Orochimaru was crouched atop the dissection table at the very back of the laboratory, an eerie green glow shining from his golden snake eyes that made one's skin crawl.
He gripped a scalpel still smeared with strips of dead skin, gesturing over a piece of tissue cut from the arm of an Ōtsutsuki named Momoshiki.
The laboratory reeked of cold, moldy meat mixed with the pungent stench of chemical agents, enough to make tears stream uncontrollably from one's eyes.
A pool of grayish sludge had spilled across the floor. No one knew whether it was bodily fluid from those alien monkeys or some experimental sample Orochimaru had knocked over earlier.
"Lord Yoru, take a look at this."
Orochimaru let out a sinister laugh. An unnatural flush spread across his deathly pale face, as if he had just taken a hit of something intoxicating.
He yanked a bloody bundle of nerves, glowing with a faint blue aura, from a culture tank.
The nerve bundle writhed in the air as though it were alive. It slapped against the glass wall of the tank with a wet smack, leaving behind a trail of transparent slime that was utterly revolting.
"The Ōtsutsuki Byakugan is essentially a high-frequency information-processing array."
Orochimaru shoved the nerve bundle into a precision instrument beside him, and it emitted a long, droning hum.
"Back then, those little Hyuga Clan brats had to train their Byakugan for eight or ten years, poking their fingers at thin air every day."
"What was that called? Primitive physical labor."
He curled his lip in disdain.
"What Stone Village is developing now is called a 'Gene Plugin.'"
Orochimaru picked up a tiny object from beside him that looked like a battery cell.
Its surface was pitch-black, etched with densely packed runes as fine as strands