In a room filled with the pungent smell of disinfectant, Tayuya, Jirobo, and Kidomaru, who had already recovered, knelt before Orochimaru.
"Orochimaru-sama..."
Tayuya seemed to be hesitant to speak, a behavior she had repeated many times over the past two days.
"Speak. What has Naruto-kun done this time?"
Orochimaru remained fully focused on his experiment. His current cloned body was nearing its limit, but fortunately, the new 'vessel' he had created using Hidan's immortal body was almost ready.
"He... ate all of our food reserves."
"...Is that all? It's fine. Just send someone to buy more."
Orochimaru didn't seem surprised at all by Naruto's actions.
On his first day on the island, Naruto had released a large number of prisoners, including a rare user of the Hydrification Technique.
But Orochimaru hadn't bothered to confront him about it.
On one hand, Orochimaru himself considered those prisoners expendable, and losing a few didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
On the other hand, was there anyone in this base, including his current clone, who could actually stop Naruto?
To put it bluntly, even if Orochimaru's main body were on the island, Naruto would likely still act as recklessly as he pleased. Eating some food was nothing in comparison.
"But... all the boats on the island were taken by those escapees."
'Ah, that was a problem.'
The prisoners Naruto had released numbered around a hundred, and the boats in the Southern Hideout were nothing more than small modified fishing boats.
Now, not a single one remained.
After hearing this, Orochimaru finally paused his work and turned around, his expression cold as he stared at Tayuya.
At this moment, he no longer maintained the smiling facade he wore in front of Naruto.
A chilling sensation, like the touch of cold snake scales, crept over the three in the room.
After staring coldly at the three guys, Orochimaru slowly opened his mouth.
"Someone will come to the island with supplies."
After saying this, he turned back and resumed the final stages of his experiment.
The three of them felt as if they had been saved. They hurriedly bowed and left the room.
Thanks to Naruto's actions the previous day, all experiments in the Southern Hideout, aside from Orochimaru's, had come to a halt.
The vicious prisoners who were supposed to be thrown into a deathmatch had their lives extended.
In a way, this could be considered one of Naruto's good deeds?
Orochimaru's experiment progressed much faster than expected.
Perhaps he had already formulated his plan before Naruto arrived.
Inside the room, Orochimaru handed Naruto his final creation, a new body that bore only a vague resemblance to either Orochimaru or Hidan.
At the moment, it showed no signs of life.
Well, it wouldn't be wrong to call it a corpse.
"So, this is your finished product?"
Naruto looked at the body that had been stitched together by Orochimaru.
"No, Naruto-kun. There's one last step."
A hoarse voice came from the clone body that no longer looked human. Then, a small white snake crawled out of the body's mouth.
It slithered onto the table and quickly entered the new body lying there.
Meanwhile, the original clone body, which is now deprived of chakra, completely dissolved into a pool of flesh and blood.
The 'new Orochimaru' lying on the table soon reopened his eyes and looked at Naruto.
However, it seemed he hadn't yet adjusted to this new body, as he could only speak for the time being and couldn't move.
"Naruto-kun, as per our agreement…"
"You will take this body to that world. After that, what I do will no longer be your concern."
"As long as you remember to bring this body back before returning to this world, our deal will be complete."
"At that time…"
"You'll tell me the location of the Akatsuki's hideout? Yeah, yeah, got it."
Naruto sounded somewhat impatient as he directly took out a sealing scroll and began the sealing preparations.
"Don't you need any other assistance, Naruto-kun?"
This question received no response before Orochimaru was sealed into the scroll by Naruto.
The three people witnessed the entire process.
"Find me a quiet room. Don't come near."
The Sound Three had no objections to Naruto's words.
Even if Orochimaru hadn't given prior instructions, none of them would dare oppose Naruto now.
After being led to a room deep underground and confirming no one else was around, Naruto pulled out the scroll containing the sake he had bought earlier in the Land of Hot Water.
"It's the first time I feel that drinking is so tasteless."
When Naruto regained his vision, his surroundings had completely changed.
One moment, he was in an underground room, but the next, he was back in Koushirou's house in Shimotsuki Village.
To be precise, in the guest room.
Feeling his body restored to full strength and his bulging stomach, Naruto raised an eyebrow.
It seemed that whatever he swallowed could indeed be carried over.
So, after glancing around to ensure no one else was present, Naruto opened his mouth wide toward the floor.
"Bleh…"
The first thing to drop out was a scroll marked with the character of 'Sword'.
Then, scrolls began raining down in rapid succession.
Of course, what inevitably fell down were the undigested remnants of sake that his Life Return hadn't fully processed.
The last thing to drop out was the scroll containing Orochimaru's new body.
According to the terms of their deal, Naruto was supposed to release him now.
But after gathering all the other scrolls, Naruto made no move to unseal the remaining one.
"Hah… Finally took the bait."
With a light chuckle, Naruto's expression was no longer the impatient one he had worn at the Southern Hideout.
Orochimaru had indeed prepared for every contingency, and he even said that he would only reveal more intel after his clone safely returned to the Ninja World.
But he had severely underestimated Naruto. And he had underestimated this sea-bound world, which are filled with all kinds of unreasonable powers.
He thought Naruto was a straightforward brute like Jiraiya, but he never imagined that Naruto had never intended to honor their so-called deal from the very beginning.
Did he really think that Naruto was able to survive after wandering on the sea for so many years just by luck?
Orochimaru believed the most peculiar aspect of this world was its incredibly resilient and powerful bodies, but he had no idea about the existence of miraculous things like [Devil Fruits].
In the Ninja World, extracting information from a Ninja required either torture or Genjutsu.
Even then, prying intel from someone with strong willpower was difficult.
But in the One Piece World, abilities that could read minds and memories were far more common.
Apart from anything else, Naruto remembered that Big Mom's three-eyed daughter had a similar power.
Now that they were in the One Piece World, how to deal with this snake was entirely up to him.
As for the Southern Hideout back in the Ninja World, before leaving, Naruto had sensed numerous unfamiliar presences approaching.
While he doesn't know whether they are friend or foe, he was sure those Ninjas would give Orochimaru a little surprise.