The Second Hokage's Legacy

Orochimaru!?

Hadn't he said they'd meet tomorrow? Why was he here!? How had he gotten in!? Had he seen my experiment?

What was he thinking? Was he going to search my brain?

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A flood of questions filled Hiroki's mind like a virus, nearly causing his thoughts to crash.

"An interesting experiment, isn't it?"

Orochimaru's golden, snake-like eyes glowed in the dim room like two burning will-o'-the-wisps.

His face bore that unmistakable, unsettling smile.

His gaze passed over the cages and settled directly on Hiroki. There was no emotion in it, yet it pierced through a person's disguise more sharply than the keenest blade.

"...Though your methods are still crude, and some of your test subjects' organs have failed, these little lab rats of yours are still quite special."

"How did you do it? Make their muscles grow on their own?"

Boom—!

He'd discovered my experiment!?

Did he know what it was about? I'd written the experiment report in my own head!

How had he figured it out!?

Orochimaru's words crashed through Hiroki's mind like thunder from the heavens, shattering the last of his wishful thinking.

He was exposed!

The experiment he'd been conducting at home, believing no one knew about it, had been laid bare with a single sentence! Orochimaru even understood exactly why it had failed!

"I'm curious." Orochimaru started toward Hiroki, slowly, one step at a time. The wooden floorboards made not the slightest sound beneath his feet. That silence itself was the most oppressive thing of all.

"Where did you learn all this knowledge? Biology that goes beyond this era, even beyond the realm of Medical Ninjutsu... Not even Tsunade can do this..."

Hiroki forced himself to breathe, but the air he drew in seemed to be full of ice.

His thoughts raced. [Ctrl+Alt+Delete]. The Task Manager popped up, and without hesitation, he selected the process named [Fear.exe] and clicked [End Process].

An absolute calm washed over him like a bucket of cold water, restoring his ability to think.

Hiroki began to assess the situation.

He couldn't say anything carelessly and reveal more information. First, he had to find out what Orochimaru was thinking, and why he had come here.

First of all, Orochimaru appearing in his room wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision. He might have been watching Hiroki's experiments for some time already!

And Hiroki hadn't been dragged into some dark room or had his memories read by the Yamanaka Clan yet. That meant Konoha didn't consider what he was doing or the knowledge he possessed to be valuable or a threat to the village—at least, not for now.

So he'd test the waters first.

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

"Oh?" Orochimaru straightened up, a playful smile appearing on his face. He didn't seem surprised by the answer. "A Kekkei Genkai? One that lets you understand what makes muscles grow and what trace elements are needed to synthesize muscle tissue? How... unprecedented."

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

Orochimaru narrowed his eyes and crouched down. His snake-like pupils drew closer, but he didn't touch Hiroki.

"Unless someone taught you!"

Hiroki hadn't even noticed Orochimaru's signal appearing on WiFi.

—He couldn't read Orochimaru's thoughts at all!

"You're lying, Hiroki-kun."

"My Kekkei Genkai lets me 'see' the essence of life." Hiroki continued weaving his lie. It was his only option; he couldn't exactly tell Orochimaru he was a transmigrator...

"I can sense the flow of chakra inside living things, the transformation of energy, and even cell division and death. My Kekkei Genkai tells me I can try to control these things."

"You figured it out on your own?" Orochimaru let out a cold laugh. He slowly walked over to the cage containing the corpse of the Group B test subject. His pale, slender fingers reached through the wire and gently nudged the stiff mouse.

"What about this?" He glanced sideways at Hiroki, his golden, snake-like eyes fixed on him. "Group A, the healthy control group. Group B, the one that died. Group C, the one where you found the balance. Such meticulous control-group experiments... Did you figure those out by 'observing' on your own, too?"

"You must have an experiment log as well, don't you? Where is it?" Orochimaru asked.

Hiroki's pupils contracted sharply.

This was bad.

The man hadn't merely seen the results. He'd even deduced the entire process and reasoning behind the experiment.

He wasn't just a ninja. He was a top-tier scientist wearing a ninja's guise—and a master psychologist with extraordinary insight.

Hiroki realized that whatever he said, Orochimaru would find a flaw in it.

"I..." Hiroki opened his mouth, but found he had nothing to say.

"You're quite special, Sawada Hiroki-kun." Orochimaru slowly turned around to face him again.

"Still, I don't particularly care where you learned all this. Those things aren't always important. Besides, some secrets can't be investigated."

Orochimaru spoke in a low voice. For a moment, he thought of the laboratory the Second Hokage had left behind.

Who could have imagined that the Second Hokage had preserved the First's body and compiled various research logs to study it?

If the Second Hokage had so many secrets from his lifetime that no one could investigate, what about the rest of them—ninja who were nowhere near his level?

Of course, the most important thing was...

Based on his deductions, Sawada Hiroki might have been one of the Second Hokage's test subjects!

After all, Sawada Hiroki had no backing in the village, and his parents were merely mediocre ninja.

His life had been utterly ordinary, with nothing seemingly special about it...

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

Knowledge of muscle synthesis and experimental controls—those were things one could learn only by spending a long time in a laboratory or by following someone who knew about them!

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

What's more, Sawada Hiroki's passive personality was just like that of a lab test subject!

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

Of course, Hiroki couldn't be the Second Hokage himself. He was far too naive. More likely, he was a test subject who had been a researcher living under the Second Hokage's protection for a long time, then reincarnated into a child's body.

And when one did the math, Sawada Hiroki's birth had been only a few years apart from the Second Hokage's death!

That made the possibility even more likely!

Most importantly, his teacher, Third Sarutobi Hiruzen—the professor of Konoha's ninjutsu, a man who knew and mastered nearly every jutsu in the village—hadn't seemed to think much of Sawada Hiroki!?

That only strengthened Orochimaru's conviction.

So Orochimaru sneered. "You possess knowledge that doesn't belong to this era, but you're cautious and suspicious, and you're used to hiding behind a child's identity, using mediocrity to conceal how unusual you are."

In a laboratory, the mediocre tended to live longer. Those who stood out too much—or were too incompetent—were the first to be eliminated!

"You may have lived in peaceful surroundings for too long, so you never take the initiative to attack. Deep down, you think that as long as you don't expose yourself, you'll be safe."

As long as he didn't reveal his abnormality, the researchers wouldn't keep a separate record on him or subject him to more experiments.

Orochimaru moved closer, lowering his voice. A raspy hiss, like a snake's tongue flicking out, crept into it.

"But you're wrong. In this world, weakness itself is a sin."

Orochimaru stopped in front of him and reached out. With an icy fingertip, he gently lifted Hiroki's chin, forcing him to meet his gaze.

Hiroki was forced to look up.

But what chilled him most was...

There was no prompt that he could connect to Orochimaru...? Was this hand fake?

He had no idea what Orochimaru was thinking.

Hiroki was forced to open the Task Manager again and end the "Fear" process that had somehow reappeared. But he still couldn't calm down.

"Look at you." Orochimaru's golden, snake-like eyes seemed able to see right through his soul. "You're afraid. You're afraid of me, of the village, of the 'future' you know. You're afraid of losing the little bit of peace you have now, so you don't dare show your true self."

Because he was a test subject of the Second Hokage, and no one had known about him after the Second Hokage disappeared, Hiroki had been able to settle down and live in the village... until the Cloud Ninja's sudden invasion...

Orochimaru narrowed his eyes as he watched Hiroki. "But I can help you."

Hiroki's heart pounded wildly—not from excitement, but from fear he couldn't suppress, fear that kept returning no matter how many times he forcibly ended the process.

Was he going to figure out that Hiroki was a transmigrator?

Hiroki saw Orochimaru open his mouth.

"Give me the knowledge you got from the Second Hokage, Hiroki-kun." Orochimaru's lips curved into a chilling smile. He licked them. "Tell me the truth, and I'll help you develop your Kekkei Genkai. I'll teach you how to turn the knowledge you possess into real power, and how to live as you please in this cruel world."

"Hiroki-kun. I'm the only one who can help you achieve that."

"Huh?"

For a moment, Hiroki's mind went completely blank.

The Second Hokage?

The Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama? What did he have to do with Hiroki's knowledge? Huh?

What... was any of this supposed to mean!?