Chapter 295: Orochimaru's Choice

Chapter 295: Orochimaru's Choice

After Ishiro left, Orochimaru pondered on the spot for a while longer before casting an Earth Release jutsu and disappearing underground.

A long time later, in another base in the Land of Whirlpools, Orochimaru appeared and then walked straight towards a room in the deepest part of the base.

In the room, a fair-skinned little boy with two red dots on his forehead was training desperately.

After the little boy saw his life mentor, Lord Orochimaru, come in, his originally indifferent eyes immediately lit up. He quickly walked to Orochimaru's side and said in a tone full of respect and reliance, "Lord Orochimaru, you're back?"

Orochimaru looked at this most perfect vessel of his so far, his emotions in turmoil.

Kimimaro, whether in terms of talent or loyalty, was a very suitable future vessel for him. But Kimimaro had a flaw: an incurable bloodline illness.

This body might be ruined before it could grow to the extent he had hoped for.

However, the bloodline illness that had been a huge headache for Orochimaru now became good news.

"A bloodline illness? It should be the awakening of an ultimate Kekkei Genkai. From this perspective, the First Hokage should have also died of a bloodline illness," Orochimaru muttered to himself.

Orochimaru had always had a doubt: how did someone as strong as the First Hokage die in battle? It should be known that the cells obtained from the First's body possessed unparalleled life force. So why did the First die?

Perhaps it was precisely because the First had developed Wood Release—no, it should be Yang Release—to its extreme, so the bloodline illness was incurable, leading to his eventual death.

Only this cause of death could explain why the First's cells contained such astonishing life force.

"Hashirama Senju, the ultimate Yang Release, the vanished body of Madara Uchiha, and the Rinnegan!" Thinking of this, Orochimaru's breathing became rapid.

But he quickly calmed down. Even if what Ishiro said was correct, it was almost impossible for him to synthesize a pair of Rinnegan himself. The current ninja world had no Madara Uchiha or Hashirama Senju. Even if it did, Orochimaru couldn't control ninjas of that level.

Then the only way was to snatch them. The Akatsuki organization... interesting. Was he a puppet, or was he Madara Uchiha himself? It seemed joining the Akatsuki was still necessary.

"However, it might not be possible to get the Rinnegan smoothly. Otherwise, that fellow with the title 'Fox of Iwa' wouldn't have told me all this so bluntly."

"In that case, the fusion of the Shikotsumyaku and the Byakugan cannot be easily given up."

Orochimaru looked down at Kimimaro, but his thoughts had flown to the Hyuga clan in Konoha Village. Choose a Caged Bird, or choose the Main Family?

Without the secrets Ishiro had told him, Orochimaru had not paid much attention to the Hyuga clan, and naturally, the Caged Bird of the Hyuga branch family was not valued by him either.

But now, after learning about the ancient inheritance of these ninja clans, Orochimaru felt that the Caged Bird was probably not simple. Then that only left the Hyuga Main Family.

Moreover, an ultimate Shikotsumyaku naturally needed an ultimate Byakugan to match. The purity of a branch family's Byakugan was likely inferior to the main family's.

It was rumored that the Byakugan of the previous Hyuga Main Family head had fallen into the hands of the Mist. Now it seemed the Mist had only obtained one eye; the other should be with Iwagakure. However, these two Byakugan should have various protective seals on them; it would not be easy to obtain them.

Then, Hiashi Hyuga! Orochimaru recalled his impression of Hiashi before he defected.

Kimimaro looked up, curiously watching Orochimaru. He could also feel that Orochimaru was thinking about something, thinking very deeply. And his intuition told him that this matter was related to him.

"Is it because of my bloodline illness? Have I disappointed Lord Orochimaru?"

...

Regarding the trade with Orochimaru, Ishiro had been hesitant.

Orochimaru had paid a great price in exchange for two pieces of information that seemed to have little use. It seemed like he had suffered a great loss, but Ishiro knew that Orochimaru had profited. The greatest benefit Orochimaru had gained from this operation was time, and opportunity.

In the original story, Orochimaru would only learn the secrets of the Sharingan during the Fourth War. And during this period, Orochimaru had wasted a lot of time on the three-tomoe Sharingan, the Mangekyō Sharingan, and the First Hokage's cells. This time cost was immeasurable.

As for the wasted opportunities, not to mention anything else, the last Shikotsumyaku user in the original story was in Orochimaru's hands, but he had failed to make good use of it. It could be said that because Orochimaru lacked these few pieces of intelligence that Ishiro had given him, he had lost the easiest opportunity to walk the path of a sage.

In this life, Orochimaru had obtained this intelligence in advance. What level he could reach in the future, Ishiro also couldn't guess.

But Ishiro was not worried. Iwagakure and Orochimaru had no irreconcilable hatred. If Orochimaru really became powerful, he wouldn't necessarily deal with Iwagakure. Secondly, a powerful Orochimaru would naturally be dealt with by Nagato or Konoha. Ishiro was not the tallest person in the ninja world; if an accident happened, he wouldn't be the one to take the fall.

And, even if Orochimaru found the right path, it was not something that could be completed in a day or two. How many years did Madara Uchiha in the original story spend to evolve the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan to the Rinnegan?

Madara himself was a master of the ultimate Yin Release; he only needed to fuse it with the First's ultimate Yang Release. Even so, Madara's eyes only completed their evolution in his old age.

As for Orochimaru, neither the Sage's body nor the Sage's eyes were his own. For him to fuse Kimimaro's Sage's body and Hiashi Hyuga's Sage's eyes, the difficulty would inevitably be higher than Madara's. Even if Orochimaru was a mad scientist, Ishiro felt it was almost impossible for him to evolve the Tenseigan before the Fourth War of the original story.

So Ishiro was not very worried about his recent action of possibly aiding the enemy. After all, Iwagakure could also gain many benefits from the recent trade. The ninja world was a contention of many powers. To be able to simultaneously increase one's own strength and that of a certain party was a good thing. Ishiro hoped for more such things.

If he traded with Orochimaru today, cooperated with the Sand tomorrow, colluded with the Cloud the day after, and conspired with Danzō the day after that, then it wouldn't take long for Iwagakure to become the hegemon of the ninja world.

Ishiro's target this time was Uzushiogakure.

Back then, Ishiro had come to Uzushiogakure once. At that time, he had met a very interesting ninja, Ōiwa Takefumi. This person, along with his son, had now joined Iwagakure.

It was from this person that Ishiro had learned the ninjutsu for suppressing chakra.

At that time, Ishiro had also found a very hidden seal in an inconspicuous place on the outskirts of Uzushiogakure.

At that time, with Ishiro's level, it was impossible to break the seal. He had judged at the time that this seal should be at least SS-rank, if such a rank existed in the ninja world.

Now, taking advantage of the fact that he was right here in Uzushiogakure, Ishiro planned to try again.

Ishiro's biggest reliance this time was Light Release. If he couldn't break it with technique, then he would use Light Release to force it.

Ishiro led his three disciples to the edge of Uzushiogakure and stopped near that seal.

After creating a Shadow Clone and having it continuously use sensory ninjutsu for vigilance, Ishiro's main body began the earthwork.

The seal was located underground. Ishiro had previously sensed it by moving through the earth.

This time, Ishiro used Earth Release to directly dig away the soil layer above the seal.

The seal was dozens of meters deep, but with Ishiro's current attainments in Earth Release, this project was not considered large. A few minutes later, Ishiro had completed the excavation work.

Standing on the edge of a huge pit dozens of meters long, wide, and deep, the four of them looked at this huge seal together.

The seal was light blue, resembling a hemispherical cover placed upside down at the bottom of the pit.

Ishiro jumped into the pit, walked back and forth around the entire seal several times, carefully observing every rune that composed the seal.

"Teacher Ishiro, I haven't seen some of the runes on this seal before. They are not recorded in the village's books," Akino said. To learn space-time ninjutsu, she had read the basics of sealing jutsu.

Ishiro nodded and said, "That's right. Not only are some of the runes in this seal not recorded in our village, but even many of the connection methods between the runes are ones the village doesn't have."

"Riori, the ancestors of your Uzumaki clan are amazing. Truly worthy of being a clan that established a hidden village with sealing jutsu," Akino sighed with emotion.

"Really? Haha!" Riori laughed foolishly.

Ishiro felt a headache coming on and didn't want to bother with this silly girl.

Ishiro took out a scroll and recorded in detail the new runes and new connection methods between sealing runes he encountered in this seal.

Then Ishiro began to infer the specific functions of these sealing runes and connection methods by comparing them with this existing seal.

This research lasted for ten days. Ishiro and Akino had been studying this seal of unknown purpose for these ten days.

However, ten days had passed, and Ishiro had noted down the functions of many runes, but he still couldn't infer the overall function of this seal.

But today, there was finally a new discovery.

Akino, who had been assisting Ishiro, for some reason today, had been holding Minato's special kunai and comparing it with the runes they had recorded.

Finally, at a certain moment, Akino let out a cheer. The cheer went directly from the bottom of the pit to the ground, "Teacher Ishiro, I know! I know! These few runes are space-time runes!"

Hearing the sound, Kiyoshi, who was practicing Water Release on the ground, and Riori, who was practicing water walking in a small pool, quickly ran to the edge of the pit.

Although the two of them couldn't understand sealing jutsu at all, from what Akino said, there should be some progress.

Ishiro moved even faster than the two of them. By the time they reached the edge of the pit and looked down, Ishiro had already arrived at Akino's side.

Akino was gesturing and explaining to Ishiro, "Teacher Ishiro, look, this rune is one of the runes in the character '忍' (Shinobi) in '忍愛之剣' (Sword of Shinobi Love)."

"This one is a rune from the character '剣' (Sword), this one is from '愛' (Love), this is also from '忍' (Shinobi), this is a rune from the character '之' (of)..."

The four characters "Sword of Shinobi Love" were drawn on Minato's special kunai, but these four characters were not written on it but were formed by condensed runes.

Ishiro also knew how to do this. When he presided over the Chunin Exams, he had used runes to condense numbers.

It was just that because he couldn't understand the Flying Thunder God scroll, Ishiro hadn't bothered to memorize the component runes of "Sword of Shinobi Love."

Ishiro took the special kunai and observed it carefully, then began to infer the function of these runes in combination with this special kunai.

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