Chapter 253: The Sound Four

Four figures appeared upon a rooftop in Konoha's residential district.

"Is that Sasuke Uchiha?" Kidōmaru asked.

All four watched the boy walking alone in the distance.

"We spent a fortune reaching him," Kidōmaru continued. "Why is Orochimaru so obsessed with this one brat?"

"Stop complaining and finish the mission," Tayuya said. "Konoha has adjusted its defenses again. We do not know when the next change will expose us."

Jirōbō suddenly raised a hand. "Wait. That is Kakashi Hatake."

Kakashi had appeared at the end of the street. The Sound Four looked down on shinobi softened by peace, but they were not arrogant enough to fight the Copy Ninja inside Konoha. Their current infiltration had required an enormously expensive barrier designed to evade the village's detection. Even Kabuto had struggled to find a flaw in the revised defenses.

"Troublesome," Kidōmaru said. "Konoha still has people even Orochimaru would have difficulty handling."

Tayuya scoffed. "You mean the man who knows how to hide? He was nowhere to be seen when Konoha was attacked."

"Orochimaru drew him away," Jirōbō said. "That is different from hiding."

None of them noticed Tonbo land behind them.

Fine nerves extended from his hands and spread across their bodies.

"A little insurance for Kiba and the others," he thought. "They were my students, after all."

Tonbo's influence had already altered their strength. Neji and the others possessed far more combat experience than they had at the same age in the history he remembered, while Kiba had grown considerably stronger. That did not make them immune to accidents. A kunai through the skull could kill any of them, and the Sound Four would not necessarily repeat every decision from the original timeline.

Without perfect intelligence, a stronger fighter could still die to the wrong tactic.

Tonbo therefore prepared insurance against an unexpected result. The changes he made would ensure that the Sound Four died if the retrieval battles turned against Konoha's young shinobi.

He did not intend to fight their battles for them. Chōji, Neji, Kiba, and the others needed the experience and the growth that came from surviving powerful enemies. The insurance existed for the thin line between a difficult victory and a random death: a mistimed strike, unknown ability, or decision that the history Tonbo remembered had never contained.

At the same time, his nerves collected information about their Cursed Seals.

His research into Sage Mode had entered the proper path. Tonbo could already sense natural energy. The remaining task was to use it, or combine it with his chakra, without allowing the power to destroy him. The Sound Four's transformed bodies could provide valuable data.

The infiltration served two purposes at once.

Kidōmaru, Tayuya, Sakon, and Jirōbō continued their discussion without the slightest awareness of the man touching their nervous systems. Tonbo's genjutsu rewrote what their senses reported. To them, no one stood behind them and nothing had happened.

What kind of genjutsu master would he be if four opponents could feel him operating on them?

The preliminary information disappointed him. Jirōbō's ability to merge his cells into another body and Kidōmaru's production of spider silk both leaned toward Earth Release. So did much of the Sound Four's physical transformation.

Tayuya's altered body and Sakon's unusual physiology offered different details, but the brief contact could not reveal everything. Tonbo recorded the response of their chakra pathways and left the deeper changes for the moment when the Cursed Seals activated. The second state would expose what the passive marks concealed.

For Tonbo, it was only research data.

Yin Release gave form to what had none, while Earth Release gave substance and vitality to form. Tonbo's talent for Yin Release was extraordinary; his Earth Release could not compare. If both aptitudes had been equally strong, he might have pursued the power to shape entire living structures, almost as the Sage of Six Paths had created life.

The possibility excited him. Jirōbō's cellular integration, combined with the right abilities, might even have offered a path toward merging with living beings in a manner resembling the Ten-Tails.

But imagination did not change affinity. Tonbo would continue developing Yin Release and study whatever Earth Release principles he could use.

For complete data, he needed the Sound Four to activate both stages of their Cursed Seals. That meant allowing the mission to continue.

Tonbo withdrew, and they never knew he had been there.

That evening, the four approached Sasuke. Tonbo watched from concealment while they displayed the power of their marks and promised the strength Orochimaru could provide. As expected, Sasuke's hunger for revenge overcame his distrust. He made his decision.

Tonbo felt selfish and hypocritical.

He lacked the courage to overturn the world's main course even when events unfolded directly in front of him. Family had changed the way he calculated risk. A known path existed in which his wife and children survived. Why would he gamble their lives by forcing history into an unknown direction?

If his rebirth had granted him invincible power, perhaps he would have behaved differently. It had not. Tonbo himself was not invincible either.

His knowledge of the future made caution even harder to escape. The Ōtsutsuki truly would descend upon this world. Naruto and Sasuke needed to follow the road that made them strong enough to face that danger.

His future self had also sent a message urging him to act according to his own judgment. There had to be a reason. If the older Tonbo believed this choice served him best, the present Tonbo had little reason to reject it.

He was grateful he had not been reborn as an Uchiha. The butterfly effect around that clan would have become impossible to contain.

Sasuke prepared to leave after dark. Tonbo followed and found Sakura waiting beneath the moonlight, just as he remembered, though the timing had shifted.

"Is this Sakura's intuition?" he wondered. "Or does that second personality of hers influence what she notices?"

The altered hour worried him more than the meeting itself. In the original course, the Sound Four's route brought them into contact with Shizune's returning mission team. That battle exhausted them enough for Chōji, Neji, Kiba, and the others to survive. If the timing changed too much, the advantage might disappear.

That uncertainty was another reason Tonbo had tampered with the Sound Four.

Sakura pleaded with Sasuke beneath the trees. She offered love in place of a strategy and never prepared herself to fight. Sasuke moved behind her, struck the side of her neck, and caught her as she fell. He placed her upon a roadside bench and gave her one last gentle look before turning away.

Tonbo stared after him, then at his unconscious former student.

"Hopelessly in love," he thought. "Where are the combat skills I taught you? How embarrassing."

He wanted Sasuke's growth to continue along the known path, but Sakura's failure still irritated him. She understood Sasuke's mood well enough to predict his departure, yet chose to appeal to him without guarding against an attack.

With the training Tonbo had given her, Sasuke might not have defeated Sakura so easily if she had actually decided to fight.