Chapter 49: Conversation with Auntie Snake

With a sudden dizzying whirl, the ninja captain used the power of the Sharingan to "invade" Menma's mental space.

"Hmph! This is the Sharingan bestowed upon me by Lord Orochimaru! I'll let you witness its true power!"

The ninja captain grinned maliciously, already sketching out a mental image of how he would brutally slaughter this arrogant brat.

Suddenly!

A heavy scent of blood mixed with the pungent smell of gunpowder rushed toward him, striking his senses so hard that he stumbled backward, choking.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself standing in the middle of a horrific battlefield!

It was a massive crater several kilometers in diameter, littered with severed limbs and the corpses of ninjas. The forehead protectors of various villages glinted coldly in the pools of blood.

The number of corpses was staggering—at least ten thousand!

This scene of mountains of corpses and seas of blood shocked the ninja captain so much that his hair stood on end and his entire body began to tremble!

He abruptly looked up and saw, at the center of the crater under a crimson Blood Moon, a dark red fox reclining atop a mountain of corpses piled high from countless ninjas.

Nine tails drifted in the moonlight.

The reclining fox was like a throne, and the piled corpses served as its steps.

Upon the throne, a boy with spiky hair slowly lifted his eyes, his Three-Tomoe Sharingan flowing with a cold indifference that looked down upon all living things.

"Begone." A single, soft command, yet it exploded in the ninja captain's mind like a clap of thunder.

*Pfft—*

In the real world, the ninja captain's seven orifices bled from the force of that shout. His chest felt as if his lungs were about to burst, and he began to convulse violently.

He struggled to lift his head, only to find that his two subordinates were already dead, and a masked mysterious figure was standing before him, looking down.

"I shall accept this gift from Orochimaru." Before the words had even fully settled, two fingers sank into the ninja captain's right eye, gouging out the Two-Tomoe Sharingan while he was still alive.

"Aaaah—!" The scream did not last long.

Menma inspected the bloody eyeball in his hand. A red-haired little girl wearing a black hat stepped out from the shadows, trembling.

"Lo... Lord... Lord Orochimaru requests your presence." The girl looked to be only four or five years old. Inside the glass vessel she held, a pale green liquid swayed slightly.

"Orochimaru is quite thorough in his preparations." Menma took the glass vessel and placed the Sharingan inside.

"Let's go. Lead the way." Menma then looked at the little girl.

Judging by her hair color and age, if he wasn't mistaken, she should be Tayuya, one of the future Sound Four.

However, right now, she was just a little girl who hadn't even refined any chakra yet.

"Yes, Lord." Tayuya bowed respectfully and then walked ahead to lead the way.

The entrance to Orochimaru's base was located in a stone house in the very center of the village; it seemed this would eventually become the Sound Village.

But for now, it was merely one of Orochimaru's strongholds. Orochimaru would likely officially establish the Sound Village after defecting from the Akatsuki.

The two walked one after the other down a corridor within the stone house, eventually arriving at a second-floor balcony overlooking a massive underground plaza.

In the center of the plaza, several experimental subjects were engaged in gladiatorial combat. Surrounding them were rooms resembling prison cells, housing various other subjects. Some had limbs that had undergone severe, grotesque deformities, and some had even lost their sanity, constantly slamming themselves against the cell bars.

On the second-floor balcony, a long-haired woman was staring intently at the combatants in the arena.

Hearing the movement behind her, she slowly turned her head. Her pale face looked particularly eerie under the dim indoor lighting.

"Orochimaru, since when did you become an orphanage director?" Menma's flippant voice drifted from beneath his mask.

"As expected, I cannot hide anything from you." The woman smiled slightly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"You may leave for now," Orochimaru said to Tayuya.

"Yes."

Once Tayuya had departed, Menma walked to Orochimaru's side. Together—or rather, with her—they watched the two "experimental subjects" fighting in the middle of the plaza below.

"I searched for a long time before finding a ninja compatible with the Sharingan. Unfortunately, his strength is too weak, and his talent is poor," Orochimaru's voice became somewhat soft and delicate.

"It is normal for ordinary people to struggle to endure such a Bloodline Limit." Menma knew that while Orochimaru was in Konoha, his use of ninjas for live experiments meant he had likely already realized the importance of lineage.

"This batch of test subjects is also quite flawed." Orochimaru's serpentine eyes watched the subjects below fighting for their lives just to please him, her gaze as cold as if she were looking at trash.

Then, Orochimaru said indifferently, "I heard there is a village in the Land of Water where the villagers have been infected by something unknown. They possess power far beyond normal humans, but they are also prone to losing control and going berserk. I intend to go and take a look."

"You actually want to check out the Hidden Mist Village, don't you?" Menma directly exposed Orochimaru's lie.

Although Menma had already guessed that the village in question was likely the clan of Jugo—where the natural energy was so dense it caused mutations, granting villagers superhuman abilities at the cost of frequent loss of control—an uncertain village wouldn't be enough to make Orochimaru, who had just performed the Living Corpse Reincarnation, personally mobilize.

Therefore, Orochimaru's true purpose was likely to visit the Hidden Mist Village, which had already become the "Village of the Bloody Mist," to see if he could snatch up a few children with Bloodline Limits.

"As expected, I cannot hide anything from you." Orochimaru stuck out her tongue to lick her lips, having never intended to deceive this "Shura from the future."

"The power of lineage is certainly important, but I suggest you put some effort into cloning technology." Menma took out the glass vessel and shook it; the Sharingan inside floated slightly with the movement.

"Cloning technology?" Orochimaru stared at the Sharingan, falling into thought.

Orochimaru valued every word spoken by the Shura from the future; perhaps "information from the future" was hidden within.

Just like the cloning technology the Shura had just mentioned.

"I have also attempted to clone the Sharingan, but those clones... none of them could awaken it." Orochimaru couldn't help but recall her past experiments.

This precious Two-Tomoe Sharingan had been obtained from Danzo.

Since establishing Root, Danzo had been collecting the corpses of the Uchiha clan. During the Third Shinobi World War, Danzo had harvested quite a few Sharingan.

However, his greatest haul was during the Night of the Massacre, where Danzo's Root ninjas collected at least two-thirds of the Sharingan, including many Three-Tomoe versions, which were more than enough for Danzo to use *Izanagi* to his heart's content.

"The Sharingan is the ultimate external manifestation of Yin Release and spiritual energy. Whether the eye awakens or not is related to Yin Release." For the sake of this Sharingan, Menma revealed some secrets.

"You mean... it's possible to clone a Three-Tomoe Sharingan?" Orochimaru grew interested. If even a Three-Tomoe Sharingan could be cloned, it meant she could mass-produce ninjas with Special Jonin-level strength!

Furthermore, she herself was deeply interested in the Sharingan, the so-called number one Bloodline Limit in the shinobi world; ordinary Sharingan were no longer enough to satisfy her.

At the very least, it had to be a Three-Tomoe Sharingan to spark her desire for research.

Menma did not tell Orochimaru about the evolutions beyond the Three-Tomoe Sharingan. His gaze beneath the mask swept across the experimental subjects in the hall.

The chakra within them was at most at the Genin level, and many had already suffered severe bodily dysfunction; they wouldn't live much longer.

"So, tell me. You came to find me this time—what kind of deal do you want to make?" Perhaps because she was using a woman's body, Orochimaru's tone had also become quite seductive.

It gave Menma a slight sense of physiological disgust.