A Fanatical Mentor, Orochimaru's "Truth"

The green motes of light had yet to fully fade.

The air was thick with the smell of wood. Not the dry scent of chopped firewood, but the vibrant, moist fragrance of freshly grown living trees. It was so strong it was almost choking.

The Third Hokage wiped away the tears on his face, about to say something to wrap things up.

Then laughter arrived first.

It was not normal human laughter. It came squeezed from deep in the throat, breathy and hissing, like the trembling tip of a snake's tongue as it flicked.

"Hehehehe..."

Tsunade was the first to react. Her fists clenched.

A crack opened in the shadows east of the ruins. The hem of a black robe dragged a line through the wood chips. When Orochimaru emerged, he wore the most undisguised expression Nawaki had ever seen on his face.

Hiruzen Sarutobi clenched his pipe between his teeth.

He opened his mouth to speak—

Orochimaru walked right past him.

Without looking at him.

He did not even spare him a glance.

The Third Hokage's mouth remained open, his words stuck in his throat. The six Anbu beside him exchanged looks, none of them knowing whether they should intervene.

Orochimaru stopped before one of the Wood Buddha's roots that had not yet dissipated.

The root was thick enough to take two people to wrap their arms around it. The grain on its surface was still slowly breathing—drawing in natural energy from the air and exhaling a faint green glow.

Orochimaru crouched down.

Then he dropped to one knee.

His golden vertical pupils stared at the wood grain for three seconds. His right hand reached out, fingertips touching the root's surface. His fingers were trembling.

Not from fear.

Tsunade had seen Orochimaru handle snakes, and she had seen him dissect corpses. He had always been steady. Never once had he trembled.

She had only seen this kind of trembling in casinos. It was how gamblers shook when they turned over their final card and found they had won.

"Alive..." Orochimaru's voice was so soft it was nearly inaudible. "Pure Sage Body cells functioning on their own... no rejection, no collapse, a perfect cycle of life..."

He abruptly rose to his feet.

Then turned around.

His vertical pupils locked onto Nawaki's face.

Nawaki leaned against a broken stump with his hands in his pockets, having just fully dismissed the markings of Sage Mode. His face still bore that slightly goofy smile from after he had finished speaking with the Third Hokage.

Orochimaru strode toward him. His steps were so fast that Choza Akimichi took half a step back.

The Third Hokage finally called out, "Orochi—"

"Sensei, I have something to say to Nawaki."

Orochimaru did not even turn his head.

The rest of Hiruzen's words were swallowed back down.

Orochimaru stopped two meters in front of Nawaki. He was a full head taller than Nawaki. His black robe was dusted with ash, but his hair remained as neat as ever. His sickly pale, faintly bluish complexion somehow looked clean beneath the moonlight.

"I know what you're thinking," Orochimaru said.

Nawaki raised an eyebrow.

"You're thinking—back in the Land of Rain, did I want you to die?"

The courtyard fell silent.

Tsunade's gaze turned cold. She had yet to settle that matter with Orochimaru.

"No."

Orochimaru's expression was flat when he spoke those two words. Not the flatness of a defense, but the flatness of a statement of fact.

"Your bloodline concentration back then was only three percent of the First Hokage's. Mediocre. Boring. No different from any ordinary ninja in the village." His pace was neither fast nor slow. "Danzō wanted to kill you, and I had no interest in stopping him. A specimen with zero value was not worth exposing my position for."

Tsunade's clenched fists crackled.

"But I was waiting." Orochimaru stepped forward. "Miracles happen between life and death. That is not a figure of speech. It is biology. Extreme pressure triggers stress responses buried deep within one's genes. As Hashirama's descendant stood at death's threshold, was it possible for the Wood Release potential suppressed for decades to erupt?"

He paused.

"And you erupted."

His golden vertical pupils widened.

"You didn't just awaken Wood Release. You awakened the Sage Body as well. Its purity surpasses every cell sample left behind by the First Hokage during his lifetime." Orochimaru's voice began to shake. "I spent twenty years researching the theory of life's evolution, conducted over a thousand experiments, killed hundreds of test subjects..."

He drew a deep breath.

"It was all garbage."

He glanced back at the remains of the test subjects Danzō had left in the ruins. Deformed wooden shells, twisted limbs—cells destroying themselves amid rejection.

"The things Danzō made were garbage too. Forcing the First Hokage's cells into ordinary human bodies—how was that any different from pouring seawater into a pot? It was all a waste."

Orochimaru turned back and stared at Nawaki.

This time, his gaze had changed.

It was no longer the cold scrutiny of a test subject. It was the fanaticism of a man who had found the thing he had pursued his entire life. That fanaticism burned hotter than even the Nine-Tails' chakra.

"You are the truth."

He said it with complete sincerity.

"A living, growing, self-evolving perfect lifeform. Every cell in your body tells me that life's limits are not forbidden techniques, not immortality, but something like you."

Orochimaru dropped to one knee again.

This time, he knelt before Nawaki.

Several sharp breaths sounded through the courtyard. Choza Akimichi rubbed his eyes twice. The Third Hokage's pipe nearly fell to the ground. The expressions beneath the six Anbu masks were probably spectacular as well.

One of Konoha's Three Legendary Sannin.

One of the future Three Legendary Sannin who would wage war across the shinobi world.

Kneeling before a twelve-year-old child.

"Nawaki Senju." Orochimaru looked up, moonlight and the lingering green motes reflected in his vertical pupils. "From today onward, whoever blocks your path, I will move them aside for you. Whoever touches even a hair on your head—"

The corner of his mouth curved upward.

That smile made Choza Akimichi retreat three steps.

"—I'll let them learn what it means to lie on an operating table for three years without being allowed to die."

Silence reigned for a full five seconds.

Nawaki straightened up from the broken stump.

He looked at Orochimaru.

The system panel flashed through his mind. He did not look at it. There was no need.

Some things mattered more than system rewards.

Nawaki stepped forward.

He bent down and reached out with both hands, firmly grasping Orochimaru's forearms as he helped him up.

A flicker of surprise passed through Orochimaru's eyes as he stood.

Nawaki looked up at him.

The smile on his face was not a smile for political occasions, nor the smile he had put on for the Third Hokage. It was the clean, honest smile only a twelve-year-old boy could have when speaking the truth.

"Orochimaru-sensei."

When those three words fell, Orochimaru's vertical pupils contracted.

"I won't hold the Land of Rain incident against you." Nawaki brushed the dust from Orochimaru's forearm. "If you want to see the truth, I'll show it to you every day. From now on, you can use the laboratory at the Senju Clan Compound whenever you want. I'll cover the costs of medicine and funding."

He paused.

"Just one condition. Stop cutting up living people. Put that brain of yours to proper use, and you'll be ten thousand times better than trash like Danzō's lot."

Orochimaru stared at him for three seconds.

Then he smiled.

Not the chilling smile from before. Just a slight press of the lips, with a faint curve in his eyes.

"Proper use?" Orochimaru tilted his head. "An interesting phrase."

He said nothing more. But he did not leave either. He merely stood half a step to Nawaki's right, as naturally as if he had always belonged there.

Tsunade watched the scene, her lips moving slightly. In the end, she said nothing.

She knew Orochimaru. She had known him for years. This man had never bowed his head to anyone. The Third Hokage could not teach him, Jiraiya could not persuade him, and no one in the entire shinobi world could make him yield.

Today, he had knelt.

And he had done so willingly.

Tsunade turned to look at Nawaki.

Her little brother was chatting cheerfully with Orochimaru about where to set up the laboratory.

Twelve years old.

When she was twelve, she had still been fighting with Jiraiya.

The Third Hokage stood where he was, swallowing every word he had been about to say. He looked at Orochimaru, then at Nawaki, and finally stuffed his pipe into his mouth and took a hard drag.

No one knew what he was thinking.

Probably about retirement, despite still being in his prime.