"Just Taijutsu...?"
Perched on a tree branch not far away, Orochimaru observed Satoru's every move.
If Satoru couldn't even handle this snake, then there was no need for Orochimaru to take action himself.
But now, things were getting interesting.
Orochimaru licked the corner of his mouth with his tongue, clearly amused.
The giant brown python twisted its body and pushed forward with all its strength.
But Satoru's single hand remained like an impenetrable wall, completely blocking its advance.
No matter how hard it struggled, the snake couldn't move an inch!
"I actually like pythons quite a bit."
Satoru flashed a bright smile, but behind his blindfold, his eyes were as cold as ice.
The python suddenly felt an instinctive sense of terror.
It was going to die.
This was an instinct passed down through countless generations of evolution, carved into the bones and genes of living creatures.
The golden-eyed snake's pupils widened in an instant as it struggled to escape.
But Hatake Satoru's grip on its head didn't loosen at all. It couldn't move forward or backward, only letting out constant hissing sounds of resistance.
Hatake Satoru suddenly dropped his playful smile, and a light blue mist began to seep from his palm.
Starting from the snake's head, a flame-like blue aura instantly wrapped around its entire body.
"Blue!"
The snake, now completely engulfed in the blue mist, didn't even have time to writhe or twist.
In an instant, its skin and flesh flipped outward from the inside, revealing raw pink muscle.
Before one could even blink, the snake was torn apart from the inside out.
With a loud boom, it shattered into countless pieces!
Blue had stripped away the space within the snake's body, causing internal pressure and collisions to trigger a series of small explosions.
The moment those explosions and air pressure reached a certain point, the snake burst apart in an instant.
With a crisp "ding," the key Hatake Satoru had tossed earlier landed perfectly on a small hook by the door.
A storm of shock surged in Orochimaru's mind. If not for the human face mask he wore, his expression would have completely given him away.
"There's no trace of explosive tags here. That massive explosion… was caused purely by that power?!"
Aside from the lingering scent of snake blood, there wasn't a single hint of gunpowder in the air.
No flames, no explosives—yet he had still triggered such a massive blast?!
"What is that power? What exactly is that light blue mist?!"
Even after witnessing it with his own eyes, Orochimaru still struggled to understand what kind of ability Hatake Satoru had just used.
"I can see it clearly, yet I can't sense it at all?!"
There were many types of chakra, yet the power Hatake Satoru used didn't seem to fit into any category.
If not for seeing it firsthand, one would think the snake had simply exploded for no reason at all.
Orochimaru swiftly jumped down from the tree. But in the very next second, the Hatake Satoru who had been standing at the doorway suddenly appeared right in front of him, hands casually stuffed in his pockets.
"Don't go around making a mess in front of people's houses. At least leave some money for repairs before you leave."
Hatake Satoru tilted his head slightly and spoke to Orochimaru.
The distance between them was so close, and his movement so silent, that it felt like a cat sneaking up to sink its fangs into a helpless snake or rat.
Body Flicker? Flying Raijin?
Orochimaru's slit pupils narrowed slightly as he suddenly leaped backward, flicking his sleeve toward Hatake Satoru.
Countless snakes shot out from within his sleeve, their mouths wide open as they lunged to wrap around Hatake Satoru.
Relying on sheer numbers and incredible speed, the snakes coiled tightly around him in an instant.
"Repair money, huh?"
Orochimaru let out a low chuckle from his throat and lunged straight at the trapped Hatake Satoru.
His hand reached for the eye mask covering Hatake Satoru's eyes.
"Forget that—what I really want to know is what's hidden under here!"
"Those strange jutsu… they must have something to do with your eyes!"
A Kekkei Genkai that allowed someone to use jutsu without chakra…
Could something like that really exist in this world?!
The moment Orochimaru's fingers touched the mask, Hatake Satoru—who had been tightly bound by the snakes—vanished into thin air.
There was no sign of movement, no trace left behind—he had simply disappeared, just like that.
A series of loud cracks followed as the mass of snakes that had just trapped Hatake Satoru instantly burst apart.
Orochimaru's eyes widened in disbelief, but before he could even process what had happened, the sound of wind rushing from behind shattered his thoughts.
"When did he...!?"
A faint blue mist had already started spreading across Orochimaru's body.
At some point, Hatake Satoru had reappeared right behind him.
"Don't get so obsessed with someone else's eyes that you forget what you're supposed to be doing~"
Before Orochimaru could react, his body slammed hard into the ground, completely out of his control.
The trees around him were instantly snapped in half, and the broken trunks flew straight toward Orochimaru.
"Boom!!"
With a loud crash, the ground where Orochimaru hit shook several times.
Cracks spread out from where he landed like a spiderweb, and pieces of rock and earth started breaking apart.
The thick logs falling on him kept slamming down over and over again.
After a huge explosion, dust flew everywhere. A massive pit, about four or five meters deep, had opened in the ground.
Hatake Satoru covered his mouth and waved his arm to clear the dust. All that was left was Orochimaru's empty skin.
Satoru frowned slightly.
That last attack was pretty loud, and he could already sense backup rushing in from all directions.
"Well, might as well leave this mess for someone else to clean up."
Satoru scratched his head and gave a carefree smile.
A dark shadow flashed by, leaving behind a wrecked battlefield.
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