NRaO Chapter 68 (Patreon)

Chiroo’s Point of View

I casually walked down the street with one of my arms tucked into my kimono. I was one of the oldest living shinobi in the Hidden Cloud village. Old enough to have grey hair and my advice even had the ear of the Raikage. I hadn’t been gifted permission to retire but as soon as the war ended I could. I made my way to the sauna, it was where I spent most of my time outside of missions.

The village was the most loyal out of all of them, even if a cloud shinobi was caught he’d more likely die before he gave away any information. Most cloud shinobi had a chakra compulsion in their head that if anyone tried to scan their thoughts or read their mind they’d die. Every high-ranking shinobi was fine with the system that was in place, even though I had warned the Raikage that if a person were to develop a ninjutsu that attacked that flaw then all the jonin-ranked shinobi could die before they even had the chance to fight he didn’t want to hear about it.

Only the current Raikage, the two Jinchuriki, and his son avoided the memory death seal, and that included myself. No high-ranking females were in the village, at least none up for becoming Raikage. The resources were weighted to make it almost impossible for female shinobi to do as well as male shinobi, but that was just how the village was run. It meant we also had a much higher rate of male shinobi than any other village, it weakened us as we had less on average but with how well each shinobi was treated it made them far more loyal.

Most ninjas had a wife for every rank they went up as shinobi. Genin normally had one wive, Chunin two, Jonin three, and Special Jonin four. This kept them loyal beyond what was possible for the other villages and made men strive much harder to increase their rank. Only the Raikage could have more but the current head only had a single wife with many concubines. All his children were thought to have a chance at becoming the Raikage but only his current second was in any running for becoming the next.

As a special jonin, I could have had four, but the lack of strength made me wary to choose any. Perhaps when I retired I would but until then I would rather keep on to my task. That task was undermining the power structure of the hidden cloud village. I was planted in the village a few months ago when this real body died in a sneak attack by my original, since then I’ve been puppeting this dead body around inside me to fool all the chakra signature tests the village was famous for.

Hidden Cloud was the village with the least barriers to entry but it was also one of the most secure just because anyone of any importance would be sussed out immediately if they betrayed the village. Any new face would be under much more scrutiny than another village as anyone of any value was raised from childhood. It just made sabotaging that much harder. I was a high rank but not known for doing anything of importance but surviving the impossible missions. Well, surviving almost all the suicide missions.

It was crazy that this man I picked was also an anagram for Orochi. I was just enjoying the downtime with my new wealth from the A-rank mission I was sent out on. My goals were changing, I had no doubts that the original body would want to change its plans for leadership as I kept figuring out more and more of the village's command structure.

He might want to become the Raikage just so he could have all the spare women, but he as well as myself valued strength in our partners. It meant he would sleep with women, but the village was also not known for its kekkei genkai or pseudo-jinchuriki. They had the highest average strength but no standouts inside the village, which was odd.

I was just going through the motions and I realized… This man had nothing, did he? He was one of the only special jonin in the village but didn’t have a single wife let alone the four he was allowed, no children and he lived in the poorest part of the village. All because of a single thing, gambling. The man loved gambling so much he wasted every single ryo he earned to try and earn more and he had never stopped while he was ahead. It reminded me of Tsunade’s parents.

Thank god she disliked gambling because of her parents. Every time we made a bet she’d lose and if we bet with currency she’d have been a pauper already. Thankfully she only bet using her body and three of our children were the result of that. Even now I could feel the urge of this body to get to the gambling den and try my luck but I could fight against it until I took my shower. I would head there after, I did have to keep up the act after all.

I made it out with only half of the pay from the mission lost. I once again had to fight against the urge to go back and try to gamble it all on one last bet. I knew my will would slowly erode and it wouldn’t take even another day for me to head back to the gambling den. I scratched my chest where the sword pierced me, I could still feel the phantom pain of my death.

It was odd, I could feel my objective guiding me but also the baser emotions of this corpse controlled me for the most part. I was both disgusted and didn’t care about my actions while I tried to scan for weaknesses and pretend to be aloof like the original would. Taking a corner into an alley I quickly began to piss as I made my way back home, I was wondering if the shinobi that had begun watching me since I returned knew I wasn’t the real Chiroo.

Going to sleep I waited for my puppet to be slain in its sleep, but it didn’t happen. Instead, I got a note to visit the Raikage when I woke up. Making my way towards the Raikage I could feel the original fear towards him, but also a sense of awe and respect I had never felt for anyone else as Orochi. He stood at least a foot taller than me. We sat in silence as the body couldn’t help but instinctively gulp from the sheer pressure the man gave off.

“You’ve passed the trials to be brought into the inner circle of the village.” He was a man of few words and didn’t explain further. Getting back to paperwork, two of his elites led me deeper into the village. Into a separate part I had never known about let alone seen. I looked on in wonder as the barren village was filled full of lust greenery and beautiful scantily clad women.

I couldn’t help but notice something different about each woman here before it finally hit me. Each of them was a kekkei genkai holder. While they looked happy as they frolicked around, one of the Raikage’s elites walked up to one and spoke with her briefly before they both went off into a room nearby. The soft sounds of lovemaking were another sign of what was actually happening in this part of the village.

I smirked an evil smirk as my plans shifted again. The village hidden in the clouds had started a eugenics program and all of the truly strong shinobi of the village were yet to be born. Only the strongest shinobi were brought here to breed with women who had special powers. The village was going to have a huge boom of kekkai genkai users loyal to the Hidden Cloud village once they were fully grown. It made the future prospects of this village the most dangerous…

Unless a new Raikage changed who could join the eugenics program? Perhaps the current Raikage had been secretly raising a true heir that had just come of age right as his father and brother died? I’d have to move some of my women here to actually leave the village but someone already made a separate paradise for someone looking to pass on his genes to the strongest female shinobi he could.