For someone like Orochimaru—a pure, "above lowly desires" type—bodies are just meat shells. He doesn't care what he looks like, as long as he's strong enough.
He doesn't even care about his gender anymore, and you're bringing appearance up to him?
But Yorin can't do that.
He has wives.
Even if he agreed, his wives absolutely wouldn't.
If Orochimaru really pulled any weird stunts, he wouldn't be walking out of here. Tsunade, Pakura, Mei, Konan, Yugito—one punch each and there'd be enough snake soup for a full-course dinner.
"What a waste," Orochimaru muttered, genuinely regretful.
Uchiha Yorin could've taken one step, instantly breaking through, becoming a being on par with the legendary Sage of Six Paths. But he refused just because "I'll stop looking human." It felt like a tragic waste of potential.
Honestly, if he weren't worried that a rampaging harem squad would paste him into the nearest wall, Orochimaru might really have done something reckless to force Yorin's evolution.
But for now, best not.
He'd just keep researching, keep refining. Orochimaru refused to believe that with his talent, he couldn't eventually solve these side effects perfectly.
And unlike in the original timeline where he wanted to steal Sasuke's body…
He genuinely didn't dare covet Uchiha Yorin's body.
As one of the smartest and most well-informed people on the planet—no exaggeration—Orochimaru had vaguely sensed something "off" about Uchiha Yorin.
He was about to become someone truly enormous, truly terrifying, and truly extraordinary.
And not just in the worldly, practical shinobi sense—he'd be stepping into a higher dimension, a deeper layer of reality.
The level of the Sage of Six Paths. Of those "Ōtsutsuki" beings Yorin had once mentioned.
Fate. Souls. Or something like that.
Honestly, as a man of science, Orochimaru should've scoffed at that kind of metaphysical nonsense.
But as a shinobi, he knew that the Pure Land, Hell, the Yama King, the Reaper—they were all real.
After all the Edo Tensei he'd done, he was definitely on their blacklist. That was one of the reasons he was so unnervingly sensitive to this sort of thing.
"Feels like I've picked the right guy to follow," he thought, faintly amused. "This is a lot more meaningful than becoming Hokage or serving the village ever was."
He'd had enough of that "Will of Fire" crap to last ten lifetimes. At this point, just hearing the phrase made him feel physically ill.
Orochimaru honestly believed that if, one day, he did decide to destroy the world—destroy Konoha—this so-called Will of Fire would deserve at least half the blame.
And on that day, he could probably call himself "justice" with a straight face.
But for now? Whatever.
A Ninshū sounded better than the old system anyway. Either way, he felt like he was finally on a path that actually made sense.
With that, Orochimaru took Beru along and headed back to the lab to grind out more experiments and KPIs.
Hopefully they'd eventually produce something that would genuinely make Yorin happy. Even if not, at least they'd give him a few fun toys to play with.
…
"So what next? Can you stay in Kiri for a while this time?"
With the serious stuff wrapped up, Mei looked at Uchiha Yorin with clear expectation.
Not because she was feeling particularly thirsty (…okay, not just that), but because she'd realized something important:
When Yorin was in Kiri, she could dump a ton of important administrative work onto him, and no one up top dared complain—even if he screwed something up. It saved her tons of trouble. And when the work was done, she got to cling to him in the office, enjoy some "workplace romance" and… other fun things.
Stockings on, qipao on, heels on, slit up to the ribs—then just sit back and wait for Uchiha Yorin to pounce. Way better than actually being Mizukage.
Unfortunately, it wasn't happening.
"I need to go back to Konoha," Yorin said, looking a little guilty but sounding firm. "If nothing else, I have to deal with the daimyo."
"I see…"
If it had been any other excuse, Mei could've complained or argued. But the Fire Daimyo's summons were a different story.
Sometimes, Mei found herself grumbling that daimyo and nobles were all idiots.
And now that she wore the "Akatsuki" skin, she occasionally wondered if killing all the daimyo might actually make the world a better place.
But most of the time, she was still shackled by old thinking: daimyo were the natural rulers of nations and the world. Anything that looked like rebellion against them felt dangerous, even outrageous.
Yorin felt a stab of disappointment at that.
If even a "young reformist" like Mei still held that much reverence for the old order… how was a full-scale revolution supposed to succeed?
That thought only made him more determined to pour effort into rebuilding Uzushio.
Trying to edit a finished painting was like trying to change the deeply fixed mindset of an adult. But a child—or a blank canvas—was different.
He wasn't going back to Konoha just for the daimyo's summons.
"Be careful, okay? And remember—no matter what, Kiri will always be behind you," Mei said finally.
…
So Yorin's group left Kirigakure again and headed back to the mainland by sea.
This time, though, they didn't dock at any Fire Country ports. Instead they sailed straight for the construction site of Uzushio Village, to check on progress and maybe squeeze in a date with a certain "Leg Shadow."
…
Right now, Uzushio was just one giant construction site.
Several dozen engineering teams from Iwa, plus urban planners, road designers, and specialists from Konoha and all five great nations, were sweating it out across the whole area.
What Yorin wanted wasn't just a standard ninja village, or even a big "new Konoha"–style city.
He wanted to recreate the kind of ultra-modern port city he remembered from his previous life.
Massive docks and endless container yards. Huge gantry cranes and a fully developed port zone.
And along with that: schools, hospitals, and administrative centers. Everything built from scratch.
Naturally, the kids who grew up here would get a completely new kind of education.
Uchiha Yorin stood there, full of ambition, watching his city rise at insane speed. Overjoyed, he grabbed Kurotsuchi and chomped her a few times.
Iwa's number-one foreman really got things done fast.
Kurotsuchi, meanwhile, looked at him with a tangle of emotions.
To Yorin, what he was building was "just a port." But to people of this era, the scale—and concept—was overwhelming.
And on top of hiring Iwa's shinobi, Yorin had brought in loads of new tech: heavy machinery and engineering equipment mass-produced from Orochimaru's designs in Uchiha Industrial's factories. The sheer industrial presence was staggering.
For Yorin, it felt like rediscovering childhood wonder. For everyone else, it was like stepping through a door into another world.
Anyone even slightly sharp could feel it: what Uchiha Yorin was aiming for, the world he wanted to create, was something totally unprecedented. A brand‐new, massive era.
"How big is your ambition, really? What kind of person do you want to become? What kind of world do you want this to be?"
When they had a quiet moment alone, Kurotsuchi couldn't help asking.
Yorin's answer was:
"You can see it already."
"Jutsu aren't just for destruction and killing. They can be used for building and production too—and way more efficiently than normal people can.
Look at what we're doing here. New Uzushio is just the beginning.
We'll build more cities, more factories, create more new technologies, and make people's lives better.
Through all of that, shinobi will be the absolute leaders.
We'll be the best researchers, the best engineers, and the most powerful technical workforce.
People's attitudes toward shinobi will change.
They won't see us as destroyers and butchers anymore, but as the ones pushing human civilization forward."
He paused, then gestured at the cranes, the foundations, the future skyline.
"Kurotsuchi, can you feel it?
The new era I'm talking about is practically already here. The door to that new world is cracked open, and the light spilling through is blinding.
All we have to do is keep moving forward, keep grinding, until we reach heights we can't even imagine right now."
"You really are…"
Kurotsuchi opened her mouth, then closed it again, not sure what to even say.
She was just a normal Tsuchikage candidate and site foreman. Why was this lunatic telling her all this wild stuff?
The worst part was… it sounded kind of amazing.
Enough that even she, of all people, felt her heart race and, for half a second, considered pulling a Deidara—betraying Iwa and defecting to follow Uchiha instead.
"Can things really turn out like that? Can the future really become what you're describing?" she asked, eyes full of cautious hope.
Yorin's answer was simple:
"Yes."
"As long as we keep pushing, we absolutely can."