The office door was thrown open.
"Minato, it better be something important for you to call us over this late."
Tsunade strode in, the scent of alcohol trailing behind her.
She tossed her green haori onto the sofa and sat down. "If this is to celebrate extorting the Cloud, I suggest we head to an izakaya instead."
Jiraiya followed her in with a grin. "Come now, Tsunade, don't be so grumpy. Maybe Minato wants to treat us to a late-night snack?"
Once the two saw the scene inside the office, however, their expressions shifted.
Behind the desk, Minato Namikaze wasn't working on documents. His fingers were interlaced beneath his chin, his blue eyes filled with gravity.
Gamakon, the purple toad perched on his shoulder, had also dropped his playful demeanor. His golden, horizontal pupils were fixed on a corner of the room.
Following their gaze, Tsunade and Jiraiya looked over.
A child stood in the shadows.
He looked to be about eight or nine years old with a frail build, wearing an ill-fitting gray robe. He was barefoot, and his skin was deathly pale.
Most striking, however, were his eyes.
They were hollow and lifeless, devoid of the spark a child his age should possess.
"This is..."
Tsunade frowned. She could smell something unsettling coming from the child—the scent of medicine and blood.
"The Anbu discovered him in the deepest part of a Root underground base during a sweep," Minato said, his voice low.
"He's the sole survivor. Code name: 'Kinoe'."
"Root?" Jiraiya put away his book, his face darkening. "Just how many things has that old fox Danzo been hiding underground?"
"It's more than just secrets," Gamakon interjected, his voice raspy. "This child is an experiment. A very special one."
Minato looked at Kinoe, his tone gentle. "Child, show them your ability. Don't be afraid. No one here will hurt you."
At the command, Kinoe's body gave a small shudder.
He raised his right hand, palm upward.
Chakra began to flow within him—a surge of energy that felt both bursting with life and eerily unnatural.
*Crackle...*
A faint sound of splintering followed.
A tender green sprout pierced the skin of Kinoe's palm, growing and spiraling until it hardened into a sturdy wooden spike suspended in the air.
"This is..." Tsunade bolted upright, knocking her chair over.
She stared at the wooden spike, her breathing quickening as her chest heaved.
Shock filled her eyes, quickly followed by a mounting rage.
"Wood Style?!" she spat through gritted teeth.
In the entire shinobi world, only one person had ever possessed that power.
Her grandfather, the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju.
"How is this possible... How could such a thing happen..."
Tsunade rushed to Kinoe and grabbed his wrist.
Kinoe instinctively tried to pull away, but he was powerless against Tsunade's strength.
Green medical chakra enveloped the boy's body.
As she performed the examination, Tsunade's expression grew increasingly grim.
"Cell transplantation... genetic fusion..." Her hands began to tremble.
She could feel that the cells within the child were incredibly fragile.
The foreign Hashirama cells were devouring and assimilating his original cells.
To maintain a balance, this tiny body had been injected with a massive amount of suppressant drugs.
How could a human being do this?
"That bastard!!!"
*Boom!*
A thunderous crash echoed as Tsunade slammed her fist into the wall.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the load-bearing wall, sending debris flying. The entire Hokage Building shook.
"Danzo! That old fossil!"
Tsunade spun around, her eyes bloodshot and radiating killing intent. "How dare he?! How dare he touch my grandfather's remains?!"
"What does he think a human life is?!"
"It wasn't just Danzo," Jiraiya, who had remained silent, finally spoke.
He leaned against the window, half his face obscured by shadows.
"Danzo isn't capable of biological modification technology on this level."
"In all of Konoha, there's only one person who could pull this off."
Tsunade froze. She knew exactly who he meant.
The teammate who had once fought by her side.
"Orochimaru..." Tsunade whispered the name, her voice shaking. "Was it him?"
Minato nodded and pulled a blood-stained laboratory log from his drawer, sliding it across the desk.
It had been recovered from the Root base, filled with experimental data and annotations.
The handwriting was elegant yet sharp.
Tsunade grabbed the log and flipped through a few pages. A chill ran down her spine.
Sixty children.
Only this one had survived.
The others had been consumed by cellular rejection, turning into twisted trees—nothing more than fertilizer.
"That scum..." Tsunade slammed the log onto the floor. "Where is he? I'm going to kill him!"
"Calm down, Tsunade," Gamakon hopped onto the desk, blocking her path.
"Killing him is easy, but who's going to solve this child's rejection reaction? Who's going to clean up the mess Danzo left behind?"
"You damn toad! What's that supposed to mean?!" Tsunade glared at Gamakon. "You want to let someone like that live?!"
"Keeping him alive is more useful than killing him."
Minato stood up and walked over to Kinoe, placing a hand on the boy's trembling shoulder to soothe him.
"Lady Tsunade, anger won't solve anything."
Minato looked at her. "Danzo is dead, but the darkness he left behind remains. Orochimaru's crimes are heinous, but his technology is something Konoha desperately needs."
"Look at this child."
Minato looked at Kinoe. "Without Orochimaru's techniques, he won't live to see twenty before the Hashirama cells consume him. Then there are the modified shinobi in Root... no one but Orochimaru can save them."
"Danzo left plenty of safeguards on this child before he died."
Tsunade's chest heaved.
She looked into Kinoe's hollow eyes, then at the wooden spike. Her rage slowly gave way to a sense of powerless frustration.
As a medical ninja, she knew this kind of genetic modification was irreversible.
If they wanted the victims to survive, they needed the one who performed the procedure.
"Jiraiya," Tsunade turned to the silent man. "Are you going to play dumb forever?"
Jiraiya looked up, his eyes bloodshot.
He looked at the log on the floor, then at the boy with the Wood Style, and let out a bitter laugh.
"I should have known." Jiraiya's voice was hoarse.
"He's become more and more withdrawn these past few years, obsessed with forbidden jutsu... I thought he was just seeking power. I never imagined he'd go this far."
He took a deep breath.
"Minato is right."
Jiraiya straightened his back. "Killing him would be too easy. Since he committed such atrocities, let him spend the rest of his life atoning for them."
"Besides..." Jiraiya clenched his fist.
"I want to ask him to his face: what does he think life is? What did our bond mean to him?"
The atmosphere in the room was heavy.
Seeing that the two had regained their composure, Minato tapped the desk.
"Since there are no objections, let's go."
Minato threw on his Hokage cloak. "Orochimaru is in the village. He's waiting for us."
"Waiting for us?" Tsunade was stunned.
"With his intelligence, he knew the moment Danzo died that he was exposed," Gamakon added with a smirk.
"But he didn't run. That means he understands that Konoha currently has something he's interested in. For example... a deal that would allow him to continue his research."
"Like immortality..."