Life has no meaning.
And things that never move have even less.
As one of Konoha's elite jōnin—the famed "Three Sannin" known across the great nations—Orochimaru had already proven himself in the Second Shinobi World War. Even if, in that clash with Hanzo of the Salamander, he, Jiraiya, and Tsunade hadn't gained any real advantage.
Still, to trade blows with a Kage-class powerhouse and hold your ground for a time… the world praised him. They said Orochimaru deserved the title of elite jōnin, that perhaps one day he could become Kage-class himself.
But the world was full of fools.
This world had far too many boring people.
Hardened by war, accustomed to death, Orochimaru felt himself growing numb—growing tired—slipping into a hollow emptiness where nothing interested him anymore.
"My heart is empty."
On some night, with deep purple eyeshadow smeared around his eyes and enemy corpses sprawled at his feet, he looked up at the moon. Under that pale light, his snake-like face filled with a deep, directionless confusion.
He knew he had to change.
If he didn't, the unchanging cycle of war and routine would dull him until he broke.
Conveniently, the war ended.
And the village—wanting to secure the Nine-Tails' inheritance—needed insurance. Something that could suppress the Kyūbi at any time, in case it ran wild—
Wood Release.
Orochimaru remembered it clearly: not long after Kushina inherited the Nine-Tails from Uzumaki Mito, his teacher, Sarutobi Hiruzen, came to him with a brutal mission—
Research the First Hokage's cells, and find someone who could withstand "the First's power" and successfully inherit Wood Release.
Wood Release. The First Hokage.
When those two words were placed in front of him, Orochimaru remembered how he trembled with excitement—
And then…
Something buried deep in his soul seemed to peel away, as if he'd been reborn.
"Leave it to me."
For the first time in a long while, Orochimaru felt alive. That very day, he swore to his teacher he would succeed.
But perhaps he was too arrogant.
Or perhaps the "God of Shinobi" was simply too monstrous.
Even though Hashirama Senju had been dead for years, the terrifying vitality hidden inside his cells turned every shinobi sample Hiruzen sent him into something else—
Monsters swallowed by Wood Release.
People stripped of reason.
Vegetative husks drained of their very marrow.
Naturally, after that disaster, the project was shut down.
Even when Orochimaru stubbornly insisted it wasn't his fault—that he simply needed more samples—he still couldn't overturn Hiruzen's decision.
And that drove him into fury… then confusion… then disappointment…
And finally, fear.
Fear of falling back into that old emptiness—being eaten by the vast void until not even dust remained.
Fortunately, Orochimaru wasn't the only one who hated "unchanging things."
Shimura Danzō also hated an unchanging Konoha—
Or rather… an unchanging Konoha under Hiruzen.
So the two failures found each other.
One wanted "Konoha"—Danzō's Konoha.
One wanted to escape the void and find meaning by continuing Wood Release research.
They struck it off instantly.
And so—
Human experimentation continued.
Today was another of Orochimaru's monthly runs to "find" Sharingan for Danzō.
This time, he widened his net.
He noticed a boy named Uchiha Ren.
They said he'd followed Fugaku to the battlefield and cut down dozens with a single blade—earning a real name for himself.
They said he'd "blown up" the academy—using a D-rank jutsu yet producing power comparable to a B-rank.
They said Danzō was watching him… but had quietly hidden every detail from Orochimaru.
Orochimaru, riding inside a white snake, flicked his tongue—
And instantly realized: this child might be different from other Uchiha.
So today, he watched.
The boy used techniques without hand signs as if they were nothing.
His space-time talent was absurd.
Even Namikaze Minato—who Danzō warned could become a rival—rarely showed open competitive spirit… yet Minato visibly wanted to test him.
But then, right at the most crucial moment—
Orochimaru's old teacher intervened.
You always ruin things at the worst time, Orochimaru thought coldly from the shadows, believing the day's harvest was already rich enough.
But then—
That small boy, Uchiha Ren, didn't just spit out words Orochimaru had wanted to scream for years…
He went bigger.
He did something impossible:
He mastered Wood Release on his own, without Hashirama's cells.
BOOM.
It hit Orochimaru like a thunderbolt from the crown of his head to the tip of his tail—splitting him clean in half.
So what did I spend all those years doing?
Orochimaru froze. His mind turned to sludge. And in an instant, life seemed to lose all meaning again—
That huge, familiar void he hated most surged up and swallowed him whole.
Shhh… shhh…
A snake body slid through Konoha's dark corners, through lush shrubs, up thick tree trunks—
Orochimaru didn't even know what he was doing anymore. He simply followed.
Then, at some point, he saw—
The boy returned to the Southern Forest, suddenly stopped, and said without turning around:
"You've been following me long enough. At least let someone breathe."
"Isn't that right, Orochimaru-sama?"
A sharp gaze cut back.
Orochimaru rose upright in his white snake form, tail braced against the trunk, and smiled darkly.
"You noticed me a long time ago. So why didn't you expose me immediately?"
This tailing hadn't started just now.
From the moment Roy had appeared at the training ground with that log on his shoulder, Orochimaru had already begun.
If the boy could detect him now, Orochimaru was certain he'd detected him then as well.
"Two reasons," Roy said calmly, turning to face him. "One: you had no killing intent. Two: I wanted to see what the legendary Sannin was doing."
"Heh heh heh…" The snake's hiss was wet and shadowy. Orochimaru's slit pupils gleamed as he stared down at the boy. "So? Did you see it?"
"I did," Roy said, sounding disappointed. "Just a man with no heart—some pitiful voyeur who doesn't even know what he's doing."
Roy looked at the white snake, and across time, he almost saw Orochimaru's future self—wandering Konoha, working odd jobs, eating ramen with his fingers, shouting nonsense at the Hokage tower like he'd finally lost every last restraint.
The irony was suffocating.
"Pitiful?" Orochimaru arched a brow, meeting Roy's rippling, knowing eyes. "You seem to understand me."
Strange—Roy's gaze carried a familiarity that shouldn't exist.
And yet Orochimaru was sure this was their first meeting.
Roy kept both hands in his pockets and shook his head. "I don't 'understand' you. If you don't tell me, I don't know."
"You want me to tell you?" Orochimaru frowned.
Roy's meaning sharpened as he pointed at the snake's vital point. "Yeah. 'It' already told me."
Orochimaru reflexively glanced down—
Right where his heart beat.
Thump… thump…
He could practically see his own heart expanding and contracting.
He lifted his head—
And—
"Gah-oh!"
A crow cried.
His vision snapped to black.
No directions. No sky. No ground.
Only the faint shhh… shhh… of something crawling.
Then a heart-worm surged in along the thread of causality, and before Orochimaru could react, it drove its mouthpart in—
And a black-haired boy—three parts like Fugaku, seven parts like Mikoto—stepped into his heart as casually as if walking into a room.
Rustle…
Memories opened.
Orochimaru's life unspooled like film—his childhood with Jiraiya and Tsunade under Hiruzen, his first kill on the battlefield and vomiting against a wall in humiliation, his rise to jōnin, the glory of being named one of the Sannin…
And the numbness.
The empty void.
The cold experiments.
The hatred of being stopped.
The secret cooperation with Danzō.
The slow rot behind a polished mask.
Roy watched it all—no privacy left. Orochimaru stood beside him on the "ridge" of his heart and asked, voice tight:
"What jutsu is this?"
No chakra pulse. Not genjutsu.
No sensation of the mind being swapped like the Yamanaka.
But he couldn't resist—he could only watch as the boy strolled through his life, taking whatever he wanted.
The feeling was like being stripped naked in public.
A terror no less crushing than the void itself.
"You think I'd tell you?" Roy said coolly, not even glancing at him. "You can spy on me, so I can spy on you."
"Orochimaru-sama—this is my answer."
"Heh heh heh…"
A violent surge of chakra detonated.
His heartscape collapsed—sky cracking, earth folding—everything falling apart.
Roy finally looked over. "I didn't think you'd be this ruthless."
"You saw it," Orochimaru's voice echoed, harsh and cold. "To me, people can die. Summons can die too."
The heart shattered. Consciousness snapped back.
The heart-worm fled, whining—Roy caught it in one hand.
On the branch above, the white snake sagged like a rope and slipped off the trunk.
Thud.
Dead. Completely dead.
Roy stared in silence.
He truly hadn't expected Orochimaru to "solve" it by killing his own body to break free of the intrusion.
As expected of a man crowned by Hanzo—
No Sannin was someone you could treat lightly.
Roy exhaled, turned, and headed back toward the training ground near the Uchiha district.
Shisui and Itachi were waiting for inspection.
As the older brother, he couldn't let them down.
He cleared the cluttered thoughts, became sunlight, and vanished in a flicker—
…
"Haah… haah… what a disgusting kid…"
Deep under Konoha, in a hidden laboratory—
A snake crawled through the darkness.
Shhh… shhh…
In the dim light, it lifted its head—
Then opened its jaws and spat out a slender man.
Straight black hair. Golden slit pupils. Purple eyeshadow stretched to his nose. Skin pale as paper. Magatama earrings.
Soaked and breathing hard, he stood up and immediately began packing his research materials and data.
At the same time, he summoned a messenger snake and sent it off—
Retreating.
Fast.
Less than half an hour later—
Tap… tap… tap…
A cane struck the floor in the corridor outside the lab, slow and heavy.
The sound grew closer.
Then—
Creaaak.
The door opened.
Two men entered—both not tall, both deeply sinister.
The one behind carried a sword and wore a visor: Aburame Torune.
The one in front had bandages from arm to right eye, leaving only one narrow, cold gaze.
Shimura Danzō.
He looked at the emptied lab and said dangerously:
"You sent word you're leaving Konoha."
"What do you mean?"
Danzō's single eye narrowed.
Orochimaru didn't bother lying.
He turned, eyes like knives, and spoke four words:
"I've been exposed."
Danzō's voice dropped.
"By who?"
Orochimaru's slit pupils gleamed.
"Uchiha Ren."
~~~
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