Journey of Desires

- Why?!!

A cry of indignation was heard in one of the buildings on the territory of Kumogakure, Naruko, who returned from training, heard about what happened literally a couple of hours ago.

- What why?

- Why didn't you take us with you?

Naruko, who had already studied fuinjutsu at a good level, and had the power of the kyuubi, really wanted to test her strength, and upon learning that she had missed such an opportunity, indignation literally exploded in her.

- Perhaps we'll start with the fact that Orochimaru, a very strong shinobi with Mangekyo Sharingan, asked for help, do you think that your strength would be enough to defeat an enemy to whom a shinobi of such a level yielded?

After these words, Naruko hung for a couple of seconds, and then sighed dejectedly and calmed down.

But the silence was not allowed to continue for long, and remembering something, she spoke again.

- What about Konan?

- We told her what happened, and now she's sitting in Orochimaru's cell. It was decided to leave her as a hostage in order to blackmail Nagato if necessary.

Naruko, accepting this situation, nodded, and then turned around and grabbed Hikari by the elbow and headed to the bathroom.

***

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

"The Land of Snow turned out to be incredibly developed, unlike the country of the bear, this country has incredibly well-developed technologies.

Starting with the simple, the Land of Snow has quite pleasant weather, there are no extremely low temperatures, and the air is icy only in the border villages.

It so happened that the Land of Snow is built on the principle that everything important is in the center, in the middle of a huge island is the capital, and less important and less interesting settlements are further and further to the shore.

The only exception is the main port city of the country, it is where more than 95% of all plantings take place, trade with other countries and visiting people almost always end up in the Land of Snow through this city.

What is rather strange is that they don't really like seafood here, a strange country since it is surrounded by the sea and logically they should eat a lot of fish, but it turned out that there are a huge number of glaciers that interfere with normal fishing, and local varieties of fish are not that different in taste and massiveness, rather the opposite.

Meat is very popular in this country, there are a lot of sheep, and hunting is very popular, meat is eaten here even in the poorest settlements, but there is a huge problem with bread and food of plant origin.

If you turn your attention to the capital, then first of all you can notice something that I have not seen anywhere else in the world.

There are civilian trains that travel once every three days from the capital to the main port city of Saromasa. And you can buy tickets for them, electricity, which is widely used in the Ninja villages, is available here in almost all settlements, television, cinema and many technological devices for the home are developing very quickly here, and are very popular.

In the capital there are not only several laboratories where people trained in special schools create their own technologies for everyday life, but also the main laboratory where they develop military models, we are not engaged in espionage and we cannot tell you what they come up with there, but the fact that the main department of engineers and scientists deals with military models is known to absolutely everyone who has ever been to the capital.

In general, the country is very interesting, with a lot of innovations and, in my opinion, pleasant weather, and we happily spent three weeks there after visiting the country of the Bear.

***

In the village of Sound, Orochimaru thought that everything was happening completely differently than he expected.

To begin with, studying Itachi did not bring anything interesting except that it became clear that Itachi was not as strong as Orochimaru expected, in fact, with the exception of incredibly powerful genjutsu, he could not present anything against old Orochimaru except the sword of Totsuka and the mirror of Yato.

The disappointment he felt when he realized that it was only worth getting immunity to genjutsu as the one Orochimaru feared became almost not dangerous, really pissed him off at first.

But that's okay, the more important thing is that Nagato never showed up, Orochimaru has been holding Konan prisoner for more than a month and a half, tomorrow the first part of his plan will begin, several teams from his village will go to Konoha to participate in the Chunin exam.

In just four weeks, old man Hiruzen will be dead, and Sanin really doesn't like the feeling of waiting and not understanding what's going on.

Lately, he's acquired a habit that he hadn't noticed before, he can spend quite a lot of time in his thoughts, sometimes even these thoughts can lead to strange emotions and sensations.

Noticing that something was wrong with him, Orochimaru has already examined himself, as a conclusion, he came to the conclusion that this is something called the "Sharingan Curse", most Uchiha have mental problems, and there are only a few Uchiha per generation who do not suffer from this or have it in a very weak form.

After spending several days studying himself, Sanin came to the conclusion that such a change in character is even useful, and did not change anything.

Self-analysis and thoughts in which he ponders his and others' actions are quite useful.

In such a life, laziness passed by day, he waited for Nagato and prepared to attack Konoha.

Another day ended and the day arrived when he sent out teams for the exam.

Just a few hours after sending out his men, Ban and company finally came to him.

They had been gone for almost two months, the journey to the land of the bear and the land of snow had taken quite a long time.

Entering the office and talking a little with Orochimaru about the technology of the Land of Snow, Ban finally asked the main question that interested him the most.

- Nagato still hasn't come?

Orochimaru frowned a little, expressing his incomprehension with his facial expressions and answered.

- No, to be honest, I have a feeling that he died altogether...

- Well... If you think about it, then this option is quite possible, there is a chance that Tobi simply finished him off, or he died of exhaustion when he was evacuated, in general, there are many options.

- I have a hard time believing the option that he could have died from wounds or exhaustion. But if this is a conspiracy on Tobi's part, then I don't understand what he is trying to achieve.

- There is no point in thinking about it now, better tell me about your plan, when will the Chunin exams start?

***

Konoha, five days later.

At the entrance to the forest of death there were many people, Anko, a former student of Orochimaru stood on the podium and talked about the rules of the second stage of the Chunin exams.

Sasuke, who was listening to her attentively, was very serious, he wanted to become a chunin to get access to more dangerous missions where he could grow faster and kill his brother.

Now he was absolutely sure that he would easily be able to pass this exam, because both other members of his team showed themselves as best as possible.

Hinata Hyuga, who returned to the village after the kidnapping, changed a lot, although she remained as quiet as before, but it was no longer possible to see shyness in her, she began to train much more, and in a short time she broke into first place in the class ranking, which at first really infuriated the Uchiha.

The second member was Sai, a guy who joined their team right before graduation, he showed excellent results that exceeded the average of his old classmates, and since there was a vacancy in Class A, they decided to transfer him to it.

He joined in the last month before graduation, and quickly took fourth place in the ranking, only Hinata, Sasuke and Shikamaru were ahead of him.

Sasuke was happy with his team, both of his teammates were quiet and strong, they did not irritate or drag him down. The only downside to this team is their mentor.

Kakashi sensei is extremely lazy and useless in Sasuke's opinion, and he cannot understand how this man became a Jonin.

When Anko finished speaking, Sasuke signed the papers and, together with the team and the chunin accompanying them, went to the entrance to the Forest of Death designated for them.