Orochimaru arrived at an open space where several Root ninjas were already waiting. Standing in their midst was one of the Hidden Leaf Village elders, the man known as the Darkness of the Shinobi, Danzo Shimura.
"I didn't expect you to come in person this time."
Orochimaru spoke in a mocking tone as he looked at the old man surrounded by his guards.
Indeed, if others found out that an elder of the Hidden Leaf was privately meeting with an S-rank rogue ninja of the village, even Danzo would likely face immense public pressure.
However, Danzo remained completely indifferent. He held the entire Root organization in the palm of his hand; as its leader, it was perfectly normal for him to occasionally head out to execute classified missions.
Furthermore, Root's independence within the Leaf was already quite strong. Even Hiruzen would not question his movements, so absolutely no one would discover what he had done after leaving the village.
"There is no need for such pleasantries. Rather than such trivial matters, I care more about whether you have completed the task I assigned to you."
Orochimaru's gaze flickered over Danzo.
It was true that this high-level official of the Leaf had long shared various interests and connections with an S-rank rogue ninja like himself. Otherwise, Orochimaru would not have had so much funding to conduct his experiments.
Facing Danzo's inquiry, the corner of Orochimaru's mouth curled slightly. "I have naturally finished what you assigned. Where is the item I requested?"
Danzo sized up Orochimaru in return before speaking in a raspy voice. "The one hundred test subjects I promised are ready. The quality of the subjects is very high this time. I hope you make some progress; otherwise, it will be difficult for me to provide you with this many subjects in the future."
"As you know, Hiruzen has been watching Root very closely lately."
Hearing that long-lost name, Orochimaru suddenly let out a sneer. "As expected, my dear teacher is as stagnant and decaying as ever."
If Hiruzen Sarutobi's rotten ideals hadn't been so incompatible with his own, a former member of the Sannin like himself probably wouldn't have left the Leaf so early.
"Orochimaru, Hiruzen is still the Hokage of our Leaf. Watch your words."
Danzo suddenly tapped his cane, offering a cold reminder.
While he somewhat agreed with Orochimaru's viewpoint, Hiruzen was still the Hokage of the Leaf. A rogue ninja like Orochimaru was not qualified to judge him!
"Heh." Orochimaru licked his lips and mocked, "You truly are hypocritical."
He raised his hand, and a large snake slowly slithered out from the dark shadows of the passage behind him. It then opened its maw wide in front of Danzo.
The Root ninjas on either side of Danzo quickly stepped forward, ready to block any attack at a moment's notice.
However, Orochimaru did not pull any tricks at this time. After all, attacking Danzo now offered him no benefit and would only invite a frantic retaliation from the Leaf.
The brown python slowly opened its mouth in front of the Root ninjas, a strand of saliva stretching between its fangs. As the snake's body writhed, an arm wrapped in bandages was vomited out from its throat.
A flicker of excitement flashed almost imperceptibly across Danzo's aged face. He quickly signaled Tatsuma Aburame to take the arm.
After a series of inspections, Tatsuma Aburame confirmed it was safe and handed the arm to Danzo.
Looking at Danzo's expression, Orochimaru knew the man was quite satisfied with this result.
"I have followed your requirements and used Wood Style cells to create an arm, embedding ten Sharingan into it. I used the power of the Uchiha Clan to suppress the growth of the Wood Style cells, achieving a delicate balance."
Feeling the Wood Style power emanating from the arm, a satisfied look finally surfaced on Danzo's face.
With these Sharingan, he would be able to perform that forbidden jutsu of the Uchiha Clan.
However, he was an old fox. That excited expression lasted only a second before vanishing, replaced by a gloom as deep as an abyss.
"Well done. I will increase the funding Root provides to you. As for the Wood Style ninja experiments, they need to be completed as soon as possible."
Danzo's voice remained raspy, but it seemed to have improved slightly compared to the beginning.
Hearing about the increase in funding, a smile finally appeared on Orochimaru's face. "The difficulty of creating a Wood Style ninja is not small. I can only say I will do my best."
Danzo nodded. "We have invested so many resources into Wood Style. It is time we see some results."
With that, Danzo and the Root ninjas quickly vanished from the spot.
Orochimaru watched the direction Danzo had left, his eyes gradually narrowing as he thought of something.
Just then, a subordinate came over to report. "Lord Orochimaru, the one hundred test subjects provided by Danzo are in place."
"Mm."
Orochimaru turned and walked back into the base.
"In that case, let us continue with the Wood Style experiments."
"Yes."
For the following period, Orochimaru remained immersed in the Wood Style experiments. The results were no surprise.
Failure, failure, endless failure.
The cells from the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, were simply too aggressive. Once they entered another person's body, they would immediately begin to grow wildly and continuously erode the human host.
Orochimaru adopted numerous methods to suppress the growth of the Hashirama cells, but the results were negligible. The final fate of almost every test subject was being drained dry and killed by the cells.
Under such circumstances, simply keeping a test subject alive was a luxury, let alone having them master Wood Style.
Of course, after so much research, Orochimaru was not entirely without gains.
The arm he had crafted for Danzo was a major achievement and the only method Orochimaru had found so far that could somewhat suppress the Hashirama cells.
And that was the Sharingan.
When a Sharingan was present, the growth of Hashirama cells would be inhibited to a certain degree.
While he still couldn't control it perfectly, as long as it was combined with medication, it wouldn't result in the subject frantically growing into a giant tree.
Because of this, Orochimaru had hoped more than once that Danzo would get him a few test subjects from the Uchiha Clan.
Preferably ones with Three Tomoe.
Naturally, he was rejected by Danzo every time.
After all, Danzo's main goal in creating Wood Style ninjas was to check and balance the Uchiha Clan. Now you want to equip an Uchiha with Wood Style? What if the brainwashing on such a test subject failed and they turned around to deal with him?
Danzo would have to be insane to adopt Orochimaru's suggestion.
Furthermore, if they started training one from childhood, not only was the time cycle long, but there was no guarantee the raised Uchiha would actually awaken their eyes, or that the power of their Sharingan would be sufficient to withstand the erosion of the Hashirama cells.
Add to that the risk of being discovered by the Uchiha Clan—which would lead to a civil war in the Leaf—and the overall conclusion was that the losses outweighed the gains. Thus, Danzo vetoed it.
But Orochimaru hadn't vetoed the idea, because all he needed was a powerful enough body. It didn't matter which shinobi clan it came from.