Chapter 3: Turning Lies into Truth — A Future Forged by Words of Gold
"Oh?"
The serpent's head — pale and slick, extending from Orochimaru's sleeve — hovered a mere inch from Oda Nobunaga's neck. One flick, one whisper of chakra, and the boy could have been ensnared by illusion, his will crushed in an instant.
Even as the young daimyō turned his back and began to walk away, Orochimaru could have stopped him — yet he didn't.
Something unseen, a subtle pull deep in the void between instinct and intent, turned his killing urge aside.
Instead, with a low hiss, the serpent withdrew into its master's robe. Orochimaru rose, curiosity overpowering hunger, and followed.
"Where are you taking me?"
His voice slithered close behind the child leading him. Orochimaru's movements were soundless, each step shrinking the distance between predator and prey.
It was strange — for all his infiltration, for all the nights he'd walked unseen through the daimyō's estate, there remained one corner of this compound he had never found purpose to explore.
Could this boy be foolish enough to try and trick me?
The sound of a tongue flicking echoed in the air, like a quiet threat. Orochimaru was no reasonable man — much less a patient one.
And the nerve of this little daimyō, to call him a brute, to mockingly ask of his dreams…
That was his line — words he had spoken to countless others before taking them apart like toys.
"The world," Nobunaga said suddenly, his calm voice slicing through the tension, "has never been moved forward by ninja."
Even as he spoke, he could feel Orochimaru's gaze stabbing into his back like a thousand poisoned needles. His pulse quickened, but his smile never wavered.
He stopped before a small, secluded shrine nestled deep within the estate — a place rarely visited, quiet as if the world had forgotten it existed.
Turning to face the snake, Nobunaga gave him a look of faint pity — the kind one might offer to a man who mistook a shadow for truth.
Then, with a graceful gesture, he motioned toward the shrine. "After you."
Orochimaru's eyes narrowed.
The boy's composure was unsettling. Still, the Sannin did not barge in blindly. A single careless move could unravel everything.
He released a dozen small snakes to slither across the shrine's floor, weaving through cracks and shadows. None found a trace of danger. Unsatisfied, he invoked a sensory jutsu, scanning the area inside and out until not a grain of dust was left unsearched.
It was, without a doubt, an ordinary shrine.
A plain, harmless, utterly unremarkable shrine.
"Lord Nobunaga," he said at last, voice thick with irritation. "What exactly is the meaning of this?"
The killing intent in his words was no longer veiled. This was, after all, a man who had once challenged gods.
"So I was right," Nobunaga replied, smiling faintly. "Ninjas truly are just brutes — beasts who only know how to swing their power."
Before Orochimaru could respond, before his patience could snap, Nobunaga stepped forward and pushed open the shrine's humble wooden doors.
A sharp, echoing creak filled the silence.
"Hm?"
The serpent's eyes flickered. The rhythm had shifted again — his rhythm. Somehow, this child had turned control into a game and was now the one setting the pace.
"Heh…"
A quiet chuckle escaped Orochimaru's lips. Researcher's instinct won over irritation. Curiosity — that one thing stronger than even his lust for power — guided his steps.
He followed.
And the moment he entered, the world changed.
The air warped. The light dimmed.
Orochimaru froze.
Before him stood an impossible space — vast, spiraling upward like a cathedral of knowledge. Bookshelves towered several stories high, stretching endlessly in every direction. Scrolls and tomes lined the walls, gleaming faintly under soft, golden light.
A library. No — a vault of all knowledge.
"This…" Orochimaru whispered, eyes wide. "Could the rumors be true?"
He remembered hearing whispers when he had first arrived in the Land of Fields — that though it was a small nation, its daimyō possessed the greatest repository of knowledge in the entire shinobi world.
He had dismissed it as nonsense.
How could such a minor country, one with barely a standing army, claim to hold what even the daimyō of the Land of Fire could not?
And yet… here it was.
The impossible, made real.
A grin spread across Orochimaru's face — slow, serpentine, delighted. His tongue flicked out as his eyes glittered with dangerous fascination.
"This," he breathed, "is magnificent."
He drifted toward one of the shelves, fingertips brushing across the spines of countless scrolls and books. Symbols shimmered faintly beneath his touch.
"Space-time ninjutsu?" he asked, his tone half-question, half-certainty. "That's the only way such a place could exist unseen."
"Something like that," Nobunaga replied, exhaling softly, tension leaving his shoulders.
It worked.
He had the serpent's full attention now.
And in a world where words could weave illusions stronger than jutsu, Oda Nobunaga — the boy daimyō with a mind from another world — had just proven that even the wildest lies could become truth…
…so long as one spoke them like prophecy.
Nobunaga gazed around the vast library with quiet pride.
At last — at long last — he had done something worthy of the title "transmigrator."
He had arrived in this strange shinobi world with no divine system, no "golden finger," no mentor whispering secrets from beyond. But that didn't mean he was powerless. In the right conditions, his gift was something far greater — something that defied reason itself.
He called it "Forging Lies into Truth."
A name he had given his power after months of careful testing, failures, and near-discoveries.
In simple terms: any lie he spoke could become reality — so long as enough people believed it.
But, of course, not every lie would take root in the soil of the world.
For instance, if he declared, "I am as strong as Senju Hashirama — no, even stronger!"
That lie would crumble immediately.
Why? Because no one in their right mind would believe it.
A ten-year-old daimyō, barely tall enough to mount his horse, claiming to surpass the God of Shinobi? Ridiculous. It broke the world's logic.
After all, to the people of this land, daimyō were not paragons of strength. They were parasites of privilege — noble in name, soft in body, and utterly powerless.
But a daimyō known for valuing knowledge, one who kept a vast collection of books and scrolls within his estate?
Now that was believable.
It fit perfectly within the collective imagination of the world. A wealthy ruler with eccentric scholarly tastes — such a man could exist anywhere.
And so, the moment Nobunaga whispered the rumor — "The daimyō of the Land of Fields possesses a secret library of endless knowledge" — it spread like wildfire.
Whispers turned into tales. Tales became belief.
And when belief reached its tipping point, the lie solidified — becoming true.
That was how this impossible library had come to exist.
The same principle applied to his first and most important lie:
"Ninjas cannot easily strike down a daimyō."
It was already a half-truth — a long-standing unspoken rule of the world. All he had done was reinforce it. With enough conviction, even Orochimaru's blade would hesitate.
From the moment his soul fused with that of the young lord, Nobunaga had tested his power again and again — planting rumors, observing reactions, adjusting his phrasing.
Months later, the results were undeniable.
This magnificent study — this temple of false truth — and Orochimaru's repeated restraint were both born of the same power: Forged Lies that became Real.
And someday — perhaps sooner than anyone imagined — when the world began to speak of "Oda Nobunaga, mightier than the God of Shinobi himself,"
that too would cease to be a lie.
At that point, Forging Lies into Truth would transcend its name. It would become "Words of Gold and Jade" — a voice whose every utterance could shape reality itself.
But that was for the future.
For now, Nobunaga's immediate concern was keeping Orochimaru's serpentine curiosity bound in awe and intrigue.
He began walking deeper into the library, the golden light glinting off the rows of tomes.
"Come," he said quietly, his tone smooth and commanding. "Allow me to show you the truth of the world."
And as the echo of his words rippled through the space, even the air seemed to hum — as if reality itself waited, ready to believe him once more.
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