For an elite ninja, seizing the Hyuga clan's Byakugan might not be especially difficult—but Orochimaru thought it unnecessary.
Hyuga Mio stared at him, visibly shaken by his blunt, almost cruel words. His remarks had struck something deep within her, challenging the very traditions she had been raised to honor.
"Orochimaru, it isn't right to speak about another family's affairs like that," Tsunade chided softly, tugging at his sleeve. From her point of view, his comment went too far. He had practically dismissed the entire Hyuga clan's carefully maintained system of Main and Branch families.
"There's no one else around," Orochimaru replied with a sly smile. "Mio isn't going to repeat it."
He leaned back, perfectly unbothered. What if his opinion spread? What was so wrong about a child expressing a thought? Plenty of children in Konoha whispered that the Hyuga clan's all-seeing eyes were a freakish spectacle. Would the Hyuga elders really go door to door to silence them?
"My teacher, the Third Hokage, and Assistant Hokage Danzo Shimura would shield me anyway," Orochimaru added with a teasing grin. "And besides, Uzumaki Mito wants me to acknowledge her as my godmother. If anyone has a problem, they can come find me—if they dare."
For Orochimaru, the ninja world wasn't only about combat. Connections and alliances mattered just as much. He trained diligently, but he understood that good relationships could open more doors than any jutsu. More connections, more paths, as the saying went.
Tsunade rested her head against his shoulder, and Orochimaru frowned slightly. He still didn't understand why she liked leaning on him so much.
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Two days later, their team completed a mission in the snowy Land of Iron and stopped at Tsuru Castle to rest. They visited a steaming hot spring, the warm mist curling around them. Orochimaru's pale skin flushed faintly pink in the heat.
Hyuga Mio kept a bandage wrapped around her forehead to hide the telltale mark of the cursed seal. Orochimaru studied it with keen interest. That mysterious Caged Bird Curse Mark fascinated him.
Feeling his gaze, Mio shifted uncomfortably and stepped aside.
"I say, Orochimaru!" Tsunade tapped his shoulder sharply.
"Hm?" He turned, surprised.
"When we get back to Konoha, would you like to visit my home? My grandmother talks about you all the time."
Tsunade cast a wary glance at Mio. Orochimaru's curiosity toward the Hyuga girl unsettled her, as if her close friend might be stolen away.
Mio tilted her head in confusion. Why is Tsunade acting so tense around me? she wondered.
"Then why don't we buy some souvenirs from the Land of Iron before heading back?" Orochimaru suggested, already thinking ahead. Whether or not he ever learned the Uzumaki clan's legendary sealing arts, maintaining a warm relationship with Uzumaki Mito—the First Hokage's wife and Tsunade's grandmother—was a strategic move.
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The Senju residence in Konoha was more a secluded compound than a house. Uzumaki Mito lived there with Tsunade; her parents were rarely home, often away on missions.
"Orochimaru, welcome, welcome," Mito greeted with a gentle smile, patting his head kindly.
"Grandma, I brought you samurai candies from the Land of Iron," he said, offering a small package of sweets. They were nothing special—just ordinary candy at an inflated price because of the exotic packaging—but the gesture delighted her.
"How thoughtful you are, Orochimaru," Mito said warmly. Glancing at Tsunade, who was pouring tea, she added with a teasing laugh, "You're far less troublesome than Xiao Gang here. She's inherited only her grandfather's bad habits!"
"Grandmother!" Tsunade yelped, cheeks flaming. The teacup slipped from her hands and shattered with a sharp crack.
Orochimaru froze, awkward as a startled bird. In Mito's eyes, he was practically her own grandchild. But he knew the difference: Tsunade's parents still lived; her occasional stubbornness and bad habits were harmless. He, on the other hand, had grown up needing to mature quickly, with no parents to lean on.
Ah… I really just want to get back to training, he thought, suppressing a sigh.
---
Indeed, trying to make a living through cooking was proving impossible. Local tastes and habits varied too much. Even if he adapted the recipes, the profits would never support the kind of research he dreamed of funding.
He picked up a slice of tamagoyaki with his chopsticks and tasted it thoughtfully. The rolled egg was soft and slightly sweet—pleasant, but not profitable.
Between missions and training, Orochimaru had conducted a bit of market research and concluded that his earlier ideas for earning money were unrealistic. Would something as foreign as Chinese cuisine ever bring in the income he needed? Highly doubtful.
Better to search for another way. New dishes took time to gain acceptance, and not everyone was adventurous enough to try them.
In the original tale of this world, he mused darkly, how did the Orochimaru of that story build secret bases everywhere and fund his bizarre habit of adopting children like a sugar daddy? It was hard to believe the Land of Rice Fields financed it all.
Later, leaving the small restaurant, Orochimaru thought about Danzo. It had been a full month since they last met. If Danzo hadn't given him a direct means of contact, he might have suspected the man had been spirited away by his beloved teacher, Hiruzen Sarutobi—vanishing without a trace.
Hiruzen must have been keeping Danzo busy, he reasoned. After all, an Assistant Hokage carried enormous responsibility.
---
Meanwhile, inside the Hokage Building, Danzo's furious roar echoed down the corridor.
"Hiruzen, this is going too far!"
Ninjas passing in the hallway quickened their pace at the sound of his wrath.
Dark circles ringed Danzo's left eye as he glared at Hiruzen Sarutobi. His face was drawn and sour.
"Danzo, remember that you are the Assistant Hokage," Hiruzen said calmly, lighting his pipe and taking a slow drag. A flicker of guilt crossed his mind when he saw the exhaustion on Danzo's face, but it vanished when he recalled the schemes his old friend had tried to impose on Orochimaru. Keeping Danzo busy was no mistake.
"I am the Assistant Hokage, not your clerk!" Danzo thundered. "You don't need to send every single report to me!"
Never had he felt such rage. If the documents were important, he could tolerate it, but most were trivial—petty matters unworthy of his attention. Yet as Assistant Hokage he could not refuse them outright.
He could delegate the work to subordinates, of course. But Hiruzen often checked on the progress himself. Danzo couldn't very well assign someone to spy on the Hokage; if discovered, Hiruzen would have the perfect excuse to order the dissolution of Root.
Ironically, Danzo had never felt more constrained than after creating Root and accepting the position of Assistant Hokage.
Just then the door opened. Utatane Koharu and Homura Mitokado entered, their eyes widening slightly at Danzo's seething expression.
"What happened here?" Homura asked, startled.
"Nothing," Hiruzen replied with casual indifference. "I'm simply making sure Danzo fulfills his duties as Assistant Hokage."
"Hmph!" Danzo could only snort in cold fury, too angry for further words, before turning on his heel to leave.
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Episode 19: Yin–Yang and the Five Elements
In ninjutsu, the upper limit is set by the transformation of chakra's nature and shape, while the lower limit depends on the amount of chakra one possesses. Even a normal jōnin, without a special bloodline, could wield a considerable amount of chakra after sufficient training.
At the Konoha library, Orochimaru occupied a large table piled high with books of every kind. Villagers who came to read gawked when they saw him employing Shadow Clones to speed through multiple texts at once.
Some of these volumes were usually reserved for chūnin and jōnin. Genin weren't exactly forbidden to read them, but the content was far beyond their current level. Orochimaru, however, had no such limits. Thanks to a certain influential figure determined to "protect" Konoha from the shadows, gaining access to advanced materials was absurdly easy.
Danzo, secretly observing, almost hoped Orochimaru would make more demands of him. Every request signaled trust and nudged him closer to willingly joining Root.
Medical ninjutsu was rooted in the nature transformation of Yang chakra, while genjutsu was tied to Yin chakra. The Nara and Yamanaka clans' secret techniques derived from Yin Release, whereas the Akimichi clan's specialized methods drew on Yang Release. Yin chakra governed spiritual power; Yang chakra, physical energy.
The legendary Truth-Seeking Balls embodied the ultimate expression of chakra's dual Yin–Yang nature combined with the five elements, and there were multiple ways to create them. The Sage of Six Paths, in his transcendent mode, could form these orbs. The descendants of Ōtsutsuki Hamura on the moon, with their Tenseigan and unique chakra mode, could produce green-glowing orbs of their own. Even the horned, bull-headed warrior of legend wielded Truth-Seeking Balls capable of unnerving even Naruto himself.
Yin Release could bring form from nothingness; Yang Release could breathe life into the formless. The Sage of Six Paths himself created the nine Tailed Beasts by dividing the chakra of the Ten-Tails and using Yin–Yang Release. Perhaps it was no accident, Orochimaru wondered, that the Tailed Beasts were susceptible to control by the Sharingan and Rinnegan. Was this a deliberate safeguard?
The thought made him pause mid-page. Even the mighty Tailed Beasts had been outwitted. The ancients of this world were astonishingly cunning. In a sense, calling the Sage the "parent" of the Tailed Beasts wasn't wrong at all. What an elaborate act of creation!
Perhaps one day, he mused, if I master both Yin and Yang chakra, I too could create Truth-Seeking Balls through perfect nature and shape transformation.
His golden eyes gleamed with distant ambition.
Senju Tobirama had once studied the evolution of the Uchiha clan's Sharingan, discovering that a unique chakra secreted by the brain triggered the eye's transformation. Uchiha, passionate and emotionally intense, released this special chakra in great surges when provoked by powerful feelings, which spurred the eye's awakening.
Tobirama's conclusion—that the Uchiha were inherently dangerous—always struck Orochimaru as a touch biased, a case of "you are what you feel." Tobirama was rational, yes, but some of his statements betrayed a lingering prejudice against the clan, even if his policies were sound.
Still, the Uchiha's temperament made them perfectly suited for the Konoha Military Police. While the Sharingan's observation abilities weren't quite as absolute as the Hyuga's Byakugan, in real combat the Sharingan's evolving potential far surpassed it. Byakugan remained essentially static, whereas the Sharingan could evolve along a clear path.
Without Ōtsutsuki blood and chakra, the Byakugan would forever remain just that—never ascending to the Tenseigan. Its limitations were great.
Orochimaru closed the book and reached for another. Sustaining a Sharingan required a special chakra. That explained why Kakashi Hatake's borrowed eye constantly drained him. Unable to deactivate it like a true Uchiha, he suffered steady chakra loss even when the eye was at rest. Activating it in combat increased the burden exponentially.
In the original history, Kakashi repeatedly used the Mangekyo Sharingan's space-warping technique, Kamui. Each use eroded his eye's power and brought him closer to blindness. Only the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan could halt that decline—and even it didn't allow endless, consequence-free use of ocular techniques.
During the Five Kage Summit, Danzo Shimura employed Uchiha Shisui's Mangekyo to cast the mind-controlling Kotoamatsukami, a feat that Hidden Mist's Ao detected through his Byakugan. After awakening Mangekyo, each Uchiha's unique chakra revealed itself in a distinct color: Shisui's glowed green, Sasuke's purple, Itachi's crimson, Obito's cyan, and Madara's deep blue. Their Susanoo manifestations matched those hues exactly.
From this, Orochimaru inferred that the Sharingan not only consumed chakra but also synthesized it into something unique. The Mangekyo's ocular power could not naturally regenerate—unless one obtained the Eternal form, in which case the eye power, like chakra itself, would slowly recover after use.
Does the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan draw and convert chakra to replenish its power? Only someone like Uchiha Madara could confirm such a theory.
Orochimaru jotted his hypotheses into a notebook, eyes gleaming. Someday, he vowed, he would unravel these mysteries himself.
"Can I help you with something?" a librarian finally asked, drawn by the quiet intensity surrounding him.
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