Orochimaru's Recruitment

"Heh heh heh heh..."

A low laugh slithered into Arashi's ears like a venomous snake flicking its tongue.

From the shadow of a great tree walked a man in a jonin vest, with long golden hair.

His face was pale, as if it had not seen sunlight in years. His golden hair fell to his shoulders, and what made the heart shudder most were those vertical pupils—cold, narrow, carrying an inhuman scrutiny, as if he were looking at prey in a cage.

"Uchiha brat, you really have surprised me."

The man looked at Arashi, the corner of his mouth curling into an amused smile.

"To think you could fuse chakra with some special kind of energy and create such astonishing attack power. The young truly are to be feared."

Arashi's pupils suddenly contracted.

This man's aura... was dangerous!

Far more dangerous than that giant snake just now!

And this appearance... he recognized him!

"Orochimaru!"

Arashi nearly forced the name out through gritted teeth, his teeth chattering uncontrollably.

Orochimaru, a legend of the ninja world, a "hero" of the Second War, one of the Legendary Three Ninja of the Hidden Leaf.

But he was also an extremely dangerous figure. On the surface, he still maintained a dazzling image, but in truth, he had already fallen into darkness and begun to obsess over human experimentation.

He had a pathological fixation on kekkei genkai, and the Uchiha Sharingan could be called the greatest of all kekkei genkai.

Orochimaru seemed very pleased with his reaction. A trace of amusement flashed through his vertical pupils. "Oh? You know me?"

"Hmph. One of the Legendary Three Ninja of the Hidden Leaf, a great figure of legend. Who wouldn't know you? Looking at it that way, that evil snake just now was your signature ninja beast, Manda." Arashi answered coldly.

Though his tone was normal, his back was already soaked with cold sweat, and even his breathing trembled slightly.

The other man's chakra enveloped the surroundings like a great net, pressing down on him until he could barely move.

"Heh. Good that you know."

Orochimaru slowly approached, bringing with him a gust of cold, sinister wind.

He circled Arashi once, his gaze scraping over Arashi's body like a scalpel—from Arashi's clenched fists, to his rigid back, before finally stopping on the Sharingan that had emerged under Arashi's stress response.

"You're called Uchiha Arashi, right? Lately, you've been rising to fame in the Hidden Leaf..."

He stretched out his tongue and licked his lips, making no attempt to hide the greed in his expression.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. What excellent 'material'... oh no, an excellent seedling."

Arashi felt every hair on his body stand on end. Sure enough, this guy had set his sights on him!

"What do you want?"

Arashi's tone grew even colder, and the chakra that had only just recovered a little in his body began circulating at its limit, ready at any moment to deal with a sudden attack from the other side.

"Don't be nervous."

Orochimaru waved a hand, his smile still strange.

"I bear you no ill will. On the contrary, I admire you greatly."

"Your talent is completely wasted in a rotten clan like the Uchiha."

He paused, his tone carrying a hint of temptation.

"Become my true disciple. What do you say, Arashi?"

"I can teach you power you have never touched before, rescue you from your foolish, ignorant chaos, and let you see the true face of this world."

Become your disciple? Arashi almost laughed out loud.

He remembered very clearly what ended up happening to Orochimaru's disciples.

They either became his experimental subjects, turning into things neither human nor ghost, or were squeezed dry as tools and then discarded outright. Even the ones who seemed less miserable had merely been planted with fragments of his soul, made into vessels for the day he would seize their bodies and return.

In this world, almost every villain had walked down the wrong path for altruistic reasons.

But Orochimaru was different. He was an extreme egoist. For the sake of achieving his own personal immortality, he had already extinguished his humanity.

Forget the future. Just now, the number of innocent people who had died in this guy's human experiments was impossible to count. It was far more than thousands upon thousands!

And in the future, this guy would also scour everywhere for orphans and vulnerable groups, fabricating hope for them and using them as experimental material and pure beasts of burden.

He was an enhanced version of the Naruto world's "foundling home," practically the most despicable, shameless, and unforgivable bastard in this world.

Now that he saw the real person, Arashi instinctively felt sick.

If he followed Orochimaru, that would truly be a lamb walking into a tiger's den!

Arashi gritted his teeth. A Saiyan's pride did not allow him to show weakness before an enemy, even if that enemy was Orochimaru!

[System Notice: Mission triggered]

[Mission Content: In Vegeta's style, powerfully mock Orochimaru to his face, expose his vile and filthy nature, and successfully escape from his hands]

[Mission Reward: Template progress +2% (current progress 30%), unlock skill "Galick Gun (Beginner)"]

[Failure Penalty: Template progress -20%!]

[Skill Description: Galick Gun (Beginner)—allows beginner-level nature transformation of Saiyan chakra (chakra itself has no attribute; the chakra used when releasing the Clone Technique, Substitution Technique, and Transformation Technique is attribute-less, and when a ninja masters nature transformation, they can release release techniques such as Fire Release, Water Release, Earth Release, Lightning Release, and so on), releasing a highly compressed beam-type energy wave. At present, the host has only mastered beginner-level fire-attribute nature transformation and can fire "Fire Release: Galick Gun"]

The system mission had arrived! And it even came with a failure penalty.

A fierce light flashed in Arashi's eyes. Did he, "Saiyan Prince" Uchiha Arashi, need to act timid and afraid?

"Become your disciple?"

Arashi gave a scornful laugh. He forced himself to raise his head and meet those vertical pupils. Though his voice trembled somewhat from fear, his eyes were filled with undisguised contempt and disdain.

"You think you're worthy?"

The smile on Orochimaru's face instantly froze.

He had not expected this brat to refuse him, much less dare say something like this right to his face.

Before him, Arashi clenched his fists tight, his nails digging into his palms, using the pain to suppress the fear that nearly left him rigid.

With difficulty, he took one step forward, looked straight into Orochimaru's vertical pupils, and said coldly,

"You think I don't know what you want to do? Orochimaru."

"What you have your eye on is nothing more than my Uchiha bloodline, the Sharingan in my eye sockets that allowed me to be reborn."

"You want to treat me as your experimental subject, dissect my body, transplant my eyes, squeeze every bit of value out of me, and finally clean me up like garbage, don't you?"

Orochimaru chuckled twice. Immediately after, his gaze turned cold and dark, and a dangerous aura radiated from his body.

Arashi paid it no mind. He took a deep breath, and his voice abruptly rose, carrying the courage of one who had burned his boats.

"You're nothing but a monster in human skin hiding in a dark corner, relying on stealing other people's power and lives to strengthen yourself. What right do you have to talk about the 'true face of the world'? Even your belief in survival is twisted and filthy. What right do you have to say you'll take me as your disciple?"

The smile on Orochimaru's face vanished completely. The killing intent in his vertical pupils almost spilled out, and the surrounding air seemed to freeze. Even the leaves stopped swaying.

Arashi's legs could barely keep him standing. Cold sweat slid down his temples and dripped onto the ground.

But he did not retreat. Instead, he took half a step forward—that was Vegeta's stance when facing a mighty enemy far beyond himself (Frieza), never lowering his head even in fear.

"Stop dreaming! I am of the noble Uchiha clan, an existence that a monster like you, who can't even be counted as 'human,' will never be able to reach."

"You..." Orochimaru's vertical pupils had already shrunk into thin lines, and even his sharp fangs were exposed as he said in a shrill voice, "You're courting death!"

Terrifying killing intent erupted all at once, and Arashi immediately felt every bone in his body wail, as if an invisible giant hand had seized him viciously.

His kneecaps creaked, sinking downward bit by bit, and the ground rapidly enlarged in his vision.

He bit his teeth together hard, blood seeping from his gums. His vision darkened from lack of oxygen, and all he could hear was his own heavy panting.

But how could he kneel? His dignity, his pride, absolutely could not be crushed in this humiliation, much less before a beast like this!

That vast pressure was like a deep-sea undercurrent, nearly crushing him. Yet the sense of humiliation was like wildfire, burning up from the bottom of his heart and stimulating every inch of his nerves.

He hated! Hated his own powerlessness, hated this suffocating oppression, hated this posture of being about to kneel! Rage churned in his chest, accumulated, and nearly burst through his throat.

At the instant his right knee was only a finger's width from the ground, the fury compressed to its limit detonated with a roar!

The Sharingan in his left eye suddenly blazed, while his right eye, the eye that had originally been normal, abruptly sent out a tearing agony! A black tomoe pattern rapidly condensed and spun within his pupil. The One-Tomoe Sharingan had finally opened in both eyes!

At the same time, the Saiyan traits sleeping within his body seemed to be awakened by this extreme rage, and the energy in Arashi's body suddenly surged severalfold.

His knee abruptly stopped and no longer sank. Instead, it rose bit by bit, and his blackened vision also cleared little by little.

The first thing Arashi did after recovering was glare fixedly at Orochimaru, his fury seeming ready to gush out from both eyes.

At that moment, the killing intent suddenly vanished, and Orochimaru once again returned to that strange smile.

"Good, good, good. Very good!"

Orochimaru slowly spoke, his voice returning to its earlier hoarseness.

"Uchiha Arashi, you have successfully enraged me."

"However... you are an interesting seedling."

He looked deeply at Arashi, as if he wanted to carve his appearance into his mind.

"Today, I will let you go for now."

"But remember, Uchiha Arashi..."

Orochimaru's figure gradually melted into the shadow on the ground, leaving only a cold voice echoing through the forest.

"One day, you will kneel and beg me. When that time comes, I will give you an opportunity you 'cannot refuse.'"

Only when that cold, sinister aura had completely disappeared did Arashi's legs go weak, and he collapsed onto the ground.

He gasped for breath, the clothes on his back already soaked through, his heart still pounding wildly.

This beast really was as terrifying as the legends said.