Chapter 45: The Nosebleed Girl

Even though those three idiots had attacked them, they did bring something useful for Team 8.

"Yagyu-kun, they have a Heaven Scroll," Hinata said as she found a scroll on one of the fallen enemies, with the seal marked "Heaven."

"Great, we've got everything we need. Now, let's go find Ino and Sakura," Yagyu nodded with satisfaction.

At the same time, his three shadow clones activated their Sharingan and began searching the Forest of Death for Karin.

The Forest of Death was large, with the distance from any entrance to the central tower being ten kilometers. Walking from the east side to the west would cover twenty kilometers in total. While this was not a big deal for the Body Flicker Technique, it did present a challenge for Yagyu's Sharingan's farsight abilities.

At first, Yagyu thought finding Karin would be easy.

After all, besides Naruto and Gaara, Karin and Orochimaru had the most chakra reserves. He thought he just needed to look for a significant chakra signature in the red world of his Sharingan.

However, he quickly realized he was wrong.

While Karin's chakra would be incredible in the future, that wasn't the case now.

At this point, Karin was merely a mobile blood bag for her teammates from the Grass Village, who only kept her around to heal their injuries. Every time they were hurt, they would bite Karin to recover. Due to this mistreatment and her poor living conditions in the Grass Village, Karin's chakra reserves were nowhere near what they should be for an Uzumaki clan member.

Perhaps this is why her red hair hadn't drawn much attention. After all, while the Uzumaki clan had been known for red hair, there were many other redheads in the ninja world.

With the Uzumaki clan mostly wiped out, having red hair no longer made someone immediately suspicious of being an Uzumaki unless they possessed enormous chakra.

Realizing this, Yagyu's shadow clones stopped quickly glancing over every kunoichi and began observing them more carefully.

After about an hour of searching, one of Yagyu's clones finally located Karin.

The clone dissipated into a cloud of white smoke, sending its memories back to Yagyu.

Upon confirming Karin's location, Yagyu immediately led Shino and Hinata in that direction.

As the day began to fade into evening, Yagyu suggested, "It's getting dark. Let's continue tomorrow."

"I'll go find some food. You two gather firewood around here," Yagyu said, vanishing with the Body Flicker Technique before they could respond.

Moving swiftly through the forest, Yagyu created another shadow clone.

Leaving the clone to hunt for food, Yagyu activated his Sharingan's farsight, scanning the area for Karin.

A short while later, Yagyu moved beyond Hinata's Byakugan range and, two kilometers away, found Karin.

As fate would have it, just as the sun was setting, Karin's teammates had sent her out to gather food.

Yagyu sped up, arriving at Karin's teammates first.

"You are..."

Seeing Yagyu suddenly appear, the two Grass ninja immediately recognized him.

Before they could say anything, their surroundings suddenly shifted.

One moment they were in the forest, and the next, they found themselves trapped in a blood-red space.

Above them hung an enormous red moon, with three black tomoe slowly rotating inside it.

Their bodies were impaled by several large black stakes, and the intense pain made them want to scream.

However, having lost control of their bodies, they couldn't even open their mouths.

To avoid any complications, Yagyu had directly cast a combination of two genjutsu: Demonic Illusion: Shackling Stakes and Binding Jutsu.

Crack!

The sound of their necks breaking echoed along with the shattering of the illusionary space.

Before the Grass ninja could even regain consciousness, darkness completely consumed them.

Outside the genjutsu, Yagyu snapped their necks, effortlessly placing the much smaller bodies of the Grass ninja into his space storage.

He then used the Body Flicker Technique to close in on Karin.

At this moment, Karin—having not yet awakened her Mind's Eye of the Kagura—was too timid to hunt and could only gather edible plants. If Yagyu hadn't come, Karin would likely return to her teammates and face more verbal abuse or even physical punishment for her failure.

But from today onward, your fate will change, Yagyu thought to himself.

He then vanished once more, quickly locating a large black bear nearby.

Using his Sharingan, Yagyu hypnotized the bear, making it walk towards Karin.

Yagyu didn't wait for the bear to attack Karin, as it would be a waste of time and could give Sasuke a chance to interfere.

He intended to orchestrate a "hero saving the damsel in distress" scenario himself.

Though it felt somewhat manipulative, Yagyu believed the result would be far better than Karin's original fate in the manga.

"Roar!"

The black bear soon found Karin.

Its fierce roar immediately sent Karin, who had been crouching down to gather mushrooms, stumbling backward in fear, falling to the ground.

Staring at the massive bear charging toward her with its mouth wide open, Karin's face turned pale, and her body trembled as she desperately tried to stand and run. However, her legs refused to cooperate.

"S-Someone... help!" she screamed, summoning all her strength in a desperate cry for help, hoping for a miracle.

Whoosh—

As if the heavens had heard her, a miracle indeed appeared.

A shrill whistling sound cut through the air, and a kunai shot straight into the bear's head.

The poor bear collapsed to the ground in a heap, unable to rise again.

"Are you alright?"

A voice as gentle and warm as the morning sun drifted into Karin's ears.

Looking up toward the source of the voice, Karin saw a tall figure descending from the sky, landing before her with a kind smile.

Although the sun was setting and the forest was already shrouded in twilight, to Karin, Yagyu appeared even brighter than the sun, radiating a golden light.

His handsome face, gentle smile, and upright stance…

In that moment, Karin felt as though she had found the real-life version of the heroes and princes she had read about in books and plays—like she was living in a dream.

Her gaze turned dazed and dreamy.

"?"

Seeing Karin staring blankly at him, Yagyu tilted his head slightly in confusion.

I didn't even use genjutsu… why is she acting so spaced out?

Bending down, Yagyu waved a hand in front of her face. "Are you alright?"

Snapped out of her daze, Karin's face turned crimson when she saw Yagyu's handsome face so close. She quickly looked down, nervously clenching her hands together. "I... I'm fine..."

Drip—

A drop of blood suddenly fell onto Karin's hand.

Seeing this, Yagyu's expression shifted in surprise. "You're bleeding! How can you say you're fine?"

Buzz—

His words caused Karin to turn as red as boiling water, a white fog seemingly rising from her head.

Still recovering from her shock, Karin's vision went black, and she fainted, collapsing onto the ground.

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