It appears... I require something new to advance further in the study of Horcruxes.
Orochimaru sat motionless in the bloodstained chair, the stench of iron heavy in the room. Corpses lay open on the tables around him, stripped and dissected, dissecting nothing but silence. Their presence no longer meant anything.
He barely spared them a glance as he resumed his thoughts.
"Impure World Reincarnation," a jutsu that forcibly drags souls from the Pure Land. It uses a living sacrifice, rewrites their DNA to mimic the original host, and seals the summoned soul into that body. The result? A shell animated by something unnatural, something borrowed.
What intrigued him more was that the chakra signature of the summoned remained identical to the original shinobi. After all, Madara was able to sense Hashirama. That suggested the soul, untouched and unchanged, was truly being retrieved from the Pure Land.
A compelling observation.
If souls exist in the Pure Land and can be pulled back without degradation, then perhaps the Pure Land itself is not a final destination but simply a holding space. A realm with its own laws and chakra interactions.
Chakra itself is a fusion of spiritual and physical energy. Every person's mind and body are unique. Therefore, every chakra signature is distinct. So then, if chakra is restored in these summoned vessels, where is the energy coming from?
The bodies used in the summoning—sacrifices—do not possess that vast chakra pool.
And yet, the reanimated continue to fight indefinitely, their chakra never depleting.
Is it possible, Orochimaru mused, that the soul remains tethered to the Pure Land during the summoning, drawing energy from that dimension unconsciously? Or could it be that the sacrifice's life force acts as a stabiliser, a passive fuel source for this unnatural chakra regeneration?
Still, there are other concerns.
Why is it that the reanimated don't feel pain? Is it simply the absence of nerves? Or is the connection between soul and vessel too shallow, too imperfect, to fully simulate a living experience?
Are they truly alive?
If being alive merely means "not dead," then what qualifies as death? The loss of a physical body? A severed soul-body link?
But in reanimation, neither the body nor the soul is destroyed. They are merely separated, then re-bound through artificial means. If Orochimaru changes vessels and remains himself, alive and whole, then why are the reanimated considered "dead"?
What is the difference between that version of me and them?
He tapped his fingers against the blood-slick table, eyes narrowing.
The summoned originate from the Pure Land. That alone may limit their potential, their awareness, their senses. Perhaps the Pure Land suppresses something essential. Or maybe the summoning process blocks the full spectrum of sensory input.
"Could it be… they do feel pain, but their minds cannot register it?"
Orochimaru let out a quiet sigh and took a sip of water from the table beside him.
"It seems I can't rely on theory alone," he murmured. "I need to see the jutsu in action. Observe it directly."
His thoughts turned to Danzo. That man definitely has access to the Impure World Reincarnation technique.
"But getting it from him won't be easy, unless I offer him something of value."
He tapped the table thoughtfully. "Perhaps a prosthetic arm infused with Hashirama's cells. That should entice him."
A faint smirk crept onto his lips as a memory surfaced. In the original timeline, Danzo did possess such an arm, embedded with multiple Sharingan, sustained by the vitality of Hashirama's cells. It was likely his own handiwork.
And if that weren't enough, recreating someone like Yamato would be my next move.
But as the thought settled, Orochimaru's expression shifted. The smirk faded into something more neutral. These memories from my previous life… They were a double-edged sword. On one hand, they gifted him knowledge—an advantage no one else possessed. On the other, they clouded his judgment.
"I've been treating this world like it plays by the same rules," he muttered. "That's a mistake."
Just because something functioned a certain way in another world didn't guarantee the same results here. Even when two worlds shared similar concepts—like chakra, life, or even the human form—their foundations could differ in invisible but critical ways.
Externally, humans across worlds may seem alike, but internally? Cell structure, energy flow, genetic coding—subtle differences could cascade into catastrophic failure. Even Saeko, despite being 'human,' had something in her biology that didn't perfectly match what he understood.
More dangerously, he had made assumptions about souls, believing they followed the same rules in every world. But what if they didn't?
"No," Orochimaru thought coldly. "That kind of thinking is reckless. What works in one world might corrupt or destroy in another."
Knowledge was power, yes. But in his hands, it needed to be handled like an unstable compound. With precision. With caution.
With respect for the unknown.
Yet, his pursuit of immortality hadn't waned. In fact, it had only intensified.
His mind swirled with ideas, recalling countless methods from the fictional worlds he once consumed as entertainment…
The gacha might one day hand him a perfect solution, but he had no intention of leaving everything to luck.
No. He would continue his pursuit relentlessly, system or not.
Even the Living Corpse Reincarnation technique remained on his list. It had its flaws, undeniably. The degradation of the host body, time limits, soul instability. But to Orochimaru, flaws were merely problems that hadn't yet been solved.
"With the right modifications, perhaps even that method can be perfected," he mused.
Especially since that version of Orochimaru had solved it using a Zetsu body.
After all, there was no such thing as a forbidden path. Only unexplored territory.
"Though I wonder how did senju tobirama made that jutsu"
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