"You really have a way to keep me alive longer?"
"I don't know yet. I'll have to investigate," Souma said. "And you're not seriously thinking I'd help you without keeping a few cards in my hand, right? I don't exactly trust Orochimaru's people."
He wrapped Kimimaro again, sealing the scroll layered over the sealing scroll.
He couldn't stuff Kimimaro into the scroll, but he could completely block his five senses and spiritual perception.
Then Souma spread his sensory field, checking on the other ninjas' positions.
Tenten and the others…
It looked like they were in the base, sorting through data.
Nice.
Yamato was still reliable. He'd understood Souma's unspoken meaning and hadn't actually thrown Tenten and Kasa into chasing Guren head-on. Instead, they were tucked safely behind the front line, quietly looting the base.
Souma glanced around.
He'd already sent the kikaichū back.
Even if they were still here, he wouldn't dare use them to transport Kimimaro. Those bugs had an insane appetite for senjutsu chakra. Even with the Curse Mark sealed, whatever was left in Kimimaro's body would still be like premium sake to them.
Hmm…
Got it.
A moment later, a shadow clone popped into existence and silently hoisted Kimimaro's bundled-up body over its shoulder, trudging along behind Souma.
As they walked into the tunnels, the clone couldn't help complaining:
"So your big plan… was just to make a clone carry him? Why can't you do it yourself?"
"Because that's tiring. I need my hands free to write a combat report," Souma muttered, already pulling out paper and pen. "There are still some problems with how I used Sage Arts this time. I need to optimize it."
His swordplay was good, but relying only on swordsmanship was too simple.
He needed more jutsu combinations.
"First thing when we get back," he thought, jotting it down, "is to perfect the coordination between my left and right hand. This 'one plus one equals two' setup is way too basic."
He wasn't satisfied at all.
Then his thoughts drifted to Shikotsumyaku.
The "dances" of Shikotsumyaku were high-level taijutsu that used the entire body.
He couldn't learn the bloodline itself, but a lot of the principles were universal.
For example, that chakra rope — he could combine that with his sword or with "Monster Strength" to mimic the effect of Dance of the Clematis: Vine.
As for Dance of the Larch…
Yeah, that one he really couldn't copy. But he could teach the theory to the Hyūga. In a way, Rotation was already headed in that direction.
The more he thought about it, the more impressive the potential of the Shikotsumyaku dances seemed.
"If I could learn all of those movements, I might actually reach a new level in taijutsu," Souma thought, genuinely tempted.
He replayed the battle in his mind, reconstructing Kimimaro's movements.
Unfortunately, Kimimaro had been on the back foot from the very start.
He'd basically been stuck in pure defense, and even at the end he'd never shown the full magnitude of Shikotsumyaku.
"If I'd known that, I would've held back more," Souma sighed. "But it was my first time using Sage Mode, I'm still clumsy with it. Otherwise I wouldn't have needed that many exchanges…"
He exhaled.
"Thinking about it, that was unavoidable."
Kimimaro hadn't been able to show the core essence of his bloodline. There wasn't much Souma could actually steal from that fight.
Forget it.
When they got back, he'd see whether he could get through to Kimimaro ideologically.
If that didn't work, he'd have to ask the Yamanaka clan to see if they could pry more Shikotsumyaku techniques out of Kimimaro's memories.
Following the trail of chakra, Souma kept moving.
Along the way, he passed a number of corpses. Every wound was neat and identical—
Snake bite. Poison.
Before leaving, Orochimaru had only left Kimimaro and Guren behind, but he hadn't forgotten to clean the house.
The snake bastard had poisoned his own people to erase evidence.
He probably hadn't imagined Souma really had mastered Sage Mode.
Or rather…
Orochimaru had likely never considered that possibility. He probably still thought Souma had developed some variant of the Eight Gates.
Souma understood perfectly.
If Orochimaru knew he had Sage Mode, he would never have left Kimimaro and Guren here to die.
Once again, it came back to this:
Information was the most important weapon in the ninja world.
Souma felt that point sink even deeper into his bones.
"Tenten, how's it looking?" he called as he stepped into one of the larger chambers.
"Souma-kun? You— Wait a second, what's the name of your sword again?"
Tenten's first reaction was relief, but she quickly grew wary, stepping back, unsealing her scroll and steel wire weapon, eyes narrowed.
"White Fox. You named it yourself," Souma said helplessly. "Also, aren't you usually super confident in me?"
"But we're up against Orochimaru," she said quickly. "I'm worried he might've left a clone behind."
Souma nodded, approving.
"Can't blame you. Better safe than sorry."
"Thanks for understanding. Anyway—Souma, take a look at this. I have no idea what I'm looking at."
Tenten scratched her head.
Three computers sat in front of her.
Souma poked at them for a bit, then shrugged. "No idea either. But they're all powered down. Orochimaru definitely noticed us a long time ago."
"You mean… we leaked our position?"
"Most likely the ANBU," Souma replied. "Our route skirted around Grass, and we had a legit escort mission as cover. Orochimaru shouldn't have guessed we were coming for him."
He shook his head.
"ANBU's too trash. They really need a full rework."
"…"
Tenten almost choked.
Calling ANBU trash?
And having the qualifications to say it?
In all of Konoha, that was probably just you, thanks.
"Not much we can get from here for now. Check the other areas?"
"Yeah," Tenten said with a shudder. "Orochimaru really is sick in the head. There's a prison in this base, tons of people locked up, and a bunch of labs… it's hard to describe. I'm just glad you turned him down."
Any normal person who saw Orochimaru's experimental facilities would feel disgusted.
Souma was no exception, although he'd mentally prepared himself beforehand.
He walked toward the lab doors.
"We still need to take a look anyway," he said. "Where there's research, there are traces. Even if Orochimaru wiped as much as he could and left the base intact, we can still read the clues and figure out what he was working on."
"But…"
"Don't worry," he interrupted. "We're not skipping those computers either. Power's out, but we can haul the machines back."
He glanced around the room.
These boxes were ancient by modern standards.
"Let's cut the whole wall section out. You seal it into a scroll."
"Got it."
Four quick flashes of steel later, Souma had carved the entire wall segment, computers and all, into a single slab.
Tenten unrolled her sealing scroll, formed hand seals, and activated the fuinjutsu.
A couple of seconds later—
Done.
"Alright, guide us to the labs," Souma said. "You go first."
"…Fine."
She walked ahead reluctantly, and halfway down the hall, she remembered the bundle over the shadow clone's shoulder.
"By the way, what's your shadow clone carrying?"
"Kimimaro," Souma said casually. "One of Orochimaru's people. He has the Shikotsumyaku bloodline."
"Shikotsumyaku?"
Tenten had been reading whatever she could get her hands on while studying the Flying Thunder Formation lately, and she'd skimmed quite a few miscellaneous texts. She had at least heard of some famous kekkei genkai.
"No wonder he was pulling bones out to fight… It really was Shikotsumyaku. You caught him alive and sealed him?"
"Yup. Lots of research value."
Tenten's face twisted in the dim light.
By the time they stepped outside the lab doorway, she finally spoke, voice low:
"Souma-kun… no matter what, don't become like Orochimaru. Okay?"
Souma paused for a second.
Then he chuckled.
"Of course not. I'm me. How would I become Orochimaru?"
He pushed open the door.
Inside were all kinds of grotesque corpses.
Broken limbs hung from hooks along the walls.
"Looks like this is where Orochimaru's been doing his latest tests," Souma said seriously. "That drug they used on Mizuki was probably developed here."
Tenten forced down the nausea.
"No wonder the corpses look so twisted—but even if it's an experiment, does it have to be this…"
"Likely they went berserk and tore each other apart," Souma said. "Let's go."
They left that room.
He checked each lab in turn.
Most of them looked similar—blood, madness, disfigured human remains everywhere.
No wonder Tenten called Orochimaru a lunatic. Even with Souma's mental prep, it was still tough to stomach.
Fortunately—
The final room was different.
It was comparatively clean. There was only one corpse inside—deformed and twisted, yes, but far less grotesque than the others.
"Anything useful?" Tenten asked.
"Orochimaru used to rely on the Curse Mark to obtain this kind of power," Souma said, squatting down to examine the body. "But now it looks like he's chasing something else. That drug on Mizuki was probably a byproduct of this research."
That sort of thing was common.
Like when he'd researched chakra needles and ended up creating reinforced chakra threads first.
A lot of breakthroughs weren't from sticking to a plan, but from stumbling over something unexpected along the way.
Souma studied the corpse in silence.
Its condition was similar to Jirōbō and Mizuki—
burned out, life force completely exhausted.
Clearly, Orochimaru hadn't succeeded yet.
"You mean…?" Tenten asked.
"Remember my deal with the Fire Temple?" Souma said. "The power we're trading is essentially the same kind of energy—just that normal senjutsu isn't like this. Whatever Orochimaru got his hands on clearly has a weird origin."
He was absolutely sure.
Tenten nodded. Just looking at these results, you could feel how wrong that energy was.
They did a final sweep of the room and came away with little.
At least—
Not nothing.
Orochimaru had left behind a set of research data—
On Hashirama cells.
Oh?
Is this… setting Danzo up?
Perfect.
Souma didn't even try to hide his schadenfreude.
Danzo hadn't done anything directly to him yet, but that old man's goal was the Hokage's seat. As long as he kept his ambition, methods and mindset, he'd eventually walk the same dark road.
In that case, better to nudge him toward his "destiny" a little earlier.
And besides—
This data would be very useful for Souma personally.
He skimmed through the files, copying the key points into his memory.
Then he weighed the papers in his hand and smiled.
"What's that?" Tenten asked.
"Research notes from one of the experiments," Souma said. "Yamato-taichō used to be in ANBU. He should know more about this than we do. You seal it; we'll have him look it over later."
"Okay."
Tenten sealed the documents into her scroll.
Her feelings were complicated.
She felt like this entire trip, all she'd done was… logistics.
"Feeling frustrated?" Souma asked, as if reading her mind. "No need. Kimimaro and Guren are both at the elite jōnin level. It's normal that you can't take part in that part of the fight. Yamato-taichō couldn't get in there either, right?"
"…"
Tenten almost cried on the spot.
This kind of comfort…
If he wasn't an old teammate, she'd 100% think he was mocking her.
But she still appreciated it.
Souma's growth had just been too fast. No matter how hard she worked, she couldn't keep up. And on top of that, she was splitting her focus with her weapon research.
Discouragement was inevitable.
"Don't lose heart," Souma added. "And definitely don't compare yourself to me. You and Kasa are already doing great. Maybe what I'm about to say will sound hollow, but… I'll introduce you to the new wave of kunoichi sometime. Then you'll see how magical they can be."
"How magical?" Tenten asked warily.
"How should I put it…" Souma thought for a second. "At first, they had no team coordination at all. Their eyes only had room for one guy—Sasuke. Right now they're… about where you were when you first graduated."
Tenten had heard of Sasuke, of course.
The last surviving Uchiha.
She imagined being on a squad with that guy and a teammate like that.
Just the mental picture made her want to claw her hair out.
Thank you, Sage of Six Paths, she thought dryly.
Really appreciate the "quality teammates" you've sent this generation.
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