Yoru planted a dusty, worn-out leather shoe on the corner of the desk.
A bit of old, dried booger still clung to the tabletop, flicked there by Ōnoki while picking his nose during last night's victory celebration.
Just looking at it was nauseating.
But Yoru did not mind in the slightest right now.
He was weighing a set of blueprints for a new type of thruster, crammed with dense figures, his eyes gleaming with an ambition that made people's skin crawl.
"Orochimaru, is this thing actually reliable?"
Yoru tugged at his sweat-stinking collar and pulled it down, exposing a stretch of neck covered in red veins.
"Iwagakure barely has any people to begin with. If this thing blows up halfway through the flight—"
"I'll lock you, you old poisonous snake, in a jar with Hidan."
An incredibly deranged, fervent smile hung on Orochimaru's pale face.
He held a test tube still flecked with blood foam, raised it beneath his nose, and inhaled.
His eyes were unfocused, like an addict who had just taken his first hit.
"Lord Yoru, you can put your mind at ease."
Orochimaru placed the test tube into a beaker rack so caked in tea stains that a chunk could be scraped right off it.
An unnatural green light glimmered in his golden snake eyes. "Hidan's immortal cells have been completely analyzed."
"Our current power system uses semi-permanent 'Biological Cell Electricity.'"
"As long as they're alive, even some shepherd from the edge of a village can run harder than a summoned beast after putting on this armor."
"Good. Then it's settled."
Yoru casually tossed the blueprints to Kitsuchi beside him. Half a booger Ōnoki had smeared on the corner was still stuck to the paper.
"Kitsuchi, notify all the Earth-Style genin in the village. Stop having them