"What… is that?"
For some reason, from the moment Orochimaru took out the scroll marked with the character "First" from the mouth of the summoned snake, Shisui Uchiha fell into a state of discomfort all over.
Almost instinctively, he activated his three-tomoe Sharingan.
He even activated the Cursed Seal of Heaven to its first stage, focusing all his attention on guarding against Orochimaru and the scroll in his hand.
"Relax, Shisui-kun…"
Orochimaru looked thoughtfully at Shisui Uchiha, whose intense reaction made him look like a cat whose fur had exploded. Then he answered calmly.
"This is merely a research result that should have belonged to me, which I conveniently took away when I left Konoha… It is somewhat dangerous, but still within a controllable range."
As he spoke, Orochimaru unfolded the scroll and formed seals.
Amid a burst of smoke, he summoned the large object sealed inside the scroll for convenient transportation.
"A large culture tank?"
Kabuto Yakushi, who had almost no impression of Konoha's village scenery and had not properly received a Konoha shinobi education, looked at the huge culture tank gradually appearing from the smoke.
Then he turned his head and looked at the several vacant culture tanks of almost identical design inside the laboratory. He could not help frowning in confusion.
But Shisui Uchiha and Anko Mitarashi, who had grown up in Konoha and seen the village's landmark Hokage Rock every day, were staring fixedly at the lump of flesh placed inside the culture tank.
That white lump of flesh, which somehow had a face.
"The… the First Hokage!?"
Seeing his disciple and Shisui Uchiha almost call out the origin of the flesh in the culture tank at the same time, Orochimaru nodded in great pleasure.
Then he gave a very gloomy, strange laugh and said, "Yes. Lying inside this culture tank is Konoha's First Hokage, Hashirama Senju. Or rather, it is a body cultivated from Hashirama Senju's cellular tissue that possesses a fraction of that God of Shinobi's former splendor… What is wrong? Why do you all look so surprised?"
"The First Hokage… had already been dead for more than ten years before you became one of the Sannin, Orochimaru-sama, right?"
Anko Mitarashi looked at the "Hashirama Senju" in the culture tank, whose expression was as peaceful as if he were merely asleep, and asked with a face full of unease, "Did you… Did you dig up that person's corpse?"
"Not quite."
Orochimaru shook his head frankly.
"When it comes to research on Hashirama cells, I am only a later successor. This experiment had already been started by the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, after the First Hokage Hashirama Senju's death.
"After the Second Hokage died unexpectedly, the Third Hokage—my teacher, Hiruzen Sarutobi—and Danzo Shimura continued the experiment together. Later, because progress was not smooth, the Third Hokage stopped the research on Hashirama cells on the surface. But Danzo Shimura transferred the research to Root and continued it there.
"After that came my involvement."
"How… how is that possible…"
Shisui Uchiha looked at the face on the lump of flesh, a face identical to the one carved into the Hokage Rock, and could not help murmuring in nausea.
"Something so blasphemous toward a predecessor… How could they? How could they do such a thing? That was… the Second Hokage's own elder brother…"
"The Second Hokage's resolve was to protect the village. For that, he could use any method without a bottom line. But the essence of the matter was still that the Second Hokage was not strong enough, while Hashirama Senju's power was far too overwhelming. It made people unable to resist the urge to clutch it tightly in their hands."
Orochimaru sneered.
As the one among Konoha's Sannin who knew the most secrets, he himself had been one of the most important components of Konoha's darkness.
Any random piece of information he revealed, something he had long grown tired of seeing, was enough to tear apart the worldview of those brats whose heads were full of the Will of Fire.
Seeing Shisui Uchiha's shaken expression, Orochimaru slowly stepped forward.
In a tone that did not conceal his greed at all, he said, "Think about it. Hashirama Senju. One of the strongest shinobi since the creation myth of the Sage of Six Paths. The God of Shinobi who pacified the Warring States Period. With the Wood Release Kekkei Genkai, not only did he kill Madara Uchiha, who stood equal to him and controlled the Nine-Tails, he also captured the Nine Tailed Beasts alone, calamities feared by the world, and distributed them among the Five Great Shinobi Villages to balance the shinobi world's military power…
"With such unparalleled strength, what village would not want to seize it for themselves?"
Shisui Uchiha fell silent.
Anko Mitarashi, who had already prepared herself somewhat for Orochimaru's darkness, let out a long sigh of relief because Orochimaru had not actually gone grave digging.
She patted her rather heavy chest and took the initiative to continue for Orochimaru.
"But what do the First Hokage's cells have to do with the experimental project you are in charge of this time, Orochimaru-sama?"
"As a catalyst to accelerate the experimental process, and as material to verify certain guesses. That is roughly its position."
Orochimaru took a tube of slightly dark-colored blood from his sleeve.
At the same time, he opened the culture tank containing Hashirama Senju's cells, cut a pure white piece of flesh from "Hashirama Senju's" body, and said to Anko Mitarashi, "Anko, open those empty culture tanks. Then collect some blood from Shisui Uchiha…
"Let me see just how accurate this theory is—that the Uchiha clan and Senju clan are both direct descendants of the Sage of Six Paths."
"Ah? Yes!"
Anko Mitarashi quickly entered her working state.
She swiftly connected the empty large culture tanks to power, then grabbed Shisui Uchiha's right hand while he was still dazed. Her fingernails suddenly sharpened, and with a light swipe, she opened a wound on Shisui Uchiha's wrist. Then she brought a test tube over and began collecting his blood.
As if he could not feel the pain, Shisui Uchiha only stared blankly at "Hashirama Senju's" face and muttered to himself in a voice filled with incomprehension.
"The Uchiha and Senju… are both direct descendants of the Sage of Six Paths?"
"In other words… the Uchiha and Senju were originally brothers?"
"Then… what were our thousand years of hatred and slaughter for?"
"Who knows?"
Orochimaru divided the cut Hashirama cells into two portions, opened the tube of blood Rei had paid him in advance as a deposit, and poured part of that strange grayish blood onto the Hashirama cells on the left. He answered casually.
"Perhaps at the very beginning, someone sowed discord between them… Otherwise, perhaps the Uchiha and Senju might have become firm allies who guarded each other for a thousand years, just like the Hyuga and Kaguya."
"The Hyuga and Kaguya?"
Hearing the names of these two ancient ninja clans appear at this moment, Shisui Uchiha, who had already been somewhat numb from the repeated bombardment of shocking news, still revealed a surprised expression.
"I know the Hyuga clan once had some relationship with the Kaguya clan… But why use them as a comparison for the Uchiha and Senju?"
"Because according to the latest investigation results your Fourth Mizukage revealed to me, the Sage of Six Paths had an equally powerful younger brother. As the elder brother, the Sage of Six Paths passed down the Uchiha clan and Senju clan. As the younger brother, the other Six Paths passed down the bloodlines of the Hyuga clan and Kaguya clan."
Orochimaru looked at the Hashirama cells undergoing a strange reaction with Rei's gray blood.
While placing them into one of the activated empty culture tanks, he spoke with great interest.
"And now, the bloodline descendants of the Senju and Uchiha, Hyuga and Kaguya—four clans said to directly originate from the Sage of Six Paths' family—have gathered here…
"If I combine the bloodlines of you four clans two by two, or simply place the fresh bloodlines of all four clans into one large culture tank and cultivate them together, what kind of existence will be born?"
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