Chapter 565: Orochi-Maruko’s Great Ordeal

"Come on, Sakura, don't mind Lee. He's just having one of his episodes. Leave this to me—I'll handle Guy-sensei's injections."

Seeing where the conversation was headed, Tenten hurried forward to take over the responsibility and change the subject.

Then she turned and shot Lee a warning look that clearly said:

Do not say another word.

It wasn't that Tenten wanted to volunteer.

As a member of Team Guy, she simply couldn't bear any more humiliation.

Everyone knew Team Kakashi effectively had two separate combinations.

There was Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura as one team.

Then there was Naruto and Sasuke as an entirely separate combination of their own.

Team Guy worked the same way.

Guy and Lee were one unit.

Then the full team was another.

If Guy and Lee embarrassed themselves purely as that first unit, Tenten honestly didn't care much.

But what Lee was about to explain involved something Guy had picked up from Kakashi after repeatedly dragging the team to watch movies.

Guy and Lee were both taijutsu specialists, and much like Naruto, they had a stubbornly literal way of thinking.

They saw something once and immediately accepted it at face value.

For example, why had Lee suddenly started begging Sakura not to keep Guy sedated?

Because not long ago, the team had watched a Land of Snow movie from the Clan of Love: Warring States Chronicles series.

The series covered various events from the Warring States Period through the perspective of the Uchiha—the so-called Clan of Love.

One particular storyline involved Uchiha Shō, the powerful eldest son of the Uchiha clan head, tracking down his younger brother Uchiha Natsusuke, who was away on a mission with his teammate and mentor, Orochi-Maruko, the heroine of that particular film.

Shō had urgent intelligence he needed to pass to his brother, so he used genjutsu to immobilize Orochi-Maruko while taking Natsusuke aside.

Unfortunately, that led to a horrifying development.

While Natsusuke was away talking to his brother, a shinobi named Shinoya, who had secretly loved Orochi-Maruko for years, discovered her completely unable to move under the genjutsu.

At last unable to suppress his obsession, Shinoya took advantage of her helpless state.

Orochi-Maruko could not move, but her hearing and awareness remained intact.

Because she misunderstood who had approached her, she believed Natsusuke had been responsible.

So when Natsusuke returned, she immediately proposed marriage.

Caught completely off guard, Natsusuke instinctively rejected her.

The heroine fell into despair, believing Natsusuke was the sort of man who would cause trouble, take what he wanted, ignore every law, and then abandon all loyalty afterward.

Later, once Uchiha Natsusuke learned what had actually happened, the shock caused him to awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan.

It also created a rift between him and his elder brother, nurtured a darker side within him, and eventually pushed him toward wanting to destroy the shinobi world.

He even lost an arm over the whole mess.

…

Anyway, that was why Lee was worried.

If Guy-sensei were kept unconscious for three straight days, what if somebody snuck over and did to him what had happened to Orochi-Maruko in the movie?

Tenten had only one question.

Who, exactly, in this entire area would ever want to do that to Guy-sensei?

Seriously?

And if Lee actually said that reason out loud, would Team Guy ever have any dignity left?

"Fine."

Sakura didn't press the issue and handed responsibility for Guy's sedation over to Tenten.

She and Ino had finished their current treatment.

Now all they needed to do was wait for one of the taijutsu maniacs nearby to injure themselves again through training, sparring, or some other form of reckless exercise.

"Sakura, since we don't have anything to do right now, want to check out the resort next door?"

Ino suggested.

"Sure.

"Oh, Tenten, Guy-sensei's current dose should keep him under until tonight. Lee can take care of him for now. Want to come with us?"

"Absolutely!"

Tenten agreed at lightning speed.

For once, she had the chance to hang out with girls her own age.

She nearly felt tears gathering in her eyes.

Finally.

She didn't have to spend another meal or movie night trapped between Guy and Lee.

It was torture.

The three Konoha kunoichi headed into the neighboring resort district together.

After wandering around for a while, each of them ended up carrying a cup of shaved ice along with several grilled skewers.

"Sakura, look! That one got a sequel!"

Ino pointed toward a promotional stand outside the resort cinema and tugged Sakura's arm.

"A sequel? Oh, wow, it did."

Sakura turned toward Tenten.

"Have you seen this series before? Want to watch it with us?"

"…"

Cold sweat immediately began running down Tenten's back.

Because the movie Sakura and Ino wanted to see…

Was the exact same one that had caused Lee's earlier concern!

She should have known.

Compared with her, Sakura and Ino had much more normal social lives. Of course they wouldn't miss a popular movie like this.

Team Guy had merely happened to see it a few days earlier.

This was terrible.

Once Sakura and Ino watched the movie and reached that scene, they would immediately understand why Lee had suddenly tried to stop Guy from being sedated.

All of Tenten's effort changing the subject earlier would become completely meaningless.

Worse still, she was standing right beside them.

Which meant she would have to personally endure the strange looks Sakura and Ino gave her once realization struck.

Just imagining it filled Tenten with despair.

If she had belonged to the Uchiha clan, she felt like her Sharingan would probably have awakened by now.

Tenten said nothing.

In a daze, she allowed Sakura and Ino to drag her into the cinema.

The two even assumed she had never seen the previous movie and kindly began explaining the setup.

"The Warring States Chronicles movies are divided into different series depending on which clan they follow, and each series covers a different stage of history.

"This new one, The Divine Hawk and His Companion, is a sequel to the last movie, The Legend of the Boar-Shooting Heroes.

"The previous film was about the Uchiha brothers practicing together as kids by hunting wild boars. Then after they grew up, they encountered an incredibly strong enemy named Kabumame, who had mastered Sage Mode.

"They eventually defeated him using the teamwork they had developed while hunting boars together as children.

"And near the end of the last movie, the protagonist, Uchiha Natsusuke, secretly joined the Ancient Tomb Sect founded by Orochi-Maruko after being introduced to her by the villain Kabumame—all without telling his older brother."

"Ohhh. So that's what happened."

Tenten finally came back to herself and nodded along in the flattest voice imaginable.

As if she needed Sakura and Ino to explain any of this.

She had already watched the entire movie.

"Whoa! Tenten, look at this!"

Sakura suddenly grabbed her arm when the movie reached an important scene.

"Orochi-Maruko and Uchiha Natsusuke are actually having a teacher-student romance! That's ridiculous!"

"Yeah."

Tenten stared blankly at the screen.

"Completely ridiculous."

She had already seen it once.

And compared with what came later, this was probably the mildest part of the whole movie.

Right now, Tenten felt like a prisoner sitting on death row, waiting for the executioner to arrive.

And she couldn't even ask them to hurry up and get it over with.

This was a movie.

If she spoiled the plot in advance, Sakura and Ino would be annoyed—and everyone else in the theater who overheard her might want to beat her up too.

So Tenten could only lean back in despair and stare at the ceiling at a forty-five-degree angle.

The story continued.

Eventually, Uchiha Shō brought his younger brother, Uchiha Natsusuke, to meet the famous Warring States shinobi Shinoya, hoping Natsusuke would become his disciple.

Natsusuke agreed on the surface.

But after formally becoming Shinoya's student, he quickly discovered that his new master was unbelievably lecherous and blatantly favored another disciple, Uzumaki Kōtori, who constantly used Transformation Jutsu to entertain him.

So Natsusuke abandoned Shinoya and returned to the Ancient Tomb Sect he had joined at the end of the previous movie—

Back to Orochi-Maruko.