What did Ryusei have that Orochimaru desired most?
It wasn't jutsu. Orochimaru had thousands of those.
What Ryusei carried was far more dangerous, a vision that stretched past the limits of their world, an understanding of patterns, connections, and secrets no scroll could hold.
Ryusei could read him. The hunger in those golden eyes wasn't for any more tricks.
Orochimaru had more techniques in his grasp than some nations probably already.
To someone like Orochimaru, that kind of foresight wasn't just valuable. It was everything.
Knowledge was the fuel that let him grow at an exponential rate.
Give him one thread, and he could spin it into a tapestry.
That was why he had always been different from the other Sannin, different from almost anyone alive.
What he wanted, what he always craved, was knowledge. Vision.
Turning scraps of information into entire worlds of possibility.
And that was what Ryusei held.
The perspective of someone who had already glimpsed nearly all the world's secrets.
Secrets Orochimaru had spent his life clawing toward in pieces. Ryusei knew the truth of it.
Even in the "original" story Ryusei remembered, Orochimaru had been one of the rare few with true foresight.
A non-Uchiha who, through nothing but historical research of his own and forbidden science, had come close to unraveling the greatest secrets.
He had been the only non-Uchiha to eventually theorize that the Rinnegan was the evolution of the Sharingan.
He had even stumbled upon the principle behind what was essentially Karma, the Otsutsuki's possession technique.
The curse marks he spread like a plague weren't random.
They were a way of encoding himself into others, preparing vessels, reviving himself if killed.
His very DNA was written into his seals.
Ryusei thought grimly, 'If this man had the knowledge I hold, he would become unstoppable. He would skip decades of trial and error and walk straight to the answers.'
It wasn't far-fetched either. The clues were there.
Orochimaru had experimented with Hashirama's cells, with Uchiha blood, with Sharingan; Shin was the proof.
It was not strange that eventually he knew the Senju and Uchiha together pointed toward something greater.
He was one of the very few in the world to even get that far.
He knew way more than any Kage or even someone like Nagato, before his death, probably; only Black Zetsu, and maybe Obito, understood more.
The only pieces he had missed were the reincarnation cycle of Indra and Ashura, the truth of Hagoromo's bloodline, and the Otsutsuki above them all.
Without those, his logic was visionary but incomplete.
Still, he had seen more than entire villages ever had.
After all, those things that were at most speculative myths to them were partially researched paths for him.
That was why he went mad for Sasuke and Itachi.
Not because he needed just a Sharingan to copy all jutsu.
He already had Sharingan eyes in his possession before, through Danzo, as seen through Shin's stock.
He knew not all bloodlines were equal.
He wanted the densest, purest concentration.
He wanted the line that could evolve.
He was chasing the evolution of blood itself.
This is why he wanted Itachi and Sasuke as opposed to any random Uchiha out there.
That was also why even Kimimaro had been his first choice.
Not Sasuke. Not Itachi.
Not any other random kekkei genkai clan like Yugo's clan or Yuki, that would also be easy to find a survivor from.
Specifically Kimimaro.
Another boy with a lineage tied directly to something ancient and terrifying.
When Kimimaro's body failed, only then did he turn to Sasuke.
That preference alone revealed how much Orochimaru knew, or at least suspected.
Even if he couldn't point to the Otsutsuki directly in the starry sky, he at least knew the general direction of things.
However, Ryusei also knew with certainty, at this point, during this war, Orochimaru hadn't yet reached those conclusions.
He hadn't finished or maybe started the experiments with Hashirama's cells, hadn't drawn the line from Senju and Uchiha all the way to the Rinnegan.
He was still a baby crawling toward that truth.
This was because this war was the only logical point where many of those things could have been kick-started by him.
Which meant Ryusei could play him now.
He wouldn't breathe a word about the Otsutsuki aliens.
It wasn't worth it, or needed.
That would be too much and a dumb overkill, then Ryusei would have been creating a "final boss" decades earlier for everyone, including himself, and losing the forest for a tree.
But he could accelerate Orochimaru's knowledge just enough to make himself indispensable.
Feed him only what would be common knowledge to Orochimaru decades later, alongside maybe just a slight extension of that.
Half-truths, verifiable connections.
Things about the Senju and Uchiha, their bloodlines, how together they created power no other clans could touch.
He could only dangle the rest.
Enough to bait him.
Enough to keep him hungry.
Enough to make him see Ryusei not as prey, but as a worthy partner and eventually ally.
Orochimaru's tongue slid slowly across his lips, deliberate, savoring the silence before he finally spoke.
"The Uchiha and the Senju…" he began, voice low and thoughtful. "Their connection is… inevitable. No matter the era, no matter the war, they could never escape each other. The two strongest clans in the world, born in the richest, most fertile land. When one was hired, the other was hired against it. When one grew stronger, the other grew sharper. Hatred layered upon hatred, battle upon battle. Their bloodlines became intertwined with the very shape of conflict itself."
He paused, eyes half-lidded, golden irises gleaming faintly in the dim light. "And yet, strangely, after all that blood… they forged Konoha together. Opposites made to sit side by side, as if some unseen hand insisted on binding them. Destined to circle one another, whether as enemies or as allies."
The faintest smile tugged at his lips, dark and knowing. "One wielding strength through stability, unity, and collectivism. The other through hatred, pride, and individuality. They are mirrors, boy. And mirrors…" His eyes sharpened, voice dropping to a hiss, "…always crack."
Orochimaru tilted his head, golden gaze pinning Ryusei. "Tell me, Ryusei-kun… why do you ask this sudden question?"
"Let's be more precise, Orochimaru," Ryusei said calmly. "They're not just mirrors. They're halves. And when those halves meet, they don't break each other… they complete."
For a fraction of a second, something slipped in Orochimaru's expression.
His eyes widened, barely, but enough.
For a man like him, even that flicker of surprise was priceless.
The smile that followed was sharper, thinner, more dangerous.
His tongue traced the edge of his lips, slow and deliberate.
"Halves… is that so?" he murmured, golden eyes gleaming. "You speak as though you've seen the proof yourself."
Ryusei's smirk deepened, just a fraction. "Of course, I've seen the proof. Did you forget? I come from perhaps the second most eminent Senju lineage in history. Before Tobirama dissolved the clan and stripped away its heritage, my grandfather, Masamune Senju, still held access to much of it through his status. He passed those secrets orally to my father. And my father, before his death, left them behind for me, written carefully, so they would not vanish with him."
His eyes gleamed faintly as he leaned forward. "So tell me, Orochimaru… would something like that be of interest to you? Do you want to know the full history and untold secrets of those two clans, which you called the strongest?"
For once, Orochimaru's composure slipped. His golden eyes widened, not in shock, but in that raw hunger he could never quite hide.
Orochimaru was obsessed with blood. With the essence of kekkei genkai, with clans and their roots, even with the origins of chakra itself.
He had scoured more texts than most scholars would see in ten lifetimes, plundered every archive worth opening inside and outside the village, and he could get his hands on so far.
He already understood, better than anyone, that bloodlines determined the upper limit, the ceiling of power in this world.
That was why he was already preparing for the day he would shed his body like a snake, discarding weakness for another vessel.
And among all the clans, only two stood at the true pinnacle in his mind with their blood.
The Uchiha and the Senju. Most clans were shaped into weapons through centuries of war-breeding, but only those two carried something more, something that felt… 'supernatural' even by worldwide shinobi standards.
The Uchiha's deepest secrets were locked away, beyond his current grasp, as the clan was still relatively strong and protected.
However, the Senju had collapsed, scattered, a much easier target for him now. So, he had obviously asked about it before.
But, Danzo denied such things existed convincingly.
Hiruzen, Tobirama's other disciple, deflected, smiling with the same hollow warmth.
The answers were always out of reach.
Orochimaru had long concluded either there was truly nothing, or Tobirama had hidden everything, forever at that time… or whispered it only to his chosen successor, Hiruzen, who now didn't want to share it with him.
He had planned to investigate further when he finally took the Hokage's seat.
To dig into every vault, every hidden archive, to claw the truth out no matter the cost.
And now, here it was. A boy, barely grown, standing before him and offering what even he had never been allowed to touch.
Secrets not just promised, but certain.
Years in advance of when he had planned to claim them.
Orochimaru's smile twitched into something sharper, his tongue sliding across his lips. "Ahhh… Ryusei-kun. You do know how to make yourself… intriguing."
Inside, Ryusei thought coldly, 'This is the only explanation I can give him. The only cover for all the knowledge that should be impossible for someone like me. Not transmigration, not reincarnation, but inheritance, somewhat logical. It's the most believable mask, and I'll use it.'
Orochimaru's eyes gleamed brighter, but the curve of his lips steadied, returning to that calm, serpentine smile.
He would not show desperation, not yet.
"So…" Orochimaru murmured, stretching the word like a serpent tasting the air, "what kind of treasures did your noble lineage truly preserve? And more importantly…" his smile edged sharper, "what would you demand in exchange if I asked for them here and now?"
His tone was almost casual, but beneath it coiled a rasping hunger that could not be hidden.