The research continued without pause. As Hidan cursed and cursed, he eventually ran out of strength. The chief researcher handed Naruto a report, his hand trembling involuntarily.
"Commissar, the preliminary research results are in. We made tissue slices from Hidan's body samples."
The researcher pointed to a massive culture dish nearby, where a piece of flesh was submerged, still faintly writhing.
"We discovered that an anomalous energy exists within his body. It is completely different from the chakra system we know. It can continuously repair cells and sustain the most basic vital functions."
Naruto did not look at the report.
He walked to the operating table and looked down at Hidan, who was firmly restrained and covered in tubes.
He extended a hand, sending out chakra and carefully making contact with Hidan's skin.
A strange fluctuation traveled back through his chakra.
It was not life energy.
Nor was it natural energy.
It was chaotic, disorderly, and filled with primal hunger, like a signal from another dimension—faint yet stubbornly flickering here.
This feeling... was somewhat familiar.
That was it.
It was the whisper from another space, from Chaos.
Though so faint it was almost negligible, its essence could not be mistaken.
"Bring me all the information Kakuzu provided regarding Hidan's sacrificial ritual," Naruto ordered.
Before long, a scroll was presented to him.
It bore the array runes Hidan used during his rituals, drawn in blood.
Naruto unfurled the scroll. The twisted, bizarre symbols were rapidly deconstructed and reorganized in his eyes.
The structure of these symbols was extremely similar to symbols found in ancient legends of ghosts and monsters passed down through the world.
And those legends contained all manner of beings called "gods."
Among them were stories about the "Death God."
The being that could be summoned from another plane