Chapter 110: Surgery
Inside the conference room, these monsters who had just received their "new toys" were like hyperactive children, unable to stay still for even a second.
"Leader, if there's nothing else, I'll take my leave first."
Biwa Jūzō hoisted the kubikiribōchō onto his shoulder. A faint, bloody mist clung to him, a manifestation of his Stand, The Ripper's, thirst for blood. "I'm going to the back mountains to find some rocks to test this blade on. My hands are itching; I won't be able to sleep tonight if I don't chop something."
After speaking, he didn't wait for a response, transforming into a blur of motion as he dashed out.
Sasori of the Red Sand, controlling the reassembled hiruko, produced a series of "clack-clack" sounds of interlocking mechanisms. He gloomily tossed out a sentence, "I need to readjust the Puppet's structure. Don't bother me unless it's important," before firing a Chakra thread. Like a giant spider, he crawled onto the ceiling and swiftly disappeared into the shadows.
Kakuzu left the slowest. He was playing with the gold coin that had nearly cost him his life like a miser. Behind him, his Stand, sympathy for the devil, acted like a ghostly butler, helping him straighten his tattered robe.
In the blink of an eye, the once-crowded conference room became empty.
Only the man who had just undergone a transformation remained, his eyes flickering with uncertainty.
Orochimaru extended his long tongue to lick the corner of his mouth. The White Snake behind him slowly faded into the Void Realm. He gave a slight bow to Yahiko, his tone dripping with a false deference: "Yahiko-kun, since everyone has left, I should return to my laboratory as well. After all, something capable of rewriting the sequence of life requires the most precise instruments for analysis. Every second wasted is a loss."
Orochimaru had just turned around, his foot not yet crossing the threshold, when Yahiko's placid voice drifted from behind him.
"The laboratory can wait."
Yahiko remained seated in his chair, his fingers lightly tapping the tabletop. "Bring your thirst for knowledge and follow me. The true Domain of the gods is only now about to open its doors to you."
Orochimaru's steps halted, his golden vertical pupils contracting slightly.
He turned around and saw Nagato, who had been silent, steering his wheelchair towards a wall on the side of the room. Konan stepped forward, pressing her pale palm against a relief carving on the wall and infusing it with Chakra.
Rumble...
Accompanied by the heavy sound of mechanisms, the wall slowly slid open to both sides, revealing a dark, deep spiral staircase leading straight underground. A cold, damp wind blew up from below, carrying a palpitation-inducing, moist aura.
"Let's go, Orochimaru." Yahiko stood up and led the way into the secret passage. "Don't keep your 'patient' waiting too long."
Patient?
Orochimaru was puzzled, but his intense curiosity for the unknown overwhelmed his caution. He glanced at Nagato in the wheelchair, his eyes flickering, then followed... The underground drainage System of the Hidden Rain Village was intricate, like a massive labyrinth. And deep within this labyrinth lay a Forbidden Land inaccessible to ordinary people.
The sound of their footsteps echoed through the spacious corridor, feeling particularly eerie.
After walking for about five minutes, the view before them suddenly opened up.
This was not a gloomy dungeon, but a brightly lit, stark white room so dazzling it hurt the eyes. The walls were embedded with cold-light Ore, illuminating every detail, leaving even dust nowhere to hide.
In the center of the room stood a cold operating table, surrounded by piles of precision medical equipment acquired at high prices from the black markets of the great nations.
But Orochimaru's gaze didn't linger on the equipment for even a second.
His vision was firmly nailed to the figure standing beside the operating table.
The woman wore a standard Hidden Rain Village combat uniform. Although she wasn't carrying that iconic giant fan on her back, her unique orange hair and the vermilion mark on her forehead directly revealed her identity.
The hero of Sunagakure, Scorch Release Pakura.
However, this "hero's" current state was very wrong.
She stood there rigidly like a Puppet whose Soul had been emptied, her eyes vacant and unfocused, showing no reaction to the group's arrival.
"This is..." Orochimaru narrowed his eyes, his gaze sweeping towards Konan.
"To prevent accidents, I performed a minor 'adjustment' to her surface consciousness." Konan said expressionlessly, the paper wings behind her fluttering slightly. "Right now, she cannot hear external sounds, nor does she possess the ability for independent thought. She will only execute the most basic commands. Like a machine restored to factory settings."
A playful smile curled at the corner of Orochimaru's mouth.
No longer hiding it, huh? So all three of them indeed possessed those so-called Stands.
But this suited him just fine.
As the heavy metal door slammed shut behind them, the air in the chamber instantly solidified.
Yahiko casually pulled over a chair and sat by the operating table, while Nagato steered his wheelchair to the other side. Orochimaru stood between the two, his gaze wandering over the catatonic Pakura. The venomous snake named "greed" in his heart began to frantically flick its tongue.
Although he didn't know Yahiko's purpose in bringing him here, wasn't this the perfect experimental material right before his eyes?
Scorch Release.
An extremely domineering and rare Kekkei Genkai, capable of vaporizing the moisture within a human body in an instant. Was the source of this power a special Chakra nature transformation, or a certain code etched into the genes?
In the past, Orochimaru could only research it through dissection, slicing, and cell extraction—inefficient and prone to failure.
But now it was different.
Orochimaru could feel it. Deep within his Soul, the Stand named White Snake was transmitting a hunger-like desire, a craving to touch this defenseless prey before him.
"Leader, are you entrusting her to me for handling?"
Orochimaru's voice became hoarse and low. Wearing that feigned humble smile, he slowly approached Pakura.
A ghastly white Stand wearing an executioner's mask silently materialized from behind him. Like a venomous snake gliding through water, it stealthily slid towards Pakura's back, its fingertips mere inches from her neck.
"I'm very interested in her Scorch Release." Orochimaru stared at Pakura's pale neck, his eyes burning. "My new Stand happens to be adept at 'analysis'. If you just let me examine her physical structure, I might even find a way to mass-produce Kekkei Genkais."
This was a lie.
He didn't want to analyze; he wanted to plunder directly.
As long as White Snake's fingers touched her, it could pull out her memories, Ninjutsu, even that precious Kekkei Genkai completely, like unwinding silk from a cocoon!
By then, the one who mastered Scorch Release wouldn't be Pakura, but him, Orochimaru!
"Analysis?"
A light chuckle suddenly rang out, interrupting Orochimaru's fantasy.
Yahiko didn't even glance back at Orochimaru. He was toying with a hemostat from the operating table, the metal flipping between his fingers, creating a dizzying play of light and shadow.
"Orochimaru, do you perhaps think I don't understand what'science' is?"
Yahiko shook his head, his tone laced with unconcealed mockery. "Or perhaps you think I also need to rely on such clumsy rhetoric to mask my own greed, just like you?"
Orochimaru's heart gave a violent jolt. The White Snake reaching for Pakura froze mid-air.
A sense of foreboding crawled up his spine.
"Leader, you jest, I merely..."
Just as Orochimaru was about to explain, Yahiko abruptly turned around.
In that instant, Orochimaru felt as if he had been stared down by a giant eye opening from the abyss, all his secrets laid bare and unable to hide.
"Don't hide it."
Yahiko stared into Orochimaru's eyes, his voice so steady it was unnerving. "What your White Snake possesses isn't 'analysis' at all."
He stood up and walked step by step towards the rigid Orochimaru, each step seeming to land on the beat of the other's heart.
"It can materialize a person's mind, memories, even their Stand and Kekkei Genkai, into a medium that can be arbitrarily accessed and stored."
Yahiko stopped in front of Orochimaru, extending two fingers to trace a circular outline in the air.
"That medium, it should be called... a 'DISC', correct?"
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