The sealed door groaned open with a hiss of pressurized air and rusted metal. A deep red glow poured out, casting long shadows across the cracked chamber floor. The ANBU squad instinctively shifted into formation, silent, controlled. Weapons half-drawn, chakra muted.
Beyond the doorway lay a wide, circular chamber, at least twenty meters in diameter. The walls were lined with old monitors, many cracked or dead, but some flickered with half-functioning readouts, pulsing red indicators, static-smeared images, and occasional flashes of biometric data. The air was thick with ozone and old blood.
But at the chamber's center stood the true horror.
A massive capsule, no, a sarcophagus, anchored to the floor by blackened metal pylons. It loomed at least three meters tall, its outer shell fused with tubes, jagged wiring, and chakra-conducting seals that snaked like veins across its curved surface. Transparent glass ran along the front, fogged over from condensation… but a shape could be seen inside.
A humanoid figure. Motionless. Slumped. Bound in tight wrappings of steel and flesh-sealed tubing. Its skin, where visible, was pale and melted in places as if scalded beyond recognition. A heavy mask covered its face, bolted shut.
The monitors beeped irregularly.
[Subject V – VITAL DORMANCY 42%]
[STASIS CORE: ACTIVE]
[REACTOR CHAKRA LEVEL: RISING]
"Ah. So he preserved it after all." The Orochimaru clone tilted his head, his golden snake eyes glittering.
"Explain." Kakashi narrowed his eyes.
Orochimaru stepped forward slowly, hands folded behind his back like a museum curator. "Subject V. The result of an attempted bloodline synthesis, an artificial host for unstable chakra mutations. My other self tried to forge a body capable of adapting to multiple incompatible kekkei genkai. A living crucible."
"Looks like it broke," Mantis muttered.
"Oh, it did," Orochimaru said cheerfully. "The prototype's body melted. Quite literally. The chakra cores fused into an unstable mass that threatened to rupture reality in a five-meter radius. So he encased it in a stasis vessel. Brilliant."
"That… thing is alive?" Naruto swallowed.
"In the loosest sense of the word," Orochimaru replied. "Its mind is gone, devoured by the mutations. But its chakra remembers what it was created to do. It hungers."
….
"Eyes on me," Kakashi said in a low voice.
The team snapped into alert. Even Naruto stopped fidgeting.
"Situation assessment: Subject V is inert but awakening. It's sealed but reactive to chakra, Sasuke?"
Sasuke stepped forward, his Sharingan spinning. "It's absorbing ambient chakra. The moment we flare too much power or get too close, it'll destabilize. I can see the inner core, red, volatile. It's pulsing every six seconds."
"Ghost?"
"Still no direct signatures… but I can feel the pressure building. It's resonating with the chakra network of the facility. If the system reboots-"
"It could trigger automated defense," Kakashi finished. He turned to the back exit. "Target archive is down the corridor behind Subject V. We stay light, silent, and minimal chakra use."
He raised a hand and issued quick gestures in ANBU code.
Mantis–flank, disable eastern control relays.
Crane–prep layered genjutsu around the sarcophagus. Use a delayed pulse illusion, not sensory-based.
Ghost – monitor chakra emissions from Subject V.
Ox – Reinforce the northern support column. If the ceiling buckles, we lose the path out.
Naruto, Sasuke – with me. Quiet and close.
No one hesitated. The team moved as one, silent shadows dispersing through the chamber.
….
Naruto crouched beside Kakashi as they crept past Subject V's stasis pod. The proximity made the hairs on his neck rise. The thing inside twitched faintly. A finger? No. Just a reflex. Probably.
He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.
"Sensei… why would Orochimaru build something like this?" After a moment, he whispered,
Kakashi's answer was soft. "Because he wanted to conquer death and be Immortal. He wanted a body that could hold every bloodline, learn every jutsu. He thought strength could be stitched together."
"It's like a monster born from greed." Naruto frowned.
"And from brilliance twisted too far." Kakashi nodded.
"So what do we do if it wakes up?"Naruto asked as he looked at the thing again, then at Kakashi.
"We don't let it."
Behind them, Sasuke's voice came through their comms.
"Sensei, I've isolated the vent node on the far wall. It's connected to a chakra dispersal system. If I can slow the pulse rate, we might buy more time."
"Proceed, but don't touch the central conduit. That wire's life."
Sasuke moved, precise and cold. His Sharingan guided his fingers to sever a pair of the thinnest filaments. The red pulse rate on the nearest monitor dropped from every six seconds… to nine.
"Nice," Naruto breathed.
"You're both adapting well." Kakashi gave a brief nod.
…..
Mantis reached the eastern panel. Dozens of old seals and chakra-fused locks blocked access. With nimble hands, he traced the outermost glyphs, searching for tripwires. One… two… three.
He whispered through comms. "I found a failsafe tied to Subject V's heartbeat monitor. If I disable the controls too fast, it might trigger an emergency awakening."
"Understood," Kakashi replied. "Ghost, status?"
"Chakra levels holding… but I'm detecting a secondary pattern, like a heartbeat that isn't its own. There's a buried signature in the walls."
Orochimaru looked amused. "Of course. My inferior clone always layered backup triggers. If Subject V dies, a clone seal activates a second failsafe, likely a biological defense."
Kakashi frowned. "So it's a baited trap. If we destroy it without disabling the failsafe, the lab tries to kill us anyway."
Crane's voice whispered in: "Genjutsu set. The construct will 'see' us circling it repeatedly in a thirty-second loop. But we'll only have one cycle before it notices inconsistencies."
"Good work. Ox?"
"Support beam reinforced. Exit corridor stable."
Kakashi looked over his team, mentally calculating the next steps. One objective. One looming disaster. Everything is hanging on minutes.
"Alright. Mantis, delay deactivation. Focus only on scrambling the sensor feed. Crane, hold your illusion but be ready to drop it. Naruto, Sasuke, clear a path. We retrieve the scrolls and get out."
They moved fast now, sprinting low through the corridor behind the sarcophagus.
….
Archive Room
The corridor ended in a reinforced door. Unlike the others, this one was untrapped, perhaps even Orochimaru feared damaging its contents.
"Chakra seal. High level. Linked to… genetics." Sasuke traced the edge.
"What if we use Orochimaru's chakra?" Naruto said while he stepped forward.
"How clever of you, Naruto-kun." The Orochimaru clone smiled.
He extended a hand and let a drop of his chakra seep into the lock. The door clicked open with a hiss.
Inside: scrolls, vials, and tanks of preserved tissue samples. Shelves of dusty tomes and ancient data tablets. The room reeked of formaldehyde and ambition.
Kakashi moved quickly. "Sasuke, scrolls on the left. Marked 'Serpent Genomes.' Naruto, anything tagged with the blue seal. That's medical data."
They gathered fast but precisely. No time wasted. Kakashi himself grabbed the oldest scrolls, ones detailing chakra synthesis and curse mark formulae.
Behind them, a low thrum echoed through the floor.
…..
Back in the main chamber, the red lights intensified.
"We've got a spike! Subject V just flared, chakra output increasing!" Ghost's voice crackled over the comms.
"Crane, pull the genjutsu—now!" Kakashi's eyes narrowed.
The illusion dropped.
Subject V's body twitched. Hard.
The mask on its face cracked down the center, releasing a thin stream of purple gas that hissed into the air.
The monitors wrote warnings:
[VITAL STIMULUS DETECTED]
[CORE STIRRING]
[PREPARING EMERGENCY CONTAINMENT]
"How beautiful…" The Orochimaru clone whispered.
The sarcophagus began to glow from within, crimson lines pulsing across the shell-like veins filling with blood. The chakra pressure surged.
Kakashi's voice was calm but urgent. "Everyone, fall back to the extraction route. Do not engage with it."
Ox reached the entrance corridor first and placed an explosive tag along the wall. "Ready to collapse the chamber on command."
Mantis pulled back, muttering seals to fry the remaining control links. "Containment relays severed."
Crane helped Naruto and Sasuke out of the archive with a flicker-step and a sealing barrier raised behind them.
"GO!"
Subject V's body jerked violently. The sarcophagus trembled. Glass cracked.
Then, with a final warning pulse, the entire chamber went red.
A chakra roar, low, inhuman, hungry, echoed from within the iron womb.