The Venomous Snake's Gift and the Girl Who Lost Control

The underground world was deeper and more decayed than imagined.

En raced through the gaps between soil and rock at high speed, like an earth dragon made of lava. Observation Haki precisely marked his path, steering him around hard rock formations and through soft earth.

After descending roughly fifty meters, he sensed a massive artificial hollow.

Its walls were cold metal, covered in long-defunct sealing runes and dried, dark stains. The air reeked of formaldehyde, blood, and dust.

He silently seeped out through a crack in one corner of the wall, reforming into human shape.

This was a vast, circular laboratory.

A metal operating table stood at its center, still stained with dark red blood and scraps of torn cloth. Glass containers, syringes, and cultivation tanks lay scattered around it. Most of the tanks had shattered, their murky green fluid spilling across the floor, along with twisted, unidentifiable biological tissue that had been soaking inside.

This was one of Orochimaru's abandoned laboratories.

En's gaze swept across the room before settling on a corner of the laboratory.

A girl was curled up there, trembling violently.

She looked barely ten years old. Her short purple hair was wild and unruly, and she wore a tattered brown jacket over fishnet mesh. Her face was streaked with tears and dirt. Her unfocused eyes held no trace of clarity, only pure terror and pain.

Most shocking of all was the exposed skin on her body. Starting from her neck, strange black markings—like flames and tadpoles at once—were spreading across her body at a visible rate.

Heaven's Cursed Seal.

Orochimaru's "masterpiece."

Wherever the cursed seal spread, it was as if countless venomous snakes writhed beneath the girl's skin. Her muscles bulged and contracted unnaturally. A cold, violent chakra continuously poured from the seal, eroding both her mind and body.

"Gah... gah..."

A beastlike growl rose from the girl's throat. Her body convulsed, sometimes curling into a ball, sometimes suddenly straightening as she slammed the back of her head hard against the metal wall behind her, producing dull bangs.

She was using self-harm to fight the inhuman pain.

Orochimaru had already left. En's Observation Haki could sense that his slick, serpentine chakra was rapidly moving away and had already reached the edge of a one-kilometer radius.

At this point in time, Orochimaru should still have been active in Konoha as an elite jonin. He had abducted a ten-year-old Konoha genin and brought her to a place like this for such cruel human experimentation, then discarded this "failed product" on the verge of collapse like a piece of trash and left her here to die.

En quietly clenched his fist inside his sleeve.

He knew this girl.

Mitarashi Anko.

In his previous life, she had been the free-spirited special jonin who always had a dango stick in her mouth. But now, she was merely a sacrifice injected with deadly venom by a poisonous snake, waiting for death in despair.

Just then, a faint chakra fluctuation came from the laboratory entrance.

Cat Mask arrived with two other members of the Shadow Guard.

They all stopped when they saw the scene inside the laboratory.

"This is... residual chakra from Lord Orochimaru." The ANBU codenamed "Eagle" spoke in a dry voice.

"And this girl... the cursed seal on her body... What an evil power." The ANBU codenamed "Owl" frowned, instinctively taking a defensive stance.

They were all battle-hardened elites, but they had never encountered a power like Heaven's Cursed Seal—one derived directly from senjutsu while mixed with dark emotions and intense corrosiveness. It filled them with instinctive revulsion and danger.

"Lava!" Cat Mask lowered his voice, his tone demanding. "Why are you here? Why did you disobey orders and act alone?"

En did not turn around. His eyes remained fixed on Red Bean.

"I heard her scream." En's answer was simple.

"A scream?" Cat Mask did not understand. "This place is covered by a sealing barrier. Sound can't travel out."

"I heard it." En repeated himself, with no intention of explaining further.

Cat Mask fell silent. He recalled a line personally noted by the Third Hokage in the top-secret file on Lava's abilities: possesses sensory abilities beyond standard specifications.

"What do we do now?" Eagle asked quietly. "This girl has already lost control. The cursed seal's power is running wild. If we leave her alone, she'll completely turn into a monster that knows only slaughter. The best way to handle this is..."

He did not finish, but everyone knew the word he meant.

Eliminate.

To prevent information leaks and eliminate a potential threat, killing her on the spot was the ANBU's most standard and correct procedure.

"She is still only a child." There was a trace of reluctance in Cat Mask's voice.

"Those chosen by Lord Orochimaru as 'materials' can no longer be considered 'children.'" Owl's view was cold and realistic. "Captain, give the order."

Cat Mask looked at the girl howling in agony, then at Lava, who stood motionless not far from her with his back to them. He was caught in a dilemma.

Then the cursed seal spread onto Red Bean's face. Her eyes instantly turned a strange orange-yellow, and her pupils became beastlike vertical slits.

"Roar—!"

She let out a roar that had completely lost all humanity, dropped to all fours, and pounced like an enraged leopardess at the nearest living being.

Her target—Uchiha En.

"Lava, watch out!" Cat Mask shouted sharply, about to use the Body Flicker Technique to rush forward.

"Don't move."

En's voice was not loud, yet it carried an unquestionable command.

Cat Mask's body came to an abrupt stop.

The other two ANBU, who had been preparing to act, also froze.

They saw that, facing the small figure rushing at him with cold, poisonous energy, Lava did not even take a defensive stance.

He merely stood there.

Like an eternal reef, waiting to embrace the storm.

No.

He was not a reef.

He was a volcano.