"His body is clearly fine, but it's like all the vitality was drained from him," Tsunade said as she stood up, frowning after completing her examination.
She had ruled out any issues with the cloning process. Just moments ago, all of his organs had been functioning perfectly.
But suddenly, it was as if his body had turned into a funnel—his surging life force uncontrollably pouring outwards.
On the ground beneath the collapsed body, there was even a faint, vibrant green glow lingering.
"So, you're saying it's not a problem with the cloning procedure?" Orochimaru stepped forward, placing his palm gently against the chest of the corpse. He closed his eyes and carefully investigated with his own abilities.
"This... we might still need more experimental cases to be certain," Tsunade replied.
She was confident that the clone she created had met all the requirements, but she hesitated to jump to conclusions based on a single examination.
The chances were slim, but that still meant a possibility of error.
She planned to run a thorough analysis of this clone using all available instruments, supported by her own medical ninjutsu, to completely rule out any hidden issues.
"The soul is gone," Orochimaru said as he withdrew his hand from the corpse. He stood up and added, "It's like some powerful force tore it from the body by force.
There are traces of spiritual resistance left behind, which means he struggled. But against that kind of power, he had no chance to fight back. This situation... it's similar to the effect of a certain technique."
"What technique?" Tsunade turned to look at Orochimaru.
If one were to say who currently had the deepest mastery of ninjutsu, it would undoubtedly be Orochimaru, who had become the Hokage.
His knowledge of jutsu was second only to Hiruzen Sarutobi, once honored with the title "Professor of Ninjutsu."
And if you included forbidden techniques, Orochimaru may have even surpassed his former teacher.
After all, the Third Hokage was most proficient in the five elemental nature transformations.
As for the forbidden jutsu recorded in the Scroll of Seals, Hiruzen merely understood them—he never truly went out of his way to learn or master them.
"Reaper Death Seal..." Orochimaru muttered, squinting his eyes as he observed the body before him.
In just a brief moment, the once soft corpse turned stiff, its vibrant skin dulling rapidly—as if the entire process of corpse decay had been compressed into a few seconds.
Though he had never witnessed the Reaper Death Seal in person, nor had he used it himself, he had studied it from the Scroll of Seals, trying to grasp its secrets.
In fact, Orochimaru had studied every forbidden jutsu in the Scroll that dealt with souls and spiritual consciousness. He had taken the time to dissect and learn them all with great care.
A technique that could summon the Shinigami—the god of death—naturally fell within his field of research.
The notes and explanations included in the Scroll gave him a strange sense of déjà vu as he observed what had just occurred.
"Is this the Pure Land... or the Shinigami?"
Tsunade recognized the technique.
It was one of the Uzumaki Clan's ultimate sealing jutsu.
Orochimaru had brought it up during a past discussion with her, though back then, it had seemed far less important or urgent compared to something like Edo Tensei.
"Did the Shinigami really appear just now? But in our Hogyoku Mode, we should be able to see spiritual beings, shouldn't we?" Tsunade glanced around.
Yet, she sensed no trace of the ominous, oppressive chill usually associated with the realm of the dead.
"The Shinigami doesn't necessarily have to come in person," Orochimaru replied thoughtfully. "It's more likely to be a rule or law of the Pure Land itself."
Could it be... that the Pure Land simply doesn't allow people to return from death?
The legendary Rinnegan… it was said to possess the power to bring the dead back to life!
Orochimaru had once been curious about the Rinnegan. He had read all of Kagetsu's research on it.
According to those documents, the Rinnegan indeed had the power to communicate with the Pure Land and control souls.
Could it be… we have to create a Rinnegan?
But just by looking at the synthesis theories in Kagetsu's research logs, Orochimaru could already sense how incredibly difficult that would be.
To create a Rinnegan, one would need an Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, cells from the First Hokage, and perhaps even a special chakra — one deeply connected to the Sage of Six Paths — to awaken it.
And even after gathering all of those, it might still take a decade or more before the Rinnegan could evolve and awaken on its own.
There was another method — pure chakra accumulation. Piling up chakra until quantity turned into quality, forcing one's body to evolve toward the source of chakra itself.
That might require capturing all the Tailed Beasts still active in the shinobi world, combining their powers in some way, and sealing them inside oneself.
But for most ninja, even handling one Tailed Beast was enough to cause chaos.
All nine at once?
That would be enough to break someone's mind…
"Perhaps," Kagetsu said suddenly from the side, "what's missing is a sacrifice."
"A sacrifice?" Tsunade and Orochimaru both turned to look at him.
But their expressions were clearly different.
Tsunade's gaze held shock and unease.
Orochimaru's, on the other hand, was filled with pure curiosity and interest.
To Tsunade, the word "sacrifice" struck a nerve.
To Orochimaru, it didn't matter — he only cared about what Kagetsu meant by it.
"Even the Rinnegan comes with a heavy cost when trying to bring someone back to life. Usually, that cost is the user's own life."
"When you think about the Impure World Reincarnation, summoning the dead from the Pure Land to temporarily return to the Shinobi World also requires a sacrifice. And how strong the resurrected person is depends on the quality of that sacrifice."
"The Pure Land clearly operates by its own set of rules. The stronger the sacrifice—or more accurately, the more unique or compatible their life force is with the living—the more power the dead can regain upon being summoned."
"For this experiment, we all ran countless checks and tests. The clone body was fine. The ritual was flawless. Even the soul manipulation technique used by the teacher was perfect."
"So, the most likely problem… lies in the rules of the Pure Land itself."
"We're assuming that to summon and seize a soul from the Pure Land, there must be another soul offered in exchange. If that's true, then the failure this time was because the Pure Land took back the soul of the dead once more."
"Or perhaps it simply believed that this soul had already reached its end."
"But didn't the Impure World Reincarnation already use a sacrifice?" Tsunade took a deep breath, frowning.
"Impure World Reincarnation is its own separate technique. When we transferred the soul into the clone body, I had already undone the Edo Tensei."
"According to the rules, the soul should have returned to the Pure Land the moment the technique was canceled. But because of our ritual and jutsu, it was forcefully held back for a little while longer."
"The fusion process between the soul and the clone body took unusually long. That might have been the Pure Land's doing."
The one speaking was Orochimaru. He spoke up in place of Kagetsu.
"But isn't all of this just speculation?" Tsunade sounded frustrated.
As the most renowned medical ninja in the Shinobi World, arguing over sacrifices with someone like Orochimaru—who looked every bit the mad scientist—felt incredibly absurd.
"Whether that's the reason or not, we just need to run another experiment to find out," Orochimaru said eagerly, his eyes glinting with excitement.
****
Please support me on my ko-fi account and read upto 15 early chapters,
https://ko-fi.com/pirateking24/tiers