere genin.
Menma had no interest in them, not even enough to bother recruiting.
"Finish them."
An icy voice issued from beneath the white three-eyed fox mask.
The Death God rocketed forward from behind him, scythe whirling as it harvested the traitors' lives.
The screams didn't last long.
Menma stepped into the rogue ninjas' and pirates' camp and rifled through their stuff.
Sure enough, just a few ninja tools, some food, and money—nothing tied to Uzushio Village.
"Kagura Mind's Eye!"
Menma closed his eyes and activated Kagura Mind's Eye, heightening his chakra sensing as he scanned the entire island.
"..."
Soon enough, he picked up a faint chakra fluctuation deep within the Uzushio Village ruins.