Inside core laboratory No. 1, enormous floodlights came on one after another.
"Click! Click! Click!"
Three dazzling beams of white light fell across the spacious floor. Fine dust floated in their paths.
Shu Shiraishi stood on a steel catwalk more than ten meters above the floor.
His hand rested on the iron railing, which had been welded not long ago. Rust pressed against his palm.
He looked down.
A heavy flatbed truck stood in the very center. A behemoth rested on it, covered by an enormous sheet of thick black canvas.
The air reeked of motor oil and ozone, the smell left behind by the operation of the high-pressure Chakra array.
Suddenly, the louvers on a ventilation duct in the ceiling's upper-right corner clicked.
A thin steel wire pried loose a rusty screw. It fell onto the metal floor below with a faint sound.
The louvers slid aside.
Four dark figures in tight-fitting night clothes slipped down through the shadows in the corner like geckos.
They were spies sent by the daimyo's residence. Two surviving Konoha hardliners followed them: two traditionalist Jonin unwilling to mix mortar at the construction site.
All six landed silently.
Keeping close to the cold concrete wall, they quickly crept toward the laboratory's control console.
The daimyo's spy in the lead pulled a stack of yellow Explosive Tags from inside his clothes.
His palm was slick with sweat, dampening the edge of the outermost tag.
"Make it quick," the leader said in a low, unsteady voice.
"Cover the blueprint cabinet. Put two high-explosive ones on that lump of iron under the black cloth."
He drew a breath, his chest rising and falling.
"Blow this place to pieces. The reward the daimyo's residence promised is enough for us to live it up in the Land of Water for the rest of our lives."
The hardliner Jonin beside him gritted his teeth, his eyes bloodshot.
"Destroy this piece of junk, and Konoha can go back to the way it was."
His hand trembled. He finally peeled the adhesive backing off an Explosive Tag and stuck it to a support pillar beneath the console.
It went on crooked. He fumbled at the edge, trying to peel it off and reposition it.
"Hurry! Get the Chakra fuses ready!" the leader urged.
The six scattered and simultaneously began forming the Ram Hand Seal.
Before they could complete the seal,
a sharp whistle suddenly came hurtling down from overhead.
Shu Shiraishi let go of the iron railing.
He jumped straight down from the steel framework more than ten meters up, without using any Wind Release to cushion his fall.
"Boom!"
His black military boots slammed into the floor right in the middle of the six spies.
The concrete slab groaned, and two basin-sized craters formed beneath his feet. Cracks spread wildly outward in every direction.
A tremendous blast of air swept outward like an explosion, carrying chunks of stone with it.
The hardliner Jonin who had been planting the Explosive Tag was knocked off his feet by the blast.
The back of his head struck a metal cabinet hard.
With a dull thud, his eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the floor.
The remaining five spies were frantic with fright.
"Shu Shiraishi!"
The lead spy sucked in a sharp breath, his heart clenching.
He hadn't noticed anyone above them at all.
"Kill him! He hasn't formed any Hand Seals!"
The spy roared, drew the short blade at his waist, and thrust it at Shu Shiraishi's heart.
Shu Shiraishi stood where he was, making no move to dodge.
The short blade shrieked through the air.
Shu Shiraishi reached out with his left hand, spreading his fingers.
He seized the wrist of the spy's knife hand.
His grip locked around it like an iron clamp. The bones in the spy's wrist ground together painfully, and the blade stopped an inch from Shu Shiraishi's chest.
At the same time, Shu Shiraishi reached out with his right hand.
His fingers formed a claw and clamped onto the spy's right shoulder. His fingertips tore through the tight clothing and dug into his flesh.
The muscles in both of Shu Shiraishi's arms tightened in an instant.
His bulging biceps stretched his black short sleeves nearly to the tearing point.
Expressionless, he pulled outward with both hands.
"Rrriiip."
A muffled tearing of flesh sent chills down the spine.
The spy's entire right arm, along with the joint capsule of his shoulder and a large chunk of flesh from his shoulder blade,
was ripped bodily from his torso by Shu Shiraishi.
White bone jutted into the air. The fascia at the joint stretched taut, then snapped.
"Ah-!"
The spy's scream tore through the laboratory's silence.
Blood spurted from his mangled shoulder like water from a high-pressure hose, spraying more than two meters into the air.
It splattered across the console's screens, smearing them red.
Shu Shiraishi casually flung the severed arm away.
The mangled limb smashed into another spy's face.
Blood covered the man's face, and his mental defenses collapsed instantly.
He dropped his Kunai. Urine ran down his trouser legs, and his knees buckled. He fell to the floor, clutching his head with both hands and trembling uncontrollably.
A third spy's eyes turned red. Wielding a fine steel tachi, he slashed at Shu Shiraishi's neck from the side.
Shu Shiraishi reached back and caught the spine of the incoming blade.
He squeezed hard.
"Crack." The fine steel tachi snapped cleanly in two.
He immediately grabbed the man's forearm.
He yanked him close and drove his right knee hard into the man's abdomen.
The man's stomach spasmed, and just as he started to double over, Shu Shiraishi seized his left arm with both hands.
He twisted and pulled.
There was another brutal sound of flesh tearing apart.
A second arm flew through the air, trailing drops of blood, and struck an iron pillar of the steel framework.
In less than ten seconds,
two men with severed arms were rolling frantically in pools of blood, their howls echoing through the cavernous laboratory.
The remaining three had all collapsed, fear draining them of even the strength to run.
Shu Shiraishi walked up to the lead spy.
The man was curled up like a shrimp on the floor, his clothes soaked through with blood.
Shu Shiraishi raised a military boot smeared with blood and dirt.
He planted it on the side of the spy's face.
He ground his sole down, and the man's nasal bone broke with a crisp crack.
"Did the daimyo send you?"
Shu Shiraishi looked at the face beneath his boot, twisted in pain.
The spy spewed bloody foam, his teeth stained red.
"Y-you call this anything but tyranny?!"
He gritted his teeth, his voice whistling through them. "The daimyo won't let you get away with this... Konoha's elders won't submit to you either! You betrayed the Will of Fire!"
"The daimyo?"
Shu Shiraishi pressed down harder, grinding the man's face into a hollow in the concrete floor.
Dust and blood caked the spy's mouth.
"Democracy? The Will of Fire?"
Shu Shiraishi gave a derisive laugh.
He turned his head slightly and spat on the floor.
His spit landed on the spy's black clothes.
"I'm a dictator, plain and simple."
Shu Shiraishi's voice was like a hammer striking a steel rail, cold and hard, without a trace of warmth.
"Anyone who objects gets sent to the crematorium as fuel right now."
He raised his head and looked toward the laboratory's heavy metal doors.
"Bang."
The doors were pushed open from outside.
Kagami Uchiha hurried in with four city enforcement officers wearing red armbands.
When they saw the maimed men rolling on the floor and the blood sprayed everywhere,
even the Uchiha officers, accustomed to seeing the dead, all swallowed.
The smell of blood in the air was overpowering.
"Drag this trash away."
Shu Shiraishi pointed at the six half-dead men on the floor.
"Tear off the Explosive Tags and stuff them into their mouths."
His tone was even. "Throw them all into blast furnace No. 1. Burn them, bones and all."
"Yes!"
Kagami Uchiha did not hesitate for a moment.
The four officers immediately stepped forward, each grabbing a leg and dragging the men toward the door like slaughtered pigs.
The six men left several long, broad streaks of blood across the concrete floor, their screams growing more distant.
The metal doors closed again.
The laboratory was sealed once more, with only the dazzling floodlights remaining.
Shu Shiraishi turned around.
He walked over to a metal workbench nearby.
He casually picked up a rag used to wipe waste oil off machine tools.
Head lowered, he scrubbed his hands hard with the coarse rag.
The scraps of flesh between his fingers, the warm blood on his palms,
were all wiped away.
The cloth rasped harshly against his skin.
His hands were clean.
Shu Shiraishi casually tossed the rag, soaked with dark red stains, into a nearby metal trash can.
He lifted his head.
His gaze passed over the pools of blood and looked down.
There, in front of the enormous steel control console,
stood Orochimaru.
He wore a white lab coat covered in grease. His cheeks were sunken, and the dark circles beneath his eyes looked as though they had been smeared with soot.
Orochimaru paid no attention to the severed arms on the floor or the glaring pools of blood.
His snake-like eyes were fixed on the behemoth in the center, covered by the thick black canvas.
His shoulders trembled.
Both hands gripped the cold metal edge of the console so tightly that the skin around his nails had turned white.
It was a physical tremor brought on by extreme excitement.
It was the frenzy of having created something with his own hands that would overturn the world.
"Prototype No. 1."
Shu Shiraishi walked over, his boots making wet slaps against the bloodied concrete.
He stopped behind Orochimaru.
"How are the preparations?"
Orochimaru turned his head sharply.
An unnatural light burned in his eyes, frighteningly bright.
He extended his long, slender tongue and quickly licked his cracked lips.
The tip scraped across the peeling dead skin, bringing a trace of blood.
Orochimaru drew a deep breath, his chest swelling.
He said nothing.
His right hand shot up, leaving an afterimage in the air.
He slammed it down on the palm-sized red main power switch on the console.
"Click!"