Orochimaru stood alone in the dim laboratory, surrounded by glass tanks, stasis pods, and the quiet hum of machines he'd built from scratch. He had always chased the hidden workings of the world. He wanted to peel back its skin, see what lay underneath, and refuse the finality of death. Immortality wasn't a dream to him. It was a destination he was willing to crawl toward even if the path was lined with blood.
Yet even with that hunger burning inside him, the shadow of Naruto Uzumaki... Seventh Hokage, Jinchuriki of Nine tails... still lingered in the back of his mind. And Sasuke… his own former student, the wandering blade who put nations in stand still in fear. Orochimaru knew he would never eclipse either of them. It wasn't fear that kept him cautious. It was realism.
Naruto had let him live. That alone still amused him. But the mercy came with strings. His hideout was watched. ANBU rotated shifts outside the outer perimeter of his hideout. Every purchase of lab equipment was logged. Every sample request flagged. Naruto hadn't said it directly, but Orochimaru understood. He was free only as long as he behaved and caused no harm.
A quiet set of footsteps echoed through the room. Log, the older clone... one of Orochimaru's more stable creations... stepped inside. Pale skin, calm face, and that quiet, almost clinically detached voice.
"It seems surveillance has increased again," Log said. "Konoha wants to be sure you aren't creating anything… questionable."
Orochimaru let out a soft laugh. "Questionable. That's a gentle way to put it."
"They're watching you thoroughly after you recreated forbidden life... me."
"Considering my history, can you blame them?"
Log gave no reaction. He never did. He wasn't emotionless, but his emotional palette was minimal, dulled by the way Orochimaru had shaped his mind. He was perfect in a scientific sense, but hollow in a human one.
Orochimaru turned back to his workstation. Strange green liquid swirled inside a glass tube. The formula shimmered with chakra threads that defied standard medical logic.
Log stepped closer. "How is your project to return to your past self progressing?"
Orochimaru's smile curled upward. "Are you interested?"
"Not particularly."
"Good. Curiosity can be a burden." Orochimaru tapped the glass. "It's almost finished. A fascinating thing, rewriting your own existence. Forget temporal travel with machines or bijuu-scale chakra. None of that works. Time is stubborn. It does not let you walk through it. But consciousness… consciousness can slips through cracks. probably. I don't know... I never tried."
He gestured lazily.
"My soul will travel the time fabric, embedding itself into my past self at a fixed moment. I admit, I wish I hadn't destroyed my original body, but regrets are useless. What matters is the possibility."
Log watched him wordlessly, waiting.
"Log," Orochimaru said, tone unexpectedly soft, "you are my son. Artificial or not, you are my creation. You don't need to stay here anymore. Live the life you want. I release you."
That stunned Log more than any experiment ever had. "You… release me?"
"Yes. You were never meant to be chained. Though, you chained yourself here. I have been waiting for the day... you would escape of your own will."
Orochimaru lifted the tube and drank the swirling green liquid in one motion. It slid down his throat like cold fire. His body trembled. His pulse spiked. And then—
A pale, luminous silhouette peeled away from his body, drifting upward like smoke. His consciousness separated, untethered.
"Ah," Orochimaru whispered as he watched his own body slump forward. "What a familiar feeling."
Dan Kato's Spirit Transformation technique had always intrigued him. He had studied it, twisted it, perfected it. Now he was using it for something far bolder.
"Tsunade will kill me if she finds out I played with Dan's body," he muttered with faint amusement.
His spectral form wove hand signs with practiced fluidity.
Ram. Tiger. Boar. Rat. Monkey.
Jikan-Rin'in no Jutsu
Everything went black.
--
When he opened his eyes again, smoke filled the air. Explosions rattled stone walls. He tasted dust and sensed a familiar chakra signature. And there, in front of him, an elderly man with a white beard stood ready with his staff transformed into the monkey king Enma.
Hiruzen Sarutobi. The Third Hokage.
Orochimaru blinked once, taking in the scene. His arms still attached. His body younger. His snakeskin mantle still intact. The sensation of chakra in his ten fingers was almost nostalgic.
"Hiruzen-sensei…" Orochimaru whispered, clutching the side of his head as memories... his memories... flooded backwards and forwards all at once. The past he lived, the future he had seen, the experiments he performed, Naruto's mercy, the constant surveillance… it all crashed into him. "Fascinating… it worked."
Hiruzen narrowed his eyes. "What are you mumbling about?"
"Ah," Orochimaru exhaled a laugh. This is the moment. The battle where I will lose my arms. The turning point that ruined so many of my plans.
The two reanimated figures stood behind him, bound to his will. Hashirama Senju and Tobirama Senju... though pale and incomplete, lacking the full vitality Kabuto would later perfect. Their bodies strained, chakra flickering.
Hiruzen raised his staff. "Have you lost your mind, Orochimaru?"
"Possibly," Orochimaru said. "Or perhaps I've finally gained clarity."
He stepped closer to the First and Second Hokage, studying them with a scientist's fascination. The way their bodies regenerated though they were flimsy he had already perfected the technique in the future. The way pain flickered across their faces but left no lasting harm. They endured. They continued. They existed in a state beyond mortality.
"No food. No sleep. No suffering. No decay," he murmured. "Full consciousness. Endless regeneration."
"Orochimaru!" Hiruzen barked. "I will not tolerate this mockery!"
But Orochimaru wasn't listening.
The idea struck him with such force that he froze. It was absurd in scale. It was horrifying. It was… elegant.
Here's the thing about Orochimaru: once an idea rooted itself in his mind, it grew like a parasite.
He turned slowly, eyes bright with revelation.
"That's it," he whispered. "I'll use Edo Tensei on the entire world."
Hiruzen flinched. "What?"
"Civilians. Shinobi. Newborns. Elders. Kage. Missing-nin. Everyone." Orochimaru spread his arms, as though envisioning a world-sized map. "A world without death. No pain. No loss. No hatred stemming from grief. Humans cling to cruelty because they fear the unknown. Remove death… and you remove despair."
Hiruzen looked horrified. "You speak madness."
"Do I?" Orochimaru stepped closer. He has seen the future. Even when Naruto becomes Hokage... even when he earns peace... conflict returns. Wars will rise again as long as humans cling to their fragile bodies. If the world truly wanted peace, they should have advanced beyond the shinobi system. They should have embraced progress, technology, intellect. Instead? They cling to chakra and fighting. Even in modern times, ninja still exist.
"Orochimaru…" Hiruzen's voice dropped. "You intend to rob every living soul of their freedom."
"I intend to free them from fear," Orochimaru said sharply. "Isn't that what your Will of Fire aimed for? To protect the village, to protect the next generation? I simply want to protect everyone. Forever."
Hiruzen launched forward with a sudden burst of speed. Enma's staff swung toward Orochimaru's ribs. Orochimaru leapt back, letting the blow crash into the wall.
The reanimations responded automatically. Tobirama sprinted ahead, delivering a swift punch. Hiruzen dodged it by a hair, countering with a staff strike that rammed into Hashirama's stomach. Hashirama bent slightly then straightened, unbothered, as his body regenerated.
"You see?" Orochimaru called over the clash. "They cannot die. They are perfect. Imagine a world full of such beings. Though they will have their own will."
"Nonsense... There will be no growth with no change," Hiruzen snapped.
"No conflict as well," Orochimaru replied. "It will be a world liberated from suffering."
The fight intensified. Tobirama's speed forced Hiruzen to constantly shift positions. Hashirama's raw strength cornered him. Orochimaru watched with a strange mix of nostalgia and anticipation.
"Sensei," Orochimaru said quietly, "you once told me I had the potential to save the world. Maybe you weren't wrong. Maybe you simply failed to understand the method."
"You've gone too far," Hiruzen said through clenched teeth.
Orochimaru tilted his head. "No. Not far enough."
The rooftop cracked under the force of the ongoing exchange. Dust and chakra sparks filled the air. Hiruzen's breathing grew labored.
Orochimaru felt strangely calm. He had already accepted what came next. He knew this battle. He knew its outcome. He knew the price.
But now that he had returned to this era, with knowledge of what was coming, the possibilities were endless. He can take over the Sasuke's body with his arms unsealed. He had a new idea.
Edo Tensei. Worldwide.
A grotesque dream. A godlike ambition.
And yet, in his mind, strangely logical.
"Sensei…" Orochimaru whispered, "let's finish this once it for all."
Hiruzen steadied his stance, Enma tightening his grip.
"Orochimaru," he said, voice steady, "I will end this. Even if it costs me my life."
Orochimaru smiled thinly.
"That's what I always admired about you."
The battle surged forward again, their ideologies clashing as fiercely as their jutsu. And in the chaos of the rooftop, with dust swirling, with the reanimated Hokage pressing forward, Orochimaru felt something he hadn't in years.
Purpose. A New one.
--
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