Orochimaru's eyes swept across the room, taking in the lifeless bodies sprawled across cold metal slabs. Even for him, someone who had seen more than his share of horrors, there was a brief moment where his carefully neutral mask almost slipped.
He knew these faces.
Not just bodies. Not just specimens.
Senju.
Some had died in the Second Shinobi War, others in the Third. Once, they had been Konoha's finest, warriors who shaped history, who carried the village on their backs.
And now?
Stripped of their names, their legacies, reduced to nothing more than test subjects.
Orochimaru felt something then.
Disgust? No.
Regret? Not exactly.
Maybe pity. That even in death, they had found no peace. Their bodies weren't laid to rest, weren't honoured. Just tools. Flesh to be studied, dissected.
But that didn't stop him.
It wouldn't.
Because in the end, sentiment had no place in his work.
He moved forward, fingertips brushing over one of the bodies. The preservation was decent, but he already knew. This wouldn't be enough.
Senju or not, they weren't him.
Weren't Hashirama.
Orochimaru straightened, turning to the masked figure lingering in the shadows. No words were needed. The Root operative stepped forward, handing him a sealed container.
Inside, floating in thick liquid, was a piece of skin.
A fragment of something far greater than the others in this room.
Danzo's voice broke the silence, thick with satisfaction.
"It's from the First Hokage."
Orochimaru's gaze stayed locked on the container, golden eyes gleaming with something close to satisfaction.
Hashirama Senju. The God of Shinobi.
A legend. A relic. A man who once stood at the pinnacle of the shinobi world.
But was he at the top of the omniverse? No.
Could he match Goku? Hardly.
Was he stronger than a Kryptonian? Not even close.
Reality manipulation like the Scarlet Witch? Impossible.
And yet Orochimaru smirked.
Because this, this preserved piece of history, was still one of the greatest treasures the shinobi world had to offer.
He had seen greater powers in the fictions of his past life, beings who could rewrite reality with a thought, crush planets with a flick of their fingers. Compared to them, Hashirama was just another strong man.
But that didn't make this useless.
Far from it.
His system promised a future where those limitations meant nothing. Where those impossibilities could one day be rewritten.
One day, those beings, the Kryptonians, the Saiyans, the cosmic entities, wouldn't be out of reach. One day, even their power could be his.
But that was someday.
Not today.
Right now, this was the greatest treasure in his possession, aside from the system itself.
For now, this was enough.
A step. A foundation.
His thirst for knowledge, for power, for immortality, it hadn't faded. If anything, it had deepened.
But he wasn't the same reckless man he had once been.
Now, he could wait. He could build. He could be patient.
Because no matter how long it took, he would reach the top.
He turned to Danzo, his golden eyes narrowing slightly. "Does Sensei know about this?"
Danzo scoffed. "Hiruzen? He wanted to put an end to it." His tone was laced with disdain. "Too soft, too sentimental. He fails to see the bigger picture."
"Probably doesn't want any more dirt on his image," Orochimaru mused, smirking.
He could see it clearly. Hiruzen wasn't against progress. He just wanted to keep his hands clean. Let Danzo do the dirty work, take the risks, and once real progress was made, step in and claim it as the village's achievement.
Orochimaru chuckled, shaking his head.
"I'll need a place to conduct my experiments."
Danzo's gaze sharpened. "You can do it here."
Of course. Danzo wanted to keep him under watch, ensure every step was monitored. But Orochimaru had no intention of being caged.
"No," he said smoothly. "A separate location. Proper facilities, full control." He smiled, voice light, almost amused. "If you're so concerned, you're welcome to visit. But let's be honest, what you've been trying to achieve for years, you don't actually expect me to accomplish overnight, do you?"
A blatant lie, spoken with the ease of a practiced deceiver.
Orochimaru was confident more than ever. Recovering his past life's memories had already given him an edge, but the Genus template? That was the real bonus.
Danzo stared at him for a long moment, searching, weighing, calculating. Then, finally, he gave a slow nod.
"Very well."
Danzo accepted the words without question. Not because he fully trusted Orochimaru, but because, in truth, he had no better options.
For years, he had been chasing a dream a shinobi who could wield Wood Release, a second coming of Hashirama Senju. A weapon of absolute loyalty, bound to Root, bound to him. But every attempt ended the same way. Failure.
Countless subjects. Countless lives discarded in the name of progress.
Nothing to show for it but corpses.
Orochimaru was just another gamble. A brilliant mind, a necessary risk.
If he succeeded, Danzo would claim the results. If he failed, well… there was nothing he could do about it.
Orochimaru wasn't some nameless experiment, some disposable pawn. He was a force of his own. Unpredictable. Dangerous.
Danzo knew that. But he also knew power required sacrifice. And if letting Orochimaru off his leash meant even the slightest chance of success, then so be it.
Because in the end, only results mattered.
*************
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