Chapter 22: What Are the Rewards for the Side Quest?
"Your idea is quite interesting."
Orochimaru's lips twitched. His disciple was excellent in almost every way, but sometimes his ideas really went in strange directions.
Cut off a piece of the Nine Tails to study? If you did not know better, you would think this boy was already a Kage level powerhouse who could toss Kurama around at will.
Kenichi Amamiya smiled sheepishly, but his interest in Kurama was genuine. In the early stages, the Tailed Beast Ball was terrifying, and the Nine Tails had an absurd amount of chakra to work with.
"The village will definitely treat this matter very seriously, so be careful with your behavior during this period," Orochimaru reminded him, knowing his disciple had a decent relationship with the Fourth Hokage and his wife.
However, the pregnancy of a jinchuriki involved too many factors. If Kenichi accidentally got pulled into the situation, it would be a mess to clean up. As his teacher, Orochimaru would also be dragged in.
After all, Kenichi was only a chunin, but Orochimaru was the one who taught him. Many times, people chose to blame the teacher rather than the student.
"Okay, teacher, I will be careful," Kenichi replied with a nod.
Even so, he knew that even if he did absolutely nothing, the corrupted Obito would still return in the end, release the Nine Tails, and the Fourth Hokage and his wife would die, as long as nothing unexpected changed the script.
Thinking about it calmly, it was actually quite depressing.
While the Fourth Hokage fought to the death, what was the Third Hokage doing? What was Danzo doing? What was Orochimaru doing?
Even if you ignored the clan heads of the Ino Shika Cho trio, and the Hyuga and Uchiha clans, if the Third Hokage had gone all out, Danzo had gone all out, and Orochimaru had simply assisted, the Fourth Hokage would not have needed to die in battle.
The Fourth Hokage died, and the Third Hokage returned to the position of supreme ruler. He was still living comfortably afterward. It was hard not to suspect the Third's true intentions.
Naruto's childhood was even more ridiculous. It was not that such treatment of a child was impossible, but that a child who grew up under that kind of abuse still inherited the Will of Fire and wanted to become Hokage.
It would have been more reasonable for him to turn into a villain.
"But I remember Naruto was originally supposed to be a short series, not that long. So the characters were designed that way from the start. Then it dragged on and on, and naturally a lot of characters ended up being ruined." Kenichi muttered, playing idly with the insect trapped in amber in his hand.
He remembered seeing similar discussions before, though he was not sure if Kishimoto himself had ever said it. Still, the analysis sounded plausible enough.
Looking at the amber, Kenichi smiled.
If he had to sum up what he had gained during this period, the biggest trophy was not his research into cancer ninjutsu, nor the money he had swindled out of Orochimaru, but this piece of insect amber.
Once, Orochimaru had approached Kenichi with an old book and then taken this amber to inspect it. After examining it several times, he finally concluded that it contained an ancient parasite.
According to legends, this species had been destroyed by the Sage of Six Paths, yet somehow a single specimen had been preserved perfectly inside this amber.
The reason Orochimaru had not been sure at first was simple. There were very few records on this insect. Only after he obtained an ancient text from outside the village and compared the descriptions inside did he finally confirm the creature's identity.
Unfortunately, the parasite itself was long dead and could not be revived. Orochimaru felt this was a pity, because the ability of such a parasite to control others could sometimes be very convenient.
"It can control other people through parasitism? I wonder what I can get out of studying this thing," Kenichi clicked his tongue.
If this parasite really could control ninja, its practical value would be enormous. But he had to consider the limitations.
Most parasites that exert that kind of control eventually kill their host.
For example, horsehair worms. Once they grow inside their host, they manipulate the infected insect to leap into water and drown itself, then emerge from the corpse.
There was also a special type of trematode larva that burrowed into a snail's eye, then controlled the snail to climb to a high place. The larva would wriggle and flash, attracting birds to eat the snail so it could complete its life cycle.
All of this showed a simple truth: most parasites that manipulate their host's mind were bad news, and the imaginary parasites in Resident Evil 4 were based on similar ideas.
If this ancient parasite had a similar effect, its practical use would not be very high, unless Kenichi was willing to put in the time to cultivate and breed it over generations.
Only then could he slowly select superior strains.
"By the way, teacher, there have been rumors in the village lately that people are going missing more often," Kenichi said, putting the amber away and raising the topic.
The meaning behind his words was straightforward. He was reminding his teacher that it was about time to prepare an escape route.
Even if Orochimaru was strong, Kenichi was still just a lowly chunin, and life in the village was unbearably boring.
Every day he only had gossip to feed on to pass the time.
He also had to keep a tight grip on his urges, afraid that one day he might fail to resist and drag someone back to the lab as a test subject.
"During this period, you will come with me to the lab. As for the rest of your time, you can do as you please," Orochimaru replied indifferently.
He already intended to defect, but the timing was not right yet.
Kenichi felt a bit helpless. It seemed he could only behave himself for the time being.
Still, that did not mean he could not prepare in advance.
Previously, he had successfully separated Kushina Uzumaki's special gene chain. Once he completed the separation, however, he found that he had no proper way to preserve it for long term experiments and did not plan to use it immediately, so he simply froze it.
The reward for that side task had been extremely strange.
A blueprint.
"The thermobaric bomb design diagrams, complete with a list of some required materials. Is this telling me to learn from Deidara?" Kenichi pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on.
He knew what thermobaric weapons were. Their power was monstrous, especially against underground structures or fortified shelters.
The problem was that all he had now was a design blueprint. There was still a long road ahead before he could manufacture a complete thermobaric bomb.
"Wait, isn't Deidara a genius with explosions?" Kenichi's eyes lit up.
Deidara should not have been recruited by the Akatsuki yet, right?
In that case, handing over the blueprints sounded much more reasonable.
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