Drip… drip… drip…
The sound of water echoing through the darkness made Hyuga Kagami instinctively pull his robe tighter around himself.
He hated this place.
The pitch-black corridor ahead felt like a direct path to hell, always stirring unpleasant thoughts in his mind. If not for the One-Eyed Viper coiled lazily around his shoulder, he might have already turned back.
He didn't have that freedom anymore.
Reaching the end of the passage, Hyuga Kagami pushed open the heavy door. Inside was a fully equipped laboratory, with a lone figure standing quietly within.
The figure turned around.
"Kagami-kun."
That hoarse, serpentine voice made Hyuga Kagami's heart jolt. He immediately lowered his head.
"Lord Orochimaru!"
Orochimaru studied him in silence for a long moment before finally speaking.
"This laboratory will belong to you from now on."
Feeling Orochimaru's gaze like a tangible pressure, Hyuga Kagami didn't dare let his thoughts wander. He quickly bowed deeply.
"Please rest assured. I'll work even harder!"
Orochimaru looked away, his eyes sweeping across the laboratory. A faint trace of melancholy flickered through his gaze.
"I may be leaving the village soon. From now on, you'll have to obtain your own experimental materials."
"Yes!"
Hyuga Kagami nodded without the slightest hesitation. On his shoulder, the One-Eyed Viper lazily flicked its crimson tongue.
After giving him one last glance, Orochimaru said nothing more and vanished in a flash, using the Body Flicker Jutsu.
As Orochimaru departed, the oppressive, chilling chakra that had filled the laboratory slowly dissipated.
"…Phew."
Hyuga Kagami finally let out a quiet sigh of relief.
Lately, Orochimaru's presence had grown colder and sharper, as if it carried the scent of blood. Even when reporting experimental progress from a distance, Kagami had felt an unshakable sense of unease.
Fortunately, those days seemed to be coming to an end.
Yet, as he thought about it more carefully, confusion crept into his mind.
Based on his vague memories from his previous life, Orochimaru was supposed to be exposed when the Third Hokage led a team to raid his secret laboratory, forcing him to defect. But Orochimaru's behavior just now clearly showed that he had already prepared for defection and could leave at any moment.
"Where did things go wrong? Why did Orochimaru defect on his own initiative? …Was it because of me?"
After reviewing everything repeatedly, Hyuga Kagami still couldn't find an answer. In any case, Orochimaru's defection was ultimately a good thing for him. Whether it was voluntary or forced made little difference.
His feelings toward Orochimaru were complicated.
Without Orochimaru's protection, Kagami knew he would never have survived the war so easily. Seven or eight out of ten of his classmates had already died on the battlefield.
Even a prodigy like Kakashi had nearly lost his life in battle. During academy sparring, Kagami couldn't even withstand a single move from him.
In this world, weakness was the original sin.
More than ten years had passed since his transmigration, yet even now, Hyuga Kagami struggled to adapt to this ninja world soaked in blood and death. That was one of the reasons he had主动 sought refuge under Orochimaru. In terms of combat talent, he lagged far behind his peers—especially in life-or-death situations, where his reactions were always just a step too slow.
At times, he genuinely admired the shinobi of this world. Many could kill by the age of six or seven, and being sent to the battlefield around ten was considered normal. Someone like Kakashi had already become a Jonin who had slain countless enemies by the age of twelve.
Hyuga Kagami didn't possess that kind of talent.
Fortunately, he had been born into the Hyuga Clan and naturally awakened the Byakugan. Relying on its power, he had narrowly survived several deadly encounters on the battlefield.
But luck wouldn't always be on his side.
Watching his classmates fall one by one, Hyuga Kagami made the resolute decision to seek Orochimaru's protection.
He had to survive first. Survival was everything.
Hyuga Kagami wasn't without advantages of his own. Thanks to the education from his previous life, his comprehension far surpassed that of most shinobi his age. Combined with the natural edge of the Byakugan, he quickly distinguished himself in Orochimaru's laboratory, becoming a relatively important research assistant and learning many genetic techniques from Orochimaru.
Perhaps after witnessing too much death, Orochimaru in the later stages of the war became obsessed with unraveling the mysteries of life itself.
The most obvious result of this obsession was that he stopped caring about the Third Hokage altogether. His already tenuous moral boundaries collapsed completely, and he began conducting large-scale, brutal human experiments.
At the same time, Orochimaru developed an intense interest in bloodline limits such as Wood Release, the Byakugan, and the Sharingan.
Hyuga Kagami's voluntary allegiance allowed Orochimaru to study the Byakugan more conveniently, so Orochimaru spared no effort in guiding him.
Their interests aligned perfectly, leading to the situation just now.
Of course, another reason Kagami dared to rely on Orochimaru was because he knew that, before long, Orochimaru's focus would shift toward forbidden techniques within the village—such as Edo Tensei and the Eight Branches Technique. Furthermore, with the protection of the Caged Bird Seal, Kagami wasn't worried about becoming a direct subject of Orochimaru's experiments.
In fact, the Caged Bird Seal truly served as protection for Hyuga Kagami at this stage.
Or rather, for all the weaker members of the Hyuga Clan struggling to survive, the Caged Bird Seal was less a shackle and more a shield. Because of its existence, branch family members were spared much of the covetous attention from both inside and outside the village.
As for the other reason he sought Orochimaru's protection—
It was the Tenseigan.
With his mediocre talent, Hyuga Kagami couldn't think of any other way to change his fate and seize control of his own destiny.
As for Senjutsu, even Orochimaru found it difficult to master—there was no way Kagami could hope to succeed.
In truth, even geniuses weren't spared. In Kagami's memories from his previous life, Hyuga Neji—the most talented member of the clan—was a tragic figure, sidelined throughout his life and ultimately dying in an incomprehensible way.
The Byakugan gave the Hyuga Clan an overwhelming advantage at the Genin, Chunin, and even Jonin levels.
But once combat escalated to the Kage level—or even beyond—the Byakugan's edge diminished sharply. For a clan that specialized in the Gentle Fist, trying to contend with enemies wielding Susanoo, Jinchūriki power, or Sage bodies using Gentle Fist alone was simply unrealistic.
Thus, the Tenseigan was almost the only hope for the Hyuga Clan to stand on the battlefield of super–Kage-level combat.
This was something Hyuga Kagami had been fixated on since the moment he transmigrated.
Yet evolving the Byakugan into the Tenseigan was far easier said than done. Kagami knew almost nothing about bloodline limits, and to pursue that goal, there was only one person in the entire village who could help him—
The research-obsessed Orochimaru.