The Border Viper's Forked Tongue and Orochimaru's Greed

Wind-Fire Border.

This was the forsaken land of civilization, a forbidden zone for life.

The gale swept scorching Yellow Sand across the land like a tireless beast, scouring the jagged rocks again and again. The air was so dry it could strip the moisture from a person's skin, carrying the acrid smell of sand and the charred stench of some decayed creature dried beneath the blazing sun.

Deep underground, in a dark laboratory remodeled from a natural cavern, the light was dim. Only a few Chakra-powered eternal lamps gave off a ghastly, eerie green glow.

Orochimaru stood before an experimental table carved from cold stone.

He wore a loose white robe. Under the green light, his pale skin took on an even more inhuman texture. He extended his long tongue and slowly licked his cracked lips. Reflected in his golden snake eyes was the "specimen" twitching faintly on the experimental table.

It was a captured Sunagakure shinobi. His chest had been cut open, exposing a beating heart to the air, and twisted white fibers resembling plant roots crawled all over it.

"Still not working..."

Orochimaru muttered hoarsely, his voice carrying the almost pathological regret unique to a researcher.

Although these diluted Hashirama Cells extracted from Baishi, the Fifth Hokage of Konoha, displayed astonishing vitality and aggressiveness, the rejection was simply too severe. No matter what method he used to induce or suppress it, the result was always the same: the cells crazily devoured all the host's vitality before collapsing along with it.

"What perfect material, Baishi-kun."

As he looked at the heart completely wrapped in white fibers and no longer beating, there was not the slightest reverence for life in his eyes. Instead, even more intense greed began to burn within them.

A body capable of perfectly fusing with Hashirama