Sasuke Retsuden: Infiltration

As he travels close to the Land of Redaku, Sasuke catches two women talking about a wedding ring and recalls being told of the local custom. He sends off a messenger hawk and sets aside his hunt for word on Code, returning to Redaku, a country he had not set foot in since Naruto first fell ill years earlier. Kurama had revealed that this same sickness once struck the Sage of Six Paths, who recovered while staying at the Astronomy Research Institute in Redaku. Because the Land of Fire has no ties to the country, Kakashi was sent to look into it, posing as tutor to Prince Nanara, though he first had to teach the boy to read and write before any records could be mined for clues.

With Naruto in no condition to hold him back, Sasuke takes matters into his own hands and slips into the institute, which now doubles as a prison, disguised as an inmate so he can search for the Sage's cure. He meets his cellmates, defends himself when other prisoners jump him, and draws only mild discipline before director Zansuru notes that everything Sasuke did was self-defense while quietly warning him against standing out. When one inmate tries to bolt during the chaos, a creature called Meno devours him in front of the others.

Needing room to search, Sasuke wins a favor with rigged dice but is refused, then confronts Meno directly. The beast proves immune to his genjutsu, forcing him to slash its claws and torso, and it flees, only to appear the next day fully healed. Zansuru, whose artificial eye blocks illusions, confronts Sasuke over the attack and threatens tighter surveillance. Meanwhile, the ruthless prime minister pressures Nanara toward military occupation, and Kakashi slips into the library to uncover records on the Sage of Six Paths. A trivia note observes that, unlike the manga and novel where Sasuke improvised an Ice Release kunai, here he draws a normal one from a scroll.