I sat up on the stretcher in surprise and looked at Orochimaru. I wasn't sure if it was a good sign that he suddenly cut the ropes and told me to get up.
Orochimaru looked at me impatiently and gestured for me to speak.
I don't know why, but the information I had was making him nervous for some reason.
Maybe he thought that if too much was known about the technology he developed, people could understand his technique or develop a weak point. Or maybe he realized the danger of the technology early on and, as a scientist, feared the cloning technology would get out of hand.
"Speak."
The coldest words I've ever heard from Orochimaru.
I need to do something before it's too late. I have to take a gamble.
"I understand why you brought me here. Members of the Uzumaki clan are born with an excessive amount of chakra. You probably want to research this and achieve something similar through genetic mutation..." Just as he was about to continue speaking, Orochimaru suddenly vanished from his spot and appeared right in front of me at an unimaginable speed. "I said tell me everything you know about this device. Period. That's all I asked. Do you understand me?"
"Huh, yes, I'll answer your questions, but I want a guarantee." I was going to wait for him to ask me my condition before speaking, but when I saw the look in his eyes, I realized waiting wasn't a good idea. "I don't want to be one of those mummies over there. I want to be treated as human as possible until the experiments are over."
"Hehehe, Eren. You don't need to worry about that for nothing. You're too valuable to be locked up in those capsules." The anger in Orochimaru's eyes disappeared so quickly that I was surprised. This time, I couldn't even hide my surprise, and he probably noticed it because he let out a small laugh before speaking in his own strange voice.
"Since we're on the same page, let me put it this way. You probably think I'm only interested in trade, but I have some friends outside Konoha, and sometimes I use their labs to do research on plants. After a friend of mine saw your device design, we got together with some other friends and tried to build this device based on his advice."
"Why? How did you figure out what it could be used for?"
"We didn't understand. They were curious about it and started researching. Then, as the device neared completion, some ideas emerged. The idea I created using those ideas was to use this device to permanently achieve the highest success rate in vegetable mutations."
Orochimaru moved away from me for a while and started pacing back and forth in the lab.
He continued walking for about ten minutes, then suddenly came and sat next to me, startling me. I thought he was going to do something perverted again, but he didn't, and another ten minutes passed. Finally, he summoned a small snake and fiddled with a tree leaf that came out of the snake's mouth before turning back to me.
Just in case, I sat there waiting the whole time.
"So what happened next? Were you able to develop the device?"
"We made something similar to this one, but it was about five times bigger than yours, and every heat cycle destroyed all the DNA. After a while, we had to abandon the project because the whole process was too expensive. And all this was a year ago. I lost contact with them a year ago."
Orochimaru looked at me silently, his suspicion evident.
Fortunately, he wasn't interested in asking more questions about this topic and cornering me.
What followed was not only the acceptance of my request, but also a test and an unexpected freedom.
"Hehehe, you know? Sometimes I have too many experiments to deal with at once. That's why I decided to train an assistant. But I couldn't take just anyone as my assistant. They had to be as trustworthy as they were intelligent. Don't take offense, but even though you're smart, you don't meet my reliability criteria." Orochimaru paused as he was about to continue speaking and summoned a small snake, telling it to call Kabuto.
Kabuto was waiting nearby and entered through the door within a few seconds.
Since he spent most of his time in the village as a slave to the root organization, this was the first time I had seen him. Contrary to what I expected and imagined, Kabuto was not a little child when I saw him. At least, he looked to be about my age.
Orochimaru smiled, placed his hand on Kabuto's shoulder, and continued talking.
"Can you trust a prisoner? Of course not, but you can trust a friend. That's why I started looking around and found him. I saw that a talent like Kabuto's was being wasted in Danzo's hands. Danzo had set a trap for him and ordered him to kill the only person he loved..." Orochimaru noticed that Kabuto was uncomfortable with the subject before he could continue speaking, so he removed his hand and changed the subject. "And that's when I found Kabuto. I agreed to be his teacher and friend if he stayed by my side. Moreover, I realized that Kabuto was as eager to live as I was. By staying with me, he could grow stronger and have the opportunity to take revenge in the future, and he could also live like a human being... You may go now."
"Yes, Orochimaru-sama."
Kabuto stood there the entire time with cold, emotionless eyes, and when he received the order from Orochimaru, he immediately left the room.
"Danzo was probably trying to turn him into a cold-blooded ninja, wasn't he?"
"Absolutely. Danzo is an extremist who always believed that emotionlessness was a ninja's ultimate weapon. The fact that you even noticed this side of him impresses me. That's why I have a proposal for you: allow me to take blood samples from you over the next year, train Kabuto in my absence, and monitor my test subjects as my lab assistant while I'm gone. In return, I'll leave you alive in Konoha a year from now."