Orochimaru's True Nature Exposed × Danzo Shimura's Shock

Life is meaningless.

Things that don't move are even less meaningful.

As an elite Jonin of Konoha and one of the renowned "Sannin" of the major nations, Orochimaru had already proven himself during the Second Shinobi World War in his battle against Hanzo the Salamander, the leader of Amegakure. Although he, Jiraiya, and Tsunade combined, couldn't gain much of an advantage in that fight, the fact that he could fight Kage-level shinobi and hold his own for a short time led many to believe that Orochimaru truly deserved his title as an elite Jonin and might even become a Kage-level shinobi in the future. However... the world is full of fools... there are far too many boring people in this world.

Having witnessed countless battles and death, Orochimaru felt himself gradually becoming numb, weary, and sinking into a state of emptiness where he lost interest in everything...

"My heart is empty." One night, a man with dark purple eyeshadow lay at his feet, the corpses of Ninja from another village crawling around him. He looked up at the moon, and under the moonlight, two deep, blank expressions crept onto his snake-like face.

He knew he had to make changes, or he would be numbed and destroyed by the monotony of life and war. Fortunately, World War II ended. The village desperately needed an insurance policy for the succession of the Nine-Tails- Tails Jinchuriki... a policy that could suppress the Nine-Tails at any time to prevent it from causing trouble [Wood Release]!

Therefore, Orochimaru remembered very clearly that not long after Kushina "inherited" the Nine-Tails from Uzumaki Mito, his teacher Sarutobi Hiruzen approached him and gave him a difficult task—to study the First Hokage's cells in order to find someone who could withstand the "First Hokage's power" and successfully inherit [Wood Release].

[Wood Release]...[First Hokage]... When these two words were placed before Orochimaru at the same time, he remembered very clearly that he was so excited that he trembled, and then...

The nihilism lurking deep within the soul faded away, as if a rebirth had arrived.

"Leave it to me." Orochimaru finally regained his composure and made a solemn promise to his teacher that very day.

However, perhaps he was too arrogant, or perhaps the "God of Shinobi" was too powerful. Even though Senju Hashirama had been dead for many years, the enormous "activity" hidden in his cells still turned the group of Ninja who had been sent by Sarutobi Hiruzen to cooperate with his experiments into monsters devoured by [Wood Release], into vegetative people who had lost their minds and had their brains drained.

nature,

After this tragedy, the project was halted... Even though he stubbornly told his teacher that it wasn't his fault, but simply that "the experimental sample size wasn't large enough," he ultimately couldn't change Sarutobi Hiruzen's decision.

He was initially angry, bewildered, and disappointed, followed by a profound fear... a fear of returning to that past, of being swallowed up again by a massive sense of "emptiness," until not even a trace of his bones remained!

Fortunately, just like Orochimaru, who hated nothing more than things that were "unchanging,"

Danzo Shimura also disliked the "unchanging" Konoha, or rather... the "unchanging" Konoha under Hiruzen's rule. Thus, the two disillusioned individuals naturally came together: one for Konoha, for Danzo's Konoha, and the other to escape emptiness and try to find meaning in existence by continuing to study "Wood Release." They hit it off immediately, and so...

Human trials were able to continue...

Today is Orochimaru's monthly day for Sharingan for Danzo. This time, he broadened his search and noticed a Sun-Earring Boy named "Uchiha Jin"!

It is said that he once accompanied Fugaku to the battlefield, where he single-handedly killed dozens of Ninja with his sword, earning him considerable fame.

It is said that he blew up the school with a D-rank ninjutsu, yet it displayed power no less than that of a B-rank ninjutsu.

It is said that Danzo was also watching him, but secretly concealed all information about him from him... Orochimaru, residing within the White Snake's body, immediately realized upon flicking his tongue that perhaps this child named Jin possessed a different aspect from the other Uchiha. Therefore,

He saw it today.

That child's mastery of ninjutsu without hand seals was effortless. His spatial-temporal talent was unparalleled. Even Danzo Namikaze Minato, whom Danzo had mentioned as a potential rival, showed a rare fighting spirit and wanted to test his skills against him... Unfortunately, his teacher, who had almost dragged him into the void before, intervened halfway! "You always spoil the fun at the most crucial moments," Orochimaru watched sinisterly from the shadows, thinking his observation for the day had ended and his "harvest" was already quite substantial. Who knew...

This young Sun-Earring Boy, named Uchiha Jin, not only helped him utter the words he had always wanted to say but never managed to, but also gave him a big surprise.

He mastered [Wood Release] on his own without relying on the First Hokage's cells!

Boom! A thunderclap erupted from the ground!

Instantly, Orochimaru felt as if he had been struck by a bolt of Thunder from the sky, from his brow to his tail, and completely... split open along his central axis. "So, what was the point of all that research?" Orochimaru was dumbfounded. He felt as if his mind had turned into a mess, and in an instant, life seemed to have lost its meaning. He was once again swallowed up by that "vast nothingness" that he both knew and loathed!

"Shh... shh..." The snake's body snaked and crawled through the dark corners of Konoha's streets, through the lush green bushes, and through the thick, towering trees. Orochimaru, seemingly oblivious to his own actions, followed silently. Suddenly, he saw... the Sun-Earring Boy re-enter the Southern Forest, abruptly stop, and without turning around, say, "After following for so long, I need a break." "Don't you think so, Orochimaru?"

A sharp gaze swept over with a "whoosh."

Orochimaru transformed into White Snake, using his tail to support himself on a tree trunk, and stood upright, grinning sinisterly...

"You clearly noticed me a long time ago, why didn't you just point it out?"

The tailing didn't just begin now; it started the moment Roy appeared on the training field carrying the log... Orochimaru believed that since the Sun-Earring Boy could now spot him, he must have already spotted him long ago.

"Two points," Roy stopped, turned around, and looked at Orochimaru calmly, saying, "You mean no harm. Second, I also want to see what the legendary Sannin are up to."

"Hehe..." The White Snake's flicking tongue gave off a dark and hoarse feeling. Orochimaru's vertical pupils gleamed with an eerie light as he stared intently at the Sun-Earring Boy under the tree and said, "So, did you see that?"

"I saw him," Roy, somewhat disappointed. "Just a heartless, pathetic peeping tom who has no idea what he's doing." This guy almost killed his little brother because of the phrase "life itself has no meaning," and in the end, he became the very thing Roy hated most—"Jiraiya." Looking at the White Snake Orochimaru had transformed into, Roy seemed to see, across time, Orochimaru wandering aimlessly through Konoha after the Fourth Shinobi World War, sometimes working at a restaurant, sometimes walking with his toes pointed inward, eating his fingers in front of a ramen shop, sometimes shouting "Baka yarou!" at the Hokage Building with his rear end sticking out... completely unleashing his true nature.

I can't help but feel a little sad...

"Pitiful?" Orochimaru looked down at Roy, his eyebrows slightly raised, and narrowed his eyes as he said, "You seem to understand me quite well..."

Strange, the way the Sun-Earring Boy looked at him gave Orochimaru a strange, familiar feeling. Yet, Orochimaru was absolutely certain that this was Sun-Earring Boy first encounter...

Roy, hands in his pockets, slowly shook his head. "I wouldn't say I understand. If you don't tell me, I won't know either."

"I'll tell you?" Orochimaru's eyes flickered.

Roy pointed meaningfully at the White Snake's vital point and said, "Yes, it has already told me everything."

Orochimaru subconsciously looked down; that was where his heart was beating...

"Thump... thump..." Heart pounding, blood boiling, Orochimaru could almost see his own heart swelling and contracting as he got closer. He looked up, and suddenly froze!

A loud "caw!" echoed, followed by a blur before my eyes, and I was plunged into deep darkness...

The darkness was so profound that one couldn't see their own hand in front of their face, making it impossible to distinguish east from west. The only sound was a rustling sound, seemingly the crawling of some kind of gastropod worm. When Orochimaru looked up,... not far away, a Heart Bug extended its long proboscis, traversing the distance of time and space along the causal branches, and in the blink of an eye, it was upon him. Before he could react, its proboscis plunged down, and then...

A Sun-Earring Boy with jet-black hair, resembling Fugaku to some extent and Mikoto to some extent, stepped forward, his foot piercing Roy's heart... "Swoosh..." Memories unfolded, his Orochimaru's past unfolding like a film reel, slowly appearing before Roy's eyes as he looked down at the edge of the field... There were his childhood memories of learning ninjutsu from Jiraiya, Tsunade, Jiraiya Tsunade Sarutobi Hiruzen... There was his promotion to Chunin, his journey to the battlefield with his teacher, his first kill, and the embarrassment of secretly vomiting against a wall... There was his growth, his gradual emergence of talent, his establishment in the ninja world, and his promotion to Jonin. There was the glory of teaming up with Jiraiya and Tsunade to fight Hanzo the Salamander, being bestowed the title of "Sannin" by him, and of course...

There's the numbness from killing too much... the bewilderment and helplessness enveloped by an immense emptiness... the cold indifference and cruelty of treating people as mere expendable resources, not as human beings... the anger and despair of being forcibly Sarutobi Hiruzen in an experiment that defied human decency... and the smug satisfaction of cowardly restarting the project with Danzo... and the outward appearance of maintaining a glamorous facade while secretly succumbing to darkness...

All of this created a vibrant tapestry of life, which Roy witnessed firsthand, leaving him with absolutely no privacy. Orochimaru stood beside the Sun-Earring Boy on the edge of the field, tilting his head to look at him and asking, "What kind of ninjutsu is this?"

There was no Chakra fluctuation, unlike Illusion Jutsu. There was no feeling of the soul being devoured, unlike the Yamanaka Clan's "Mind Transfer Technique." Yet, he couldn't resist; he could only open his heart, letting the Sun-Earring Boy stroll in leisurely, taking and looking as he pleased.

This feeling of having one's underwear exposed for the first time was like being naked... It was a terrifying experience for Orochimaru, no less intense than being enveloped in "nothingness"...

Do you think I'd tell you? Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.

Roy casually Browse Orochimaru's biography, not even glancing at him, and said, "If you can peek at me, then naturally I can peek at you." "Lord Orochimaru, that's my answer to you."

"Hehehe..." A powerful surge of Chakra jolted him violently, and in an instant, his heart felt like the sky had fallen and the earth had caved in... Roy seemed to finally react, turning his head to glance at Orochimaru and saying, "I didn't expect you to be so ruthless."

"As you've seen, to me, people can die, and of course, spirit beasts can die too..."

"Crash!" The heart shattered, consciousness returned... The Heart Bug flew out, whimpering, and was caught in Roy's hand with one hand. The Sun-Earring Boy, detached from Orochimaru's heart, looked up... The White Snake, its head drooping, slid down the tree trunk like a rope, landing on the ground with a "thud," utterly dead.

Roy watched silently, never expecting Orochimaru to break free from his [enchantment] by "self-destruction"... Indeed, as expected of the man Hanzo the Salamander with the title of "Sannin," none of them were easy to deal with.

"Lu... Lu..." After a moment of silence, Roy let out a soft breath, then lifted his foot and walked towards the training ground near the Uchiha Clan's compound.

Shisui and Itachi were still waiting for his inspection; as the eldest brother, he couldn't let his younger brothers be disappointed.

Roy simply shook off the unnecessary thoughts in his mind, transformed into sunlight, and Light Release in a flash.

"Huff... huff... what a strange Sun-Earring Boy..."

A secluded and hidden laboratory beneath Konoha,

A large snake was crawling slithering in the darkness.

"Rustle.."

The snakeskin scraped against the dark ground, making an eerie sound. At one moment, in the dim light, one could see...

The giant snake raised its head, opened its mouth, and spat out a slender man.

He had long, straight black hair, long, golden pupils, purple eyeshadow extending to his nose, and pale, bloodless skin. He wore blue-green magatama-shaped earrings. He stood up, dripping wet, and immediately began packing his experimental materials and data. At the same time, God's Messenger Summoning Jutsu to summon a tongue snake, directing it to flee in a certain direction.

In less than half an hour...

"Tap, tap..." From the dark, deep corridor leading directly from the laboratory door, the dull sound of a cane striking the ground grew louder and louder, then "creak~" the door was pushed open.

Two men, not particularly tall but with a sinister air, entered. The one a step behind, carrying a long sword on his back and wearing an eye patch that obscured his face, was Aburame Torune. As for the one in front...

The bandage stretched from his arm to his right eye, leaving only his left eye. His narrowed left eye always held a sinister glint, especially after noticing Orochimaru had nearly emptied the entire laboratory. He looked at Orochimaru dangerously and said, "What do you mean by telling me you want to leave Konoha?"

The serpent has already delivered a message to him.

Danzo had made a prior agreement with Orochimaru that they should not contact him unless absolutely necessary.

Orochimaru was well aware of this.

The man used his Summoning Jutsu again, "whoosh," summoning an even larger snake. He then had the snake swallow all the experimental materials and data in one gulp. Only then did he turn to Danzo and say, "I've been exposed!"

"Who? I'll kill him!"

Orochimaru's gaze was deep and unfathomable as he uttered four words: "Uchiha Jin!"