Chapter 228: Departure! Land of Snow!
Teacher left, taking the experimental subject with him.
Kenichi had no objections. To him, that subject was no longer useful. The man definitely would not die, at least not yet.
Teacher needed the subject alive to prove to Hiruzen and Danzo that their experiment had produced results. But based on Kenichi's understanding of Teacher, he would probably drag it out for a while.
That way, he could squeeze out more funding.
Teacher always did things like this. The arm transplanted onto Danzo back then had been handled the same way. Delay the delivery, then Danzo and the Third Hokage would transfer the money. Efficient and clean.
In this day and age, getting clients to pay was not easy. Experiments were no different. Teacher was far too experienced in these matters.
Meanwhile, Kenichi stayed in the lab, staring at the "consumable" on the operating table.
When he had transplanted the eyeball earlier, he realized something that could not be ignored. The Sharingan was connected to the brain through nerves, and while it was only three extra nerves, they clearly existed. And now, those three nerves had been extracted by Kenichi.
More importantly, they might be far more valuable than he had first thought.
Those three nerves were obviously linked to the Uchiha's ability to control the eye's on and off switch.
The ninja world had not discovered this before, most likely because their medical research was not deep enough. After all, medical ninjutsu existed. Most illnesses and injuries could be handled through chakra based treatment, fast and convenient.
But that convenience also limited the development of medicine in another direction.
At the very least, Kenichi had never found any serious research on neurology in this world.
"Nerves are easy to deal with…" Kenichi murmured, eyes narrowing in thought. "There are nerves everywhere in the human body. If I take three nerves of similar length from another place, I might be able to replicate the effect. But would that actually work?"
He hesitated, but only briefly.
Soon, Kenichi made his choice. He extracted three nerves of similar length from the subject's arm, then connected them to the eyeball and the brain.
Would it be effective?
He did not know.
But science was proven and refined through repeated experiments. If you wanted success overnight, you either needed absurd luck, or you needed some kind of black technology.
After casually recording the subject's physical condition, Kenichi used medical ninjutsu to help him recover. Still, exhaustion of the body and mind could only be restored slowly by the subject himself.
He could not handle new experiments for a short time. If Kenichi forced another Sharingan stimulation right now, the subject would likely die.
So Kenichi decided to let him rest first, regain his stamina, and recover his spirit.
After sending the test subject back to the basement, Kenichi returned to the main lab and continued refining Teacher's gene programming technique.
"Still… if the Uchiha's eyes are a kind of atavism," Kenichi muttered, "does that mean the closer a bloodline is to the Six Paths Sage…"
He dumped the dead white mice from the table into the trash.
Another failure.
But he was not discouraged. This was never meant to be easy. Now, at least he had a direction. If the mice had to die, he could at least make their deaths more "dignified."
More importantly, the amount of cellular damage in the mice was becoming smaller and smaller, to the point that the loss was almost negligible.
What truly stalled the experiments was something else.
After gene editing, the probability of the gene chain collapsing was still terrifyingly high.
It was almost like every edit meant death.
Kenichi could not help questioning reality. Was this mortality rate seriously not too high?
"The closer the bloodline is to the Ōtsutsuki… the higher the stage the eyes can evolve to?" Kenichi stared at a twitching mouse, as if a clue had finally clicked.
Mice had ancestors too. Bloodlines changed across generations, forming modern populations. And mice were divided into many types, but if you traced them far enough back, most shared the same root.
Humans were the same.
Modern humans differed greatly from ancient humans in many physiological traits. Wisdom teeth were a clear example. In the distant past, they did not cause problems like sideways growth. But as diets became more refined, jawbones gradually became smaller, and wisdom teeth began erupting improperly, causing inflammation.
Now think about the shinobi world.
The monsters who surpassed other ninja by an entire dimension, the so called God of Shinobi, or Madara, were all connected in some way to the Ōtsutsuki.
Bloodline was not the only deciding factor, but it was still a key. The closer your genes were to the Ōtsutsuki, the higher your ceiling.
"If I follow that logic," Kenichi said slowly, scratching his head, "Madara, as the reincarnation of the Six Paths Sage's son, had a genetic relationship closer to the Ōtsutsuki clan. That could be the foundation for awakening the Rinnegan later."
To be honest, it sounded far fetched.
Between the Rinnegan and the Sharingan stood the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, and to obtain that, you needed the Mangekyo of a close sibling.
Still, Kenichi felt the idea had a real chance.
Looking at the long history of the Naruto era, the only confirmed people who awakened the Eternal Mangekyo were Madara and Sasuke.
Both were reincarnations of the Six Paths Sage's sons.
Both eventually awakened the Rinnegan.
So the idea that "closer to Ōtsutsuki means higher eye evolution" had some weight.
"Sasuke's and Naruto's genetic information… I have it all here." Kenichi sighed. "They're both reincarnations of the Six Paths Sage's sons."
"I also remember the Kin Gin brothers had some connection to the Six Paths Sage…"
"What a pity. The Six Paths Sage doesn't have a grave."
If the Six Paths Sage had left behind a grave, or even a fragment of tissue, Kenichi could have directly analyzed his genetic information and pushed his Ōtsutsuki research forward.
As for whether the Six Paths Sage would agree?
Unless the Sage climbed out of the Pure Land to stop him, Kenichi would consider the silence to be tacit approval.
The only problem was simple.
There was no grave to dig.
Before Kenichi could dive further into his research, a ripple pulsed from his ring.
Nagato was calling.
Kenichi frowned. "Didn't we just finish a mission not long ago?"
Even so, he released his thought waves, and his consciousness was pulled into a familiar space.
Kenichi glanced around.
There were not many people here.
Only Nagato.
Himself.
And Teacher, Orochimaru.
That made Kenichi even more curious. Nagato had called both him and Teacher, but this clearly was not a full meeting.
Orochimaru gave him a small nod. And in that instant.
"The organization discovered something interesting during a mission in the Land of Snow," Nagato said first. He understood Kenichi too well. If he let Kenichi speak first, it would take half a day to reach the point. "Something you two might be interested in."
Kenichi's attention instantly focused.
"A celebrity?" Kenichi blurted out reflexively.
He could not be blamed for that. The Land of Snow did not have much else, but it did have plenty of celebrities. Maybe because the girls there had especially fair, delicate skin.
As the saying went, one shade of white covered a hundred flaws. It was not hard to understand why girls from the Land of Snow could become popular.
"No." Nagato cut him off immediately, then continued without pause, as if afraid Kenichi would go off topic again. "A member accidentally discovered a special alloy there. It can absorb chakra."
Kenichi narrowed his eyes.
That instantly triggered a memory, and he remembered where he had heard of the Land of Snow.
A Naruto movie.
Naruto and the others escort a princess back, and the plot follows a predictable rhythm.
They run into villains, take a beating, grit their teeth, get back up, win the fight, and the heroine gives some secret glance at the end. Then everyone laughs together, and a few fan favorites show up as a closing tease.
Movies loved that formula.
But this one had left a strong impression on Kenichi because of the armor. It absorbed chakra and converted it into power.
When he first saw it, he thought it was insane, almost like invincibility.
Later, he realized it might not even survive a single Rasengan from Naruto.
Even so, that metal was fascinating.
Sasori would definitely be interested.
So Kenichi decided to take the mission, head to the Land of Snow, investigate, and bring back the special metal.
"It can't be only for that, right?" Orochimaru spoke up. He did not believe Nagato would send them out just for metal. There had to be another reason.
"Yes." Nagato nodded. "According to our intelligence, the alloy was developed by a scientist. Then that person disappeared without a trace. The Kage of the Snow village issued a bounty. They want us to find that scientist."
If it were only armor that absorbed chakra, it would not be worth sending core members.
But there was a bounty involved.
So they might as well take it.
Nagato had originally wanted to send Kakuzu, but Kakuzu was still tied up with another mission. As for Sasori and Deidara, Nagato had contacted them, heard an explosion in the background, and immediately decided against it.
After thinking it through, Nagato realized only Kenichi and Orochimaru were free.
Both were also involved in research.
There might be unexpected gains.
Kenichi had already decided to accept, but he still looked to Orochimaru first.
After Orochimaru nodded, the mission was set.
Nagato said nothing more and ended the Projected Image technique.
"The Land of Snow, huh…" Kenichi muttered. "That place is far. I remember we have to take a boat from…"
Then he paused, remembering something else.
Naruto and the others had relied on boats because the shinobi world did not have other ways to travel that far.
But Kenichi was different.
He had airships. He had hot air balloons.
A boat was not the only option.
The first step was finding Teacher.
Kenichi packed supplies and left his lab. At the same time, Orochimaru emerged from his own.
Under the bright sunlight, Kenichi got a clearer look at Teacher.
Teacher had changed clothes again.
A trench coat, sweatpants, and the coat looked thick, probably prepared for the Land of Snow.
Kenichi also noticed something else.
Teacher was paying attention to color coordination now, in a way that felt strangely deliberate.
"Teacher." Kenichi stepped forward quickly.
Orochimaru had no luggage. Only that heavy coat.
"This mission is mainly to investigate the scientist," Orochimaru said evenly, expression calm as ever. "Collect the alloy along the way."
Kenichi nodded. "Teacher, let's travel a different way. I prepared an aerial vehicle. Once we have the exact location, we can get there fast."
This time, he planned to take Teacher by airship.
As for exposing the airship, he did not care.
It could not stay hidden forever. People would learn about it sooner or later.
"Oh?" A faint smile flickered in Orochimaru's azure eyes. "That does interest me."
Then he clasped his hands behind his back, walked closer to Kenichi, and looked up at him.
"Then let's go."
.....
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