Drip…
Drip…
Drip…
The sound of dripping water echoed through the dim corridor, making Hyuga Kagami instinctively pull his robe tighter around himself.
He hated this place.
The pitch-black passage ahead seemed to lead straight to hell, always stirring up all sorts of unpleasant associations in his mind.
But the one-eyed viper perched on his shoulder had made him abandon any thought of turning back and leaving.
Sometimes, you just don’t have a choice!
When he reached the end of the corridor, Hyuga Kagami pushed open the door.
Beyond it was a fully equipped laboratory, with a lone figure standing inside.
The figure turned around.
“Oh, it’s you, Kagami-kun.”
Hearing that hoarse voice, Hyuga Kagami’s heart trembled.
He hurriedly lowered his head.
“Lord Orochimaru!”
Orochimaru gazed thoughtfully at Hyuga Kagami.
After a long while, he finally said, “This laboratory will belong to you from now on.”
Feeling Orochimaru’s tangible gaze upon him, Hyuga Kagami didn’t dare let his imagination run wild.
He quickly bowed and replied, “Please rest assured, my lord.
I’ll work even harder!”
Orochimaru shifted his gaze away and slowly surveyed the laboratory.
Surprisingly, a trace of melancholy appeared in his eyes.
“I may be leaving the village soon.
As for the materials you’ll need in the future, you’ll have to find a way to obtain them yourself.”
“Yes!”
Hyuga Kagami obediently nodded in acknowledgment as usual, without the slightest hesitation.
Meanwhile, the one-eyed viper perched on his shoulder lazily flicked its scarlet tongue.
After giving Hyuga Kagami one final glance, Orochimaru said nothing more and simply disappeared with the Body Flicker Technique.
With Orochimaru’s departure, the immense and sinister chakra that had filled the laboratory gradually faded away.
“Phew…”
Hyuga Kagami quietly let out a sigh of relief.
Recently, Orochimaru’s aura had been growing increasingly cold and menacing, almost as though it carried the scent of blood.
Even when Hyuga Kagami merely reported the progress of his experiments from a distance, he still felt extremely uncomfortable in Orochimaru’s presence.
Fortunately, it seemed those difficult days were finally coming to an end.
But after giving it another thought, Hyuga Kagami couldn’t help feeling somewhat puzzled.
According to his vague memories from his previous life, Orochimaru’s secret laboratory was supposed to have been raided by the Third Hokage and his men.
Caught red-handed, Orochimaru had been forced to defect from the village.
But judging from Orochimaru’s behavior just now, it seemed he had already made preparations to defect and could make his move at any moment.
“Just what changed that caused Orochimaru to defect of his own accord?
Could it have something to do with me?”
Hyuga Kagami carefully went over everything that had happened in the past, but still couldn’t figure out the reason.
In any case, Orochimaru’s defection was ultimately a good thing for him.
As for whether Orochimaru left voluntarily or was forced to flee, there was little point in digging deeper into it.
Hyuga Kagami’s feelings toward Orochimaru were complicated.
If it hadn’t been for Orochimaru’s protection, Hyuga Kagami knew he would never have made it through the war so easily.
After all, seven or eight out of every ten students from his class had already died on the battlefield.
Even a genius like Kakashi had nearly lost his life in battle, while back during their sparring matches at the Academy, Hyuga Kagami hadn’t even been able to withstand a single move from him.
In this world, being weak was a sin in itself!
It had already been more than ten years since he transmigrated into this world, yet even now, Hyuga Kagami still found it difficult to adapt to this ninja world filled with killing.
This was also one of the reasons he had voluntarily sought refuge under Orochimaru.
When it came to talent for combat, he lagged far behind others his age.
Especially in life-or-death situations where a split second could determine everything, his reactions were always a little slower than everyone else’s.
Sometimes, he truly admired the ninjas of this world.
They often possessed the ability to kill by the age of six or seven, and going to the battlefield at around ten years old was considered perfectly normal.
There were even extreme cases like Kakashi, who had already become a jonin by the age of twelve after killing countless enemies.
Hyuga Kagami simply didn’t possess that kind of talent.
Fortunately, he had been born into the Hyuga Clan and naturally possessed the Byakugan.
With the Byakugan’s help, he had managed to escape death on the battlefield several times.
But luck would not favor him forever.
As he watched his classmates die in battle one after another, Hyuga Kagami resolutely chose to place himself under Orochimaru’s protection.
First, he had to survive.
Staying alive was more important than anything else!
That wasn’t to say Hyuga Kagami had no advantages of his own.
Thanks to the solid education he had received in his previous life, his ability to comprehend and learn things far surpassed that of other ninjas his age.
Combined with the natural advantage provided by the Byakugan, he quickly distinguished himself in Orochimaru’s laboratory, becoming one of Orochimaru’s more important research assistants.
In the process, he learned a great deal about genetic technology from Orochimaru.
Perhaps because he had witnessed far too much death, by the later stages of the war, Orochimaru had become utterly obsessed with uncovering the mysteries of life.
The clearest sign of this was that Orochimaru no longer concerned himself with the Third Hokage’s disapproval, nor did he continue adhering to what little moral restraint he had possessed in the first place.
He began conducting large numbers of cruel and bloody human experiments.
Along with this, Orochimaru also developed a strong interest in kekkei genkai such as Wood Release, the Byakugan, and the Sharingan.
Hyuga Kagami’s decision to voluntarily join him gave Orochimaru a much easier opportunity to study the secrets of the Byakugan.
Because of this, Orochimaru had been fairly diligent when it came to teaching and guiding Hyuga Kagami.
Their interests aligned perfectly, which was what had led to the scene just now.
Of course, another reason Hyuga Kagami dared to place himself under Orochimaru was because he knew that before long, Orochimaru’s attention would be drawn toward the village’s forbidden techniques, such as the Impure World Reincarnation and the Eight Branches Technique.
On top of that, Hyuga Kagami was protected by the Caged Bird Seal, so he wasn’t particularly worried that Orochimaru would directly use him as a human test subject.
That was right.
For the current Hyuga Kagami, the Caged Bird Seal truly was a form of protection.
Or, to be more precise, for all the weaker members of the Hyuga Clan who were merely struggling to survive, the Caged Bird Seal was not simply a shackle—it was also a form of protection.
Because of its existence, members of the Hyuga Branch Family were spared from much of the covetous attention directed at the Byakugan, both from within and outside the village.
As for the other reason Hyuga Kagami had chosen to join Orochimaru, it was the Tenseigan!
With Hyuga Kagami’s mediocre talent, aside from obtaining the Tenseigan, he truly couldn’t think of any other way to turn his fate around and take control of his own destiny.
As for senjutsu, even Orochimaru had difficulty mastering it, so there was even less need to mention someone like him.
In fact, forget someone of Hyuga Kagami’s mediocre talent.
Even Hyuga Neji, the genius of the Hyuga Clan from his memories of his previous life, had ultimately been little more than a sidelined character throughout the story, only to die an inexplicable and tragic death in the end.
The Byakugan indeed gave the Hyuga Clan an unparalleled advantage at the genin, chunin, and even jonin levels.
However, once one reached the Kage level—or even the level beyond Kage—the advantages of the Byakugan became far less pronounced.
For the Hyuga Clan, who specialized almost exclusively in the Gentle Fist, trying to rely solely on the Gentle Fist to contend against enemies wielding powers such as the Susanoo, jinchuriki abilities, or the Sage Body was simply asking too much of them.
Therefore, the Tenseigan could practically be considered the Hyuga Clan’s only hope of stepping onto a battlefield beyond the Kage level.
This was also something Hyuga Kagami had never stopped thinking about ever since he first transmigrated into this world.
But evolving the Byakugan into the Tenseigan was easier said than done.
Hyuga Kagami possessed virtually no knowledge when it came to kekkei genkai.
Therefore, if he wanted to accomplish this goal, there was only one person in the entire village capable of helping him—
the research-obsessed Orochimaru…