The Legacy of the Second Hokage

It was Orochimaru!?

Didn't he say he would see me tomorrow? Why is he here!? How did he get in!? Did he see my experiments?

What is he thinking? Will he try to search my brain?

Countless questions flooded Sawada Hiroki's mind like a virus, nearly causing his thoughts to crash.

"A very interesting experiment, isn't it?"

Orochimaru's golden snake-like pupils glowed in the dim room like two burning ghost fires.

His face wore that signature, unsettling smile.

His gaze drifted past the cages and landed directly on Sawada Hiroki. The look was devoid of emotion, yet it pierced through one's facade more effectively than the sharpest blade.

"...Although the technique is still crude, leading to organ failure in some of the test subjects, these little lab mice of yours are quite special."

"How did you do it? Making their muscles grow automatically?"

Boom--!

He discovered my experiments?!

He knows the content of my experiments? My experimental reports were all written inside my own head!

How did he figure it out!?

Orochimaru's words struck like a thunderbolt from the heavens, exploding in Sawada Hiroki's mind and shattering his last shred of wishful thinking.

Exposed!

The experiments he conducted at home, which he thought no one knew about, had been laid bare by a single sentence! He even knew the cause of the failures like the back of his hand!

"I am curious," Orochimaru took a step, slowly walking toward Sawada Hiroki. As he moved, the wooden floor beneath his feet didn't make a single sound; that silence itself constituted the ultimate pressure.

"This knowledge, this biological knowledge that transcends this era and even the scope of medical ninjutsu... where did you learn it? Even Tsunade cannot do such things..."

Sawada Hiroki forced himself to breathe, but the air he inhaled felt like it was filled with shards of ice.

His mind raced, [Ctrl+Alt+Delete], the Task Manager popped up, and he didn't hesitate to select the process named [Fear.exe], clicking [End Task] ruthlessly.

Absolute calm, like ice water poured over his head, allowed him to regain his ability to think.

Sawada Hiroki began to analyze the current situation.

He absolutely could not speak carelessly now and expose more information. He had to first figure out what Orochimaru was thinking and why he had appeared here.

First, Orochimaru appearing in his room was definitely not a whim; the observation of his experiments might have started much earlier!

And right now, he hadn't been dragged off to some dark room, nor had the Yamanaka clan begun reading his memories. This meant that Konoha didn't yet think what he was doing or the knowledge he possessed had any value, or posed any danger to Konoha.

So, he would test the waters first.

"This... is part of my Kekkei Genkai." Sawada Hiroki's voice was a bit hoarse, but he had regained his composure.

"Oh?" Orochimaru straightened up, a playful smile appearing on his face. He didn't seem surprised by this answer. "A Kekkei Genkai? It allows you to understand what muscles are made of and what trace elements are needed for muscle tissue synthesis? Truly... unheard of."

"In Konoha, in the Land of Fire, even I only recently learned what trace elements are needed for muscle synthesis and what living things need to eat to grow muscle. So, this is knowledge you couldn't have copied from anyone else, Sawada Hiroki."

Orochimaru narrowed his eyes and squatted down, his snake-like pupils slowly drawing closer, though he didn't touch Sawada Hiroki.

"Unless someone taught you!"

Sawada Hiroki didn't even detect Orochimaru's signal in the wifi.

--He had absolutely no way to read Orochimaru's thoughts!

"You are lying, Hiroki-kun."

"My Kekkei Genkai allows me to 'see' the essence of life." Sawada Hiroki continued to weave lies; it was his only option. After all, he couldn't say he was a transmigrator...

"I can perceive the flow of chakra within a living body, the transformation of energy, even the division and death of cells. My Kekkei Genkai tells me that I can attempt to manipulate these."

"Summarized it yourself?" Orochimaru sneered. He walked slowly to the cage containing the corpse of the Group B test subject, his pale, slender fingers gently poking the stiff mouse through the wire mesh.

"Then, what about this?" He tilted his head, his golden snake pupils glancing at Sawada Hiroki. "Group A, the healthy control group. Group B, the dead group. Group C, the group that found balance. Such a meticulous controlled experiment method... did you also summarize this yourself through 'observation'?"

"You should have an experimental log, right? Where is it?" Orochimaru asked.

Sawada Hiroki's pupils contracted sharply.

It was over.

This man hadn't just seen the results; he had deduced the entire experimental process and train of thought with perfect clarity.

He wasn't just a ninja; he was a top-tier scientist wearing the skin of a ninja! And a master of psychology with top-tier insight.

In front of this person, Sawada Hiroki found that no matter what he said, the other party could find the loopholes.

"I..." Sawada Hiroki opened his mouth, only to find he had nothing left to say.

"You are very special, Sawada Hiroki-kun." Orochimaru slowly turned around, facing him again.

"However, I am not very concerned about where you learned this knowledge. Because those things are not always important. And many secrets are impossible to probe."

Orochimaru said in a low voice, and for a moment, he thought of the laboratory left behind by the Second Hokage.

Who could have imagined that the Second Hokage would actually preserve the body of the First Hokage and compile various experimental logs to conduct research on it?

If the Second Hokage had so many secrets that could not be explored while he was alive, what more could be said for ninjas like them, who were far inferior to him?

Of course, the most important thing was...

According to his deductions, Sawada Hiroki might be one of the Second Hokage's test subjects!

One must realize that Sawada Hiroki had no backing in the village, and his parents were merely mediocre ninjas.

His entire history was so unremarkable, appearing to have nothing special about it at all...

Yet he knew so much knowledge that he shouldn't have known...

That knowledge—things like muscle synthesis or experimental control groups—could only be known by someone who had spent a long time in a laboratory or had followed someone who possessed such knowledge!

And in Konoha, aside from Orochimaru's laboratory, only the Second Hokage had a laboratory!

Furthermore, Sawada Hiroki's passive personality was very much like that of a test subject in a lab!

The only thing Orochimaru could imagine was that Sawada Hiroki was one of the Second Hokage's test subjects, perhaps even a subject for a reincarnation secret technique!

Of course, Hiroki couldn't be the Second Hokage himself; he was too naive. It was more likely that he was a researcher who had lived long under the Second Hokage's protection and had been reincarnated into a child's body as an experiment.

Moreover, if one carefully calculated Sawada Hiroki's birth date, it was only a few years apart from the death of the Second Hokage!

This made the possibility even greater!

Most importantly, his own teacher, the Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen—a man known as the Professor of Ninjutsu who knew and mastered almost every jutsu in Konoha—actually didn't have many thoughts regarding Sawada Hiroki!?

This only served to solidify Orochimaru's conviction.

Therefore, Orochimaru sneered and said, "You possess knowledge that does not belong to this era, yet you are cautious, suspicious, and accustomed to using a child's identity to disguise yourself, using mediocrity to cover up your uniqueness."

Mediocre individuals in a laboratory often lived longer; those who were too outstanding or too incompetent were always the first to be eliminated.

"You have likely lived in a peaceful environment for too long, so you never take the initiative to attack, because subconsciously, you believe that as long as you don't expose yourself, you can remain safe."

As long as he didn't actively expose his anomalies, the researchers wouldn't record him separately or conduct further experiments on him.

He stepped closer, his voice dropping lower, the raspy tone even carrying a faint hiss like a viper flicking its tongue.

"But you are wrong. In this world, weakness itself is the original sin."

Orochimaru stopped in front of him, reached out, and used his cold fingertips to gently lift Hiroki's chin, forcing him to meet his gaze.

Hiroki was forced to look up.

But what chilled him the most was...

There was no prompt to connect with Orochimaru...? Was this a prosthetic hand?

He had no idea what Orochimaru was thinking.

Hiroki was forced to open his task progress again, once more ending the "Fear" status that kept popping up at random, but he still couldn't calm down.

"Look at you," his golden snake-like pupils seemed to pierce through his soul, "you are afraid. You are afraid of me, afraid of the village, afraid of the 'future' you know. You are afraid of losing this pathetic peace you have now, so you dare not reveal your true self."

Because he was a test subject of the Second Hokage, and since no one knew about him after the Second Hokage went missing, Hiroki had been able to live a stable life in the village... until the sudden Cloud Ninja invasion...

Orochimaru narrowed his eyes, staring at Hiroki: "However, I can help you."

Hiroki's heart began to pound wildly—not from excitement, but from an uncontrollable fear that kept resurfacing even when he forcibly suppressed it.

Had he guessed his identity as a transmigrator?

He only saw Orochimaru open his mouth:

"Hand over the knowledge you obtained from the Second Hokage to me, Hiroki-kun." Orochimaru's lips curled into a chilling arc, and he licked his lips, "Confide in me, and I will help you develop your bloodline limit. I will teach you how to turn the knowledge you possess into true power, and teach you how to live as you please in this cruel world."

"Hiroki-kun. Only I can help you achieve it."

"Huh?"

At this moment, Hiroki's mind went completely blank.

The Second Hokage?

The Second Hokage Senju Tobirama? What did he have to do with his knowledge? Huh?

What... what was all this about!?