Journey of Desires

When the terms of the exchange were met, Ban was already impatient to receive such a curious toy as the Kusanagi sword. At that moment, Kilia simply leaned back in her chair and began to listen to the dialogue.

- Well then, let's start with me telling you about immortality, after which you tell me about the scrolls, then since I was the first to pass on the information, you give me the sword and after which I give you the DNA of the immortal.

- Hmmm, okay, I hope that our cooperation will be fruitful.

- And so, to begin with, I would like to tell you that immortality is real and imaginary. Immortality is also divided into 2 types, physical and spiritual. Physical imaginary immortality is when a creature stops aging and can no longer die a natural old age, physical true immortality is when a creature is physically invulnerable or can recover from any state to its original and functioning state. Tell me Orochimaru, do you just want to live a very long time, or not be afraid of physical death in principle?

The question was rather stupid, since a person like Orochimaru who does not want to die will of course choose not to be afraid of death at all. Which Banu immediately said, showing a slightly displeased face, after all, Sanin does not like questions whose answer is obvious.

- Well, so, you will learn how to simply cancel aging without anyone's hints in the future, I know that. But as for how to obtain absolute physical immortality, I can give you hints by transferring the DNA of such a creature, I also want to say that absolute physical immortality is impossible in itself, there must always be something that will hold the soul of a creature in the world while its body is restored, even if it takes a few seconds. Further, if we talk about spiritual immortality, spiritual imaginary immortality is when, for example, a person dies but his soul power and residual energy are enough for him to become something like a spirit or a ghost, absolute spiritual immortality applies to creatures of only an energetic type of existence, for example, biju, when they die, they are resurrected after a while.

- Regarding the basic information about immortality, everything, you can find out more in this notebook, it is a temporary copy of the original and will self-destruct in about 2 months, here are the records of research and reflections of our friend, she is a person of many talents, and there was a time when she tried to classify all types of different "techniques" and human powers. You can take it.

Ban handed the notebook to Orochimaru, after which he stared at him with an expectant look, waiting for a story from his side. Orochimaru was quite surprised that absolute physical immortality exists, the best he had previously expected was to stop aging and ensure safety with his own strength.

- Ke-ke, yes, I think this information will be quite useful to me. As for the scrolls you asked for, I will now send an order for my subordinates to bring several of those that I have, but you can find more either in the collection of the Daimyo of the Land of Fire, or directly buy them from the clans whose history interests you.

After which Sanin summoned a snake and gave the order to convey that the sound shinobi bring certain scrolls that are stored in the department of useless but potentially informative, indicated the shelf and numbers of the scrolls. After that, he and Ban were about to move on to the exchange, but here they were interrupted by Kilia.

- Sorry for interrupting, but I want to give advice. Orochimaru, stop using the technique of moving into other bodies, when you are transferred to a new body and lose your old one, your soul gradually wears out and receives damage that will take a very long time to heal. If a person uses spiritual practices to temporarily control another body, or to walk in a spiritual form and similar options, then this does not harm in any way, but when the soul constantly loses its old physical shells and is forced to get used to new conditions, it receives harm, which can potentially block the possibility of gaining physical absolute immortality for several decades, since the body needs to recover on the basis of something, and if the soul is not whole, then the body will not be able to recover to the optimal form.

- I will take this into account ... Thank you for the advice.

Then he turned to face Ban and handed him the Kusanagi blade, at that moment Ban grabbed it and began to examine and study it.

- Wow, the ease with which this sword accepts my mana is incredible! And I expected that some problems would arise.

After which he immediately stood up and began testing the weapon, constantly feeding it with energy and making it incredibly sharp, moving a little further towards the forest he began to check how well the blade fits in the hand and how well its weight is felt. Orochimaru wanted to understand what the word Mana means, but his thoughts were interrupted.

- Usually it takes about 10 minutes, don't worry, he's not playing and will come back to fulfill his part of the deal. Would you like to play a game of cards while your brother is having fun?

- Cards? I'm not a fan of gambling.

- Don't worry, I play only for the pleasure of the game process and not for money.- I will still refuse

- Tsk! Bummer!

In response, Orochimaru only showed a strange expression on his face and decided to ignore this phrase.

After 4 minutes of waiting, and while Ban was still testing the new toy, 3 Shinobi of the Sound village jumped out into the clearing, immediately approached Orochimaru and handed him a sealing scroll, after which Orochimaru said that they were free and the Shinobi disappeared from the place of the auction. Literally a minute later, Ban returned.

- Here, in this sealing scroll are those very scrolls with the chronicles of the Uchiha and Senju clans.

- Thank you, I think now it's my turn to complete the deal.

Ban approached the table, creating spatial interference and plunging the chairs and table into them, after which the strange effect disappeared, and there were no more pieces of furniture in the clearing. Then he rolled up the sleeve of his left hand and took the Kusanagi blade in his right, striking and cutting off the left hand. Orochimaru looked at all this in extreme surprise, but what surprised him even more and made him look with greedy eyes was that after 1 second the blood stopped flowing from the wound and the hand literally began to grow back before his eyes, having recovered from complete absence to full form in 4 seconds. Ban returned the sleeve to its place, after which he picked up his severed limb and extended it to Orochimaru.

- Here you go!

Having handed the hand to Orochimaru, he approached his sister and hugged her by the shoulder.

- I introduce myself again. My name is Ban, and my titles are the Fox's Sin of Greed and also the Immortal Ban. I am already over a thousand years old, I do not know how much useful information you can get from my DNA, which is no longer supported by my immortality, but the agreement was to transfer the DNA of an immortal, this is where our bargaining ends and I say goodbye. Until next time!

The next moment, Ban and Kiliya lit up as if covered with a small film of light and disappeared from the clearing.

Orochimaru stood digesting the new information, after which he hurried to return to the lab as soon as possible to study the DNA and copy all the data from Merlin's notebook.

 ***

- Damn it, Ban! Couldn't you use Section 1 teleportation? I hate it when you do that!

The problem was that Kilia really disliked and even hated the feeling of silent movement magic. The teleportation that Ban used had the advantage of almost instant movement and did not need any keywords or chants, but in return, the feeling of such magic if you are not the one who uses it causes slight nausea.

- Oops, sorry, I forgot again.

It was obvious that he really hadn't thought about it, but there was also no trace of remorse in his eyes.

- Bacon! In the next big city, you will bring me delicious and fresh bacon, and I don't care where you look for it.

In response, she only heard "Okay!", followed by a quiet mutter of "He got off with a little bloodshed." Squinting and starting to drill her brother's head, she immediately made him feel uncomfortable.

- Okay, live for now. Today is a holiday for you anyway. So, was the sword worth all the time we spent? We could have already been at the border with the country of fire by now.

- Well, the Blade of Kusanagi is an incredibly good conductor of energies, though as a blade it's still crap, Escanor's axe would have cut this toothpick in one blow and wouldn't have noticed. It feels like if this blade were melted down into some kind of core for a magic staff or a grimoire cover, the end result would be much more interesting. I'll do that later, maybe when we're in the country of stone, I'll ask Roshi to work as a furnace for the forge, but for now let it be as it is.

The conversation died down at this point, and the relatives walked on in silence, simply enjoying the world around them. After hundreds of years in purgatory, you start to notice things you didn't notice before, and the most ordinary things like birds singing or a peaceful atmosphere become a real treasure.

***

The Land of Fire, a border post for ordinary people who are not Shinobi.Ban and Kiliya set off from the outskirts of the Sound village closer to lunchtime, when the sun was already at its zenith, after a couple of hours of leisurely walking, they decided to speed up and by evening they found themselves at the border.

- Oh! Look, this time the border post looks normal, maybe there will be Shinobi? I wonder why they are needed at all? Ninja can get to any country through other routes anyway, and there is no point in stopping and checking ordinary villagers.

Ban's thoughts out loud immediately reached Kiliya's ears, she thought for a second and then gave a rather obvious answer.

- As far as I understand, there are 2 goals. The first is to monitor a large number of movements of foreign shinobi, that is, to inform about a potential war, and the second is to transfer customers from hand to hand to another Shinobi village. I heard in the "Abode of Tanuki" that the locals quite often issue tasks when it is necessary to transfer protected cargo, for example, from the land of fire to the land of stone. Most often, such missions are given by merchants who carry goods from one hidden village to another. For a ninja, approaching another village is quite dangerous, so before there were often cases when customers were left a few kilometers from the place where they needed to be escorted. And giving tasks to 2 ninja at once will ensure that you will be accompanied from the moment you leave one village until the moment you enter another.

While they were talking, their feet had already led to the location of the local border ninja. To their surprise, this time they still saw a man in the uniform of the ninja village.

- Good evening, we want to go to the land of fire, can we go through?

- Purpose of arrival? Should there be an escort?

The Konoha shinobi looked rather sleepy and tired and judging by his appearance, he was probably from the Nara clan. At the same moment when he asked these questions, Kilia hurried to answer.

- We are travelers, we were not given tasks and we do not need to wait for anyone. Is that all? Or do you need something else?

- No, everything is fine, please go through, have a good trip.

At the same moment as the brother and sister passed the post and took literally a couple of steps, they decided to turn around and saw a man with dark hair already sleeping. Incredible carelessness and recklessness, any adequate person in the place of this border guard would have waited for some time and then relaxed. But it seems that this particular representative of the Shinobi world is too lazy to worry about his health.

***

 From the upcoming book about the countries of the ninja world "Beautiful cities and what's interesting about them"

"On the way to the capital of the Land of Fire, we visited several small settlements, villages to be more precise. People in all 3 were quite polite and pleasant. But in the second village there was a problem with bandits, they extorted a monthly fee, the villagers asked us to deal with this problem, in exchange offering free overnight stay and food for several days of the hike. Well, I tested the new blade, and solved the problem with the bandit gang.What is really worth mentioning is the food that the locals offered, during this time of our journey we visited many places, but we managed to find goat cheese only in this village, an extremely rare type of food that I really like, and subsequently I visited this village many times to replenish the supplies of this delicacy. For those who have not tried it, I recommend it!"