Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve-Chapter 9INTERLUDE_.3 (366)

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The manor was old and poorly maintained. The vines and crawlers covered the building, trying to make it part of nature. The overgrown grass almost reached their knees, and the fountain remained brown and devoid of water. Gouki found it strange since their criminal, who had gotten filthy rich by trapping people in get-rich-quick schemes, had a lavish home in Hidden Leaf Village, and the manor was the complete opposite of it. He expected some cleaning when townsfolk had been hired as house help.

Gouki stepped to the front door of the building with one of his subordinates while the other three covered the back entrance.

He was about to enter the building when he felt a gaze on him and whipped around to look at his surroundings with his sharingan activated.

"Is something wrong?" his subordinate whispered.

Gouki looked around for a few more seconds before shaking his head. He deactivated his eyes and gestured to head inside. Seeing the indoor match outdoors made him feel that something was wrong. Even if outdoors were neglected, indoors had to be adequately maintained to create a liveable space.

Was the tip wrong? Or had some townsfolk alerted their target who had fled? Or maybe they were misled here to waste time. A dozen thoughts passed his mind as they made their way into the dark interiors. It was so silent that he could hear the footsteps of his other subordinates from the other side.

They reached a hallway which seemed cleaner than the rest of the house. At the end of it, yellow light spilt out from an ajar door.

Gouki straightened up, thinking he had found his target and turned around to gesture to his accompanying subordinate, only to find no one behind him.

His instincts screamed that his previous intuitions were correct and something was wrong. He immediately activated his sharingan and turned his face back to the door. His heart crashed into his ribcage when he saw someone standing so close that he could feel their body heat.

"You are here, finally."

Gouki tried to move away while pulling a kunai from his pouch, but he found ropes around his arms and legs. He tried to pull them as hard as he could but couldn't budge an inch. He felt something was wrong, and when he looked down, he felt his heart come to his throat. He saw that the ropes were actually snakes thicker than his arms slither up his body and coil around his torso.

The texture of the snake's long body froze his resistance, making him clam up in panic. His eyes trembled when he looked up and saw the man's snake-like appearance: pale skin, golden eyes with slitted pupils, purple markings around the eyes and fang-like teeth. The pronounced cheekbones and straight waist-length black hair with some locks covered and framed his face.

"O-Orochimaru."

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He had seen the man's photographs several times, and there was no mistaking that the man before him was the traitorous Snake Sannin.

"I've always said so, but these eyes are among the most beautiful eyes in the world," said Orochimaru as he stared into Gouki's one-comma sharingan. "It's a pity that the people who this gift is bestowed upon as their birthright would never understand. Isn't it only right that someone who could do them justice should possess them?"

Gouki didn't know what to say. He couldn't comprehend what was happening. He was here to catch a criminal but was suddenly face-to-face with Orochimaru, who seemed to be waiting for him. However, what followed shattered his perception of reality.

Orochimaru opened his mouth, and his jaw sank to unnatural limits before something he couldn't see shot out of his mouth and toward the ceiling. To Gouki's surprise, Orcohimaru's body slumped to the floor, unconscious or dead. The snake's grip on his body was maintained, and seeing the body lying on the floor didn't ease his fears because he could hear something slither behind him.

He couldn't see what it was, but the wooden floor, walls, and ceilings creaked as though something big was pushing against them. Gouki began to hyperventilate as the unknown gripped him in absolute terror.

He slowly turned his neck around and screamed when he saw what was behind him before everything went dark.

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Orochimaru opened his eyes and was immediately greeted by a vision he had always wondered what it would look like. He looked around, even though the hallway was dark, with the partially ajar door as the only source of light; he could see his surroundings as though they were moderate. The dust patterns, the cracks in the dry wood, the grime and rust on the metal handle—everything seemed so much clearer.

He looked down at the snakes binding his new body, and he could see the chakra within them. It was a perception so different from what he had ever experienced that he felt aroused and thrilled from just imagining exploring the Uchiha dojutsu, knowing it had so much more to give.

"Release me," he ordered his snakes.

There was a few seconds of pause before they loosened their grip and slithered away.

The door on the end of the hallway swung all the way open, and a young man with pale skin, vivid green eyes, angular facial features, and two scarlet dots on his forehead with shoulder-length white hair parted from the middle.

"Is it done, Lord Orochimaru?"

"It is," Orochimaru said in Gouki's body. He smiled before throwing a kunai at him, which grazed his cheek before thudding into the wall behind him. "You're defenceless, Kimimaro. What if I had failed?"

"That would be an absurd thought," Kimimaro replied calmly.

Orochimaru chuckled. He didn't have a subordinate who could match Kimimaro in terms of loyalty. Even the brainwashed ROOT agents couldn't hold a candle to him.

"Is everything taken care of?" he asked.

"The others are in stasis under genjutsu. They won't notice the time passed when they wake up."

A snake as thick as a leg slithered out of the room and stopped near Orochimaru's legs before opening its maw and spitting out a body identical to Uchiha Gouki.

They had stolen a Uchiha's body, which meant they had stolen their dojutsu. If the Uchiha clan found that someone had stolen their dojutsu, they would pursue them to death to retrieve the stolen eyes. Orochimaru had no plans to live Uchiha Gouki's life, so they had to make it so that the young Uchiha died on the mission. For that purpose, they created a body identical to Gouki's.

"What if they test the eyes?" asked Kimimaro.

"Then so be it," Orochimaru replied nonchalantly as he touched behind his ear where a seal was inscribed into the body.

After the Uchiha clan claimed Shimura Danzo had stolen Uchiha Shisui's eyes, the clan added a controversial internal clan law that had been disputed for many years. Every sharingan-possessing Uchiha now bore fuinjutsu that would seal their eyes if there was any attempt to remove them. It worked even after death as the seal had internal chakra reserves to keep it running and would posthumously seal the eyes before it ran out of chakra.

The seal had always been controversial because many Uchiha shinobi feared that allowing the seal would open an eventual path to the creation and implementation of an Uchiha equivalent of Hyuga's caged bird seal. They didn't want to be bound in servitude by anyone. But recent events pushed the law to be written into the clan's legislation.

Orochimaru bypassed the seal because he never tried to remove the eyes and rather possessed the body itself.

The fake body had a pair of eyes which resembled an average pair of Uchiha's eyes. He didn't know a lot about the seal, but his spy in Hidden Leaf Village had given him enough to create a serviceable surface-level mimicry. He hoped that as long as the mortician saw a pair of unharmed eyes and a working seal, they wouldn't look further.

If they still found out, it didn't matter to Orochimaru because no one would know that he was behind it. The intention was to make the Uchiha clan believe there was nothing so they wouldn't look for their missing eyes. Nothing could remain a secret forever. There would come a time when someone would find out, and he would rather not have one of the most powerful shinobi clans on the planet after him as long as possible.

Orochimaru noticed Kimimaro looking him up and down. "What is it?"

Kimimaro hesitated for a moment. "Is this body a suitable vessel?"

He realised what his subordinate was thinking and chuckled. "Except for the eyes, this body is average. It won't last," he replied.

Living Corpse Reincarnation. A jutsu developed by Orochimaru that allowed him to transfer his soul to someone else's body. It immortalises one's mind, transferring it to a stronger body as the current host aged or died. Repeating the process periodically effectively allowed the user to remain alive, so long as they kept the host body alive while residing within it.

However, there was a limitation as most bodies couldn't contain Orochimaru's soul and started deteriorating. He had to switch bodies before his current one died. Most could only handle his powerful soul for around three years, which was also the cooldown for the ability.

There were bodies out there that could host him for longer. Kimimaro was among those rare vessels whose body could handle him for a lifetime. Not only that, but he also possessed the Shikotsumyaku kekkei genkai, which allowed him to manipulate his skeletal structure. It was perhaps the strongest body Orochimaru would ever find, but fortune was against him as Kimimaro suffered from a terminal illness, disqualifying him as a host vessel.

"May I then ask why take this risk, Lord Orochimaru?" asked Kimimaro.

He was risking the Uchiha clan swearing blood revenge against him.

"...The sharingan is the key to attaining all knowledge," said Orochimaru. He wished to acquire all the knowledge in existence, a feat that couldn't be achieved in a single lifetime. "You were my second choice, Kimimaro."

Kimimaro didn't show any emotion. "Uchiha Itachi," he said plainly.

"Yes, that's the vessel worthy of my soul. That boy has the greatest talent I have ever seen. Even greater than mine. I wish to have that body—his eyes," said Orochimaru, feeling a thrill as though about it. The sharingan he had now was fascinating enough; he couldn't imagine what looking through Itachi's eyes would look like. "I would have targeted him, but Shimura Danzo told me that Itachi has achieved the Uchiha clan's pinnacle... Mangekyou Sharingan. He wouldn't be an easy target. I must understand the sharingan if I wish to make him my vessel."

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Uchiha Gouki was only a stepping stone.

His true goal was Uchiha Itachi and his mangekyo sharingan.

"We must leave, Lord Orochimaru. You're weak right now," said Kimimaro.

He clenched his fist. "Yes, this body is pathetically weak. We will have to remedy that as long as possible. Enjoyable days are ahead of us, Kimimaro. Let's make the most of them,"

Orochimaru smiled as the single comma in his eyes split into half and grew into two commas.