Hashirama Serum, Version 1.3

On the examination bed.

The moment the restraints clicked shut, Tsunade felt cold metal against her wrists and ankles.

Orochimaru took out the serum and swabbed a vein on the inside of Tsunade's arm with alcohol.

"Injecting."

The needle pierced her skin.

Cool liquid spread through her veins like a tiny snake swimming toward her heart.

For the first three seconds, she felt nothing.

On the fourth, Tsunade's pupils contracted sharply.

Heat erupted from her heart, as though she had been thrown into a pool of magma.

Every blood vessel swelled. Every cell screamed.

"Ugh..."

Tsunade gritted her teeth, veins bulging across her forehead.

Orochimaru immediately turned and snatched up his notebook and pen.

His eyes locked on the figures flashing across the instrument's screen beside him.

"Heart rate, one hundred forty... one hundred sixty... Chakra concentration in the blood rising rapidly... cell division thirty times faster than normal..."

He wrote furiously, the curve of his smile growing wider.

"Perfect. Even better than expected—"

Bang!!

The iron door flew off its hinges with a kick.

Jiraiya charged in like a mad lion, his white hair standing on end.

"Orochimaru!! You pervert!!! Let Tsunade go!!!"

The pen fell from Orochimaru's hand with a clatter.

He turned, his expression shifting from elation to blank disbelief.

"Jiraiya? How did you—"

"Don't play dumb!"

Jiraiya rushed to the examination bed.

He saw Tsunade strapped down, drenched in sweat and grimacing in pain.

The last thread of his self-control snapped.

"You tied Tsunade up! And injected her with some unknown liquid! What the hell did you do to her?!"

Orochimaru: "..."

He instinctively took half a step back, looking somewhat guilty.

It really was a legitimate experiment, but this scene... from an outsider's perspective...

It was easy to get the wrong idea.

"Let me explain—"

"I won't listen! Won't listen! Won't listen!"

Jiraiya lunged toward the bed, reaching to undo Tsunade's restraints.

"Stop!!"

Orochimaru's face changed. He darted forward and seized Jiraiya's wrist.

"You can't touch her right now!"

"What did you say?!"

Jiraiya turned and glared at Orochimaru, wrenching his hand free.

"You're telling me I can't touch her? You've touched her plenty! Tied her up plenty!"

A vein throbbed at Orochimaru's temple.

"Idiot! The serum inside her is at a critical stage of integration! Any outside interference could make it fail!"

"You think I'd believe a word from a man who tied a woman to a bed?!"

Jiraiya formed hand seals.

Orochimaru's pupils shrank, and he formed seals at the same time.

"Ninja Art: Wild Lion's Mane!"

"Hidden Shadow Snake Hands!"

White strands of hair shot out like steel needles, while dozens of black snakes burst from Orochimaru's sleeves.

They tangled together in midair, tearing into each other.

The hair shredded the snakes' bodies; fangs bit through strands at the roots.

The two fought inside the cramped laboratory.

Equipment toppled, glass bottles shattered across the floor, and chemicals spilled everywhere.

The experimental setup Orochimaru had painstakingly assembled was being destroyed before his eyes.

"Have you lost your mind, Jiraiya?! I haven't finished recording the data!"

"To hell with your data!"

And at the center of the chaos.

Tsunade endured the upheaval inside her body alone.

The burning did not fade. It intensified.

She could "feel" her cells being torn apart, rebuilt, then torn apart and rebuilt again.

Her bones trembled faintly. Torn muscle fibers reassembled in a denser arrangement.

It hurt.

Not ordinary pain.

Pain welled from deep in her marrow, from the nucleus of every cell.

Tsunade's consciousness began to blur.

A violent power unlike anything she had known surged from the deepest part of her body, battering the walls of her reason.

The restraints creaked.

The specially made metal began to warp.

Jiraiya and Orochimaru were still fighting.

Orochimaru's neck stretched unnaturally. His head slipped beneath Jiraiya's arm like a snake's and swung around behind him.

Crack.

A sharp snap rang out.

Both men stopped and turned toward the examination bed.

The restraints had broken.

Tsunade slowly sat up.

Her eyes had lost all focus, her pupils dilated until they nearly filled her irises.

A faint golden sheen appeared across her skin.

It looked as though something was flowing beneath it.

She had entered some kind of berserk state!

"Tsu... Tsunade?"

Jiraiya called to her tentatively.

Orochimaru grabbed Jiraiya by the collar and yanked him back.

"Run!!!"

Too late.

Tsunade sprang from the bed, her right fist clenched, with no technique or finesse.

Pure violence.

One punch.

It struck the floor between the two men.

Boom!!!!

The entire underground laboratory shuddered as though a giant had stepped on it.

The floor split outward from the point of impact in a spiderweb of cracks.

Huge chunks of concrete fell from the ceiling. Cracks ran clear through the walls.

The shock wave hurled Jiraiya and Orochimaru away together.

They smashed through the laboratory wall and rolled more than ten meters before stopping.

Orochimaru crawled out of the rubble, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes shone brighter than before.

"It worked..."

He stared at Tsunade, standing amid the wreckage with a faint golden glow radiating from her body, and murmured to himself.

"Cellular evolution... it worked..."

Jiraiya struggled out of the debris too, his face covered in dust and blood streaming from his nose.

He stared at Tsunade in a daze.

He had been close enough to feel the force of that punch clearly.

Terrifying.

If that punch had struck him instead of the floor...

He would be a smear of pulp by now.

Tsunade stood where she was, her chest heaving.

The golden light gradually faded, and her eyes slowly regained focus.

Her first reaction when her awareness returned.

She looked down at the floor, smashed to rubble beneath her feet, then up at the two dust-covered, battered men.

"...Were you two fighting right in front of me?"

Her voice was calm, but a bone-deep chill ran through Jiraiya and Orochimaru at the same time.

Tsunade clenched her fist. Her knuckles cracked sharply.

"Good."

"If you've got that much energy to spare—"

She walked toward them, one step at a time.

"Then let me help you burn some of it off."

Jiraiya and Orochimaru exchanged a glance.

For once, they agreed.

Run!!