The night grew deeper. Outside the courtyard, the bamboo grove swayed in the evening breeze, rustling like some ancient whisper. Inside, candlelight flickered, stretching Uchiha Ao and Orochimaru's shadows long and twisted across the tatami.
Uchiha Ao sat upright before the low table, lightly rubbing the still-warm teacup with his fingers as he watched the "disciple" before him—a child of only five or six, yet one who exuded an eerie charm.
"Orochimaru."
His low voice broke the silence in the room. "Although your talent for research is beyond doubt, I'm still curious—this idea of turning living creatures into tiny scouting tools. Even for a genius like you, could you really achieve this at your age with only the little theoretical guidance I gave you?"
That was the question in his heart.
Even if Orochimaru was the number one scientist of the Shinobi World in the original story, a man who had mastered core technologies, he was still only a child now. Even with scientific thinking from another world, such an achievement that transcended the era was simply too shocking.
It was like an elementary school student listening to one physics lesson, then going home and handcrafting an atomic bomb.
At his words, a meaningful smile appeared on Orochimaru's pale, delicate little face. He tilted his head slightly, and an ageless weariness and madness flickered in his golden slit pupils.
"Teacher, it seems you've forgotten something."
Orochimaru raised a slender finger and lightly tapped his temple. His voice was faint and eerie. "Inside this small body live two souls—or rather, two personalities."
Uchiha Ao frowned slightly, seeming to realize something, but he did not interrupt.
"Back then, inside that genjutsu space of yours that could only be called miraculous, my primary personality—that cowardly, confused little boy—was enduring the agony of having