The Senju Body

Everyone might have shouted about the Will of Fire, but it was precisely because the Will of Fire had not been thoroughly implemented that the faction led by the Third Hokage kept bringing it up at every turn.

And the Corpse Disposal Unit was an extremely sensitive place, one that needed the Will of Fire more than anywhere else. If even one person wavered and defected, the resulting losses would be impossible to estimate.

The next day, Kaedeji arrived at a mountain hollow on the eastern side of Training Ground No. 44 in Konoha.

The place resembled a vast graveyard perpetually shrouded in drifting incense ash. Blank Memorial Stones filled the surroundings, and withered flowers lay scattered across the ground.

Kaedeji pushed open the gate to the Corpse Disposal Unit. Several crows were startled and frantically kicked up dust from beneath the eaves.

How should he put it? Kaedeji's first impression of this place was terrible.

In principle, a department dedicated to handling corpses should have maintained extremely high sanitary standards. It ought to have been practically a large hospital.

Instead, they had turned it into something like Root's crematorium.

As expected, the ones being dissected are all ninjas from other villages... At least they wouldn't let someone insignificant like me into a laboratory where they dissected Konoha's own ninjas.

Kaedeji submitted his transfer papers and followed a staff member to meet the person in charge, all while observing this recently established department.

The village had not even figured out how to systematically train Medical Ninja, much less set aside enough capable Medical Ninja for a project involving research on enemy corpses.

"It has been quite a while since we last received a newcomer, especially one assigned by someone like Lord Ryoma."

With a wet squelch, a middle-aged ninja who looked thoroughly aged sliced open the chest of a Sunagakure Ninja with a scalpel. Dark-red blood dripped into a porcelain vessel, its pattering sounding like some cold, sinister whisper.

Kaedeji lowered his head slightly. "You must be Lord Morino Ise. From now on, I will be one of your subordinates. It seems our department does not have much manpower."

"Counting you, five people is already plenty. Any more would be a waste. They should either be sent to the battlefield or work in the hospital."

Morino Ise said, "Your station is in the Special Cell Recording Room. Your first task is to polish the heads delivered yesterday, especially those from Sunagakure. They like using cloth to cover up that awful hair of theirs."

Kaedeji's fingertips brushed over the icy metal nameplates on the morgue tables. Three corpses lay neatly covered in white sheets. The toes of the last corpse poked out from beneath the fabric, with grains of sand unique to the Land of Wind still caught beneath its nails.

"Understood, Lord Morino Ise. Since serving the village, I have often dealt with corpses."

This was a field he knew well. It felt like coming home.

He gently lifted a white sheet. The Sunagakure Ninja's bluish-gray expression had been forever frozen in the instant of terror. The Fire Release burns remaining on his right arm were charred black as coal—perfect Materials for developing Corpse Manipulation.

Once Kaedeji entered his working state, he displayed impressive skill. As long as it did not consume Chakra, he could always produce excellent results.

There were enough Materials here, enough space, and it was also a stage where he could appropriately display his abilities.

From time to time, Kaedeji issued commands to the moving zombies, having them perform various movements. His colleagues were not particularly surprised.

Everyone knew that Kaedeji was practicing the Dead Soul Technique again. There were only a handful of people in all of Konoha who knew that ninjutsu.

Then again, no one who worked in the Corpse Disposal Unit was some upright and righteous person. What champion of justice would avoid shining on the battlefield just to come here and dissect enemy corpses?

"Occasionally, there are jōnin Materials... but I still haven't seen a Kekkei Genkai corpse."

After finishing with a corpse, Kaedeji removed his mask with some regret.

Morino Ise said coldly, "Our people keep an eye out for enemies with Kekkei Genkai on the battlefield, and the enemy does the same. No village can tolerate Kekkei Genkai being leaked. They would rather destroy it on the spot than easily let the other side obtain the corpse. Have you ever seen an enemy with the Sharingan or Byakugan appear on the battlefield?"

Kaedeji shrugged. In the future, Ao would fight Konoha Ninja with a Byakugan implanted in his head, but that was merely a thought he kept to himself.

Morino Ise seemed to suddenly recall something and muttered, "I remember that last year, several Uchiha Clan Members disappeared after a brutal battle on the Land of Rain battlefield. At the time, Lord Orochimaru and the others practically wanted to turn the entire battlefield upside down... Perhaps Amegakure obtained the Sharingan."

"Didn't the Sannin end the war with Amegakure? There would have been negotiations after the war. They definitely got the eyes back," Kaedeji said.

But he knew that was absolutely impossible.

The ones who had gotten them might not even have been Hanzō. It could also have been Uchiha Madara.

Last year, Jiraiya had remained in the Land of Rain to teach Nagato, which meant Nagato had obtained the Rinnegan earlier.

Having lost the Rinnegan, Madara would need some Sharingan as substitutes.

"War... truly, what people believe to be the truth and how reality develops are not the same thing at all."

Whenever he thought of Uchiha Madara, Black Zetsu, Otsutsuki Hagoromo, and the Otsutsuki descendants on the moon secretly observing the changes in the ninja world, Kaedeji could not help but sigh at the complexity of this world.

But those figures were far too distant from him. Right now, he was merely a genin quietly building up his strength, with his mind full of thoughts about replacing his body.

Time passed. The few people in the Corpse Disposal Unit seemed to have been forgotten. Aside from the somewhat valuable corpses delivered at regular intervals, no one paid them any attention.

Perhaps only when they regularly reported their research findings and provided a tiny contribution to the biological technology of the era could they prove that they had value.

Kaedeji still had not seen the corpse of a Kekkei Genkai ninja, even though he paid attention to and understood every corpse sent here.

So there really is a higher-level, more secretive department researching the most precious Kekkei Genkai corpses?

Kaedeji was not surprised by this.

Ever since Senju Nawaki had died right before Orochimaru's eyes, the stimulated Orochimaru had formally embarked on the path of pursuing immortality.

Considering the brief period of peace between the Second Great Ninja War and the Third Great Ninja War, along with the series of shady events that had occurred, Kaedeji could basically conclude that Orochimaru and Danzo had already joined forces by this time.

"After the Second Great Ninja War ended, the village formally launched the First Hokage's Cells experimental project in order to increase its combat strength for the next Great Ninja War. They used Konoha Ninja and villagers for human experiments, causing tremendous casualties."

"Since they had already reached the point of directly conducting human experiments, that meant the village had long mastered the preliminary research results required for them."

The corpse processing work they were doing now, and all the materials they submitted, would eventually become the bricks and mortar supporting large-scale human experiments several years later.

First Hokage's Cells... At the thought of them, Kaedeji's face revealed a look of yearning.

No One understood better than Kaedeji how agonizing it was to use a frail body, and no one desired a body brimming with vitality more than he did.

An ordinary Naruto-world Native had 130 trillion cells. What about ninjas who practiced Chakra and trained their bodies? How many cells would they have?

What about the Senju Clan and Uzumaki Clan, both renowned for their bodies?

And... Senju Hashirama?

Absolute quantity was absolute power. Without enough vitality, everything else was meaningless.