Chapter 282: Is Chimera's Essence the Fusion of Genes?
"You're saying this person is Hiruko?" Orochimaru looked at the short figure standing before him, a strange look in his eyes.
After seeing the sincerity on his disciple's face, even Orochimaru felt a little uncertain.
Just earlier, he had still been in the laboratory, focused on his experiments and trying to perfect his telephone concept as quickly as possible. Then, unexpectedly, Amemiya Kenichi had come knocking, mysteriously asking him to come out using his original face to meet someone.
To his surprise, the person standing outside was a short figure wrapped in layers of bandages. At first, Orochimaru had assumed this was some special Bloodline Limit user his disciple had brought back.
Then Kenichi told him that the person before him was Hiruko.
Orochimaru naturally remembered Hiruko. In fact, the name immediately pulled up memories from the past.
Back then, he, Jiraiya, and Tsunade trained together every day and went on missions side by side. Hiruko had also been their friend. Later, however, Hiruko gradually drifted away from them.
Their last meeting had been when Hiruko was discovered carrying out human experiments. Hiruzen Sarutobi had learned of it and arranged for them to hunt down the Konoha rogue ninja.
Of course, the Sannin had not killed him. Instead, they had silently chosen to ease off and let Hiruko escape Konoha alive.
That day, Jiraiya had been in a terrible mood, and Tsunade's expression had not looked good either. Only Orochimaru's eyes had been shining, because he had discovered something new that interested him.
"Orochimaru, long time no see." Hiruko looked at the familiar face in front of him.
It was still the same appearance, the same clothes, the same temperament.
That cold and merciless demeanor that never treated others as equals. That was Orochimaru. Just as Jiraiya had once said, sincere smiles rarely ever appeared on Orochimaru's face.
Yet now, as he looked at this old friend, Hiruko's heart felt somewhat complicated.
He could not even defeat Orochimaru's disciple.
So what was the meaning of everything he had done since defecting from Konoha? What was the meaning of all these years spent perfecting Chimera?
"Are you really Hiruko? Then why did you get shorter?" Orochimaru asked, suddenly much more interested.
Aside from his height and changed appearance, the person before him felt very much like the Hiruko from before, especially his eyes. Every time, Hiruko always looked at him with that same nostalgic gaze.
What interested Orochimaru even more, however, was why Hiruko had suddenly become smaller, almost like a child. It was as though an adult soul had been forced into a child's body, only wrapped in more bandages.
"Just a side effect of the Ninjutsu." Hiruko turned his head away.
He did not want to discuss his shrinking body. Chimera sometimes produced strange side effects, such as reducing his size, but that did not matter. This was the price one had to pay to obtain power.
Kenichi crouched to the side with his chin propped in his hand, watching.
At first, he had hesitated over whether to bring Hiruko to his teacher.
After all, a Ninjutsu that could fuse Bloodline Limits was simply too powerful. With Orochimaru's talent added to the equation, the consequences might become terrifying.
But in the end, Kenichi still brought Hiruko here.
He wanted to study Chimera together with Orochimaru, because he had a very particular idea in mind.
Chimera was powerful, but it clearly had side effects. If Orochimaru refined it, it should become far more practical.
"Teacher, Uncle Hiruko has mastered a very powerful Ninjutsu. He can absorb the Bloodline Limits of other ninja and make them his own. Right now, he already possesses Storm Release, Steel Release, and Dark Release."
Kenichi's reminder had the intended effect. He could tell Orochimaru was not particularly interested in Hiruko himself, at least not yet.
But he also knew that the moment he said those words, Hiruko would instantly become a proper research subject in Orochimaru's eyes.
The only remaining issue was how to make Hiruko hand over Chimera.
Kenichi would first see whether his teacher had a solution. If Orochimaru did, then that would save him a great deal of trouble.
If not, he would go to Shisui for help. After all, Shisui already owed him such a huge favor that he surely would not refuse.
"Oh?" As expected, Orochimaru's interest was instantly stirred.
He looked at Hiruko with unconcealed excitement, enough to make Hiruko visibly uncomfortable. After all, he himself had once looked at his own experimental subjects with exactly that sort of gaze.
Now he was the one being examined like prey.
"But Uncle Hiruko does not seem very willing to discuss Chimera. Teacher, you do know how to interrogate people, right?" Kenichi asked with a smile.
Orochimaru glanced at him and immediately understood what his disciple meant.
"Do not worry," Orochimaru sneered. "I will make him tell me everything."
At first, he really had considered whether he ought to show some consideration for old friendship. After all, as people grew older, they often began to dwell on the past. Even if he could replace his body, his psychological age could not be rewritten.
So when he had first heard that this was Hiruko, Orochimaru had genuinely felt some happiness.
But the moment Kenichi spoke of the Ninjutsu Hiruko had developed, a possessive glint appeared in Orochimaru's eyes.
And once Kenichi added that Hiruko was unwilling to cooperate, there was no longer any trace of old friendship in Orochimaru's gaze. Only cold indifference remained.
He wanted to learn all the Ninjutsu in the world.
That was the goal Orochimaru had set for himself, and he had pursued it for years.
Yet now it seemed that someone did not want him to learn every Ninjutsu in existence.
How could that be acceptable?
This was nothing less than opposing him directly.
So even if the person before him was his former friend Hiruko, Orochimaru would still take Chimera for himself first.
Thus, Kenichi happily left Hiruko in Orochimaru's hands and hurried back to his own laboratory.
At this point, the first of his main research objectives had finally been completed. The reward for completing it, however, was somewhat unusual.
"On the Fusion Method of Chakra and Explosives..." Kenichi stared at the book in front of him, his expression complicated.
"So this is actually a chemical masterpiece? No... maybe not. I still do not know what element chakra should even count as. In that case, should this be considered a masterpiece of chakra studies?"
Originally, Kenichi had assumed that finishing his research on fusing chakra and explosives would reward him with a direct and practical solution.
Instead, he had been given a book.
And he still had to study it himself.
For a moment, it gave him the feeling of being dragged back into college.
Back then, when he was in college, he would often chat with biology students from other majors, then go to the library and read books outside his own field. He had also learned some simple programming, while one of his friends had eventually transferred into physics.
According to that friend, studying biology was basically a dead end, while physics at least offered some possibility for the future.
"But a book is still good. I just do not know what this one will teach."
Kenichi sighed, turned on the laboratory lights, and slowly opened the book.
Yet after reading only a little, he found it unexpectedly fascinating.
The book contained detailed experimental demonstrations for how chakra and explosives could be fused, along with extremely subtle explanations. It instantly allowed Kenichi to understand why all his previous fusion attempts had failed.
Simply put, the issue had been that chakra particles and explosive particles had not mixed thoroughly enough, which led to instability and detonation.
To fuse explosives with chakra of different attributes, one needed a specific method to combine chakra particles of different natures with explosive particles. Only then could a relatively stable chakra explosive be produced.
Here, Kenichi also saw an explanation for the strange patterns he had observed on explosives during his earlier experiments. Those mysterious marks were, in fact, manifestations of the reaction between chakra and explosives.
That realization captivated him completely.
He felt like he had gone back to staying up all night reading novels.
"This really is a book... or maybe a textbook?" Kenichi muttered. "Will there actually be a discipline called Chakra Studies in the future?"
He finished reading without even noticing the passage of time.
Only after reaching the end did he suddenly become aware of the gnawing hunger in his stomach. When he checked the time, he realized two full days had passed.
Still, the gains had been enormous.
At the very least, he now understood the correct method for fusing chakra and explosives. With that problem solved, he could begin attempting bombs infused with other elemental attributes, and even a fully attributed thermobaric bomb was no longer a fantasy.
"This could even be extended further... maybe to deduce a fusion method between chakra and nuclear weapons. Then a chakra nuclear bomb?"
Kenichi took out a soldier pill and tossed it into his mouth. The emptiness in his stomach quickly disappeared.
He stood up and stretched.
He had more or less understood the theory behind combining explosives and chakra. Next came practical experimentation. He would need to master the method fully through repeated trials until he could create truly stable chakra infused explosives.
After setting the book aside, Kenichi took out the secretion he had extracted from the Mother Bug and began his second line of experimentation.
Although the chakra explosive problem had been solved in theory, that branch of work could now be handed over to Shadow Clones.
Kenichi himself still wanted to focus on genes.
The main reason was that the earlier encounter with Hiruko had given him a new idea.
"Based on my current research, Bloodline Limits are essentially a form of gene mutation and atavism," Kenichi muttered as he took out a scratchpad and began writing down his thoughts.
This was one of his habits. Spoken thoughts could disappear quickly, but written ones stayed.
"Hiruko, meanwhile, can use Chimera to obtain another person's Bloodline Limit and make it his own..."
He paused, then wrote again.
"So is Chimera, at its core, a Ninjutsu that extracts the genes responsible for Bloodline Limits and then integrates them into oneself?"
Only a hypothesis like that could explain what kind of Ninjutsu Chimera really was.
But could it truly be so perfect?
Kenichi did not believe so, especially not after seeing Hiruko's current appearance.
"But if the replication and fusion process copies all of the other person's genes first, and then removes the identical parts while retaining all the differences..." Kenichi stroked his chin.
"In that case, Hiruko's current form would make perfect sense."
The more he thought about it, the more reliable this theory felt.
Bloodline Limits were genetic differences to begin with.
That would also explain why Kaguya Ōtsutsuki could wield Bloodline Encompassing powers, while others could only at best possess two separate Releases.
It had to be said that Hiruko really was a genius.
A genuine genius.
If he had not been limited to appearing only in a movie, Kenichi believed Hiruko absolutely had the qualifications to become a major villain in the main storyline.
After all, he had already absorbed three Bloodline Limits. Add Pakura's Swift Release, and that would become four.
The only question was how many Bloodline Limits Hiruko could absorb at maximum.
Kenichi decided that when he had time, he would make Hiruko undergo a full test.
Of course, before that, he still needed to obtain Chimera first.
Then he could properly analyze whether Chimera carefully searched, detected, separated, and fused genes one by one, or whether it simply fused every different gene all at once.
Either way, this Ninjutsu definitely had flaws.
Otherwise, Hiruko would truly be absurdly overpowered.
"Even Chimera, in a certain sense, already has the effect of genetic programming." Kenichi licked his lips.
This Hiruko fellow really was a treasure.
He did wonder, however, whether Orochimaru had already succeeded in prying Chimera from him.
Still, Kenichi decided to calm himself down first and continue trying to improve Genetic Programming Ninjutsu using the Mother Bug's secretion.
Working on two fronts at once was always better.
So he took out two white mice and began his next round of experiments.
"According to the Mother Bug, the best approach is to let the mice drink some of its secretion. Direct injection into the spinal central nervous system is also possible..."
Kenichi decided to conduct a control experiment.
One group would drink the secretion.
The other would receive direct injection.
Then he would see which method produced better results.
But before all of that, he first wanted to observe exactly what effect the Mother Bug's secretion had on genes.
So he began that line of research first.
.....
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