Chapter 2 – The Hands of the Ancient Serpent
"The past never dies. It creeps, it infects, it waits."
The trees had become sparse over the past three days.
Sasuke moved forward in absolute silence, the dry wind whipping the dead grass at his feet. The southeastern border of the Land of Fire was now a forgotten territory, a gray area on official maps, abandoned since the war. Yet that was where the rumors led: an old Orochimaru experimentation site had reportedly been reactivated.
Animals were disappearing. Children too.
The region reeked of fear.
On the fourth day, he finally spotted the entrance: a hollow mountain, hidden behind rocks, sealed by an old camouflage jutsu. The illusion was crude. Not worthy of Orochimaru himself, but subtle enough to escape the notice of peasants.
Sasuke formed a mudra. His Sharingan slowly turned in the shadow of his hood.
"Genjutsu broken."
The landscape tore like fabric. Behind the veil, a huge metal door, eaten away by rust, creaked with an ominous groan. A smell of metal and moldy flesh wafted out.
He entered.
The interior was still active.
Pale lights flickered along a narrow corridor. The floor was stained with dried blood, the walls covered with complex glyphs. Sasuke walked silently, his hand lightly touching the hilt of his katana. Each step seemed to awaken memories of his own days spent alongside Orochimaru—a time when he sought power at any cost.
Screams echoed in the distance.
He quickened his pace.
He found the first creature in a broken containment chamber: a child... or what was left of one. A boy of perhaps ten years old, his body stitched with black marks. His eyes were no longer human. He screamed at the sight of Sasuke, then threw himself at him with inhuman strength.
"Modified juinjutsu..." Sasuke murmured.
The boy attacked without technique. He was fast, but desperate.
Sasuke dodged him easily. A blow from his sheath sent him crashing into the wall. The boy groaned, then collapsed, unconscious.
He didn't kill him.
But his heart sank.
Was this how I had become in the eyes of others? A manufactured monster?
He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he resumed walking.
At the back of the complex, he sensed chakra: someone else was there.
Not a clone. Not a test subject.
Someone who was waiting for him.
Sasuke entered the central room. A figure was waiting for him in the shadows, leaning over a tank filled with a greenish liquid. Inside floated a semi-formed body, a human embryo fused with a snake.
"I was wondering if Konoha would ever send me someone," said the voice.
It was Shiran, a former disciple of Orochimaru, believed dead since the war. His body was emaciated, his face marked with burns. His eyes glowed with madness.
"You're late, Sasuke Uchiha. I was hoping you'd come sooner... to admire my masterpiece."
Sasuke didn't answer. He slowly drew his katana.
Shiran laughed.
"What? Are you going to lecture me? You? The traitor? The shadow of the Uchiha? We're not so different, Sasuke. We are what the world wanted us to be."
"No," he replied. "I am what I chose to be."
He disappeared.
A flash of steel split the air. The fight began—fast, brutal, silent. Shiran used a forbidden jutsu, partially merging with his test subject, becoming a serpentine creature dripping with toxic chakra.
But Sasuke was no longer the young boy he once was.
In an instant, he activated his Rinnegan. The world twisted. Shiran screamed. Sasuke's katana pierced his heart in a spray of black blood.
"You shouldn't have continued the work of a dead man," he whispered.
Shiran collapsed.
Sasuke set fire to the compound. He carried the unconscious boy out of the flames, left him in a nearby village under a false identity, then disappeared again.
He asked for neither recognition nor forgiveness.
He continued on his way, alone.
One threat was extinguished. Others awaited him.
In the silence of the night, as he walked away, one thought haunted him:
How many shadows must I pass through to become light again?