"One of the choices? Interesting…"
Looking at the unfamiliar scroll of unknown origin, Rei narrowed his eyes and rapidly screened through the possible targets who might have sent him this message.
He had only given out a few summoning scrolls for others to contact him when necessary.
Excluding Mei Terumi, who was inside the village and had no need to contact him through such means, the remaining scrolls were only in the hands of Nagato and the other two tools he had high hopes for.
But the handwriting on this scroll did not match any of those three.
And if it was not Nagato and the others, then the number of people capable of using this method to find him seemed to shrink to only one person.
"Heh, heh, heh… Is this what they call the heavens assisting when the time has come?"
Seeing Rei suddenly laugh without warning, Shisui could not help being startled.
He looked as if he wanted to ask, "Prime Minister, why do you laugh?" but did not dare open his mouth.
Rei slipped the scroll into his sleeve and knowingly asked, "Curious, Shisui?"
"It would be impossible to say I am not curious."
Shisui put down the dango he could no longer eat and sighed with pursed lips.
"What is it this time? Surely it is not a Kirigakure spy hidden inside Konoha stealing out the Scroll of Seals, which records many forbidden techniques?"
"The first part is wrong, but the second part is somewhat close to the truth."
Rei drained the tea beside him in one gulp, narrowed his eyes, and smiled.
"If this operation goes smoothly, the degree to which you have to work day and night afterward might be reduced quite a bit, Shisui."
A huge question mark appeared over Shisui Uchiha's head.
What does this have to do with me?
Rei did not explain further.
He simply sped up and swept through his portion of food, sent Shisui back to his residence, then withdrew to the Mizukage's office.
In an excellent mood, he began writing a reply to the person who had sent the scroll.
…
"What has Orochimaru-sama been doing lately…"
Anko Mitarashi lay gloomily on the table.
Even though her favorite red bean soup was placed in front of her, she could not muster much interest in eating it.
Seeing this, Kurenai Yuhi, who had come to eat sweets with her, reached out in surprise and touched Anko's forehead.
Then she asked in confusion, "Anko, are you really all right? I have never seen you look this depressed and lost before… Did you accidentally make Orochimaru-sama angry?"
"If that were the case, I would not be sitting here feeling sorry for myself, Kurenai."
Anko stirred the red bean soup in front of her with a spoon and said resentfully, "If Orochimaru-sama were angry with me, at least it would mean he still had some expectations for me. Even if I were harshly taught a lesson because of it, I could learn from Orochimaru-sama why I made him angry, and next time I could avoid making the same mistake."
"But now? I have just been thrown aside and ignored… I do not even know what I did wrong."
"There, there. Orochimaru-sama is an important figure in the village, after all. Some confidential matters truly cannot be done while bringing you along."
Kurenai reached out and stroked Anko's hair, gently comforting the dejected girl.
"Besides, you are a disciple personally trained by Orochimaru-sama. Since you are certain you did not make any mistakes, have a little more confidence in yourself, all right?"
"I still feel very uneasy."
"It is just your imagination. As long as you maintain your daily routine and keep training and studying consistently, even a genius like Orochimaru-sama could not possibly abandon you."
Looking at Kurenai, who had already begun preparing to feed her, Anko finally opened her mouth obediently.
She could only hope that the nightmare she had last night, where she was locked in a pitch-black room without seeing any light or hope and without any way to escape, was truly just a nightmare.
Looking outside the shop at the Uchiha and Hyuga clansmen who had somehow gathered together and were now arguing fiercely with agitated expressions, Anko thought so.
…
"Another failure… And now even the last bit of experimental material has been used up."
Looking at the twisted mass of malformed flesh inside the enormous cultivation tank before him, Orochimaru sighed.
Silently, he pressed the button to drain the nutrient solution.
As the specially prepared nutrient solution drained away, the twisted flesh inside the tank began growing with even more violent disorder.
The bloated flesh, which had wooden textures across its surface, broke through the outer shell of the cultivation tank.
Greedily, it rushed toward the only living thing nearby that possessed powerful chakra.
While twisting and growing, it also fired pale bone spears from within its flesh, trying to pin Orochimaru in place and turn him into nutrients it could devour.
"Four Violet Flames Formation."
Three shadow clones, prepared in advance, drilled out from underground.
Together with Orochimaru himself, they cast the powerful Four Violet Flames Formation, trapping all the mutated flesh inside the barrier.
The wooden mutated flesh began burning violently the instant it touched the Four Violet Flames Formation.
But the sight of it burning while growing madly was terrifying beyond words.
The bone spears fired from the flesh's core possessed unimaginable toughness.
Not only did they forcibly withstand the burning of the Four Violet Flames Formation, but they were also only one step away from breaking through the barrier and piercing Orochimaru's body.
"Wind Release: Breakthrough."
Without changing expression, Orochimaru released a Wind Release inside the Four Violet Flames Formation to intensify the flames.
In an instant, the entire underground laboratory was filled with a thick burnt stench.
The violent purple flames transformed into a massive fiery tornado under the storm's influence.
Finally, it suppressed the mutated flesh's rapid growth, making it twitch and convulse inside the firestorm, shrinking until it was completely reduced to ash.
Not a single trace of life remained.
"How fascinating…"
"After your cells fused with the First Hokage's cells, they actually turned into something so ugly, so terrifying, so insatiably greedy. I even had to specially add large quantities of vitality-suppressing toxins to the nutrient solution just to barely make the product of your combined cells grow in a way that resembled natural life…"
"Rei-kun, what exactly happened to you and the First Hokage to make your cells so… abnormal?"
The golden snake pupils reflected the charred marks on the ground.
Orochimaru inhaled deeply.
He put away the records of the last experiment he had conducted using Rei's blood, which he had collected earlier.
Then, as he walked out of the underground laboratory he had secretly built using Root's funding, he activated the technique that would bury it completely in darkness.
"Earth Release: Earth Burial Flow."
The flowing earth opened its mouth like a living creature.
It swallowed the underground laboratory in one bite and chewed hard.
Experimental equipment worth millions disappeared silently under the earth's ravaging.
Everything Orochimaru had once done in this place was buried deep underground as well.
It would never again see the light of day.
Gazing into the distance at the Fourth Hokage's face being carved into Konoha's Hokage Rock, Orochimaru casually stroked his summoned venomous snake.
With a gloomy smile, he murmured to himself, "Minato Namikaze… You are different from Teacher Sarutobi. You probably will not provide any support or tolerance for my research."
"In that case, before we completely tear away all pretense, perhaps it is better for us to each walk our own path."
"I truly want to see how you will treat the subordinates who once followed me after I choose to leave the village… Exile? Demotion? Or will you sweep them all into the old man's Root and let them rot together with him in Konoha's darkness?"
"Ah, when I think about it that way, I do feel a little reluctant… Should I give them some more time to prepare themselves?"
Muttering to himself, Orochimaru raised his head.
Facing the bright moonlight, he looked toward the sea east of Konoha.
There lay the most dangerous of the many escape routes he had prepared for himself.
At the same time, it was also the route most likely to support him in completing his research into immortality, solving the problem known as lifespan and aging, and advancing toward his ultimate goal of understanding all knowledge.
"Now then, let me see your capacity, Rei-kun…"
"Let me see what you, the strongest and youngest Fourth Kage of this era, are looking at, and what exactly you are chasing."