"Magnet Release?"
After the test battle ended, Yuhara was thrown back into his cell once more. Afterward, he also received a little explanation about himself.
Based on Yuhara's understanding of the "original story," Magnet Release was a Kekkei Genkai used by the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Kazekage. It manifested as large-scale control over a particular kind of metal. In short, it could be understood as "a mini, youthful version of Magneto."
But was he really a Magnet Release Ninja? Although he had somehow controlled that kunai at the final moment of the battle, if that was Magnet Release, it felt inexplicably wrong. Somehow, this manifestation seemed different from the Magnet Release he remembered in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on.
So was this merely a subjective feeling of awkwardness, or was there actually an objective difference? Yuhara didn't know, so he decided to test it.
"This should be the thing... And there really is some."
Yuhara opened the Ninja Tool Bag behind him and rummaged around until he found some special paper. In reality, ninjas used these things to draw certain jutsu formulas. They were common ninja tools, and they were relatively sensitive to elemental Chakra.
Yuhara simply used it as Chakra Paper. He pulled out a sheet and held it between two fingers.
"...This is how you do it, right?"
As a stream of Chakra surged from his fingertips, the thin test paper first wrinkled. Then, a series of scratches appeared across it, and finally its surface crumbled into fragments. This reaction indicated that he possessed three Chakra natures.
Although Yuhara could no longer remember what reaction each Chakra nature produced, the five narrowly defined Chakra natures were nothing more than water, fire, earth, wind, and lightning. Thus, by making a simple deduction based on common sense, it wasn't difficult to match the natures with their physical changes: wrinkling was lightning, cutting was wind, and crumbling was earth. In other words, Yuhara possessed lightning, wind, and earth Chakra natures.
As an ordinary reader, he couldn't possibly have understood the original story in such detail. Thus, he didn't know which two Chakra natures made up Magnet Release. But since Magnet Release was a Kekkei Genkai, it could only possess two combined nature transformations. What would happen if three nature transformations were combined?
He didn't know, but theoretically, it wouldn't be Magnet Release. The change produced by combining three Chakra natures was called a Kekkei Tōta, and as far as he knew, the entire shinobi world only had one such technique: Dust Release.
Could it be...
Was the true nature of the so-called Art of the Holding Magnet actually a Kekkei Tōta?
All right, compared to the monsters that would appear later, every release was child's play. After thinking for quite some time without figuring out what was happening to him, Yuhara decided to give up.
Whether it was a Kekkei Genkai or a Kekkei Tōta, neither could help him escape from here right now. Their future growth curves and power were also much the same, so... there was no point in overthinking it. He would just leave things as they were for now.
Taking a step back, even if he possessed the corresponding abilities and potential, reality wouldn't give Yuhara the time or opportunity to develop. Although he didn't know what Orochimaru was trying to do, there was no doubt that all of Orochimaru's experiments were extremely dangerous. At this point, Yuhara knew nothing about what would happen to him next, much less how he might escape his current situation.
It was an impossible knot.
Having just been reborn, the first "BOSS" he faced was far too powerful.
A day after the battle ended, the female ninja Hotaru came to Yuhara's cell again.
"The experiment is about to begin. Please come with me."
"The experiment?"
It wasn't that Yuhara didn't want to resist. But what could a helpless victim on the chopping block do? All he could do was lie there and wait. Once the female ninja opened the cell door, he could only silently follow behind her once more.
After walking in silence for a while, Yuhara asked, "The person who fought me yesterday..."
"You should have killed him directly." The female ninja spoke in an unusually calm voice.
Yuhara froze for a moment before continuing, "What do you mean...? Why say that?"
The female ninja merely glanced back at him before keeping her eyes on the path ahead. "Lord Orochimaru is someone who treasures his experimental materials. To him, high-value experimental materials have one use, low-value experimental materials have another... and corpses have yet another use."
"...Got it."
Her answer plunged Yuhara into complete silence.
The way of thinking from his previous life didn't suit this world. The goodwill of his former life wasn't necessarily goodwill in this one. The bizarre logic of "I killed you for your own good" actually made sense in the shinobi world.
The two of them continued upward through the passageway. Eventually, they reached a shallower level. After passing through several tightly sealed doors, they appeared before Orochimaru.
Compared to the cells below, this place looked more like a laboratory... No, it didn't merely look like one. It was clearly a laboratory.
A terrifying biological laboratory.
Yuhara could see corpses hanging from one wall, but he had no time to feel shocked or sympathetic about them because... he might soon become one of them, another lump of dried, cured meat waiting to be air-dried.
When Orochimaru saw Yuhara, he seemed quite pleased. He waved his hand and first dismissed the female ninja, then said to Yuhara, "Let's draw lots first, in order."
As he spoke, Orochimaru handed Yuhara a container of sticks.
Yuhara raised his hand and casually drew out a paper slip. As he opened it, he tried asking, "Lord Orochimaru, this 'experiment'... what do I need to do?"
Orochimaru took back the container of sticks and maintained a seemingly "amiable" expression as he said:
"You don't need to do anything. You'll mainly serve as an assistant.
"Don't worry. As long as the theory is correct and the method is feasible, the only thing left is the dosage. So long as we keep repeating the process, we'll achieve success sooner or later, whether that's after one thousand attempts or ten thousand... That's what scientific experiments are."
"Brute force..." Yuhara quietly uttered a word.
And in Orochimaru's hands, that word was practically drenched in blood.
"What number?" Orochimaru asked.
By then, Yuhara had already unfolded the slip, so he showed the number on it to Orochimaru. "97."
"97. In a certain sense, you're lucky. But to a greater extent... you're truly unlucky."
What did that mean? Had Yuhara drawn something exceptionally rare? And did rare things not necessarily mean good things? That was indeed the case. The different numbers represented different dosages. Number 97 was clearly a high dosage, one that could basically be called a "lethal dose."
Orochimaru took out a large syringe. Yuhara had only seen something like it when experiencing rural life, watching a veterinarian treat a rather adorably clumsy even-toed mammal. The syringe was filled with a tube of pale violet liquid... No matter how he looked at it, the stuff seemed bizarre.
Yuhara instinctively tried to flee, but under Orochimaru's gaze, he discovered that he couldn't move at all. He could only watch helplessly as Orochimaru pushed the entire syringe of dangerous liquid into his body.
Even after Orochimaru finished the injection, Yuhara maintained his pose with his arm raised. His eyes were fixed on the injection site, and his entire body gradually grew extremely tense.
Yuhara even began breathing cautiously. But after a short while, everything remained normal. Huh? It seemed there wasn't any special reaction...
The moment that optimistic thought arose, indescribable agony surged from every cell in his body.
Tearing, swelling, needles, heavy blows...
Under the assault of intense and complex pain, Yuhara collapsed onto the ground. The agony made him want to roar, but his facial muscles had tightened until they were almost petrified, while his clenched jaw forced the sound back down his throat. Only dull, continuous whimpers escaped.
A person could try to endure pain inflicted from outside, but pain rooted in the deepest parts of one's own body was impossible to resist. After only two minutes, Yuhara completely lost consciousness.
Just like that time he had experienced before, a dark and endless night seemed to descend once more...
Well, it hadn't actually descended. When Yuhara woke again, the intense pain in his body had vanished, leaving behind only severe soreness and fatigue.
Yuhara tried to raise his head and found that even this simple movement was difficult.
"Clang!"
As he moved his body slightly, a series of crisp impacts rang out. Yuhara felt somewhat puzzled. After taking a closer look, he discovered that he was lying inside a humanoid "iron shell."
"Unbelievable. You actually survived... Congratulations. It seems the experiment succeeded."
A voice came from nearby.
Yuhara struggled to move his body, inching backward until he leaned against the wall behind him. Only after he had some support did he slowly sit halfway up. Then he discovered a massive square iron cage opposite him. There was a chair inside the cage, and someone was sitting on it.
That person was the one who had just spoken.
Judging by his build, he was probably a child. He was "wearing" something like the restraint bag used in a psychiatric hospital, and his entire body was tightly bound to the chair. Even his eyes were covered by a blindfold marked with unknown jutsu formulas. On the ground around the chair, circles of increasingly larger arrays had been drawn.
This wasn't the laboratory Yuhara had been in earlier. It was another, larger cell.
"How much time has passed..."
When he spoke, Yuhara discovered that his voice was extraordinarily hoarse and strained.
"You struggled here for about seven days," the other person replied.
Perhaps because he hadn't spoken to anyone for a long time, there was a hint of cheerfulness in the child's voice.
"Can you... see?"
"Of course I can."
"So... what exactly happened to my body?"
"What happened? Let me think... Just like the other Test Subjects before you, your body kept twisting and swelling until you turned into a five- or six-meter-tall monster, and then you exploded with a 'boom.' Hmm, that should have been the normal process, but obviously, you survived."
The child spoke with great interest. "Magnet Release Ninja, your ability saved your life. When you could no longer suppress the violent changes in your body, you instinctively activated your ability and completely bound yourself with layer upon layer of iron. The situation at the time was truly fascinating."
After being reminded, Yuhara realized that there should originally have been another large iron cage where he had been lying, just like the child. He had also been locked inside the same kind of cage.
But most of that cage had now disappeared.
Looking at the humanoid iron shell left on the ground, he could imagine what had happened. He hadn't crawled into the iron shell. Instead, when he lost consciousness, he had controlled the iron cage to transform into a shell and wrap itself around him.
It was like coating fried fish in batter... It was a rather crude comparison, but no matter what, he was still alive. That was the best news of all.
"One last question, kid... Who are you?"
"Me? I don't have a name. As for my identity...
"Just like you, I'm merely one of Lord Orochimaru's experimental subjects."
"An experimental subject? Then I suppose we're in the same boat."
"In the same boat? No. In fact, I'm the one who got dragged into this. I was originally about to be taken away from here, but because you were shoved in, my matter was forcibly delayed. And then... for some reason, I probably won't ever be able to leave this place."
"?"
At that time, Yuhara still didn't understand what the child was talking about.
Before you continue