Xue Ge began what would become four years of training.
He discovered that he had vastly underestimated its intensity.
On the first day, at two in the morning, an ANBU operative shook him awake in bed.
"Time to begin."
This ANBU operative sounded far colder than En.
Fighting the fog of sleep, Xue Ge followed the operative to the ANBU training ground and did his best to float a jagged stone above his palm. Meanwhile, the operative went about his own exercises.
At eleven that morning, En arrived at the training ground carrying a bag.
"Soldier Pills." En pulled a brown ball from the bag and tossed it to Xue Ge, who hurriedly caught it.
Xue Ge took a bite. His mouth filled with an astringent taste and a dry sensation that seemed to suck up all its moisture. He gulped it down in a few quick bites, and after En made him drink a bottle of water, the two headed into the forest outside the village.
"I'll run the route with you once. From now on, you'll keep running that same route until I tell you to stop. Understood?"
En raised an eyebrow, his hands tucked into his sleeves.
"Yes." Xue Ge had no objections.
The two figures, one large and one small, began running around Konoha.
Five hours later, Xue Ge collapsed to his knees beside a large tree, clutching his stomach.
"Ugh... ugh... urgh..."
He gasped for breath and threw up a little yellow bile. He had eaten next to nothing all day, and now he could barely bring anything up even when he vomited.
His face flushed and his neck strained as he struggled to breathe. His entire body felt ready to fall apart. He would rather have replaced all his limbs with Prosthetic Limbs right then.
Another Soldier Pill appeared in front of him. Xue Ge looked up at En, only to find that same easygoing smile on his face.
"Tactical training is next. It's not time for you to rest yet."
At that moment, En's gentle smile looked terrifyingly sinister to Xue Ge.
Boom!
With a thunderous explosion and a surge of flame, Xue Ge tumbled helplessly and slammed into a rock.
"Cough-agh!"
He lay twitching on the ground. He had carelessly stepped on another trap En had set. Had he not sensed something wrong beneath his feet and instinctively thrown himself aside, the explosion might have knocked him unconscious outright.
"Hah, hah, hah..." After taking a long time to recover, Xue Ge barely managed to push himself upright.
He struggled along the route En had marked. En had laid numerous traps along the way, and Xue Ge had to find ways to avoid them.
Whoosh!
Xue Ge vanished from the surface. Deep in a pit, half-dead from the fall, he stared wide-eyed at the sky, which had already turned dark.
Maybe I should just die instead?
By eight that evening, Xue Ge still had not managed to finish the route. En pulled him down from a trap that had left him hanging in a tree.
Exhausted and sleepy, Xue Ge vomited for a while longer before En forcibly made him swallow some Wakefulness Potion and Cooling Oil. After stuffing a mouthful of Soldier Pill into him, En practically dragged him back to the ANBU training ground.
More than a dozen training dummies stood at varying distances ahead of him, while several large buckets of Shuriken, Kunai, and Senbon sat beside him.
"Ninja tool throwing. Take your time practicing. If you run out, just ask that guy for more."
In the distance, a white-haired ANBU operative waved at Xue Ge.
"..." Xue Ge did not want to say a word. After finally catching his breath, he silently reached into a nearby bucket and pulled out a Shuriken.
"Oh, and you need to practice throwing all three of those common ninja tools."
En, who had already stepped through the doorway, turned back to add this. Xue Ge's vision went black, and he nearly pitched headfirst into a large bucket of ninja tools.
At midnight, after Xue Ge had thrown himself numb, the white-haired ANBU operative came over and patted him.
"Not bad, your performance tonight."
The white-haired operative said, "Tonight's training was just to get you used to how these ninja tools feel. Your throwing was a complete mess, though... well, don't worry. I'll teach you that from now on."
Xue Ge could barely take in what he was saying. He was so groggy that he felt he would fall asleep the moment he closed his eyes. Still, he managed to follow the white-haired operative to the entrance of a research facility, where En had been waiting for some time.
After handing Xue Ge over to En, the white-haired operative vanished without a trace. En pushed open the facility's doors and dragged Xue Ge inside.
When they entered a laboratory, a black-haired man in a white lab coat looked at Xue Ge with a somewhat stiff smile.
"You... are Xue Ge?"
"..." Xue Ge weakly raised his eyes to glance at the man. Too drained to speak, he gave a slight nod.
"I'm Orochimaru. You should know my name." Orochimaru narrowed his eyes. "Take off all your clothes and lie down in there."
Looking at the empty Growth Chamber before him, Xue Ge numbly stripped off his clothes, removed his Prosthetic Limbs, and struggled to climb inside and lie down. The instant he lay down, the chamber sealed shut.
Then a pale blue liquid rapidly filled the entire Growth Chamber.
"-Aaaaaaah-!"
Xue Ge's eyes suddenly flew wide, and he let out a shrill, hoarse scream. His eyes filled with bloodshot veins, his skin seemed to make tearing sounds, and veins bulged across his face.
He pounded desperately against the walls of the Growth Chamber.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The violent reaction startled En. He turned and asked, "Lord Orochimaru, this is..."
"Don't worry. Nothing's wrong. This is normal."
Orochimaru gave a cold chuckle, then took a small sample of the blue liquid and handed it to En.
En tried pouring a little onto his hand. The next instant, a fierce stinging, burning sensation made his body jerk. The test tube flew from his grasp and shattered on the floor nearby.
"This..." En stared blankly at the trace of liquid left on his palm, then turned to look at Xue Ge's suffering.
Xue Ge did not keep frantically battering the Growth Chamber's walls for long. After a few minutes, he no longer had the strength. He opened his mouth wide to roar, but the blue liquid only rushed into him, and streams of bubbles rose from his mouth.
His whole body curled backward like a shrimp bending the wrong way, as though he meant to snap himself in half. Every part of him twitched grotesquely.
"Don't worry. Leave him to me. I'll take care of Danzo's business."
Without even looking at En, Orochimaru waved a hand.
"You can go back. Just send someone to pick him up when it's time."
"...Yes, Lord Orochimaru."
En suppressed all the doubts in his heart and bowed.
After sweeping up the broken test tube from the floor, he opened the door and left.
Watching Xue Ge struggle in agony inside the chamber, Orochimaru showed no sympathy at all. Instead, he studied him with curiosity.
"Hmm... heh heh heh. You actually haven't passed out from the pain. Your resilience really is exceptional. No wonder Danzo took notice of you. A shame you don't have a kekkei genkai or anything of the sort. Otherwise, I might be a little interested myself."
"You won't mind if I draw a little extra blood for research, will you?"
Xue Ge did not hear a word Orochimaru said. His entire head was buzzing. The intense pain, from deep inside his body all the way to its surface, seemed to fill the whole world, leaving him unable to think.
"...Looks like you agreed." Orochimaru grinned.
At two the next morning, the same cold-voiced ANBU operative arrived at Orochimaru's research facility and woke Xue Ge. Orochimaru had already removed him from the Growth Chamber, and he lay motionless on an operating table, having lost consciousness at some unknown point.
Xue Ge's eyes were somewhat numb. The nightmarish agony seemed not to have faded yet.
...No, it did not merely seem that way. It really had not faded.
He clenched his fist and felt a stabbing pain in his bones. Something had seeped into his body.
"Time to train your chakra," the ANBU operative said coldly.
Xue Ge nodded and looked toward Orochimaru, who was busy working nearby. After training ended that evening, he would have to come back here and soak in that liquid again.
...Was it worth it?
Doubt began creeping into Xue Ge's mind. It was true that he wanted to live, but living like this seemed worse than dying...
Still, his body really did feel lighter. All of yesterday's fatigue and the sleepiness clouding his mind had vanished. Yet whenever he recalled soaking in that blue liquid, unmistakable fear surfaced in his eyes.