"Then it's settled." Orochimaru smiled. "Let our esteemed Urashiki Otsutsuki slowly grow accustomed to this cooperation. Each time, he'll hand over a little something new in exchange for a little false hope. And all we need to do is patiently record, analyze, and decipher..."
The two scientists' conversation echoed through the cold laboratory, mingling with Urashiki Otsutsuki's increasingly feeble struggles inside the container.
In a monitoring room farther away, Sōkyū Hatake quietly watched it all on a screen. His expression was calm, betraying no emotional fluctuations.
The secrets of the Ōtsutsuki Clan were being peeled back layer by layer. Momoshiki Otsutsuki had contributed knowledge of energy absorption and return, while Urashiki Otsutsuki had contributed the secrets of spatial movement and chakra theft. Through cross-comparison, the Otsutsuki power system was becoming increasingly clear.
"Continue," he said impassively into the communicator. "I need to know all their secrets. Especially... the parts about Isshiki."
Orochimaru's hoarse, delighted voice came through the communicator. "No problem. We've only just begun."
In the laboratory, another round of experiments began. Urashiki Otsutsuki's screams mingled with the humming of instruments, becoming the eternal background noise of this underground palace.
Above all this coldness, Rōran City remained brilliantly lit and bustling with traffic, as though the anguished cries deep underground had nothing whatsoever to do with this City of Miracles.
Only the eternal, cold white light bore witness to how gods who had once stood high above all others were stripped of their divine trappings, bit by bit, on the altar of science, reduced to the most primitive data that could be measured, analyzed, and replicated.
Momoshiki Otsutsuki had been right. Here, they were not gods, not companions, not even prisoners. They were merely-specimens.
The lights in Rōran's underground laboratory remained cold, and time had lost its meaning here.