The laboratory reeked of an eerie mixture of chemicals and blood in the dead of night.
Uchiha Yatsuhashi lay on the cold operating table.
Not far away, Orochimaru gazed at him with snake-like eyes,
"Are you sure, Yatsuhashi?"
Though he had worked under Orochimaru for years, the older man's hoarse voice still made Uchiha Yatsuhashi's heart skip a beat.
"Even though the experiment has shown some initial results, Hashirama Cells have never been tested on a member of the Uchiha Clan.
Your body could collapse, and you might end up turning into a tree like those failed First Hokage Cells test subjects..."
"Lord Orochimaru, please don't doubt my resolve!"
Uchiha Yatsuhashi's voice was firm, in stark contrast to his racing heartbeat.
"An interesting resolve."
Even so, Orochimaru paused for several seconds.
Then he injected the diluted Hashirama Cells into Uchiha Yatsuhashi's body.
Obsessed with human experimentation, he was naturally curious about what might happen if the life force of the Senju Clan were combined with the ocular power of the Uchiha Clan.
Still, Orochimaru couldn't bear to lose a top researcher like Uchiha Yatsuhashi.
As the Hashirama Cells entered his body,
Uchiha Yatsuhashi gritted his teeth. At first, he felt only a slight warmth, like he had taken a sip of strong liquor.
But a few seconds later, that rush of chakra turned into a blaze, rampaging through his body.
"Ugh—!"
A pained groan slipped through his clenched teeth.
Uchiha Yatsuhashi felt something writhing beneath his skin, as if it would burst out of him at any moment.
He looked down and saw, horrified, that fine, wood-grain patterns had appeared across his arm.
"Yatsuhashi, it's starting."
Orochimaru's voice was chillingly cold.
Rather than step back, he carefully observed and recorded every change in Uchiha Yatsuhashi's body.
More wooden protrusions soon sprouted all over Yatsuhashi's body.
They grew rapidly, stretching out and branching off.
They were on the verge of becoming real branches, and tender green buds had already appeared in several places.
Pain surged over him like a tide, and Uchiha Yatsuhashi's consciousness began to blur.
He felt himself losing the boundaries of his body, merging with some ancient, savage life force.
But just as the branches began greedily draining Uchiha Yatsuhashi's life force,
a flash of silver—
Orochimaru's blade fell, precisely severing the branches growing from Yatsuhashi's body.
Abnormal red-green blood oozed from the cut ends.
Orochimaru moved so quickly that he was little more than a blur. One hand cut away the branches while the other had already unfurled a medical scroll.
Rich green healing chakra wrapped around Uchiha Yatsuhashi's failing body like a living thing.
"Hold on, Yatsuhashi. You're an Uchiha. Your will should be stronger than this."
Before he had even finished speaking, Orochimaru's movements abruptly stilled.
Deep in Uchiha Yatsuhashi's pupils, a faint, complex pattern quietly appeared.
But it lasted less than half a second before fading, as if it had only been an illusion.
After an unknown amount of time,
with Orochimaru's help, the deterioration of Uchiha Yatsuhashi's body finally began to slow.
He lay sprawled on the operating table, gasping for breath.
"Fortunately, the Hashirama Cells we injected had been diluted several times over."
Orochimaru put away the medical scroll and carefully examined and recorded Uchiha Yatsuhashi's condition.
"If the concentration had been any higher, even I might not have been able to save you."
His gaze finally settled on Yatsuhashi's eyes.
Though pain had left the whites of his eyes bloodshot,
his irises were still ordinary black, without the slightest sign of change.
A clear look of disappointment crossed Orochimaru's eyes,
not disappointment in Yatsuhashi, but in the experiment's results.
"I'm sorry, Yatsuhashi. Your body rejected the Hashirama Cells.
I managed to keep you alive, but this reckless experiment..."
He paused. "It has cost you several years of your life, at the very least."
Uchiha Yatsuhashi pushed himself up with trembling arms and gave a bitter smile.
"Lord Orochimaru, if I can't become a ninja, then a longer life means nothing to me."
He had been in this world for more than a decade.
Being a transmigrator had brought him no advantages. If anything, it had made him more keenly aware of the cruelty of reality.
He had been born into the Uchiha Clan, but his parents were commoners, and he had inherited no talent from them.
Even now, he was still only a weak Genin.
He had barely managed to become a Genin at all, and only thanks to Orochimaru.
When he realized his combat talent was far below that of his peers, he had chosen to join Orochimaru of his own accord.
Drawing on the basic biology knowledge he'd learned before transmigrating, he had helped Orochimaru overcome many experimental problems.
That had made him one of Orochimaru's more important research assistants.
In return, Orochimaru had also provided Uchiha Yatsuhashi with considerable protection.
He had kept Yatsuhashi from being sent to the brutal battlefield too soon.
"That's not right, Yatsuhashi."
Orochimaru gently shook his head and set the data he had just recorded on the operating table.
"Life is precious. Every minute and every second deserves reverence and care."
There was a rare sincerity in Orochimaru's hoarse voice.
Uchiha Yatsuhashi knew that after witnessing the deaths of his friends and loved ones one after another,
Orochimaru had developed a kind of mad obsession with "immortality."
One of the Sannin was turning away from his original purpose in research,
sinking ever deeper into the pursuit of eternal life.
That was why Uchiha Yatsuhashi had been so eager to experiment on himself as soon as the Hashirama Cells had shown promise.
He didn't have much time left. According to his memories of his previous life,
Orochimaru would soon defect from Konoha.
Before then, he needed power—at least enough to protect himself.
"Lord Orochimaru, I'm sorry..." Uchiha Yatsuhashi changed the subject.
He apologized. "Fugaku kept refusing to see me,
and I couldn't even get through the gates of the Uchiha Ancestral Land..."
That was also why Orochimaru had helped him with this experiment.
Yatsuhashi had offered to win the Uchiha Clan's support for Orochimaru in exchange for a chance to conduct the experiment.
A low, faintly mocking laugh echoed through the laboratory.
"If he refuses to see me, naturally he'll refuse to see you as well. What a pity.
I'd thought the Uchiha Clan's leader would have broader horizons."
This had also been Uchiha Yatsuhashi's first attempt since coming to this world.
He had wanted to persuade Fugaku—and the entire Uchiha Clan—to support Orochimaru's bid to become the Fourth Hokage.
If he succeeded, perhaps he could change the outcome of Orochimaru's defection,
and save the Uchiha from being wiped out.
But the outcome was obvious.
That was the Uchiha for you, forever trapped in their own pride.
"In today's Jonin trust vote, the Uchiha Clan cast every one of its votes for its own clan leader.
Even though Uchiha Fugaku wasn't even a candidate. Such adorable solidarity, don't you think?"
"What?"
At that, Uchiha Yatsuhashi jerked his head up, only to break into a fit of coughing from the sudden movement.
They had... actually wasted their precious votes on someone who couldn't possibly win?
Uchiha Fugaku knew he couldn't be elected,
yet he still hadn't used those votes to secure resources and political capital for his clan's future.
Uchiha Yatsuhashi clenched his fists.
Not from pain, but from anger.
He was unworthy of being their clan leader...
"The vote went to Minato Namikaze," Orochimaru continued, his voice betraying no emotion.
"The Yellow Flash, a hero of the common people. Hah. At least I can stomach his winning more easily than one of those candidates put forward by the great clans."
Then he picked up a scroll. "Sealed inside this is a cultivation sample of First Hokage Cells."
Orochimaru cast a nostalgic glance around the laboratory.
"I'm leaving this place. You'll have to conduct the experiments on your own from now on, Yatsuhashi."
"Lord Orochimaru—"
"Let me finish." Orochimaru cut him off, his voice suddenly solemn.
"Yatsuhashi, over the past few years, you've helped me improve the cell culture formula
and solve many problems that had been troubling me.
You're worth far more than being a test subject, or even a ninja."
He looked straight into Yatsuhashi's eyes. The young man's pale face was reflected in those serpentine pupils.
"Not everyone exceptional has to be a ninja. In this world, where everyone chases power,
people often forget that intelligence itself is a kind of power."
Orochimaru walked to the laboratory door. "Stop conducting such reckless experiments, Yatsuhashi.
I hope you'll still be alive and well the next time we meet."
The door opened, then closed.
Orochimaru's figure vanished into the darkness of the corridor,
his footsteps fading into the distance until silence fell.
Uchiha Yatsuhashi silently watched him leave.
After Orochimaru was gone, the laboratory seemed to grow several degrees warmer.
Looking at the scroll in his hands, Uchiha Yatsuhashi let out a deep sigh..
Compared with his commoner parents, Uchiha Yatsuhashi had a faint amount of chakra in his body.
But no matter how much he trained, he couldn't awaken the Sharingan.
That was why he had dared to join Orochimaru.
Now, this scroll was his only hope.
Because with Orochimaru's defection drawing near,
the night of the Uchiha Clan's massacre was approaching too.
If he couldn't awaken his eyes and gain power before then,
at the very least, he would have to start making preparations early,
and get his parents and himself out of Konoha, this dangerous place.
Before you continue